Concert

Overall, the concert went well.  I sang well.  Of course I wasn't singing anything all that vocally challenging other than the Handel.  I made some (probably unnoticed) mistakes in the two most musically challenging pieces: the Jake Heggie/Sister Helen song  "Love is" and "Evergreen".

The biggest distraction (other than the piano being out of tune, which I didn't know because my accompanist couldn't come with me on the day that I was looking at the room, and anyhow I couldn't get to the piano that afternoon because someone was plunking on it) was a woman with Alzheimers, probably a former singer, who, like a dog responding to a whistle, sang along with me every time I hit a "high" note (meaning an F or an F sharp).  What she did, mostly, was sing the note an octave higher.  She really got going with this during "Love is", which was unfortunate, because I was having enough trouble.  She also did this all during "Mon Coeur", which annoyed some of my friends, but in that instance it didn't faze me because I could sing that aria in my sleep.

Several people sang along during the Gay 90s songs, which was fine, and my partner sang along during "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", which was what I wanted.

All the people who told me they were coming did come, and some have made videos, which they will get to me soon.

My teacher and his wife were there and he said he was "proud of me" for not letting the distraction of the woman singing break my concentration.  He called me a "pro". And then started talking about Trovatore, which made me happy.  He said he couldn't find a copy of the play in English that was reasonably priced (he found one online for $100) so he is going to see if he can find one in Italian and then his wife can translate it into English.

And before the concert started the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" to me because I had said that the concert was for my birthday.

So this was the special birthday I dreamed of, and it certainly makes up for last year.

The only fly in the ointment was I got an answer to my thank you note (in which I apologized for whatever I had said that had put her off) from LC that was incredibly smarmy.  She said her two most important values were being honest and being kind, but that she didn't feel she could tell me why she didn't want me to write to her without being hurtful, so she wasn't going to say anything,  Then she had the unmitigated gall to say she hoped we could part on good terms.  I wasn't going to write back, but I didn't want her to think she had "won" that battle; saying in a high-handed tone that she wasn't going to say the unkind thing she was thinking and then saying she hoped we could part on good terms.  I wrote three responses to her, each of which I deleted, before sending a final answer.  I basically said that she had already been hurtful, that I really didn't care if she disliked me, as she is not an integral part of my life, but that no, she can't have her "cake and eat it too" and no, we are no longer on good terms.  I felt that by encouraging me to do a lot of intimate sharing and then dumping me she had done a lot of damage.  So she can sit with that.  I deleted every email exchange we had had over the past two years, except for some Jacquie Lawson cards that she sent me, and of course I will keep the flowers.  So now it's time to move on.

I had a good solid practice session singing through "Stride la Vampa" and "Condotta".