A Happy Day

Yesterday I had the first really happy day I have had in a long time, certainly since Palm Sunday, when my partner came to church, because it is her favorite holiday.  Maybe April is the cruelest month.  Anyhow, it started off well and ended well and next March I will have my Verdi Requiem to sing so it won't matter who gets chosen to do what during Holy Week.  I will just be my professional self and do what I'm told.

Yesterday I got up at six so that I could sing Dvorak's "God is My Shepherd" in the 9 am service.  I also sang it at the 11 am service.  At the 9 am service there were no choir people (usually they have someone doing cantoring) so I was on my own with the hymns and liturgy, more or less, at least in the front rows.  I don't sightread, but my "phonographic" memory served me well enough as all the pieces of music were things I had sung at least once over the past two years.  (And if it's an unfamiliar hymn, if the choir director plays a verse on the organ as an intro, I can plunge right in.)

I think the song went well and actually I sang it better in the second service after I had gotten warmed up (I mean this literally - it was very cold in the church so I was happier in the second service wearing a choir robe).

I also got compliments on my CD, not just from nonsingers, but from a woman in the choir who went to a conservatory and had been a paid church singer in a number of places.

After that I met my partner at Christie's to see their Impressionist collection.  (We were going to go to Sotheby's to see Munch's "The Scream" but worried it might be a zoo.)

So now I am going to buckle down and get serious about learning every part of the Requiem.


I know my experience singing it will never be this (some people would rather be in the chorus of a professional production than sing the solo bits in a pastiche type situation but I would not) but it will be something and it will be a special addition to the church's Lent programs. And after that - maybe some Shakespeare!

The Bitter and the Sweet (Reprise)

The Bitter: For the first time in a long time, I decided to investigate an audition listed in the back of Classical Singer.  When I went to their web site and read their mission statement, there was the "Y" word loud and clear (and no, I don't mean "yelp", I mean "young").  In my last several posts I mentioned their being a "glut" of opera groups, which is true, and at least half of them use the "Y" word in their mission statement.  The next thing that happened, which would be funny if it weren't so sad, was I googled "opportunities for older singers" and the first hit was an article was about how to get "youth choruses" to accept older teenagers and the second hit was an old post I had made on the Forum. Which about tells you how many of these opportunities there are.

The Sweet:Well, this article allayed my fears about being homeless, at least for a while, so I can focus on other things. (The downside is I won't be moving to that hypothetical small town where I can be a real diva, either, but will be staying in my cubbyhole in the armpit of Lincoln Center.) And I sang through "Lux Aeterna" from the Requiem and it sounds really good! And I have fallen in love with a new role: Gertrude in Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas. It is lush and lovely, and is mostly in a middle register. Jennifer Larmore had referred to the role as "high", which to me seems odd as it does not go above an A, I don't think. My recording features Denyce Graves, who, when I think of it, is probably the closest to me, as a total package (despite the ethnic difference), rather than Dolora Zajick. Zajick has a big dramatic voice but is also blessed with easy top notes, which I am not, and plummy low notes, which I am not either, and sex appeal is not her strong suit. Graves seems to have made a career out of singing three roles: Carmen, Dalila, and Charlotte, all of which require a sensuous beauty, both vocal and otherwise, and do not go up into the vocal stratosphere. When I look at my CD, the arias on it are a close match to those on her aria CD, in fact I think she has recorded them all. In any event, she is the perfect Gertrude, and I think I am going to try to do something with this opera, after the Requiem, which now gives me a long view.

A Glut of Everything

Getting back to something I addressed in my last post, which was brought to mind again when one of my singing message boards sent me a notice about a production of Aida in northern Manhattan cast with "new young singers", David Brooks really says it better than I could, in this Op Ed piece.

So what can I possibly dream up that ten other people/groups, aren't already doing here?

Cautiously Optimistic (Again)

This is the first time I have felt optimistic in a long time; probably since my concert in the Fall. Things seem to be amicable with the choir director. As I said, he is a very sweet, deeply religious man who wants to think the best of everyone. If he knows how angry I was he has not mentioned it. I will be singing Dvorak's "God is My Shepherd" this Sunday (not sure at which service, or if at both) for Good Shepherd Sunday. (I can't see the words "Good Shepherd" without giggling. As a child from an atheistic family, the first time I passed a church called "The Good Shepherd" I imagined a large German Shepherd dog inside.)

