My last post was about how well I felt I'd sung at the little Musicale. Well, there was a possibility that this could have led to our singing (if not that scene then something) at a more public concert next month but it's not to be.
I got an email from our hostess saying she wouldn't be able to use us in that concert, and it was a "closed" letter not an open one, meaning she wished us good luck, but did nothing to indicate that she would be interested in us in the future. (In other words, she didn't say the equivalent of "I'll keep your resume on file", which really often does mean the person's interested, they just don't have a spot.)
So now it's on to our concert at the nursing home in October. It will be a chance to sing, and seniors (particularly there) are very appreciative, but for example we were told we couldn't invite more than five guests apiece, so it's hardly a chance to exercise bragging rights.
To keep my hand in a broad range of things, I have been looking at some Dvorak sacred songs that I might do as choir solos. They're in the book for "high voice" because the only other alternative is the book for "low voice" which is too low. This particular collection doesn't come in "medium voice" which is what would be most appropriate. They're not too high, don't get me wrong. One of them has a high A marked "forte" and two of the others have Gs marked "forte" which is fine, but the choir director probably won't like that. Well, if he likes one of the songs and wants me to transpose it down a whole step that's fine (I think the songs in the book for "low voice" are a third lower.)
I must admit I haven't felt a lot like singing for the past week. My little Dachshund has a herniated disc and he's staying with my partner, to be away from my cats and keep her company. He's supposed to be on "crate rest" but he hates being confined which means she's stuck in the house with him for the most part. We were told he's not a good candidate for surgery since he's 12.
I have a lesson tomorrow and am signed up for one of these singing Meetups (group coachings) on Tuesday night, so maybe that will get my energy back up.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Amneris Take 2, or All's Well that Ends Well
I had a horrible night last night - woke up at 2:30 and didn't get back to sleep until 5, but I guess I made up for it by sleeping until 10. It took me a long time to warm up (I was really scared - it had been a long time since it had been that hard for me to sing light "bloos" up to a G) but after a cheese omelette and a slow morning (I also had a piece of fresh salmon on a sandwich and went light on the coffee) I did a good warmup up to a B and in any event the ending to the Judgment Scene went like a house afire. I think I really have stumbled upon something new where I can sing those top As big, fat, and round, with a lot of topspin.
And we sang the s**t out of the piece at this afternoon's little concert. The woman hosting it was lovely, her apartment is gorgeous, and the other performers were really nice and interesting. I felt good about how I sounded (and how my bass colleague sounded) and people gave me lots of compliments. Here are a few:
The role is perfect for you. Have you sung it anywhere? Do you know it?
You are so dramatic! (That's thanks to my observing the dynamic markings to a T. I didn't really do any acting since we were singing from books, other than raising my fist in the air and then collapsing in grief (after I had sung the last note).
You have a magnificent voice.
Well, I've waited 40 years for this. I just wish I felt this was "going" somewhere. I never forget that the clock is ticking faster and faster.
And we sang the s**t out of the piece at this afternoon's little concert. The woman hosting it was lovely, her apartment is gorgeous, and the other performers were really nice and interesting. I felt good about how I sounded (and how my bass colleague sounded) and people gave me lots of compliments. Here are a few:
The role is perfect for you. Have you sung it anywhere? Do you know it?
You are so dramatic! (That's thanks to my observing the dynamic markings to a T. I didn't really do any acting since we were singing from books, other than raising my fist in the air and then collapsing in grief (after I had sung the last note).
You have a magnificent voice.
Well, I've waited 40 years for this. I just wish I felt this was "going" somewhere. I never forget that the clock is ticking faster and faster.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Not a Good Pre-Performance Day
I had hoped to spend today doing a few simple chores for my partner, being snuggly with her and the dog, and resting for tomorrow's performance. (So ok, ok, to most of the Forum crowd, and the people auditioning for C and D houses, it's not a big deal, it's just a "Musicale" in someone's living room. But it's a big deal to me, as being the first time I'm singing the Judgment Scene (with 3 high As) in public.)
First of all, my partner lives in a Collyersoid dump full of papers and dust. Not to mention that almost anything is an occasion for a quarrel(if I want to be honest, I suppose she's my ex partner, but I try not to get too personal in this blog - I save that for "the other place").
