This afternoon I sang my 2018 recital program for the third time. It was at a new senior residence, with a room that was too small for me to invite guests, although the piano was good. I didn't feel that I sang as well as the first two times (my highest notes didn't sound as good) but my teacher said that the problem was that the room had a low ceiling which muffled the sound, so that my voice didn't "spin".
But the audience was appreciative, except for one woman who glared and only applauded selectively (she did not applaud for "Tanti Affetti" but did for "Cruda Sorte" and "Mon Coeur"), and then left.
I certainly would be happy to sing there again.
I think this is the last time for this particular program, and I may retire "Tanti Affetti" for quite some time now.
My teacher and I are discussing reviving our 2015 concert of duets. We may replace the Gioconda material with a duet from Favorita, which means that I will sing the aria from Favorita as well. Actually, I should call it Favorite, because my teacher is singing one of the bass roles in French, so he will give me a copy of the music for the duet and my aria in French.
And if we do that particular concert we will do the Enrico/Giovanna duet from Anna Bolena, which I love.
Something I realized yesterday is that I am probably happier now than I have been in close to 15 years. I was very happy for the most part in my 30s and 40s (I was not singing then, but did a lot of traveling and socializing and had one "fun" job, which, although mainly about paper pushing, had all sorts of meetings, lunches, and business trips interspersed between the dull work, which was how things were back before the Internet. I mean I love the Internet, but it definitely drained all the "social" out of a lot of boring jobs.) In my 50s I was happy somewhat, but my relationship with my partner definitely had begun to deterioriate. I was working very hard at a senior management job, and coming home and making dinner because - what - she had arthritis??? And she was becoming more and more disagreeable. Then I discovered singing, and The Mentor, and all bets were off. I became someone else. I don't want to rehash all that here; I have done it enough. During that period I was often euphoric, so I suppose that was a form of happiness, but then everything came crashing down. My relationship with him became abusive, I found the minister to be unsympathetic, and she decided to do away with all the classical music. So I was pretty much vocally homeless. I discovered (over a period of 10 years at least) that no matter how well I thought I sang, I would never be competitive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where as soon as one group of "emerging professionals" moved on, another took their place. No "amateur" opera group wanted me; they could get professionals. And I felt beset on all sides. If I wanted to produce something myself it was hard to get people to come (who would want to come to a homemade concert of opera scenes if they could hear real music - aka someone's senior recital at one of the three conservatories here?)
And on top of all that I had taken early retirement from my job (which I had come to hate) only to replace it with working at home, alone, at my laptop hour after hour, taking breaks by reading blogs of real singers who were never in the same city for more than a few weeks and endlessly posted pictures of themselves in costume or solicited feedback on their latest head shots. And I felt totally misunderstood. If I posted or blogged things about how unhappy my colorless life was making me, I was told to just "pull up my socks" because of all the people who had suffered major tragedies who nonetheless always had a full social calendar (I am thinking of one woman in particular who trashed me in a comment to a personal blog - not this one - when she hardly knew me).
Things began to improve when I turned 66 and could collect Social Security. I decided that I would never have a "dream career" (musical or not) so I just had to hold my nose, spend 20 hours a week at home copyediting, and then fill my life with nonremunerative activities that I found fulfilling. Then my partner got on Medicaid. In some ways, my life as a caregiver looks harder, because I am responsible for coordinating her round the clock care and managing her business affairs, but it really isn't. I'm an unpaid Geriatric Care Manager, which is certainly a much more interesting "job" than being a full-time freelance copyeditor (being a part-time one I can stomach) and more importantly, I feel that what I do matters. I am making the end of someone's life more comfortable and sweeter than it would be otherwise.
As for singing, ironically, despite the fact that I keep singing better and better, that singing is easier and easier, my range is wider, and I have more stamina, I have made my peace with the fact that there is no place for me in the "world" of singing as singers (I mean the "Forum Crowd") experience it. That's OK. I have made a specialty now of singing in nursing homes. The audiences are appreciative and I don't have to worry if my friends do or don't come. Some of the facilities are large enough to accommodate guests, others are not, but for the ones that are, if five of my friends come, that's enough. And I even got some nice videos. I don't go to the opera, even though it's around the corner. And while I would go to something at Lincoln Center if someone bought me a ticket (or someone wanted to go and we made it a social thing), I will never go to any performances by all those opera companies that rejected me. And except for a handful of people who have gone out of their way to be supportive and nice, I have unfriended all the singers I once friended because I envied and admired them. My mornings with Facebook are much happier now that most of my interactions (usually with people from church or former coworkers) involve more parity and less of a feeling that I am an unwanted tagalong, only suffered if I know my place.
