I hadn't planned on writing something again so soon, but this post is prompted by a lot of soul searching I did last night and this morning, triggered by a health scare my partner is having.
I also keep coming back to: what do I want and what do I expect out of my involvement with singing? (This is an endless topic of discussion with the therapist, despite that my manifest reason for having been in therapy all these years is the stress of eldercare and the knowledge that at any moment I could be in the middle of an enormous psychological and logistical crisis.)
After that fateful Valentine's Day, all I really wanted was to take that feeling and bottle it. The rush of singing an aria associated with sex and glamour, in the arms of an ersatz (oh, how ersatz!) lover, in front of an "audience" for whom this was the unexpected highlight of an event. This was quickly followed by my "Habanera" at another dinner fundraiser, and several other arias during church services and fundraising concerts. This was a tiny venue, the tiniest and most talent-poor of Manhattan churches, certainly in the area of classical singing, but what it lacked in human resources it made up for in imagination.
Then it all fell apart. Not only did my relationship with the Mentor disintegrate, but the church decided to do away with classical music for the most part, except for a brief nod at Easter and Christmas, and the minister (truly the one of the least empathic, albeit one of the brainiest, people I have ever met) hadn't a clue about (or an interest in) helping me continue to develop myself as a musician in that environment. She preferred to have me on the Board helping her hire and fire people, which is what I had been doing for a living.
At that time I didn't know any real singers.
That started later. After I left that church (and the Mentor) I began pseudonymously blogging and fell into some "communities" to do with classical singing. Naively thinking I would meet some people like me (amateurs at a loss how to deal with a talent and a hunger) I actually met working singers. It actually came as a huge surprise that these sorts of people would even bother with pseudonymous blogging, which I thought was predominately for the bored and the unhappy, but blog they did. One woman, who sings extensively throughout Europe, even shared juicy details about her sex life!
That was when all the "envies" began.
Soon I began also investigating all the "opportunities" for singers in my hometown (central Manhattan) and was astounded by the mass of talented people, most of them 20 or 30 years younger than I was, who were all jockeying for spots not only at amateur groups, but even at groups where you had to pay to sing.
I was totally out of my element, not just vocally, but in every possible way. I had no education, no CV, not much mobility (while in a physically weakened state pining for the Mentor, I stumbled over the pavement in a strange city and smashed up my left leg), no confidence, and last but not least, some vocal issues to work out. I couldn't even elicit much interest at the group get up and sing things that I went to.
So recapturing that Valentine's Day moment seemed beyond elusive.
I did manage to put on a concert version of Samson et Dalila, and sang my personal best that day, but I didn't get the sense that the church (I was now a choir member/soloist at a Lutheran church) would let me put on a sequel. And speaking of the church, although I felt and still feel blessed to have many solo opportunities (as well as opportunities to improve my musicianship through choral singing) there, it is not a venue for the sort of pastiche events where I could dress to the nines and sing an aria as part of a group "talent show". They are very formal.
After being raked over the coals by readers of my pseudonymous blog , I deleted it and decided to back off some of my voyeurism re: other singers. They are not a peer group.
I think the issue with pointless comparisons, which I only really just realized, isn't that there's a limit to how well I can sing (although there might be) or anything stopping me from producing any work I want to sing in, it's a question of "ages and stages". And I'm not talking about being "too old" to have the stamina to sing Verdi (I have much more stamina for singing on the eve of my 62nd birthday than I did when I met the Mentor or even when I sang Dalila in concert) or of being "too old" to play a sexy character (God knows I have a better figure than many 40-year-olds) but that my life is not structured the way a 20something, 30something, or 40something's life is structured. And I'm speaking here of women who are childless. Once you become a mother, and even moreso if you're a single mother, things get complicated and choices have to be made.
However problematic our relationship is, and friends with benefits notwithstanding, my partner is the most important person in my life. And she is at the end of hers (not necessarily at the very end, we are waiting for test results) and I want to make it as joyful as possible. And for the foreseeable future I have to earn a living. The younger people I am so envious of are either earning money singing and teaching, or they work at day jobs and use all their free time running here, there, and yonder to rehearsals and auditions. Some of them probably don't spend more than one evening a week - if that - at home. I may have plenty of energy to sing a scene from Il Trovatore, but I don't have that kind of energy, which is why I would refuse any comprimaria role I was offered for no money that involved a heavy rehearsal schedule.
So I come back to "what do I want" and "what is possible"? Although my teacher doubts I will ever be able to sing above a B flat in public, that still leaves a lot of opera and oratorio, particularly if I cherry pick scenes that I want to sing from the former, for me to sing. And until I'm proven wrong, there is no limit on the extent to which my singing can improve. But there are limits to my time and money. And the point may come when I have to choose between ancillary singing expenses and rehearsal time on the one hand and having that last shared vacation on the other. But for now I won't go there.
I asked God to bless my Verdi Requiem project and that's all I can do.
No comments:
Post a Comment