The other problem was that the engineer decided it would work better if he recorded the piano accompaniment separately, and then had me sing using it as a soundtrack. This was challenging also, as I had not rehearsed that way, and had relied on the accompanist to cover for me if I came in late or early.
There is one spot that I have trouble with over and over (I wouldn't if I could drill it at home with an accompaniment) and so of course the fourth time I sang the A section with the prerecorded accompaniment (I had already recorded it twice for the regular version and once for the pianissimo version) I got off at that spot, and because the prerecorded accompaniment just galloped ahead without me, I asked to stop, just assuming that the engineer could either erase it and let me start again (at the beginning of the A section) or just splice in the first pianissimo version of the A section (because in Bach you don't ornament the reprise, so it would have been perfectly usable). Anyhow, I am not sure what the problem was, but he said he was not sure he could erase and splice (I was reassured that was his problem not mine; the accompanist said he had never recorded a 6 minute aria without splicing somewhere). So we left it that he would try to do this at his computer and if he couldn't, I could come to his studio some time after New Year and sing against the prerecorded accompaniment (and I would have it at home to rehearse with also).
I am rather surprised I have not heard from him (he thought the filmmaker would call or email him to discuss how things went), but maybe no news is good news.
I did write to the filmmaker the next day to thank her for asking me to sing. Apparently she is going to enter the film in the Cannes festival in March, so this is quite an ambitious project. I am not regretful that I didn't ask to be paid, though, because she is putting it together on a shoestring. She will pay the accompanist, and that will suffice.
She wrote back to me and said that she had had a few screenings of parts of the film in Paris with live music (a choir is singing something in the film as well). So I told her if she shows the film here, anywhere between DC, New York, and Boston, that I can get to on Amtrak, I will be happy to sing (with the prerecorded accompaniment, obviously). I suppose in that case I will ask her to pay for my transportation out of the film budget. It will mean an opportunity to go somewhere which I have so few of (really none).
So now what's up next is "O Magnum Mysterium". I will be singing that in church on December 27. I am quite amazed at how well I can sing all those high climaxes. I can keep my mouth small and sort of drink them in backwards, without a lot of tension and push, which is a whole new experience for me. I got my first taste of it when I worked on the Amneris/Radames duet and was able to easily wail out those B flats if I imagined myself going backwards on a roller coaster.
Of course there is always an underlying sadness that all this is too little too late. I so want to cut and run with this and do nothing else and be young enough that it matters to the world out there, and that I can throw myself into the world out there because I don't have to take care of other people. Really just one other person. But I could never ever live with myself if I walked away from loving her and caring for her. It just would be nice to have a peer relationship with someone like all those singers who are married to each other or to other musicians or, even better, to "mentor" figures like conductors and producers, and who have a "team" in a flurry around them fussing with every aspect of their lives.
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