For now, anyhow, I am contented being a small town girl who just happened to be born in a big city and never moved.
Monday, July 23, 2018
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Ditch the Sports Car
I haven't written in a while, despite having had a satisfyingly successful time singing my Bach cantata aria last Sunday. I sang well, and had the delightful surprise of a viola da gamba accompaniment as well as the organ. And people applauded which they never to after a church solo unless it's something bouncy.
But this article caught my eye. It even mentions The Artist's Way, a program that my therapist recommended, which helped me more than anything I became involved in after AA and The Well Spouse.
Yes, I suppose I do fit the profile featured in this article, down to producing several charity concerts (although my takings were in the $100s not $1000s) and my current specialization of singing in nursing homes.
The one thing this article does not mention, however, is what happens when you discover a passion in midlife that you're obviously good at but not as good as the people who are really good at it, who, even if they don't do it for a living, do it as well as the people who are doing it for a living, all went to the same schools, and all know each other?
The exhilaration that I found at first realizing that I could not only sing Dalila but be Dalila at a tiny church "talent show" was quickly followed by years of rage, envy, and despair as a result of not only being rejected at auditions, but also being attacked on all sides by sharks and snarks when I tried to "join the club". I was rejected by all ten or so "amateur" opera companies here because I was too old, too inexperienced, and not polished enough, and was alternately laughed at and ignored by what I call the "Forum Crowd" (a group of lower level professional and semi professional singers who have in common that they all seem to have music performance degrees and hate wannabees, amateurs who are too big for their britches, and anyone without their credentials who thinks she can converse with her betters like a peer.) (And as I wrote this, looking for a link, I saw that their new message board is closed and requires a log in.)
I suppose a Saturday night painter can paint alone, but you can't really sing alone. There's only so far you can go singing arias in your living room, particularly considering that appreciation is pretty thin on the ground if you live, like I do, around the corner from Lincoln Center and have neighbors who go to the Met every week.
So I sing in a church choir, and am a church soloist. The irony of course is that both my parents were atheists (my mother defined herself as a secular Jew) and I am not Baptised. But it is a nice niche. There are real professional singers who cycle in and out of there but they move on to greener pastures or have limited time for solo opportunities. The older retired professionals (I'm thinking of one) are very "been there, done that". Who is going to sing a solo in the summer if they can go away?
And I produce concerts in nursing homes. I have done two since May and will be doing a third next week. And my teacher, who is now back to singing bass-baritone again, is already thinking of a concert of duets (some old some new) that we can do in the Fall or next Spring.
And of course I'm still waiting to be the subject of an op-ed or other newspaper story, like the singer featured today.
But this article caught my eye. It even mentions The Artist's Way, a program that my therapist recommended, which helped me more than anything I became involved in after AA and The Well Spouse.
Yes, I suppose I do fit the profile featured in this article, down to producing several charity concerts (although my takings were in the $100s not $1000s) and my current specialization of singing in nursing homes.
The one thing this article does not mention, however, is what happens when you discover a passion in midlife that you're obviously good at but not as good as the people who are really good at it, who, even if they don't do it for a living, do it as well as the people who are doing it for a living, all went to the same schools, and all know each other?
The exhilaration that I found at first realizing that I could not only sing Dalila but be Dalila at a tiny church "talent show" was quickly followed by years of rage, envy, and despair as a result of not only being rejected at auditions, but also being attacked on all sides by sharks and snarks when I tried to "join the club". I was rejected by all ten or so "amateur" opera companies here because I was too old, too inexperienced, and not polished enough, and was alternately laughed at and ignored by what I call the "Forum Crowd" (a group of lower level professional and semi professional singers who have in common that they all seem to have music performance degrees and hate wannabees, amateurs who are too big for their britches, and anyone without their credentials who thinks she can converse with her betters like a peer.) (And as I wrote this, looking for a link, I saw that their new message board is closed and requires a log in.)
I suppose a Saturday night painter can paint alone, but you can't really sing alone. There's only so far you can go singing arias in your living room, particularly considering that appreciation is pretty thin on the ground if you live, like I do, around the corner from Lincoln Center and have neighbors who go to the Met every week.
So I sing in a church choir, and am a church soloist. The irony of course is that both my parents were atheists (my mother defined herself as a secular Jew) and I am not Baptised. But it is a nice niche. There are real professional singers who cycle in and out of there but they move on to greener pastures or have limited time for solo opportunities. The older retired professionals (I'm thinking of one) are very "been there, done that". Who is going to sing a solo in the summer if they can go away?
And I produce concerts in nursing homes. I have done two since May and will be doing a third next week. And my teacher, who is now back to singing bass-baritone again, is already thinking of a concert of duets (some old some new) that we can do in the Fall or next Spring.