This is a lovely song, and one I already know, so I can get back to work on the Requiem until it's time to pick a summer anthem. I heard back from the pianist who played for my CD (she also played for my concert version of Samson et Dalila) and she says she will play the Requiem. It will be either March 23 or the 16th of 2013. I will set a definite date in September. I am hoping to get my teacher on the tenor part, and the soprano I sang with in October on the soprano part. I may use my bass friend, the one who is an intermittent smoker. He has some vocal issues, but I like him because aside from my friend in Boston, he is the closest thing to a "peer" that I have found. He began serious study of classical singing in his late 30s and is hungry to do things. And he is willing to work very hard and has a strong musical and theater background. I got a message on Facebook from the tenor who sang Samson. I may consider him if my teacher is not available. He sang beautifully and speaks beautiful French, but he was a no show for several rehearsals and showed up at the performance (which was at 3, with call being at 2, at 2:55, claiming he had gotten stuck in a street fair).

I also went through the score and looked for places to make cuts. Before we start I want to sit down with the pianist and decide how we will cut the score and which choral parts she will play underneath what we are singing.

Having something to work on makes me feel like a "real" singer again. I think the core problem that I have isn't how well I sing or don't, but that there is such a glut of much more talented people above me, not to mention a "glut" of opera groups. One of the women who responded to my question on the Forum mentioned starting a "community" opera company. This is something she did, but my feeling is that where she lives, aside from a midsize opera house of some repute, her alternative is all there is. What would I really be adding to the "scene" here that doesn't already exist? Which is why it is almost impossible to find anyone who will agree to absorb some of the expenses. Why do that for me when they can do that for an amateur group that is more prestigious? I suppose I have to look at this project, at any rate, as something for the church. It is its own little world and they are not going to be able to host a full scale oratorio (the closest we came was singing the choral parts of the Mozart Requiem on Good Friday last year and including one solo quartet). I mean this doesn't feel the same as what some of my Facebook friends get to do - being a soloist in a major work in a production sponsored by (rather than simply hosted by) a church. But I just have to let go of this. If I flog it as being for a particular charity (whatever the Pastor wants) people will come to it.

On another subject, I am now using the redesigned Blogger, which apparently doesn't recognize double hard returns, at least in the  HTML mode, which is why my last post had no spaces between paragraphs. I am trying again in the regular "compose" mode.

So Why Am I Doing This Anyway?

Today was shrink day, so I resumed my discussion of how to find an identity vis-a-vis the world of singing. My therapist asked me how it felt (the typical therapist question) to feel so frustrated and I said the interesting thing was it didn't make me want to stop singing. I said that the chain of events that was set in motion on Valentines Day happened for a reason and that I believed that my Higher Power (I feel funny saying "God" here, because in this instance I think the Higher Power in question was quite Pagan and Pan-like!)wanted me to hold onto this thread and not let it go until it had played itself out. And whatever frustrations I feel, singing is not over for me. There are really a variety of separate issues that all become intertwined. The first is that I still need to improve my vocal technique. This continues to improve, but my teacher often says that sometimes it is difficult to tease out what is a problem that can be fixed with technique, and what is a problem that is caused by physiological limits, which are greater in someone older who began singing later. (When I complain about my upper register, he says "you can only stretch a rubber band so far". He says he believes I can have a performance-worthy reliable B flat - which I sometimes do and sometimes don't - but probably nothing above that.) Then there is the issue of my age, not to mention people's perception of my age. I was quite surprised when my teacher told me that many people listening to me may think that the vocal flaws that I still have are the result of age, and that I am not in any sense, as that auditor politely told me, a "future investment". Not to be forgotten is the whole issue of a "culture" of singers and musicians, that I am not a part of. I have no friends who are musicians, other than the people I know at the church, and they are colleagues, not friends. Most of the people I socialize with are readers, writers, editors, museum-goers, and yes, concert goers, but not musicians. I did not go to a conservatory. Neither did most of the people who sang with me at those amateur groups in the 1970s (my teacher, I believe, has a high school diploma and began singing when he graduated). The people I would run into at these get togethers all knew, if not each other, then the same people, and had had many similar experiences. They just had no sense of me. I mean this is something I have experienced in other walks of life as well; sometimes I have been a part of the club and sometimes I have not. And there is absolutely no way I can ever catch up with this culture. I can sing better, but probably not well enough for anyone to be interested in me, other than my teacher, who told me he is pleasantly surprised that someone my age made this much progress, and my choir director, who, in addition to being grateful for the handful of people (myself included) with serious vocal training who are available to sing for free, is also deeply religious (in the best sense) and believes in encouraging everyone to make the most of themselves. So the question is basically as foolishly existential as "who am I"? I heard loud and clear that to derive an identity from something you are not really doing is "delusional". (I asked the therapist about that today and she said it was a matter of degree and that she did not consider me delusional.) But I am not ready to be just a nice woman in her 60s who sings as a hobby.