And it finally came out why she hates everything to do with my singing (unless it's in church). It's because places where I might be singing are co-ed i.e. full of straight men
Which brings me back to the subject of earlier posts where I mentioned that being a Lesbian (actually I'm now a closet bi, but nevermind) trying to be successful in a mainstream art form, was so impossible.
The kind of Lesbian she is or wanted me to be, is really not that different from being Amish or Hassidic.
So now I just have to get a good night's sleep, eat healthily tomorrow, not have any aggro, and hope for the best. If nothing else, I sang really really well in yesterday's runthrough. I have really never sung high notes like that before.
First of all, my partner lives in a Collyersoid dump full of papers and dust. Not to mention that almost anything is an occasion for a quarrel(if I want to be honest, I suppose she's my ex partner, but I try not to get too personal in this blog - I save that for "the other place").
And it finally came out why she hates everything to do with my singing (unless it's in church). It's because places where I might be singing are co-ed i.e. full of straight men
Which brings me back to the subject of earlier posts where I mentioned that being a Lesbian (actually I'm now a closet bi, but nevermind) trying to be successful in a mainstream art form, was so impossible.
The kind of Lesbian she is or wanted me to be, is really not that different from being Amish or Hassidic.
So now I just have to get a good night's sleep, eat healthily tomorrow, not have any aggro, and hope for the best. If nothing else, I sang really really well in yesterday's runthrough. I have really never sung high notes like that before.
Friday, August 6, 2010
A Moment of Sadness
This needs be brief - I need to do one more runthrough of the Judgment Scene before Sunday.
I got an email today from the opera company that turned me down out of hand because I was too old (said they wanted singers with "future potential" whatever that means) and it made me sad. I mean it's one thing to decide I'm too old to play Erika in Vanessa. She is after all, the youngest in a three generation family. But to be too old to play La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica?? She could easily be my age and in any event everyone says I look about 45. I mean who the bloody Hell knows who has future potential??? One of the 30somethings could have three kids and call it quits. In any event, these people still keep me on their email list, so I heard about their upcoming Trittico
I was happy to see that two singers I know got leads. My guess is they are each in their late 30s, with big operatic voices that they're not ashamed to steer in that direction.
But you see that's who I wish I were. Not Olga Borodina or Dolora Zajick, although that would be nice.
Just a woman in my late 30s or early 40s with "promise".
I mean what promise do I have now? Every day that I can sing scenes from Amneris (or even just vocalize up to a solid high B)is stolen time, I know that.
I had a good lesson yesterday. My teacher was being picky and he said that note (my first crack at the high A at the end of the Judgment Scene) would have been good enough for last lesson but not this one. So he made me do it over and over, at least five times. It gets easier and easier to sing those notes big and full. (It also helps, beloved choir director forgive me!!, not to be squeezing my voice to blend in with the choir for a while.)
So now it's the countdown. One more runthrough of the (second half of) the Judgment Scene, then tomorrow is a rest day (I am staying with my partner and our dog) and then Sunday I'm on.
I pray that there's no crisis that keeps me from the concert (with two ill elderly people and now an ill elderly dog as well, it's dicey). And please send good vibes that I do my very best.
As for "future potential"? Well, I have what I have, folks!!
I got an email today from the opera company that turned me down out of hand because I was too old (said they wanted singers with "future potential" whatever that means) and it made me sad. I mean it's one thing to decide I'm too old to play Erika in Vanessa. She is after all, the youngest in a three generation family. But to be too old to play La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica?? She could easily be my age and in any event everyone says I look about 45. I mean who the bloody Hell knows who has future potential??? One of the 30somethings could have three kids and call it quits. In any event, these people still keep me on their email list, so I heard about their upcoming Trittico
I was happy to see that two singers I know got leads. My guess is they are each in their late 30s, with big operatic voices that they're not ashamed to steer in that direction.
But you see that's who I wish I were. Not Olga Borodina or Dolora Zajick, although that would be nice.
Just a woman in my late 30s or early 40s with "promise".
I mean what promise do I have now? Every day that I can sing scenes from Amneris (or even just vocalize up to a solid high B)is stolen time, I know that.