And of course I'm still waiting to be the subject of an op-ed or other newspaper story, like the singer featured today.
Monday, July 2, 2018
Why the Fallout from the Falling Out Described in My Last Post is So Relevant Right Now
I, who usually post and blog mindlessly (often saying things that I later regret or would be embarrassed to say out loud to people in person) have been uncharacteristically silent for the past few weeks.
The reason is that there is a whole litany of nightmarish things that have been going on, about which I simply have nothing to say. This does not mean that I don't care about them or don't have feelings about them; it simply means that I am not articulate about issues involving the larger world. I am articulate about myself, other people I know, social dynamics, psychological dynamics, and maybe issues that really hit close to home, like class, but what can I possibly say about children in cages, the danger posed by a vacant Supreme Court seat, or the monstrousness of shooting journalists?
It seems that since joining Facebook, I find myself surrounded not only with superachievers with graduate degrees, but also with people who can adroitly opine about everything in the news, and who regularly post and share articles, photos, and clever justapositions of truths. I am just not good at that. I never was. If I was "present" in school at all, I was the literary one, not the girl most likely to be voted class President. In my senior year in high school (which I mostly binge-dieted, necked and petted, and played hookey through) I took an extra foreign language, not journalism or Problems of American Democracy.
I was comfortable in AA and some of the women's discussion groups I belonged to because I could be good with words describing my feelings and asking about other people's. In fact, talking about politics or anything ideological that did not involve making an "I" statement was forbidden in those groups.
Probably part of my addiction to complaining is that I write well when I have a personal complaint (or a triumph to share); less so when I am talking about an "issue". Other people do that better.
But because of the ugly way that I was dumped into the garbage by LC, I now feel very gun shy about talking about my own life when so many things are going on the world. I am also not that good at doing much about them. I live in a state where my two senators and my congressional representative will vote the way I want them to in almost every instance.
I don't go on demonstrations and I don't feel guilty. The most important thing I can do on a Saturday is be with my partner because that is what I have promised her. If it weren't the height of hubris to paraphrase Jesus, I would say "demonstrations will always be with us, but she [my partner] is only here for a short while."
In other news: singing is going well. My solo for July 8 is an aria from a Bach cantata, which I rehearsed this past Sunday. I love it, and am flattered that the Director of Music Ministries picked it out for me. I also bought a book of art songs and spirituals by Florence Price. I am very excited about learning some of these. The Director of Music says he will look over some of the selections, to see if there are any I could sing some time.
And I asked the man from church who made several videos before to make one of my July 8 solo.
The reason is that there is a whole litany of nightmarish things that have been going on, about which I simply have nothing to say. This does not mean that I don't care about them or don't have feelings about them; it simply means that I am not articulate about issues involving the larger world. I am articulate about myself, other people I know, social dynamics, psychological dynamics, and maybe issues that really hit close to home, like class, but what can I possibly say about children in cages, the danger posed by a vacant Supreme Court seat, or the monstrousness of shooting journalists?
It seems that since joining Facebook, I find myself surrounded not only with superachievers with graduate degrees, but also with people who can adroitly opine about everything in the news, and who regularly post and share articles, photos, and clever justapositions of truths. I am just not good at that. I never was. If I was "present" in school at all, I was the literary one, not the girl most likely to be voted class President. In my senior year in high school (which I mostly binge-dieted, necked and petted, and played hookey through) I took an extra foreign language, not journalism or Problems of American Democracy.
I was comfortable in AA and some of the women's discussion groups I belonged to because I could be good with words describing my feelings and asking about other people's. In fact, talking about politics or anything ideological that did not involve making an "I" statement was forbidden in those groups.
Probably part of my addiction to complaining is that I write well when I have a personal complaint (or a triumph to share); less so when I am talking about an "issue". Other people do that better.
But because of the ugly way that I was dumped into the garbage by LC, I now feel very gun shy about talking about my own life when so many things are going on the world. I am also not that good at doing much about them. I live in a state where my two senators and my congressional representative will vote the way I want them to in almost every instance.
I don't go on demonstrations and I don't feel guilty. The most important thing I can do on a Saturday is be with my partner because that is what I have promised her. If it weren't the height of hubris to paraphrase Jesus, I would say "demonstrations will always be with us, but she [my partner] is only here for a short while."
In other news: singing is going well. My solo for July 8 is an aria from a Bach cantata, which I rehearsed this past Sunday. I love it, and am flattered that the Director of Music Ministries picked it out for me. I also bought a book of art songs and spirituals by Florence Price. I am very excited about learning some of these. The Director of Music says he will look over some of the selections, to see if there are any I could sing some time.
And I asked the man from church who made several videos before to make one of my July 8 solo.
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