My Inner Bully

The title of this post refers to this post by Cindy Sadler who always has something to say.

What I find fascinating is that I began reading her blog because she is the mezzo I wish I were, but I continue reading it because it seems that there are many things about her journey with fitness that mirror my journey with singing.

This last post really spoke to me about how I felt at those meetups, get-togethers, etc. Part of the problem was it was not as simple as "I was a beginner, the other people were more advanced". It was more like, "I had some technical issues to work on, which were different from the ones the younger beginners had to work on, and because I was so much older than everyone, working to improve wasn't going to get me anywhere so no one was interested."

Probably the only time I went to one of those things when I had any confidence was the very first time I went to the Tuesday night one, which was the week I was going to sing "O Ma Lyre Immortelle" at that LGBT fundraiser, so I sang it there. Having a real "gig", even just singing one aria at a "cabaret" meant I was a real singer who really needed a rehearsal, so I was as good as anyone else.

Cindy suggests if you're uncomfortable, looking for a class where people are more at your level, but this is exactly what I have not been able to find. There are things for young students and things for emerging pros, and things for secure mature singers ("mature" in this context means 40), and things for real amateurs with pleasant voices who can sing a few simple art songs, but not that much for someone like me, unless you want to spend a lot of money (the bass I sang with took an opera scenes class at a community music school, and he is another rough diamond, like me, an intermittent smoker who began studying classical singing in his 30s, but it cost several hundred dollars.)

What she says about athletes is interesting. She says people are so happy that someone is interested in fitness that they don't care what level the person is at. I would not say this is true of singers necessarily. Or it's only true if the people at a somewhat lower level are younger. Then the more experienced people can "model" or be mentors.

She talks about bullies in the high school gym and I certainly have been acquainted with those! Well, not so much in high school, where the beatnik crowd I hung out with thought gym was silly, but certainly in 7th and 8th grade. In general, I have not encountered those types of bullies as an adult. Now, it's much more subtle. I have had people talk "around" me at the Forum, have had singers let me "friend" them on Facebook but never comment on anything I've posted, especially it it's about singing, etc. And I have seen people at those meetups approach newcomers who are young, asking them whom they studied with, what they are working on, etc. and notice that they never approach me (and if I approach someone, they answer questions I ask about them but never ask anything about me).

I really need to tell my inner bully to shut up right now. So what is it telling me?

1. Trying to be an opera singer is a waste of time and money.
2. If you're not even good enough to sing a role you want (or even one you're lukewarm about) in someone else's amateur production you should just pack it in and do something else with your free time.
3. Why don't you just settle for being a nice church singer who sings "After the Ball is Over" at an occasional party? (This is the kind of thing my partner thinks I should be singing instead of struggling with high notes - which I refer to as my "triple Axles". She says singing is to "entertain" and whom am I entertaining if I'm sweating?)

Tonight will be my first night at choir practice after my Good Friday meltdown (the meltdown occurred only in my head and in the "pages" of this blog). So what is my game plan? This morning I will write to the choir director and say since I hadn't heard from him (not surprising, as he played one concert out of town over the weekend and is playing another one Monday night) I will bring the music for the three solos to rehearsal. I will warm up (I had a really constructive voice lesson yesterday about focusing on keeping my pharyngeal space open to get rid of that tight "gargly" sound in my upper passagio). We are going to be singing Pinkham's "Alleluia" on Sunday. This has about 10 high Gs for the sopranos but they're situated in a comfortable way for me and it's something I sing well. I will keep my mouth shut about Good Friday unless someone else mentions it. (I thanked the people who deserved thanking: the choir director for conducting, the woman who wrote the passion play, and as many of the actors in it that I could find to thank.)

