Since Maya Angelou died recently, a lot has been written about her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Thinking about the title of this book reminded me of a song that I had almost as turbulent a relationship with as I had with Dalila's "Mon Coeur": "Green Finch and Linnet Bird".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBnNyL5O0Tc&feature=youtu.be
I laughingly referred to it as "the Caregiver's National Anthem" even though it is written to be sung by a young ingenue (although as it sits in my comfortable range of middle C to high G, I have sung it and I believe I have sung it well although I sound nothing like the woman in the Youtube clip).
For years I felt like Joanna: trapped with someone elderly in a passionless life. In fact, in some of my earlier online communities, my "tag" was "if I cannot fly, let me sing".
This song was, in fact, my final battleground with The Mentor. He coached me through it ridiculing me and mocking me, screaming and making faces, and, before we were finished, telling me I looked like Norma Desmond.
(When it came time for me to actually sing the piece - in a church fundraiser - he was notably AWOL. In any event, it was after that session that I decided that he and I needed to call it quits.)
I have had various degrees of identification with this song over the years, and yes, although my life is no longer passionless, I still sometimes feel like a prisoner. But I know I am not. And I haven't had any impulse to sing this in a long time.
The import of my original Facebook posting was that I had wondered if Sondheim had seen (or read) the Angelou memoir when he wrote this song because of course, the theme of it is "Why the Caged Bird Sings".
Later, when I entered an online writing contest (one thing I am proud of that carried over from the pseudonymous blog that I eventually deleted) one of the "prompts" was "the Caged Bird" (was this also an homage to Angelou?) I wrote a three page short story about my experiences working in the "Data Factory", which was, I guess, a short version of my Cinderella play, which I have let languish. The story was published in an anthology called Idol Meanderings.
If I am not Joanna, I am definitely Amneris these days, with or without those dreaded B flats. I had a voice lesson Tuesday for the first time in almost a month. I sang through most of the Amneris/Radames duet (that is what my teacher wanted). It sounded as if the role had been written for me except - what else! - when I got to the section with the dreaded ascending scale I panicked, started breathing shallowly (if at all) and pretty much blew it although I did hit the note on pitch. Of course when I went back and only sang the few measures leading up to the phrase itself it sounded like gangbusters. Now, what my teacher told me to do (this surprised me) was to start at the beginning of the duet, singing as well as I know I can (and he told me the way most of this role is written is ideal for my voice) and then, well, just keep singing well, with my larynx down and my throat open, and my support working, and see what happens when I get there, but not to obsess and panic and spoil the rest of the piece. And if it doesn't work, he said then I can go back and sing the phrase by itself. (And in a few minutes, I will do just that!)
And: at last night's choir practice I sounded really good. There is a piece we will be singing with a high A flat and it was like, easy peasy. (Now the question is will it be that easy at 7:50 am when I have to give it a whirl in my bathroom before leaving the house?)
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