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.