A lot of discussion was generated on Facebook by this article which was posted by a voice teacher whom I "friended".
Although it addressed instrumentalists, not singers, the gist of it was that most people who graduate from Juilliard do not go on to have professional careers in music. But they are stamped by something for the rest of their lives. People who went to Juilliard or the Manhattan School of Music are like people who went to Yale or Harvard. No matter what they do for the rest of their lives they are an elite bunch.
The singer who responded to the post (I wanted to write to her privately and maybe, in accordance with my new vow not to be timid, I will) said something more or less similar about her peers. And in doing so she mentioned that many were satisfied with "sandbox singing". By sandboxes she meant community opera companies - the very ones that were so obviously not interested in me. So there is a trickle down effect. There isn't room in the elite performance organizations for all the elite performers so they trickle down into the amateur venues and for a real amateur like me there is noplace left to go.
On a related subject, I had an insight lately about why I can't shake this bad feeling about myself. OK, it's not clinical depression, and I refuse to say it's a bad attitude (sometimes, believe it or not, I do feel grateful). I think it has to do with location, location, location.
I have lived in this apartment in the "armpit of Lincoln Center" for almost three decades. I moved in here because it was an available rent regulated apartment that I got through a family friend, not because it was near Lincoln Center. I didn't start singing again until I had been living here for almost 20 years. But during most of those years I worked in offices. Each office is its own little world, with manifest hierarchies and subtler ones. The people I worked with lived everywhere from New Jersey to Long Island to some of the less sophisticated neighborhoods in Queens. Very few of them, even at the highest levels, had been to elite schools. So I felt that I held my own quite nicely. People found me interesting, even before I got promoted into management positions, and respected what I had to say about movies, politics, or nutrition. I felt that I mattered. Not to mention that everyone (whatever their position on the subject) thought I had the most ginormous pair of brass ovaries to be going around talking about being a Lesbian while being impeccably dressed and made up. And it was acknowledged that many of the people I worked with, even those ranked above me, were not as intelligent or as well read or as cultured or as sophisticated.
Since I left office work (which I do not regret) the only "worlds" I have been in are the two churches:first the Unitarian church and now this Lutheran one. Ironically, although going to church is supposed to be about Godliness or goodness, the fact that these two churches are on the Upper West Side means that the majority of the congregation is living on the Upper West Side, which means that the majority of them either do something in the arts, or academia, or some other profession that makes them interesting and offbeat (some are financially well off and some not). So I am continually aware of my mediocrity. So whereas my various former coworkers from Queens or New Jersey might have thought I was unusual or offbeat because I sang or twirled a baton in a gold sequinned dress - or even because I went to the opera, no one in these Upper West side churches is going to think that. Why should anyone ask me about myself when there are bona fide Broadway performers, professional musicians, professors of music, art, and English literature, and people with the money to travel all over the world whom they can chat up, interview, or ask to give a talk? I feel that I have absolutely nothing of interest about me to offer anyone. I don't mean that I am unlovable or unlikable (I seem to make friends easily and I know of three people who have said they are in love with me) I just mean that I am not interesting. I am not an authority on anything, a go-to person about anything, or a micropundit (like some of the friends I have on Facebook who opine about everything from racism to the quality of the Tony nominees, who each have a virtual claque that hangs on their every word).
Common wisdom has it that people feel better about themselves when they spend time with people who are less fortunate than they are. I have always thought that was a load of bunk, because I have a significant other who is less fortunate than I am in every way and I am immersed in her problems up to my eyeballs and it makes me sad, but it doesn't particularly make me feel better about myself. I mean as I have said, I do feel grateful when I think of people living in poverty, the homeless, people who are seriously ill or who have lost loved ones in tragedies. But I can't say it does anything for my self-esteem. Maybe I should redefine "less fortunate". Maybe I would feel better about myself if I spent more time with people who were less talented than I am, have more boring jobs than I do, who read less, and who would be fascinated by the things I know (never even mind my singing). But I don't know these people. They don't live on the Upper West Side.
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