I had a good lesson yesterday. My teacher was being picky and he said that note (my first crack at the high A at the end of the Judgment Scene) would have been good enough for last lesson but not this one. So he made me do it over and over, at least five times. It gets easier and easier to sing those notes big and full. (It also helps, beloved choir director forgive me!!, not to be squeezing my voice to blend in with the choir for a while.)
So now it's the countdown. One more runthrough of the (second half of) the Judgment Scene, then tomorrow is a rest day (I am staying with my partner and our dog) and then Sunday I'm on.
I pray that there's no crisis that keeps me from the concert (with two ill elderly people and now an ill elderly dog as well, it's dicey). And please send good vibes that I do my very best.
As for "future potential"? Well, I have what I have, folks!!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Amneris, Take One
Yesterday I ran through the Judgment Scene with the bass and the piano. This is the first time I've sung this in front of anyone except my teacher. It went really well.
Now it's important to remember: Any time I'm singing something requiring this much vocal stamina (it's got three high As and three high G sharps....attainable notes for me but nothing I can toss off if I'm tired or improperly fed) I watch what I eat and everything else I do like a hawk.
I didn't set the alarm, ate a cheese omelette (no carb-y cereal for breakfast if it's a singing afternoon)got up and made some phone calls, did a little work (I work at home, so any day can be a work day, or not), dressed (not up, but since the rehearsal was in a church I wore a skirt), and had a nice warmup. I sang excercises up to a B (I really can stretch up to a C but it's often a squeal or a shriek so I didn't go there) and then sang the ending "Empia razza, etc etc" which has to pack a big punch.
Luckily, by the time rehearsal started the congregation had cleared out so we got to use the big piano in the sanctuary. There were a few challenges, but we did one complete runthrough, a second minus my "Empia razza" bit (once per rehearsal is enough for that! - I worry if I sing it when I'm tired I'll end up with a bad muscle memory), and then worked on bits and pieces, mostly the counterpart at the end, including my singing an ascending scale up to an A which I managed about four times, remembering to keep my larynx down and that it will not make it easier if I sing "lightly"!!
So we're good to go for Sunday. I have a lesson tomorrow, otherwise I don't want to fiddle with the piece too much because I like how it sounds.
P.S. While we were practicing I drank half a bottle of "Muscle Milk". This is very high in calories but I find drinking it keeps me perky and helps my stamina when I'm singing (coffee does not!!) so I always have one with me unless I'm singing alto in the choir which takes no energy at all. Today in Pilates class someone referred to me as "fit" which I found flattering. By my younger standards I'm huge (5 foot 3.5 and 140 pounds) but I really have very little flab on me except for a midriff bulge that is the result of having once been taller. I think I'm a good size and build for singing this repertoire.
Now it's important to remember: Any time I'm singing something requiring this much vocal stamina (it's got three high As and three high G sharps....attainable notes for me but nothing I can toss off if I'm tired or improperly fed) I watch what I eat and everything else I do like a hawk.
I didn't set the alarm, ate a cheese omelette (no carb-y cereal for breakfast if it's a singing afternoon)got up and made some phone calls, did a little work (I work at home, so any day can be a work day, or not), dressed (not up, but since the rehearsal was in a church I wore a skirt), and had a nice warmup. I sang excercises up to a B (I really can stretch up to a C but it's often a squeal or a shriek so I didn't go there) and then sang the ending "Empia razza, etc etc" which has to pack a big punch.
Luckily, by the time rehearsal started the congregation had cleared out so we got to use the big piano in the sanctuary. There were a few challenges, but we did one complete runthrough, a second minus my "Empia razza" bit (once per rehearsal is enough for that! - I worry if I sing it when I'm tired I'll end up with a bad muscle memory), and then worked on bits and pieces, mostly the counterpart at the end, including my singing an ascending scale up to an A which I managed about four times, remembering to keep my larynx down and that it will not make it easier if I sing "lightly"!!
So we're good to go for Sunday. I have a lesson tomorrow, otherwise I don't want to fiddle with the piece too much because I like how it sounds.