So now it's time to pound this keyboard for a while and earn some $$$.

ETA: I will also thank any and all of the instrumentalists who played. They did a fabulous job. And I'm keeping my ear to the ground for an oboist who might want to play "Qui Sedes".

No Matter How High I Jump.....

I have written at great length about my despair over not being able to get my foot in the door of any of these amateur productions. Well in 2009 this is who sang Turridu in Cavalleria with the company where I had the disastrous experience with Carmelites.

He's great and I hope he has a big career. But so what's left for the little people?

Leaving one keyboard for another - I am going to put in a full hour of practice before I leave for my eldercare sleepover.

Am I Lazy?

I still have not been able to shake off this funk. In my last post I referred to myself as "lazy". Now, ok, in most ways I'm not. I practice every day except Saturday (usually my eldercare day). If it's a choir day all I do is a quick warmup (and if it's a voice lesson day I don't do anything because I will have my warmup there) but other days I sing for at least an hour, sometimes two. I follow the choir director's example and always work on three pieces of music (he always has us run through three things, usually what we will be singing the three successive Sundays).

Yes, I seem to have a huge resistance to picking up the solfege book. I think it's boring. And does it really matter if I know where "do" is in a piece I'm singing if I can sing it? In the scheme of things this doesn't seem to be a high priority.

But really, when I talk about being lazy I mean something else. I mean that when I find a situation that is "comfortable", even if it's not ideal, I will stick to it like glue.

That is what my mother's generation did. I spoke with her about this once and she said that being a young adult during the Depression was hard, and there were so many pitfalls, that if you found a secure job, a decent spouse, and a livable apartment or house, you just stayed there. You didn't think, "gee, I wonder if there's something more fulfilling out there". "Settling" was part of being an adult. You made the best of what you had.

I seem to be more like that than most people of my generation. In over 60 years I have lived in one city, and for my adult life (meaning after I got sober) I have lived in three apartments, worked for three companies, and had one relationship (meaning one relationship...friends with benefits when you're caring for someone ill don't count here).

I think part of my laziness about looking for paying church gigs is, aside from the fact that I already have a source of income, that I am afraid to venture forth. This unpaid choir gig is a known quantity (although I don't think I've ever felt "dissed" to the extent that I did regarding that Good Friday service) and I now have a nice circle of friends my own age there.

The other thing that made me realize I am lazy is that finally for the first time, a man who produces concerts included me on a group email saying he needed a singer. If it hadn't been this Saturday way out in Brooklyn of course I would have jumped at the chance. But Saturday is my eldercare day and I don't feel safe traveling to and from the outer Boroughs at night, so I didn't respond. Will he ask me again? If he does and it seems manageable I will certainly do it. In general I do better with audiences - even at auditions - than I do in front of groups of my peers, as in those Meetups.

Sometimes I just feel the odds are so insurmountable. Not just the technical work I have to do, but that I am not really a musician (I do not have any audio for two of the possible solos I am working on - I checked YouTube - so learning them is very hard. I only really learn what I hear. If I have a recording of something I will be humming it after the third go-round. Here I have to plunk the piano part on the keyboard and sing with it and hope the sound of the intervals sticks in my head.

And the fact that I am answerable to another person's needs, someone who is old and frail, destitute, and now may be losing her eyesight. I can't leave her now. I can do what I want on my own time, but I can't go galivanting off here there and yonder.

So many things are going well for me, but they are boring things. They are grown up things that a person needs to have as an infrastructure, but they do not make me feel glamorous or exciting or interesting. I went to my accountant and was pleased to see how much I made this year in view of the fact that I only work 25-30 hours a week. And he said not to file for Social Security on my 62nd birthday (which is only 3 months away) but to wait until I'm 66. He said if I have a shortfall it's better to take money out of my mother's savings account.

Then I looked online for my credit report (something I have never done) and was pleased to see that it is clean as a whistle. This is something I need if, God forbid, I lose my rent controlled apartment as a result of the Supreme Court case and I want to put a downpayment on a condo or even rent something else.

But these things don't make me an artist in my eyes or anyone else's.

