Countdown to the Requiem

I had hoped to write something yesterday, as yesterday/today  is the ninth anniversary of that fateful Valentine's Day, but I couldn't think of anything.

The Requiem is now really really happening.  Flyers are made, and there will be an announcement on the church's web site as well as on its Facebook page.

I said more prayers that I will be worthy of this endeavor.

This is the biggest thing I have done since the concert of Samson et Dalila in 2008. I am singing better now, but have far, far less chutzpah.

Back then I thought just the fact that I could slog through the role of a femme fatale, wearing a pretty dress, made me special.

Since then I have been rejected by every single no-pay "community opera group" except one that wanted to charge me a hefty fee (at least that was for singing a lead) and another whose director cast me in an infinitesimal role and then used me as a punching bag, so I walked out.

I see that everywhere I turn, in this city and especially in this neighborhood, I am drowning in young talent with conservatory degrees and apprenticeships, and women 15-20 years younger (which still makes them in their 40s) who are totally polished, with several decades of singing in my fach behind them (and conservatory degrees and apprenticeships, back from the "dark ages").  So this has shaken my confidence.

At the last rehearsal I fell on my face with "Lux Aeterna" which has now given me two things to worry about (that I will worry about the A flat in "Liber Scriptus" is a given).  In "Lux Aeterna" I not only have to sing the phrase with the G, I also have to concentrate on counting so that I stay together with the two other people.  Well, I have done things like this in the choir.  I just have to drill it over and over and over, with the recording.

Putting God back in it helps.  On Ash Wednesday we were invited to write "sins" (or something else) on paper, which would be burned with the palms that they use to make the ashes.  So I wrote to "banish fear and self-doubt".  I don't really believe in "sin",   unless I am doing something hurtful to other people.  I believe that I sin when I lose my temper at my partner, but that's about it.  I suppose my fear and self-doubt is a sin of sorts.  God gave me back this gift and even if the person who lit the spark was often more Mephistophelian, I can't just walk away from it.  This is something I am doing for the church.

Lent has begun.  For me it will be a time to ramp up my practice of my art, which is, after all, a spiritual practice.

And now, I see, it is now longer "today".