P.S. While we were practicing I drank half a bottle of "Muscle Milk". This is very high in calories but I find drinking it keeps me perky and helps my stamina when I'm singing (coffee does not!!) so I always have one with me unless I'm singing alto in the choir which takes no energy at all. Today in Pilates class someone referred to me as "fit" which I found flattering. By my younger standards I'm huge (5 foot 3.5 and 140 pounds) but I really have very little flab on me except for a midriff bulge that is the result of having once been taller. I think I'm a good size and build for singing this repertoire.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
You Gotta Believe
By rights, I should be posting something tomorrow (well, maybe I will anyhow), but I feel like posting something today.
In less than two hours - well, no, if I want to be literal, in a little over 12 hours - I will be 60. This is the age at which many singers retire.
So how can I be singing better than I ever have in my whole life?
When he heard me sing Katisha with a G&S Troupe in the early 70s (I was still smoking like a chimney) one of the cast members, a bass who had had an operatic career before losing his eyesight and settling in to a home at this troupe (it had several levels, pros, of which he was one, covers, of which I was one, and people with minimal vocal training who only sang in the chorus), told me I sounded like Ebe Stignani. I only half believed him, since at that point an F felt like a "high note" and half the time I seemed to have bronchitis and couldn't sing at all.
When I returned to singing in 1976 after quitting smoking, my teacher (I'm still studying with him today) helped me lighten my voice and told me I was a lyric mezzo. For a whole year he scarcely let me do anything but hum and sing long scales on "oo", after which I got cast as Nicklausse in a slap-happy, no-pay production of The Tales of Hoffmann. From that time forward, I never thought of myself as anything but a lyric mezzo. And since I really wasn't happy singing anything but "trouser roles" I never gave it a second thought.
Even when I was cast as Laura in La Gioconda (see my previous post) I didn't really see myself as a dramatic mezzo although Ebe Stignani had sung the role.
And when I returned to singing in 2004 I saw myself primarily as a soprano in a choir. It had been so long since I'd smoked (or sung) that I had reverted to my childhood fake Julie Andrews sound and was a likely to be heard singing "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" as the Habanera or Dalila's "Mon Coeur". Why not? All those pieces have the same range, more or less, actually.
Even when I starred in my own concert version of Samson et Dalila, that was primarily about the sex and the character. Since it was a concert in a church with a piano, who needed a big sound?
I don't know when I started wondering if I really was a dramatic (I mean a real one, not a baby). Maybe it was when I started going to meetups with other singers and sang "Acerba Volutta" when most of the other mezzos (who were 25-30 years younger) were singing Mozart and Handel.
Now although I never told anyone, I have wanted to sing Amneris for about 40 years. I know the opera almost by heart, but except for one or two runthroughs of the duet with Radames (in private!) I had never really sung any of it.
I'm not sure how it came about, but I was looking around for duets to sing with my bass friend and thought, hey! we could do the Judgment Scene. I wasn't sure my voice had enough heft, but hey! we're talking about a duet with a piano at a concert with a small audience. And then things just took off.
My teacher really liked how it sounded (I think he's totally surprised by how big my voice has gotten) and it seemed to be a good fit.
Now to be honest, I don't know if I will ever have the stamina to sing the whole role (I mean I'm the age at which most singers retire or at least scale back, right?) but who knows.
I'm just not going to let anyone tell me I can't because I'm 60.
And I'm determined not to be afraid of those ascending scales. I think if I use that "portamento" technique that my teacher has talked to me about and sing it big, I can master it.
For now, I just have to worry about the Judgment Scene.
Sunday will be interesting. The bass and I will be rehearsing in the basement of the Unitarian church where I was discovered over 6 years ago by The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed. He may even be there. That's ok. After an emotional roller coaster that lasted over 4 years, we made peace and actually had a nice, professional collegial talk when I sang an excert from Gounod's Sappho at a fundraiser.
I mean I'm actually going to get to sing this scene in public even if it's just a "Musicale" in someone's living room. This is beyond my wildest dreams...
In less than two hours - well, no, if I want to be literal, in a little over 12 hours - I will be 60. This is the age at which many singers retire.
So how can I be singing better than I ever have in my whole life?
