Yesterday I spoke on the phone with the woman producing the Hispanic Heritage Concert and told her I would be coming back to her get-togethers some time next week, if she was having one. I said I was working on the Manuel Garcia songs.
I took them to my lesson yesterday and worked especially on some of the melismatic passages. I know that for most of the songs I will be expected to use correct Spanish diction (including pronunciation of the vowels) which is fine, but I intend to beg off for the high trilling in the "Contrabandera" song.
Dare I say that I think I may finally have made some kind of breakthrough with using the "h" sound to begin all the exercises? I am still not vocalizing above a B, but certainly the G, A flat, A natural, and even the B flat are much bigger and fuller, and there is much less tension in my voice overall.
My teacher is going to be singing Alvise in a concert production of La Gioconda (in years past he sang Enzo) so he said I should take a look at that duet again so that I can sing it at my next lesson. Here's a peek at what it sounds and looks like (let's hear it for sexy bodice rippers as well as for singing!)
http://youtu.be/gg_wpIu13wM
This entire role is tailor made for my voice, even moreso than Verdi, because it is a little lighter and sits higher, but has no strenuous high singing. There is one B flat at the beginning that is in the middle of an arpeggio-like progression, three or four As (mostly in the first half of the opera) and that's it! And she gets lots of breaks. And of course gets to look luscious and have two guys chasing her. Probably the hottest mezzo role after Dalila and Carmen, except that she is a sympathetic figure.
You can read more here.
I mean there is not a prayer in Hell that I will get to sing the role in this concert as it is triple cast already (there will be 5 or 6 performances of it in different locations) but if I keep it fresh, who knows?
Lastly, I think the videos from Carmen may finally be available soon. The man who took them is having a hard time uploading them to Youtube, but he is still working on it.
Showing posts with label Laura. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laura. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
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.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Practice Update
Since I may have alarmed folks by writing about my vocal burnout at Tuesday's lesson, I should write something about today's practice.
Today was a "working at home" day, meaning I had some copyediting to do. The great thing about working at home is I can wear pjs, eat food from my fridge (both things save money), and sing!!! during break times.
So I followed my teacher's suggestion about how to work on "Chi ti salva" etc. Not too bad. I sang that one section through several times (the only screech happened when I forgot to start on an E flat and started on an E natural instead) and then sang the whole piece from the beginning. I think things will be ok if I take advantage of the breaks and keep my larynx down by singing "Aw".
Then I picked up the Water Duet from Gioconda which I haven't sung since The Mentor Who Will Not be Discussed and I sang it at the Water Communion service at the Unitarian Church. Since it's just a xerox (I long since disposed of the score I had when I sang the role in 1980) it's full of his red pencil markings. Don't get me wrong. He was a very good voice teacher! And he worked in the Dalcroze method simultaneously to working with me on vocal technique. I just really didn't need all the gratuitous lascivious comments or the snark. Singing the opening of this I could hear how my voice has grown.
Since it's almost Gay Pride Sunday I will insert a few remarks that were part of a longer piece of writing I did about being a Lonely Lesbian singing opera in 1980. Since singing Laura was both the high point and the end of my earlier singing "career" (if you can call singing with the Opera Underground a "career") I feel like reposting them here.
While I enjoyed being the only Lesbian (to my knowledge) at work – I had to be there after all; I couldn’t cut and run because of all the straight people – being the only Lesbian in a small opera company made me question what I was doing there. Luckily, as a mezzo, I could be another kind of token – a shoo in for pants parts. This was rather ironic since in the context of being a Lesbian I was strictly a femme, but compared to the (mostly quite zaftig and often older) straight women I played against, I looked quite boyish. There were lots of giggles and lots of “I was only kidding” casual flirting. And no one had to tell me how to walk. All I had to do was imitate all the butches I knew, which was easier than trying to imitate a man and, ok, who are we kidding? Cherubino was really a little butch anyhow.
It got harder when a plum role came my way – Laura in La Gioconda. This was a dream role – a glamorous lady who got to run off with the hero at the end. Not everyday fare for mezzos. And such glorious music. The stumbling block was I had to kiss a guy.
