Well, this big breakthrough that I have made with my singing has held. This is the first big breakthrough I have had with my singing in several years. And my teacher is totally on board with it, even though it wasn't something he "found". And what's interesting is that although it has made a big difference with my high notes, that was not what we were working on when I found it. We were working on trying to get the muddy sound out of my upper passaggio. That was the next big thing on the agenda after fixing the break in my lower passaggio. So in trying to get rid of the muddy sound, I figured out how to lift the back of my soft palate, which is something I never knew how to do before.
I was talking to another singer yesterday about tension, and said I never had any, certainly not in my throat, so why did my voice sound "throaty" (this is a word people had used). Well, I actually did have tension, only it wasn't in my throat it was in that place that I can only refer to as "where the post-nasal drip lives" - the back of my soft palate. All of that infrastructure feels bunged up and tight and sort of collapsed unless I think about opening it up. When I do that, my voice sounds entirely different.
I also have been religious about using the nasal saline spray. I probably have a post-nasal drip all the time. It's not like having a cold or an allergy where I'm aware of having a stuffed nose - it's all in the back. I had bought a Neti pot (with the blessing of my primary care physician) but I never used it. It just seemed like such a production (first you boil the water, then you cool the water....) so I've just been using the saline spray every time I need it.
So now I'm chomping at the bit to sing somewhere. The last time I sang anything really challenging (aside from choral soprano parts) was at my October concert last year and I did not sing well, although this was at least in part because of how bad the air was in the room.
The Requiem plans are moving ahead apace - I now have a bass. He's the man who sang three roles in my production of Samson et Dalila and we have also sung duets in concert. He is actually one of the few singing "peers" that I have. He began singing classical music in his late 30s, and has a huge voice with some rough edges, but it's a voice that's definitely suited to Verdi. And he is very reliable and will willingly chip in with expenses.
I can tell that my teacher is excited about the progress I've made because he has his wheels spinning about things I can sing. Definitely the scene from Adriana Lecouvreur (would be great on a program with some scenes from Gioconda). And now he's talking about Norma because he and the soprano who will be in my Requiem are doing a concert version of that as well as the Adriana. I will have to say that Norma is one of my five favorite operas, but I always assumed it was off the table for me because the mezzo part (which my teacher said was written for a soprano) has two high Cs. Well my teacher said that duet is almost always transposed down a whole step, so I would just have to sing two B flats which are in the middle of arpeggio-like progressions - usually not a problem for me and even less of a problem recently. My teacher suggested looking also at the Adalgisa/Pollione duet to sing with him. That sits a little high, but a high tessitura is usually not a problem for me if I don't have to sing above an A. There is one B flat at the end but we are singing it together. I have always had my own wryly amusing Lesbian/poly/bi interpretation of the story (you can read the story here) which I shared with my teacher for a laugh and he said, "Well, maybe they just used Pollione to have children" and laughed along with me. In my version the two women live happily ever after and no one gets on the funeral pyre LOL!
In other news, I have a solo date at the church on August 26, probably singing the Raff piece "Great and wonderful are all Thy works". And some time after August 1 I will contact the woman putting on the September 11 concert.
Lastly, my partner's cataract surgery went well, although the anesthesia, which was full of epinephrine, and the extra cortisone she took, made her act like a crazed crackhead for at least 48 hours and my life was sheer Hell. I have never been happier to go home - not to sing, just to curl up with a book or with my work for pay (this week it's an article about football players with head injuries). She will have the other eye done in September and I hope I can steer her away from doing it the beginning of the month.
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