Thumbs up and Thumbs Down

I'm off to sing the second soprano part in a very complex piece by Randall Thompson, but - as I was starting to tank thinking about all the "thumbs down" items on this list, I thought it would be good to have a post-Carmen check-in, and include all the "thumbs up" items as well.

Thumbs Up

1. I have tentatively begun revisiting the Amneris/Radames duet with the two exposed high B flats.  Per teacher's instructions, I am not trying to sing it all the way through.  I am singing pieces of it.  Everything sounds really good (ideally suited to my voice) until I get to "Chi ti salva" and then just the pure pace of the thing keeps me from maintaining the right energy balance.  So I am isolating that section working backward, measure by measure.  I can sing the reprise (beginning with the second "dei miei pianti") just fine.  So the tension must creep in before that.  Certainly the note sounds much much better than several years ago.  And I tried a bit of "happy", which seems to give me the extra energy boost I desperately need.  My goal is, unless I have a definite date to sing something, to stick with perfecting this rep for a while and keep my voice in that "big" place.
2. Last Wednesday I had a ball at choir practice.  Why?  I was the only second soprano.  Sure, I love all my pals, but there's nothing I love like showing people that I can hold a part like that (which is in the best part of my voice) on my own.  So I need to do that again in a few hours, and sing the opening high G (all the sopranos are together) with a big, but not a loud sound.  I proved Wednesday I could do that too, for the most part, although after four counts I know the note starts to get screamy because it takes more support to keep it spinning than to holler it.
 3. I emailed the young violinist about singing "Erfreute Zeit" in August.

Thumbs Down

A propos of the concert my teacher (and my Don Jose) are singing in, I see that DJ posted an invite to it on his Facebook page.  Did he post an invite to our Carmen?  No.  You see, this is what I mean about people not taking me seriously.  At least he didn't nasty-nicely tell me not to post a picture from it on his wall, which is the sort of thing other people I know might have done.


Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down

From the above-referenced post, I see that the mezzo my teacher is using is someone very high level.  So, OK, I can't complain this time that he picked someone no better than I am.  She sang both Dalila and Kundry in Parsifal with him at one point.  But the issue still remains that he doesn't think it part of his job as a teacher to create concerts where I could sing even one or two things.  (Most of his other students are people he picks up from the pay to sing group he is involved with, so they already have a ready made place to sing.)  So, again, there's the issue of not being taken seriously.


Well, the best way I can show that I take myself seriously is to warm up to a high A, and be in tip top shape for Randall.