Something that quite shocked me when I officially came out, was the extent to which many Lesbians, my partner included, really hated and feared men. I didn’t and I really didn’t understand this. I thought they were lousy lovers and mostly a bore, but a species to fear? No. But when I told my partner I was playing a real honest to God love scene that involved a little snogging with a man (never mind that he was in his 60s – ah the days when ageism in opera was unknown – and shorter than I was) she hit the ceiling. It was only permissible if I kept my disgust obvious, which of course made me appear a lousy actress. I didn’t know any Lesbian opera singers, so there was no one for me to check in with about how to handle this quandary. I really felt all alone.
Getting back to the present, I then ran through the duet with Alvise, which I will be singing with my bass friend in October. I sang this with him in another concert so I was rather shocked that I was having trouble remembering the notes. So I'd better put the recording on the next time I'm cleaning (I don't listen to music when I'm working). It's one of my favorite operas anyhow.
Today was a "working at home" day, meaning I had some copyediting to do. The great thing about working at home is I can wear pjs, eat food from my fridge (both things save money), and sing!!! during break times.
So I followed my teacher's suggestion about how to work on "Chi ti salva" etc. Not too bad. I sang that one section through several times (the only screech happened when I forgot to start on an E flat and started on an E natural instead) and then sang the whole piece from the beginning. I think things will be ok if I take advantage of the breaks and keep my larynx down by singing "Aw".
Then I picked up the Water Duet from Gioconda which I haven't sung since The Mentor Who Will Not be Discussed and I sang it at the Water Communion service at the Unitarian Church. Since it's just a xerox (I long since disposed of the score I had when I sang the role in 1980) it's full of his red pencil markings. Don't get me wrong. He was a very good voice teacher! And he worked in the Dalcroze method simultaneously to working with me on vocal technique. I just really didn't need all the gratuitous lascivious comments or the snark. Singing the opening of this I could hear how my voice has grown.
Since it's almost Gay Pride Sunday I will insert a few remarks that were part of a longer piece of writing I did about being a Lonely Lesbian singing opera in 1980. Since singing Laura was both the high point and the end of my earlier singing "career" (if you can call singing with the Opera Underground a "career") I feel like reposting them here.
While I enjoyed being the only Lesbian (to my knowledge) at work – I had to be there after all; I couldn’t cut and run because of all the straight people – being the only Lesbian in a small opera company made me question what I was doing there. Luckily, as a mezzo, I could be another kind of token – a shoo in for pants parts. This was rather ironic since in the context of being a Lesbian I was strictly a femme, but compared to the (mostly quite zaftig and often older) straight women I played against, I looked quite boyish. There were lots of giggles and lots of “I was only kidding” casual flirting. And no one had to tell me how to walk. All I had to do was imitate all the butches I knew, which was easier than trying to imitate a man and, ok, who are we kidding? Cherubino was really a little butch anyhow.
It got harder when a plum role came my way – Laura in La Gioconda. This was a dream role – a glamorous lady who got to run off with the hero at the end. Not everyday fare for mezzos. And such glorious music. The stumbling block was I had to kiss a guy.
Something that quite shocked me when I officially came out, was the extent to which many Lesbians, my partner included, really hated and feared men. I didn’t and I really didn’t understand this. I thought they were lousy lovers and mostly a bore, but a species to fear? No. But when I told my partner I was playing a real honest to God love scene that involved a little snogging with a man (never mind that he was in his 60s – ah the days when ageism in opera was unknown – and shorter than I was) she hit the ceiling. It was only permissible if I kept my disgust obvious, which of course made me appear a lousy actress. I didn’t know any Lesbian opera singers, so there was no one for me to check in with about how to handle this quandary. I really felt all alone.
Getting back to the present, I then ran through the duet with Alvise, which I will be singing with my bass friend in October. I sang this with him in another concert so I was rather shocked that I was having trouble remembering the notes. So I'd better put the recording on the next time I'm cleaning (I don't listen to music when I'm working). It's one of my favorite operas anyhow.
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