A few days after I wrote my last post, my friend Abbie died. I didn't hear about it until the following Friday, from her older daughter. It is all a shock. I decided to wait to tell my partner until Sunday (Palm Sunday) when I would be at her house. She took it pretty well. And she will forget. There are days when she doesn't remember that my mother is dead, or that her sister is dead. It turns out that the cancer Abbie had was in the liver and pancreas, which rapidly becomes fatal. When she wrote to me she used the word "abdominal" which I took to mean "stomach cancer", which is why I was surprised, because that is a type of cancer that many people survive.
Less important, but to me shocking, is that no one has done anything about submitting an obituary to any news outlet. I have Googled her every day and there is nothing. Abbie had written three memoirs, a novel, numerous magazine articles, and had a Wikipedia page (I don't know who managed that). I also am surprised that she hadn't written her own obituary. My mother (who was not a "personage" like Abbie but thought she was) had one at the ready at least a decade before she died, so that I could send it to the TIMES. All I can think of was that Abbie was modest and perhaps her daughters (one lives on the Left Coast, the other deep in Trump Country) aren't interested in their mother's legacy.
The day after I heard that Abbie had died, I sang the Schubert "Ave Maria" at the funeral I mentioned. It went well. The Good Friday music is going well. As an aside, it seems that after three months of struggling with asthma and experimenting with how to treat it, it is gone. Perhaps it is seasonal. I was at the point where I was using the inhaler every day. I would say that I had some kind of upper airway distress almost every day between December 27 and April 10. Fingers crossed. In any event, that underscores why it is a good idea for me not to plan concerts during that period. And other than florid pieces like "Rejoice Greatly" I think it would be a good idea for me to stay away from singing anything with exposed high notes in public during that period.
I have the alto line in two solo quartets from the Missa Solemnis. I was disappointed not to be given the third (and in some ways the loveliest) solo part, which was given to a woman in the alto section with a pretty, small voice (sort of like a boy soprano). I suppose the choir director wanted that kind of sound at the very end (she is singing "Agnus Dei" which is the last thing we sing). I do love my solo quartets, particularly "Christe Eleison". And of course the new dramatic soprano is singing all the soprano solos. She sounds fabulous. Having her there doesn't get under my skin the way having "Little Miss" there did. Dramatic Sop is enough older (she is 30 or 31 and conducts herself like someone older) that I can sort of look at her as a mentor (if I feel like) not an irksome wunderkind. On the other hand, of course I am green with envy. There is nothing that assuages the heartache of wishing I could go back and do it over. 1964 would be a good place to start. Don't smoke, don't try to be "hip", ignore your mother pushing you to be "with it", and honor your talent.
In other (good) news, I finally heard back from the two places I had contacted about putting on a concert. One is someplace I have sung before. So I need to get back in my high dramatic mezzo groove. My teacher will be singing with me and we will probably sing the Anna Bolena duet. First up is the little mini concert in May where I will be singing the "Drinking Song" from Lucretia Borgia.
And on a totally unrelated topic, I may be a media spokesperson for events to do with the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.
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