I certainly have always felt that way. The worse I feel about my singing (either from a technical standpoint or just in terms of where I fit in the bigger picture) the more blog posts I write.
Why am I feeling bad? I have been singing better and haven't had any more asthma attacks. The Bolena duet sounds good. I am learning the December Songs. I may even try to do something with Winterreise around my 70th birthday. I can start planning on my 69th. Thursday I will bite the bullet and ask the choir director if there are any "solo bits" on Good Friday. I don't expect anything as perfect as what I got last year. I would be happy with the alto line in a solo quartet or trio. I think what makes me nervous is that something has given me an inkling (our last writing assigment in a writing contest I am in was "inkling"; now I'm realizing I could have used the inkling I'm about to mention) that the choir director has been talking to the new dramatic soprano about Good Friday, which does not make me feel great. Even last year when he assigned me the solo I didn't know about it until we had been working on the music for several weeks as a group.
Certain people are always "triggers". Unfortunately, one of the women I "unfriended" on Facebook (or she unfriended me) because I said something about singers being self-involved, which she didn't like, is the friend of someone who is a dear friend of mine on Facebook. This dear friend is also a singer, but she is a good person and has been through a lot, and she was very helpful to me in choosing some lighter repertoire. (Of course part of me is sad that she has never said to me "You will really sing the daylights out of [fillintheblank with some impressive aria]" the way she has often said to Envy Trigger.)
Anyhow, Envy Trigger, who is probably in her late 30s, and has had her share of heartbreak and depression, nonetheless is now singing "big girl" opera roles here, there, and yonder (noplace stellar, and I don't know if any of it is for money) and I am not. I feel all that repertoire slipping away. I have a wider range than I ever had, but the stamina required to do that kind of singing continues to feel daunting. I can do it if "all the stars are in alignment", if not, not. I mean I can't second guess myself into the bottom of the alto section, the way a woman in my choir who is a few years older than I am has done. I'm sure she could sing more than she has been singing, but she has become so phobic (she also hasn't studied in years) that she now won't sing anything above an E and won't really sing solos anymore either. And on the few occasions when she's had a solo line she sounds very nervous. I won't let anything like that happen to me. Just because I blew that high A on a morning when I had an asthma attack doesn't spell doom. It was a one-off.
So I can sing sweet songs: Hoiby and Rorem and Maury Yeston. And a few arias here and there. I can still sing Rossini which flows trippingly off the tongue and doesn't seem to require the stamina needed to pack a punch at the end of, say, "Acerba Volutta".
I want so much to love my "small life" with my "small performance opportunities" and I pray for that willingness every day - but then there's Envy Trigger.
