"Maytime": A Cautionary Tale

Last night after watching the 11:00 news, I stumbled upon the movie Maytime with Jeanette MacDonald. Her singing is decidedly mediocre, and the whoever wrote the book (was that from the original operetta, I wonder?) obviously knew nothing about opera fachs, having the heroine sing in "L'Elisir d'Amore" and "Lohengrin" in the same year!, but the story line was compelling. Ever since I was about 16, I fantasized about some kind of life for myself that roughly fell along that story line (minus the disruptive young love interest): an older charismatic mentor, fame and success (at something - maybe even just scandal), glamour, traveling and living in hotels....I can't think of one moment in my adolescence or even young adulthood when I wanted garden variety domesticity.

So I keep asking myself, how did I end up where I ended up?  In a relationship, however flawed, that is in its fourth decade, in the same apartment for almost three, and in a dull, but apparently rock-solid, industry?

I think I had lots of little tidbits of glamour and flash along the way, so I didn't notice the whole: being the star of a women's dance in my long dress in a sea of jeans (not likely to happen today - many younger Lesbians enjoy glamming up),being a baton twirler in the Pride parade, singing in an occasional amateur opera production, speaking at all kinds of twelve step meetings and topical workshops of various kinds.

Gradually these things fell away and I became just another middle aged woman in a suit (that was one or two sizes too big), working in an office as dull as ditch water, watching my partner grow less romantic, less functional, and more disagreeable with each passing year.

And then I met the Mentor.  I had always wanted a mentor - just like the one in Maytime.  Who knows?  I might very well have found such a person exciting, which would have turned the plot line   completely on its head.  (I remember having a huge crush on a  - male - friend of my mother's, her age, who had a heavy French accent and made the kind of remarks which today would be considered "sexual harassment" but which to my chubby, moonstruck 16-year-old self seemed deliciously romantic).

But no mentor ever really materialized, certainly not until I was well past my "sell by" date as far as the world of classical music was concerned and that relationship was tumultuous and short lived.

But getting back to Maytime, what surprised me was how sad it made me.  That she lived without love and grew old alone. So she advised her young friend to make a different choice.

Oh - and before that, at the concert rehearsal, I heard someone sing "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You". That made me sad too.  And I realized it said "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You", not "You're Nobody 'til You're Famous, Have a Brilliant Career, or Have Your Name in the Newspaper".  And yes, somebody has loved me for three and a half decades.

So this is yet again about The Road Not Taken, which I mentioned in my previous post.

So why do there have to be two roads that separate?  Why can't life be more like a balanced meal?

Random Thoughts

I haven't written anything for a while, and I also haven't gotten many hits on my blog lately.  I even posted something to the the Forum a few days ago, which is a place I had promised myself to avoid, just to see if my blog link would attract people. I was also thinking about the movie Julie and Julia, because someone mentioned it, and I remembered that it was that movie that got me blogging in the first place. "Julie" wasn't the world's greatest cook or the world's greatest writer, but her writing about her passion for cooking bought her a ticket to fame.

Yesterday I listened to a playwright talking about a play he had written in which one of the themes was The Road Not Taken which by now is a cliche, even to having been misquoted by the author of the book The Road Less Traveled - as my mother would have said, he missed the "prepositional verb". Robert Frost refers to the "road less traveled by."

So is that all these past 8 years have been?  Scrambling to try to get back to the "Road Not Taken" and feeling angry and bitter?

Or is it about something else?

The Mentor (whom I haven't mentioned in quite a while) took a sensually quiescent middle aged woman and taught her to sing "Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a ta Voix" for a moment of music, magic, and a frisson of eroticism.  Was this just meant to be a one-off?  Then back to business as usual?

Whenever I falter in my journey, I remember that Valentine's Day and have faith that this was not just for nothing. Whatever God I believe in - a Christian one (monogamy is the sticking point there), or a pagan one (a little more attuned to my Dalila soul) - s/he meant that Valentine's Day to mean something.

I am at Week 11 of The Artist's Way. The world looks brighter and I have more hope. The things this process have taught me are not that different from the things I picked up from the Mentor, not just about singing and sexuality, but about colors, textures, and smells. About surrounding myself with beauty. Or what I consider beauty anyhow.  I laughed at one point when I was reading the book.  It mentioned feeling free to add that finishing touch to an outfit, something that is special to you, even if conventional people think you are "ruining" it.  That made me realize that the "trashy" way I love to dress is my form of self-expression.  It is how I signal to myself and the world that I am always a diva, no matter what I am doing.

I believe that some people are hardwired to be divas.  (Many disagree and say that the only people who can use that term about themselves are those who have perfected an art form and are acknowledged to excel in it.)  If you are hardwired to be a diva and you have a talent, nurture it, make the right connections, and find a venue, you are lucky.  Many don't.  I see these all around me: the bank teller with braids that probably cost an entire week's paycheck, flaunting her elaborate "nail art"; the harried pediatrician who buys a different flamboyant gown to wear to each wedding and Bar Mitzvah she is invited to when she really only needed two.

