Reading Merimee and Making Plans

Well, let's hope that maybe after all that sturm and drang of last week I have some new readers.

I am now moving on with my life as a high level serious avocational classical singer (I hate the word "amateur" because of all the negative connotations; even if I don't get paid to sing I am not "amateurish").  This is, of course, going to include Carmen.

Auditioning to sing the "Habanera" for a high school glee club teacher 49 years ago was the beginning of a powerful relationship (not quite a love affair; that was with Dalila).  She hoped to get the students at this inner city Brooklyn high school interested in opera by having a girl sing the "Habanera" and a boy sing the "Toreador Song" in the annual assembly.  At that time I didn't much like opera.  I loved Julie Andrews, and Gilbert and Sullivan, and of course all the rock music of my generation, mostly Motown and early Beatles, although if I was going to sing I wanted to sound like a sweet lyric soprano (and that sound is still there, somewhere at the core of my voice, giving it perfect intonation, whatever else it lacks).

Four girls auditioned for the spot.  Let's just say that the other three looked like Beyonce or J. Lo, and well, I looked like me: pale brown hair (the red ain't natural, folks), pale skin, and green eyes.  One of the other girls got the spot: she sang it like a pop song.  I probably sang it like Julie Andrews singing "Wouldn't it be Loverly", which was no doubt equally inappropriate.  That was the year my mother's music teacher friend told me I had an exceptional voice.  It was also the year I started smoking.  So things were spoiled before they had even begun (p.s., the chosen "Carmen" smoked, too).

It is basically a very easy role to sing other than the B natural in the "Sequidilla" which I may avoid by transposing that page down a half or a whole step.  I have until April to decide.

Moving forward to the present, I finished reading the Merimee novella, and have decided rather than pursuing my original idea which was to sing scenes from Carmen (with a tenor) and ask another singer to do something else for the other half of the program, I would instead get someone who does dramatic readings to read excerpts from the novella interspersed with my (and the tenor's) singing excerpts from the opera.  I already asked one woman from the church who directs the annual Good Friday Passion Play and who used to perform in it, if she was interested and she said she didn't think so (perfectly fine!) but I will keep looking.  There is another woman from the church who is a few years older than I am who used to be a professional actress and now is in another career and wants to perform in "community theater" if she is interested or might know someone who is.  As for the tenor, I know someone who sang Don Jose at the pay to sing that my teacher is involved with from time to time (he doesn't pay - he sings whatever part is needed), who also sang Manrico in the scene from Trovatore when I sang Azucena.  He might be interested.  Or I could ask the tenor who sang in the Requiem although he might think it isn't enough singing for him.  But you never know.  And if my tenor wants to find me a Micaela that would be great, too, although she isn't in the book!

I learned some interesting things from the novella.  First as to how Carmen looks.  Yes she does have black hair.  One bit of constructive criticism I got about the video was that that black wig was not flattering.  My partner said I should have worn a slightly subtler color, maybe a dark brown.  I know when I looked at pictures online some of the Carmens had brown hair not black.  (Great!  This will give me an excuse to buy a new wig; I can get one for less than $25 somewhere.)  Someone else said why did I need black (or dark brown) hair at all, that it was about what the composer intended about the music.  Hmmm.  I think if you're singing Carmen in a bookstore people want to see you in a costume.  "Outside the box" type things (like the wonderful IMHO at least) movie of Carmen with Anne Sofie von Otter are for a highly specialized audience who have seen more traditional interpretations first.

One interesting little bit of business in the von Otter Carmen is she sings the "Habanera" while eating an orange.  Well, oranges factor big in the novella.  I guess because it is set in Seville?  A lot of them get eaten, sold, or given as gifts.

Oh, and in addition to having black hair, Carmen has perfect white teeth.  It's funny.  One Carmen who surprisingly left me cold was Elina Garanca even though I have loved hearing her sing Rossini and am sorry she did not sing Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena. She looked too soubretty and I found the closeups of her perfect white teeth very un-Carmenlike.  But I guess I was wrong there.  I guess you don't need to spend thousands of dollars at a dentist to have beautiful white teeth.  Some people must just be born with them.

Well, so it is back to work now. If anyone is wondering, I work very hard.

ETA: I did some more research on Elina Garanca and am very interested in this CD. The woman producing the September 12 concert that I am in specializes in Spanish song and some of these might be sexy and fun to sing. I am going to ask her if she knows this CD and what she thinks of the song selection. And I may buy it.