When he heard me sing Katisha with a G&S Troupe in the early 70s (I was still smoking like a chimney) one of the cast members, a bass who had had an operatic career before losing his eyesight and settling in to a home at this troupe (it had several levels, pros, of which he was one, covers, of which I was one, and people with minimal vocal training who only sang in the chorus), told me I sounded like Ebe Stignani. I only half believed him, since at that point an F felt like a "high note" and half the time I seemed to have bronchitis and couldn't sing at all.
When I returned to singing in 1976 after quitting smoking, my teacher (I'm still studying with him today) helped me lighten my voice and told me I was a lyric mezzo. For a whole year he scarcely let me do anything but hum and sing long scales on "oo", after which I got cast as Nicklausse in a slap-happy, no-pay production of The Tales of Hoffmann. From that time forward, I never thought of myself as anything but a lyric mezzo. And since I really wasn't happy singing anything but "trouser roles" I never gave it a second thought.
Even when I was cast as Laura in La Gioconda (see my previous post) I didn't really see myself as a dramatic mezzo although Ebe Stignani had sung the role.
And when I returned to singing in 2004 I saw myself primarily as a soprano in a choir. It had been so long since I'd smoked (or sung) that I had reverted to my childhood fake Julie Andrews sound and was a likely to be heard singing "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" as the Habanera or Dalila's "Mon Coeur". Why not? All those pieces have the same range, more or less, actually.
Even when I starred in my own concert version of Samson et Dalila, that was primarily about the sex and the character. Since it was a concert in a church with a piano, who needed a big sound?
I don't know when I started wondering if I really was a dramatic (I mean a real one, not a baby). Maybe it was when I started going to meetups with other singers and sang "Acerba Volutta" when most of the other mezzos (who were 25-30 years younger) were singing Mozart and Handel.
Now although I never told anyone, I have wanted to sing Amneris for about 40 years. I know the opera almost by heart, but except for one or two runthroughs of the duet with Radames (in private!) I had never really sung any of it.
I'm not sure how it came about, but I was looking around for duets to sing with my bass friend and thought, hey! we could do the Judgment Scene. I wasn't sure my voice had enough heft, but hey! we're talking about a duet with a piano at a concert with a small audience. And then things just took off.
My teacher really liked how it sounded (I think he's totally surprised by how big my voice has gotten) and it seemed to be a good fit.
Now to be honest, I don't know if I will ever have the stamina to sing the whole role (I mean I'm the age at which most singers retire or at least scale back, right?) but who knows.
I'm just not going to let anyone tell me I can't because I'm 60.
And I'm determined not to be afraid of those ascending scales. I think if I use that "portamento" technique that my teacher has talked to me about and sing it big, I can master it.
For now, I just have to worry about the Judgment Scene.
Sunday will be interesting. The bass and I will be rehearsing in the basement of the Unitarian church where I was discovered over 6 years ago by The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed. He may even be there. That's ok. After an emotional roller coaster that lasted over 4 years, we made peace and actually had a nice, professional collegial talk when I sang an excert from Gounod's Sappho at a fundraiser.
I mean I'm actually going to get to sing this scene in public even if it's just a "Musicale" in someone's living room. This is beyond my wildest dreams...
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Laura and Me: A Watershed
Sooner or later, if I spend too much time with The Forum I will feel like bursting into tears. If it's not because I feel so insignificant, it's something else. This time it had to do with a thread about being "Out of the Closet" in the opera world, which I do know something about, well, not about "The Opera World" because the 1970s Opera Underground was not "The Opera World" although sometimes there was a path leading out of one and into the other (which I had just gotten my toes onto when I stopped singing) but I do know a hell of a lot about being a Lesbian singing opera.
When I mentioned my experiences regarding the attitudes of the (1970s) "Lesbian Community" toward my wanting to sing opera, someone, whom I actually respect very much, implied that I was being "ridiculous".
I am not ridiculous!!!. I may be small and insignificant in the scheme of things over there, but I am a real person and my real life matters.
The fact that I stopped singing because I was made to feel uncomfortable (mostly by other Lesbians) about singing opera matters!!
So maybe I should try to tell the story of "Laura and Me" from the beginning.