On the plus side: I spent two hours all told working on my three solo choices for this season (I still haven't heard back from the choir director but that doesn't mean anything - he is probably busy and not in his church office) and ran through the "Kyrie" from the Verdi Requiem with the recording, being pleasantly surprised that I was able to do it.

On the minus side: I looked at the flyer for the production of Gioconda that I auditioned for. I checked the bios of some of the women and they all have done so much.

I have done nothing really.

Easter Message

Yesterday was Easter, a time of new beginnings, whether you associate it with the risen Christ or just with the Goddess Estra and her sacred rabbit. And for Christians, Easter is a season not a day (which means we can sing Easter music for several weeks) so I might as well take advantage of it.

First I want to say that I feel bad about my previous post, in that it is not usually in my nature to disparage other performing artists (unless they're famous - then I suppose it's fair game). I was even thinking of editing out some of the remarks I made in my last post on the other hand that was how I was feeling at the moment.

The issue with Good Friday wasn't how well any particular person sang or didn't. The issue was that the situation was not handled fairly. It was handled as if this other group provided the professional singers and we provided the choir, which didn't even do as much singing as we normally do on Good Friday. In two pieces were were just backup to soloists, which is not normally what our choir director likes, in fact I learned at a lecture about Lutherans and church music recently that they believe the "communal voice" is more important than the individual voice, which is why choral music usually trumps solos and hymns sung by everyone trump choir anthems. (For example my singing soul mate - another woman who began serious study of classical singing in late middle age - sings in an Episcopal church and if she has a good solo at the ready it will be substituted for a hymn slot, something that we would never do.) So the format of this Good Friday service flew in the face of that precept and for what?? OK, that other choir is paid and we are not, but - and this is what prompted me to get snarky - we have several professional sounding singers, myself included, certainly in that range, who sound as good as they do so how dare people assume that it's ok to treat them like the stars and us like the background? They didn't even give us a chance to either 1. audition for some of the solos that they wanted to include or 2. offer to come to extra rehearsals so that we could sing some of the contemporary music (which was intertwined with the Bach) either as a choir or as a solo quartet?

In any event, I just have to let this go. I am not angry because I was aware of another singer's flaws. Goodness knows I have plenty of my own. I am partly angry at myself because I think I could be a paid church singer if I weren't too lazy to learn how to sightread or read key signatures.

I don't even think there's any point in saying anything to the choir director. He is very sweet and has been very supportive of me (and everyone). If I feel underappreciated I can cut back on some of my involvement there and try to audition for some paying gigs at least on the big holidays.

I need to ratchet up my work on my oratorio solos, as well as my opera repertoire. I will never be competitive in the latter because I am too old and probably don't have the stamina to sing the roles that my voice is most suited to (I would have if I had begun doing serious work on them even in my early 40s) but I can still sing arias and scenes in concert or even throw together something like I did with Samson et Dalila.

I am looking at the alto solo from the Bach Easter Oratorio. It's sung by Mary Magdalene, which of course is right up my alley because she's part of my "brand" along with Dalila, and it's magnificent. We would have to make cuts in it, of course, so I might pass on it for now but it's a good thing to learn. In the summer there's more leeway but I couldn't sing this in the summer because it specifically refers to the Magdalen at Christ's tomb - it's not just a jolly Easter piece like "Rejoice Greatly".

I also had bought another book of oratorio arias and found something by Saint Saens called "Thou O Lord Art my Protector" which I will look at and there's also the song about Jesus at Emmaus called "And Their Eyes Were Opened" by Charls Raymond Cronham.

So my project for today is, after I log in enough work hours, to review all three of these pieces. I can put the Verdi Requiem aside briefly, then once I have an Easter solo spot I can go back to it until it's time to think about a summer anthem. I really would like to do "Qui Sedes" with an oboe.

In other news, yesterday I managed to sing through the entire soprano part of the Halleluia Chorus twice. The second time I didn't make it up to the A on "He shall reign" (actually all I sang was "ah" on all the high parts) but I feel I have mastered some of the skills required, which was a good thing, as I was alone on the part with the two First Sopranos - the two other Second Sopranos decided to sing alto.

Another Big Funk

Now I have gotten myself into another big funk, bigger than usual.