So maybe a venue will present itself.  Meanwhile the Requiem preparations continue.

This morning I sang a piece by a little-known composer, Joseph Raff, called "Great and Wonderful are All Thy Works".  I think I sang well, and the choir director was happy.  I also found a new violinist to perform Bach with.  Very few people said anything to me, even ones who spoke to me (about other things) after the service, so part of me felt the whole thing sort of fell into a black hole, but I guess God heard me, and that's all that should matter, although divas always love applause.

ETA: I realize that in saying I felt my singing "fell into a black hole" I was being insulting to those people who did thank me (I got several thank yous on Facebook after I wrote this, one from a fellow choir member who means a lot to me).  I think the thing I was most peeved about was that I was sitting with a woman who likes me, and who had (out of kindness) chided me for writing on Facebook about being envious.  You would think that she would have said something about my singing, as she was at both services, but she never even mentioned it.  The good news: This oratorio is little known (hasn't been performed in this country in my lifetime in any event) so it might be a good vehicle to try to attract big players to.  (By "big players" I mean getting some of the serious  musicians at the church to look for a venue for it, which is a whole 'nuther thing from putting on a vanity production.)

Another "Don't Even Think About It!" It's Not For You

This afternoon I took my "artist's date" (something required as part of The Artist's Way program), which consisted of my going to Richard Tucker Park around the corner before setting off to do some errands, to hear an opera group whose mission is community outreach.

Now I remember when I posted something on The Forum about wanting to find older singers to network with, someone I respect very much suggested starting a community opera group. Now the problem is, if you live in New York, there are already 20 such groups and they are filled with the spillover from the minor opera houses, YAPpers, and managed singers looking to do a role that they're not getting cast in for pay. These groups are not for amateurs like me.  They might have been 30 years ago (I remember singing in various schools and senior centers as part of an existing group back then) but not now.

This group was mostly young (none of the women looked a day over 30 although the only two men could have been close to 40) and very polished.  Except for one mezzo, none of them had big voices but they looked and sounded like they have been getting up in front of groups, classes, juries, whatever, since they were in their teens.

Just as I was feeling so happy (or at least momentarily satisfied) about this September 11 concert, I now just feel so that everything I want is out of reach.

What's interesting is that I don't know that I thought these young women sounded that much better than I do, just different.

I would say I have a bigger, more impressive natural instrument, but so what?  It has taken me into my 60s even to begin to know what to do with it outside the limited range I use for church solos.  I certainly don't have that kind of confidence.  I mean people say I'm a good actress but I am not comfortable.  And when I sing church solos I don't have to do anything except remember my music and look other worldly.

I know that part of the issue with my voice is that as Susan Eichhorn Young (whom I am always quoting) says in her latest blog post, I did everything ass backwards.

What I mean is I didn't cosset my voice from the yellow Italian aria book through lieder through "Va Laisse Couler Mes Larmes" year by year, inch by inch, until every note was perfectly matched to every other note.  Never picking up a dramatic aria with high notes in it until those notes were there securely.

If I wanted to sing the Habanera at 14 (as I burned my vocal cords with Kools), I sang the Habanera at 14.  If someone cast me as Giovanna Seymour at 28, I asked my teacher what exercises to sing so that I could pull myself through it.

Now I want to make one thing clear.  Except for my brief stint with the teacher I call Mr. B., I never did anything technically that abused my voice. In fact one compliment I always get from people is that despite being a large-voiced mezzo I don't "push" my voice, but always sing lyrically.  Except when I would get to a note that I was not comfortable singing; in which case I would sort of gird my loins and scream.  Not in a way that hurt my throat, just in a way that hurt other people's ears, and did not sound integrated with the rest of my voice.

I know there are things I sing beautifully, but I do not have a scale that is perfectly even from top to bottom.  On the other hand I have heard that this is a problem with many dramatic mezzos.  I read a review recently that totally savaged a dramatic mezzo whom I heard do quite an impressive rendition of "O Don Fatale" at a concert. Whether the review was deserved I don't know, but it mentioned her voice being in three different pieces, and cited that it was a problem in the fach in general.

But what I realize is that although I didn't harm my instrument, I may have harmed my psyche in that I sang things badly that I was not ready to sing, which left bad muscle and other memories imprinted somewhere, and which makes it harder now to sing those things well even though I can (a lot of the time).

Getting back to this afternoon's concert, I decided to pull myself out of my funk by watching what the various singers did with vowels, since I am now juggling two different schools of thought.  Interestingly, on the whole the lighter voiced women sang brighter vowels and the mezzo sang darker vowels.  And it wasn't just a question of their different natural instruments.  I watched what they were doing with their mouths.