Laura in La Gioconda is one of the few roles in which a mezzo gets to play a romantic lead. Also La Gioconda is everything that people love and hate about opera.
When I was singing with the Opera Underground (Mme. La Puma, in fact) I saw a production of La Gioconda with the most luscious blonde as Laura. I knew that my dream was to sing that role someday, somehow.
About five years later I got an opportunity to sing that role with a small company that actually by today's standards would be considered a D House. I think I got a small stipend, I don't remember. It was the eve of my 30th birthday and I was singing better than ever. My voice had started to fill out and the role felt as if it could have been written for me. Of course I had listened to the old recording with Callas and (I think it was Barbieri) so many times I knew the whole thing by heart.
The stumbling block was that I had to play a love scene with a man.
People who weren't around just have no idea what "The Lesbian Community" was like in 1980. Most of the women were either angry at, or phobic about, men. They saw all men as, at worst, potential rapists or, at the very least, as oppressors to whom we should not give any attention (or any money, if possible). My partner and friends were already queasy about how much time I spent in opera rehearsals around straight people in general and straight men in particular. So OK, if I was playing a trouser role I was on safe ground, but now I was stepping out into the big unknown. I mean this man was not in any way a threat. He was probably about the age and height I am now, which for a man, is old!!! He never did or said anything untoward. (Tenors usually don't if they're in a duet situation where they have to worry about high notes.) So I felt between a rock and a hard place. If I did a good job, I would get flak at home after the performance. If I didn't, well, I might never get cast in a role like that again.
Since it was a small company the costumes were pretty old and ratty and the gowns I had to wear were several sizes too big. Singers were on the whole bigger then, certainly Lauras were, and I was still starving myself to keep my weight under 130 pounds (good thing, I guess, since I had to be carried onstage by one male chorister in Act IV). But the costumes looked anything but sexy and glamorous on me. I looked like I was sort of lost in them, despite attempts to take them in.
On the day of the performance, I sang the best I had ever sung in my whole life, a big "diva" role. It should have been a moment of glory. Instead, my partner was bored, said the story of the opera was stupid, that my costume was ugly, and like, so this was what all the fuss was about?
That was a big watershed both in ending my life as a singer and in changing my comfort level in my relationship.
I had set my 30th birthday as the deadline for giving up singing if it wasn't becoming a livelihood (ironically, I think if I had continued on for a few more years, resigned myself to fighting constantly with my partner over this or splitting up, and stopped starving myself, it might have become one). So not long after that performance of La Gioconda I stopped singing, enrolled in college to get a degree in Women's Studies while I worked full time as a Production Editor, became a "good dyke", and never opened my mouth again until I was "discovered" by The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed in 2004.
So that was then, this was now. Now it is the eve of my 60th birthday and I am still fighting with my (mostly ex) partner over singing. I am nervous to tell her I am singing on the afternoon of August 8. (I orchestrate these things carefully - I don't want to tell her too soon or she'll yell at me for confusing her. If I tell her too close to the date she will tell me I have "sprung" something at her. I will tell her Sunday. If she does something vindictive which results in my spending the day of my 60th birthday alone I have resolved she will never see me or our dog again.)
I haven't had anything to do with the "Lesbian Community" as such since the mid-90s. As my partner and I got older, we weren't that qualitatively different from other mature women - interested in going to museums and the theater, or on a vacation to Europe. Except that we didn't socialize with single straight men under the age of 80 (my doing so at work didn't seem to bother her), we had a variety of friends and no longer saw ourselves as part of a sect. Then I met Himself and suddenly found myself attracted to men. He was unattainable but others were not.
I think I will stay away from The Forum for a while. Yes, it may be tempting to see what kind of response I got to my response to the man who implied I was "ridiculous" but I don't need to do that. I reconnected with the Forum mainly as a way to post my blog link. I will try to find other places to post it.
And I won't let anything spoil my love affair with Amneris. At least she doesn't have to kiss anyone.
When I mentioned my experiences regarding the attitudes of the (1970s) "Lesbian Community" toward my wanting to sing opera, someone, whom I actually respect very much, implied that I was being "ridiculous".
I am not ridiculous!!!. I may be small and insignificant in the scheme of things over there, but I am a real person and my real life matters.
