Yesterday I had a coaching session for my audition set.
First the good.
I did some of the best singing I have ever done. Particularly the first runthrough of "Re dell' Abisso," Dido, and the second runthrough of "Acerba Volutta" beginning "verra, m'obblio".
My voice has lightened up a bit (the coach said that might not be great for "Re") but what I mean is it feels lighter and has more spin.
The bad.
The first runthrough of "Acerba Volutta" after a few stumbles with entrances in the section beginning "verra, m'obblio" I sang a not very good high A at the end. I just didn't have the energy balance. Although the coach said it was okay. I hung onto it the requisite amount. It just got "straight" and I portamento'd down from it too soon.
Also it seems I had pasted the pages of Re back to back in the wrong order. How could I do something like that? Am I into "senior moments" now? I mean I earn my living dealing with the written word, and various documents (although most of these are electronic now). I can thank my lucky stars that I asked the coach to play from my binder so that the first person to use it was not the pianist for the audition.
Also, I seemed not to know "Voce di Donna" at all.I muffed the words several times and sang the second ending instead of the first ending. My teacher had told me to end it when the solo section ends.) I don't have much time left, but I need to drill this, just to make sure I know the words. This is where listening comes in. I am at the point with these arias where I don't like to listen to recordings because I don't want to pick up other singer's idiosyncrasies.I use recordings in the beginning of the learning process because I can memorize what I hear faster than notes on a page, particularly because I don't read key signatures. But I need to listen to this one both for the words and for the endings!
Now for the ugly.
I don't know how "ugly" this actually is, but after singing each aria at least once, and singing "Voce di Donna" two or three times, I went back to "Re" and totally conked out at the end. It wasn't even a question of that last G going "straight" and ugly. It just wasn't there. My whole infrastructure collapsed.
In real life I don't think I would have done that much singing without a break. Even when we rehearsed the Verdi concert there were times when other people were singing and I could recoup. But it really really irks me.
I think what is holding me back vocally now is primarily my inability to replicate the whole support/strength/energy connection (I can't think of a better technical description) at will. When I sing well, I sound like a professional dramatic mezzo. But I can't always do this. And I don't really know what it is I do right when it's right (my teacher has commented on this). A lot of it has to do with getting the right burst of energy (I think, Zachary if you're still reading, this is what I mean by "letting it rip") and connecting it to my lower abdominal muscles, my ribcage, and my pharyngeal space. And I can't always do this. It's like faking a smile, where you smile with your mouth but not your eyes. If I don't give that extra "oomph", I don't have the intrastructure to sing well, certainly not in that repertoire. And I seem to be very vulnerable to being tired, and I seem to get tired easily. This was always a problem, even when I was younger. I mean if I'm comparing myself to laypeople, I am not someone who gets tired easily. If I didn't sing I would never notice this. It's that I don't have that something extra. Professional singers go to the gym all the time I understand, although, interestingly, the didn't in past eras and there were still plenty of big voices with energy behind them. For example yesterday I did all the right things. I got enough sleep, ate healthily, chugged some Muscle Milk (something I haven't had in a long time - in fact the bottles in my fridge were out of date). But it wasn't enough to make me superhuman. And Verdi mezzos need to be superhuman.
So what I have to tell myself is this. On Saturday I am sure if I start with "Re" after not oversinging Friday (I will ask my teacher what to sing/not sing tomorrow and Friday - tonight I am singing a high soprano part in a Bach cantata, which moves quickly, and has not given me any problems) I will not be tired. So I will sing it the way I sang it the first go around with the coach. If they ask for something else (the coach agreed) it will be unlikely to be the Adriana or the Gioconda aria. They will probably ask for Dido or Dalila, both of which I can sing in my sleep (they are actually the first two things I sang with the Mentor along with Wagner's "Angel").
Interestingly, I think one problem (actually this is a good thing) is that my standards are much higher. When I was rehearsing Samson et Dalila I muffed quite a few high B flats. One afternoon I even conked out and couldn't hit the high A in Act 3. But I just considered that all in a day's work. I was so excited about singing this role in this opera and getting to be hot and all Dalila-ish, and impressing my friends, that that was all I cared about. If I didn't sound like one of the stars at the Met so what?
I think where I have become chastened is that when I have heard singers at these meeups or at some of these amateur or low level semi professional groups, they sound more like the singers at the met than they do like me.
Well, maybe I will be happy in the same way about my Requiem. It is something for the church to observe Lent, and so I should be able to get a good audience (even if they don't care about me, or Verdi, they will probably want to give something to the food pantry or whatever the money will be going to), not to mention that I have the biggest set of brass ovaries on the planet for organizing even a small-scale pocket version of this major work!
So wish me luck Saturday.
As some of my friends say, it is T minus 3 (I think?)
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