In other news, I am seriously reworking "Liber Scriptus". That is an example of a piece that I sang badly (panicking and gulping for air before the phrase with the big climactic A flat) and that now I can sing well, so I need to start from scratch.  I found a way of singing that phrase on one breath by keeping my jaw loose, and that is what I am going to do.  It is not a very high note, considering that I am now vocalizing up to a high C every day, although sometimes that newly found headspace is there and sometimes it's not.

And I will enjoy the concert I am in on September 11.  It is like living in a small town where I'm one of a handful of singers with classical training on a program with singers without.

Concert Progress

I have written very little this month, which is totally out of character.  First of all, my partner is in the middle of a crisis, albeit this time one not of her own making.  She lives on the sixth floor of a seven story building, and for going on 14 days now, the elevator has not been working.  It worked briefly over this past weekend, but then went out again, possibly because an inspector from the Department of Buildings came (at the tenants' request) and then declared the elevator unsafe? In any event, this situation deserves big time compensation for the tenants, but they have to organize and fight for it, otherwise all that will happen is the landlord will be fined.

The good news is she has recovered from her cataract surgery (on one eye) and just needs new glasses now.  She can have the other eye done next year and then get another pair of new glasses.  I had to walk her down and back up the stairs to go to her follow-up appointment.  Tomorrow she has to go to the pulmonologist and says she thinks if she walks slowly she can get down and back up the stairs.  She has severe COPD, a heart condition, a replaced hip, and dicey vision with her old glasses.  She has not yet asked me to come with her and walk her, but I could do it if I trade it off for another time chunk to myself.

But this is yet again a validation of my heartbreak over my inability to have any kind of fulfilling "third act" to my life because I am so emotionally drained from caregiving.  The situation with my partner is heartbreaking, and the fact that my life is going down the drain, at least to some extent, is also heartbreaking.

Amidst all this, however, I think this concert is going well, at least the group is one in which I feel comfortable.  Of course that is because I am one of the more experienced and trained performers, which is always where I flourish best.  I do well with criticism in one on one sessions, then going forth somewhere were I don't feel totally outclassed and hence ignored.  There is one other woman in this group with a big operatic voice that needs some fine tuning, who is probably not much younger than I am.

On a technical note, the woman producing the concert (who is very nice, supportive, and knowledgeable) has a totally different approach to vowels, from that of my teacher.  He always tells me to sing "aw" on the vowel "ah" because "ah" easily becomes "ang" (like in the name "Anne"), which causes the voice to spread and makes it difficult to sing higher.  Well, this woman told people to put an "ang" in the "ah".  I am singing "Et Exsultavit" which is an easy range, so it really doesn't matter.  She wants me to look happy and smile when I sing it and use bright vowels.  As I said, it is in an easy range so it doesn't matter how I sing the vowels.  All that matters is singing that long phrase on "salutari" on one breath, which is easy for me to do and seems to impress people.

I am also going to sing the Dvorak "God is my Shepherd".  She didn't like the Handel "Heroes" piece.  She said it was too low for me and did not show off my voice.  She also said I was a lyric mezzo, which is interesting.  I suppose I sound like one (or like a "second soprano", which is not an opera, but only an oratorio fach) when I sing church music.  I do tend to be most comfortable singing things that sit in an upper middle register but don't go too high.

I also have a few solo lines in a version of "This Little Light of Mine" that I am singing as a trio with two other women.

In any event, this should be a nice concert (it will be a mix of classical and non-classical music and poetry readings) and I like the people participating very much.

In a little while I will go practice, hope that those newfound Bs and Cs are still there, and do some work on the Requiem.

August Has Begun Auspiciously

After yesterday's less than upbeat post, I want to start the month off optimistically.

I think I really do have a spot in the September 11 concert (I was told to come to the next rehearsal and bring what I would like to sing) which will be small, but it will be a place to sing in an event planned by someone else than me.

Chapter 8 of the Artist's Way says to write down what you see as "true North", which to them means what would signal to you that you are who you would like to be as an artist.

For me as a classical singer, the (realistic) true North would be to be cast by someone else in a leading role in an opera (pay optional) or an oratorio with an orchestra (pay would be nice - I think I'm competitive in this repertoire).  So this is just a small concert which will be a mix of classical and nonclassical music, poetry, reminiscences, and other things, but it's a start.

I hope to be singing at least two, maybe three, selections.  On the table are the Dvorak "God is My Shepherd", the Bach "Et exsultavit" from the Magnificat in D, which I also will be singing in church on September 16 and/or the "Laudamus te" from the B Minor Mass, and - I hope I can keep this - a really fun Handel aria from Joshua about heroes, which I think is perfect for the occasion, as it will capture the heroism that occurred on that day.  Here is a link to a version sung by a counter tenor.

http://youtu.be/MiXtwPjgXiM