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.
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