The Year of Self-Esteem

At the beginning of this year, I made a number of  New Year's resolutions, most of which had to do with nurturing my self-esteem, as I wrote here.

I began with removing people from my Facebook friends list who never commented on anything I wrote, and continued on with my resolve by "unsubscribing" from the email list of opera companies that had treated me badly.  What's interesting is that in both instances I was asked why I was unsubscribing, and in the first instance I said I had been told by the director that I was too old (not because of how I looked - I was auditioning to sing La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica - but because I was not a "future investment") and in the second instance I said I had had an unpleasant experience with the company (the one with the orchestra that cast me as Mother Jeanne in Carmelites).  So "good riddance to bad rubbish" as they say.

The latest example of my resolve had to do with someone suggested to me for Micaela in Carmen. Now OK, this is my project, and I am sinking a certain amount of money into it, and this is OK (I would rather do this than audition for a pay to sing - I can choose what role I sing and when we rehearse, and people will treat me respectfully), but I have limits.  The accompanist is, of course charging me a (totally reasonable) fee, and as the tenor I am using is an experienced professional singer who is  probably not that much younger than I am (he is certainly over 40 at any rate) I am not expecting him to contribute.  But when he suggested someone for Micaela (who, based on the year she graduated from college is probably no more than 25 or 26) and she said she didn't want to contribute something (I prorated what I would charge her based on the percentage of singing she would be doing) I really blew my stack.  Not out loud, but enough to make me want to move to an island where no one is under 50, none of us had ever performed professionally, and we can have our own theater/opera company/concert venue or whatever. And I decided to make myself a Facebook "fan" page.  If this young squirt can have a web site full of gushing prose (probably written by her) I can certainly make myself into a public figure if that's what I long for.  Long ago my therapist said to me that I should do something like this.  Because so much of my life feels Wizard of Oz-ish in that the issue isn't that I don't have a voice, it's that I don't have a diploma or a testimonial.

Anyhow, I was hoping not to have to talk to her until I had spoken with the tenor, because she was his pick, but she called me on the phone.  I restrained myself from losing my temper, but instead said that "I would not like myself if  I let someone your age piggyback on a project that I had put a lot of time and money into."  She said she didn't want to "pay to sing" (which actually isn't what I asked her to do; the producer of this concert pointed out that if the young woman went to a coach to learn a role she would have to pay that person, so she could think of this rehearsal accompanist that way).  She did say she respected my honesty and wanted to come to the concert.  And I think she is working as a waitress.  She does seem to have gotten cast in one of those community opera productions of the sort that were not interested in me (this particular one doesn't ring a bell) and she has a lovely voice, but then so do lots of young women. I wonder where she will be at my age?  Any happier or more successful?

In other news, I was pleased to see that there will, in fact, be no solos for Good Friday.  The music by Mendelssohn that we are singing is taken from Elijah and other of his oratorios and is in four parts, so I am singing alto.  That is fine.  The part is mostly in a middle register (not down in the basement) and I can enjoy having the biggest voice in the alto section.  There are already three trained singers in the soprano section (who all sing first, so I am in my element leading second) and only one in the alto section who has had some health problems and does not sing out full voice all the time.  And I may still get a solo spot on Maundy Thursday.