I heard something on tv from a psychiatrist, about a disorder called "exogenous depression". He was talking about it in connection with people buying lottery tickets and then not winning anything, and falling into a depression. I realize that what makes me depressed is feeling, really every day, smaller and more insignificant in the world of classical singing, which is what means so much to me. This is a totally different thing from feeling frustrated if I don't think I am gaining mastery over an aria or piece of music that I am trying to sing. And it is also different from true clinical depression, where people wake up in the morning and think life is meaningless and don't want to get out of bed. I asked my therapist if she thought I was clinically depressed and she said "no". But I do think I can easily fall into this "exogenous depression" and boy have I fallen into it now!

It's Holy Week, so all the singers that I "friended" on Facebook have their "church jobs" which often involve being soloists in major works. Last year at least my choir sang most of the choral part of the Mozart Requiem and I had one of the solos in the only solo quartet that we did. And I had sung on Maundy Thursday. This year I knew I wouldn't be singing on Maundy Thursday but I remember having asked the choir director if there would be any solos for Good Friday and he said no (which was ok) but then it turned out that we were "sharing" the service with the other congregation who uses our space and they brought in four soloists and we were the backup. This made me boiling mad, especially as one of the pieces that was sung was sung very badly (I absolutely think I could have sung it better and I am not one to say things like that). I may not have glorious high notes or very strong lower middle notes but I know when you sing Bach you don't gulp for breath on an ad hoc basis whenever you happen to run out of bloody breath!! You make a plan for where you're going to breathe and you stick to it. Actually the other singers were quite good, but we have good singers too and the whole situation struck me as inequitable and it really left a bad taste in my mouth.

I already knew this was going to be a washup so I decided if nothing else I would wear something totally unique and eye catching (we had to wear all black) so I wore a crocheted vintage dress that was form fitting (no cleavage, because it was a church) that showed off my curves) and put on stage makeup. The two women "soloists" were dressed like slobs. So at least I looked the part if nothing else and I sang the small amount we were assigned to sing, well.

So now tomorrow it's the Halleluia Chorus, which I absolutely hate singing. Last year because there were two conservatory trained coloratura sopranos singing I sang alto, but this time I will probably be one of four sopranos, so I had better make a valiant effort. The problem is that the soprano part was written for boy sopranos to sing loud and I am a dramatic mezzo trying to sing it pianissimo. I went through it with the recording and it doesn't get easier I can tell you that, even though some other things that I sing, do.

I am just really in a vile mood. The problem is I have a big diva personality and I'm trapped with a small skill set in a huge city. I am just not a background kind of gal. I mean for example sometimes my excitement for the week is going to my Pilates class in my electric blue lycra leotard. Everyone else is wearing black. I mean that is who I am. Someone who wants to stand out in a crowd.

Then I read on Facebook (or wherever) about all these get up and sing concerts. All I want!!!! is for someone to invite me to sing at one of those, just one!!!! bloody aria, that's all. Yes, I can plan one of my own but it's not the same. It just doesn't taste as sweet.

Well, now I just need to forget about Friday and focus on picking out an Easter solo aria. I have several ideas. That and a summer anthem. We have more leeway in the summer because there is no choir. I might like to sing "Qui Sedes" from the Bach B Minor Mass because it has an oboe accompaniment and there seem now to be two oboists playing at the church. I like picking things with an instrumental accompaniment because that is different from the same old same old and it will stand out. (And you had better believe if I sing an aria by Bach I know where you breathe and where you don't.)

Speaking of Bach, I am going to be singing "Et Exsultavit" from the Magnificat in September in one of the Spanish services. The man who runs them says many of the people who come to them were raised Cathoic and are used to hearing Latin.

And of course there's my Verdi Requiem for next March which will only not happen over my dead body. And if enough people come to that I can put on a different oratorio each year. And except for the fact that I have planned it myself, I guess that won't be any different from all these singers on Facebook with their Holy Season concerts. I can invite people to them and who will give a bloody toss if the thing was my idea or someone else's?

A Lesson at Last, Verdict on the CD, and A Few More Thoughts on Identity

Today I had my first voice lesson in a month. My teacher's wife had had the flu and he decided he didn't want students in the house. In the past if I went that long without a lesson I could feel tension creeping into my singing but I guess I am much more secure in my technique now, so that did not happen.