The fact that I stopped singing because I was made to feel uncomfortable (mostly by other Lesbians) about singing opera matters!!
So maybe I should try to tell the story of "Laura and Me" from the beginning.
Laura in La Gioconda is one of the few roles in which a mezzo gets to play a romantic lead. Also La Gioconda is everything that people love and hate about opera.
When I was singing with the Opera Underground (Mme. La Puma, in fact) I saw a production of La Gioconda with the most luscious blonde as Laura. I knew that my dream was to sing that role someday, somehow.
About five years later I got an opportunity to sing that role with a small company that actually by today's standards would be considered a D House. I think I got a small stipend, I don't remember. It was the eve of my 30th birthday and I was singing better than ever. My voice had started to fill out and the role felt as if it could have been written for me. Of course I had listened to the old recording with Callas and (I think it was Barbieri) so many times I knew the whole thing by heart.
The stumbling block was that I had to play a love scene with a man.
People who weren't around just have no idea what "The Lesbian Community" was like in 1980. Most of the women were either angry at, or phobic about, men. They saw all men as, at worst, potential rapists or, at the very least, as oppressors to whom we should not give any attention (or any money, if possible). My partner and friends were already queasy about how much time I spent in opera rehearsals around straight people in general and straight men in particular. So OK, if I was playing a trouser role I was on safe ground, but now I was stepping out into the big unknown. I mean this man was not in any way a threat. He was probably about the age and height I am now, which for a man, is old!!! He never did or said anything untoward. (Tenors usually don't if they're in a duet situation where they have to worry about high notes.) So I felt between a rock and a hard place. If I did a good job, I would get flak at home after the performance. If I didn't, well, I might never get cast in a role like that again.
Since it was a small company the costumes were pretty old and ratty and the gowns I had to wear were several sizes too big. Singers were on the whole bigger then, certainly Lauras were, and I was still starving myself to keep my weight under 130 pounds (good thing, I guess, since I had to be carried onstage by one male chorister in Act IV). But the costumes looked anything but sexy and glamorous on me. I looked like I was sort of lost in them, despite attempts to take them in.
On the day of the performance, I sang the best I had ever sung in my whole life, a big "diva" role. It should have been a moment of glory. Instead, my partner was bored, said the story of the opera was stupid, that my costume was ugly, and like, so this was what all the fuss was about?
That was a big watershed both in ending my life as a singer and in changing my comfort level in my relationship.
I had set my 30th birthday as the deadline for giving up singing if it wasn't becoming a livelihood (ironically, I think if I had continued on for a few more years, resigned myself to fighting constantly with my partner over this or splitting up, and stopped starving myself, it might have become one). So not long after that performance of La Gioconda I stopped singing, enrolled in college to get a degree in Women's Studies while I worked full time as a Production Editor, became a "good dyke", and never opened my mouth again until I was "discovered" by The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed in 2004.
So that was then, this was now. Now it is the eve of my 60th birthday and I am still fighting with my (mostly ex) partner over singing. I am nervous to tell her I am singing on the afternoon of August 8. (I orchestrate these things carefully - I don't want to tell her too soon or she'll yell at me for confusing her. If I tell her too close to the date she will tell me I have "sprung" something at her. I will tell her Sunday. If she does something vindictive which results in my spending the day of my 60th birthday alone I have resolved she will never see me or our dog again.)
I haven't had anything to do with the "Lesbian Community" as such since the mid-90s. As my partner and I got older, we weren't that qualitatively different from other mature women - interested in going to museums and the theater, or on a vacation to Europe. Except that we didn't socialize with single straight men under the age of 80 (my doing so at work didn't seem to bother her), we had a variety of friends and no longer saw ourselves as part of a sect. Then I met Himself and suddenly found myself attracted to men. He was unattainable but others were not.
I think I will stay away from The Forum for a while. Yes, it may be tempting to see what kind of response I got to my response to the man who implied I was "ridiculous" but I don't need to do that. I reconnected with the Forum mainly as a way to post my blog link. I will try to find other places to post it.
And I won't let anything spoil my love affair with Amneris. At least she doesn't have to kiss anyone.
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