So this afternoon I took a break from work to listen to a tv interview with the (drop dead gorgeous) pastor at the church where I sing.
A lot of the thrust of the discussion had to do with the role of women in the church, the lack of female role models at the time she was ordained, how she dealt with her "call" in the absence of these, and what that call consisted of. I am not going to post a link to the interview here, mostly because it is almost a half hour long, but one thing she mentioned about her "call" was that in the Lutheran tradition it is considered important for there to be both an internal and an external "call". That means that not only was it important that she felt called to the ministry, but that other people should perceive her as being suitable for it.
So therein lies the heart of some of my deep sadness about missed opportunities as a singer. The lack of an external call. Oh, there were external calls, mostly when I was much younger, but they were few and far between and never loud enough to compete with my generation's exhortation to "turn on, tune in, and drop out", to smoke to stay thin, and to "be" an intellectual, engaged with the issues of the day, not with something as self-absorbed as the pursuit of excellence in classical music. (Don't get me wrong. As I've said many times, my mother and her circle adored classical music, but it was meant as something to listen to after a day's work in a classroom or at the typewriter, not as a personal pursuit.)
And the external call mostly petered out by the time I turned 21. Even though I began studying singing seriously the first time at 26, that was too late for me to matter. And my whole heart wasn't in it. True, I was no longer smoking, but I was still starving myself to fit into a size 30 jeans and spending long evenings at Lesbian discos.
I am now coming up on the tenth anniversary of my "discovery" by the Mentor. I think why that was such a cataclysmal event in my life was that it was the first external call to singing that I'd had in a very, very, long time and it was neither elicited nor sought. I had begun going to that Unitarian church to go to church, not to sing. If we want to be picky, it is now beyond the date of my "discovery", which probably happened in the summer of 2003, but it was the sumptuous "Mon Coeur" that changed everything. Which may explain why I am so (inexplicably) sympathetic to Miss Kansas. Maybe singing "Nessun Dorma" badly lit a fire under her that singing "Caro Mio Ben" in a studio with a vocal pedagogue never would. Maybe she will start again and do that now that the fire has been lit. Would I have continued to be obsessed with singing for a decade if I had been asked to sing "Amazing Grace" instead of being coaxed and seduced with an image of my own lusciousness in a seethrough lace top singing one of the sexiest arias ever written? Possibly not.
It is the external call that I still crave. That is why I am happy with the woman who is helping me produce Carmen and sing Spanish songs. More than half the people who show up at her meetups have never even had a formal voice lesson, so in that milieu I feel special.
I am also facing a choir dilemma. Last Sunday we sang a piece in 8 parts and, for the first time ever, there were four other second sopranos, including one "ringer" (not a trained singer, but an instrumentalist who can sing pleasantly in tune and can sightread). Why on earth was she needed in my section. When I told her I was surprised she wasn't singing alto (where more people are needed) I am not sure she understood but she mentioned two women by name in the first soprano section, saying that their voices are "so strong". Hello??? I can sing loud enough to drown both of them out any day of the week. Now I will say with all humility that my voice is in no way as lovely certainly as the 21 year old conservatory student's. But strong??? I know this sounds idiotic, but I was really hurt.
I just am not all that excited about singing there any more. If I am not noticed, even as someone with a big, obviously trained, voice who can hold a part with confidence, why am I even doing this? On the other hand, I don't want to skip rehearsal because of the weather. That just makes me look old and dilettantish. I will be there whatever the weather, unless I get a "call" from somewhere else to do something else, which I hope is more often than used to be. I think the woman who produced the last Sunday concert will be producing another - in March. I hope I can sing there with my Don Jose.
And now I need to get onto finding a reader.
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