I tried something new (again) with the highest notes, trying to literally feel like I am vomiting them out. I remember having watched Leontyne Price singing at the Met when I was in High School (probably looking through my mother's opera glasses) and I noticed how wide she would open her mouth and how she would sort of lean forward, so I tried to imitate that. (I definitely got all my pianissimo techniques from watching her, even though I didn't put them to use until over 40 years later.)

Trying this technique I was able to sing a long arpeggio up to a high C and back and the note was more open and freer than it ever had been. Then I sang through "Liber Scriptus" and sounded better with the climactic section (it's only a bloody A flat) than I ever had as well. (If I can wail out that note, which comes early in the Requiem, I will be totally out of the woods for the rest of this great work and can enjoy myself.)

One thing I mentioned to my teacher was my disappointment that I have never had an "aha" moment that helped me with the highest notes. I feel that my singing, my stamina, the timbre of my voice, my breath control, in fact everything except those highest notes, keeps improving, but they are simply not a sure thing. My teacher told me that these "aha" moments usually come early in someone's technical development when suddenly they put things together. He says I am past that and that the problems I have with those notes don't really have to do with technique as much as with physiology (I may not have the God-given ability to extend my range as far as other people, even many mezzos), I started late (even 26, when I started the first time, was late and I had 13 years of smoking behind me at that point) so my muscles and cartilage were not that flexible, and that there is an enormous difference in how well I can sing up there between when I am tired and when I am not. Overall, I know that I get less tired. I can sit through a two hour choir rehearsal singing soprano (which means lots of pianissimo Fs and Gs) without getting tired, which had not been the case several years ago.

He also gave me his verdict on the CD. He said I sounded much better than in 2009, that much of the singing was lovely, that it was an interesting set in that I sang some unusual things (the Sappho aria, for example) and that the highest notes were not horrible, they just sounded "effortful" and not as good as everything else. We both agreed it is probably not worth spending money to "produce" the CD in any way, but that I should just get 20-25 copies to hand out to friends.

Lastly (and I had originally planned to devote an entire blog post to this) I feel I still was not really clear about the issue of calling myself an opera singer.

I posted a link to the blog post on Facebook, partly because I want more readers (and I write much better than I sing, and am still looking to spark someone's interest, like in Julie and Julia) and also just to get my perspective out there, and I still feel somewhat confused. My therapist tells me all the time I can't look for validation from other people, but I was told by some commenters that whether or not I'm an opera singer does have to do with whether or not other people think this. I mean of course I need validation from other people on some level. I need my teacher to tell me what sounds good and what doesn't, and what I should sing and what I should not sing, and I need to get a green light even just to produce something myself, for example, if I want to use the church space, someone has to approve it, because the church has a reputation as a music venue during its off hours. I think what she (the therapist) means is that if being an opera singer, even an amateur one who performs infrequently in humble settings is the most important thing about myself to me, then it doesn't matter if other people don't care about it and they think of me as a copy editor, or someone to talk with about what's on public tv or something in the news.

So what do I mean exactly when I say I'm an opera singer? I suppose I mean that the peak experiences I've had singing in operas or concerts, whether it was three years ago or 35, are moments that have defined me. And what was so devastating to me about my forays into the the Forum was that I felt these past experiences which were among the most important in my entire life were being trivialized and overshadowed by other people who would just ignore me. I hadn't realized how insignificant these experiences were in the scheme of things, and once I realized this, I felt very ripped off. I mean being an opera singer informs everything that I do from how I dress when I go to the grocery store to what I eat to how I sit to (I'm really working on this one), how I project and protect my speaking voice. The fact that I've had these, even sporadic, diva moments make me a tad less ordinary. Even before I started singing again I would often refer to these past performances and people would say, yes, I can see you doing that. It's as if those moments give me a glow, sort of like what one gets from great sex (LOL) that sets me apart from other women my age who sit hunched over desks, let their hair go gray, and have no charisma when they engage with people.

So I suppose all this boils down to the fact that whether or not people singing all over the country think I'm a real opera singer, the fact that I sing even the few times a year that I do says much more about me than what I do for a living. So I think what my therapist was talking about is that I can walk down the street with perfect posture and perfect makeup, and I can glow with star quality and that I can't let anyone try to take that away from me. Most people who see me in stores ask me if I am in the performing arts. No one would ever guess in a million years that I sit at a desk (in my tiny apartment no less) for hours and hours.