Not About Valentine's Day

I am long overdue for a blog post, but have simply been busy and have not had much to say.

Monday it will be 12 years since that fateful Samson et Dalila duet that changed my life forever.  Two weeks ago at church, it was Transfiguration Sunday, and there was a guest minister who spoke about transfiguration.  About God taking you out of your comfort zone.  He asked if anyone had ever had an experience like that that had changed them forever.  I raised my hand.  As I said to the woman who interviewed me for Classical Singer (she didn't print this quote), when the duet was over, after the audience went wild,I knew then that I wanted that (that mélange of glorious music, sex, glamour, applause, and magic) more than anything in the world and that I would make any sacrifice to have it.

The road has been long, rocky, and filled with disappointments.  There is the exhilaration of finally, beginning sometime in my 64th year, being able to let my voice fly free the way I believe it was always meant to, counterbalanced by the knowledge that I am too old for it to matter.

But I would never go back,  Never.

And finally, this year, I barely gave a passing thought to The Mentor.  A man in his mid-fifties who has a Facebook cover photo that zeroes in on his crotch is rather pathetic, when all is said and done.  Yes, I envy that he has managed to make a life out of the arts, and I have not, but that is all.

Carmen is now approaching.  I don't work on it too often, lest it get stale.

So next up is finding, with the help of the Director of Music Ministries, an appropriate Lent solo.  For Good Friday we will be singing excerpts from the Faure Requiem.  I asked about singing the "Pie Jesu" (which I had sung before on Maundy Thursday) but this Director says that Pie Jesus are inappropriate for Holy Week.  Who knew?  As a singing Jewish/Marxist/Unitarian, my knowledge of these things is a bit spotty, but I want to educate myself.  I don't have to believe this or that to become well versed in appropriate liturgy. Church singing has become my craft.  It is what I do best, and what I can do best because my age isn't (or shouldn't be) a barrier, and neither is my lack of physical mobility.

So I have revisited "Liber Scriptus".  Now that I sing several high C sharps every day, that A flat that I was so nervous about is easy.  And the low Ds are rich and plummy, not squawky the way they used to be.  And there's the gorgeous "Lord's Prayer" by Malotte.  I think there will be some evening services during Lent that center around the Lord's Prayer.  And I would love a chance to sing the Rossini "Fac ut Portem" again.  Everything is so different now and so much easier.

This week, for the first time ever, I had to miss a big service.  My partner was rushed to the ER on Ash Wednesday.  She fell as she was letting her occupational therapist into the apartment.  The OT called 911.  They thought she had broken her pelvis.  It turned out nothing was broken but I didn't make it to the 6:30 call.  I had alerted the choir director, and as I did not have a solo, I was ok about not singing.  I was disappointed, because the piece was in 8 parts, which is when I am in my glory.  Second soprano parts are hard, musically, but they are in a better part of my range than alto parts, but because there is still another part above me, I don't have to worry as much about keeping the volume down as I do if I am singing soprano in a four part piece (which is usually vocally healthier than singing alto, and allows me to use my full range).  Now of course I worry what if my partner has an emergency when I am supposed to sing Carmen, but I just can't go there.  If God wants me to sing, I will.  And I will make a plan B, for someone to take care of any emergency my partner might have.

There is a weather alert, so we are taking a rain check on Valentine's Day.  We will have lunch out on Wednesday - or have lunch in and watch a movie on demand.

OK, so yes, sometimes I wonder what The Mentor would think if he could hear me now.

Countdown to the Requiem

I had hoped to write something yesterday, as yesterday/today  is the ninth anniversary of that fateful Valentine's Day, but I couldn't think of anything.

The Requiem is now really really happening.  Flyers are made, and there will be an announcement on the church's web site as well as on its Facebook page.

I said more prayers that I will be worthy of this endeavor.

This is the biggest thing I have done since the concert of Samson et Dalila in 2008. I am singing better now, but have far, far less chutzpah.

Back then I thought just the fact that I could slog through the role of a femme fatale, wearing a pretty dress, made me special.

Since then I have been rejected by every single no-pay "community opera group" except one that wanted to charge me a hefty fee (at least that was for singing a lead) and another whose director cast me in an infinitesimal role and then used me as a punching bag, so I walked out.

I see that everywhere I turn, in this city and especially in this neighborhood, I am drowning in young talent with conservatory degrees and apprenticeships, and women 15-20 years younger (which still makes them in their 40s) who are totally polished, with several decades of singing in my fach behind them (and conservatory degrees and apprenticeships, back from the "dark ages").  So this has shaken my confidence.

At the last rehearsal I fell on my face with "Lux Aeterna" which has now given me two things to worry about (that I will worry about the A flat in "Liber Scriptus" is a given).  In "Lux Aeterna" I not only have to sing the phrase with the G, I also have to concentrate on counting so that I stay together with the two other people.  Well, I have done things like this in the choir.  I just have to drill it over and over and over, with the recording.

Putting God back in it helps.  On Ash Wednesday we were invited to write "sins" (or something else) on paper, which would be burned with the palms that they use to make the ashes.  So I wrote to "banish fear and self-doubt".  I don't really believe in "sin",   unless I am doing something hurtful to other people.  I believe that I sin when I lose my temper at my partner, but that's about it.  I suppose my fear and self-doubt is a sin of sorts.  God gave me back this gift and even if the person who lit the spark was often more Mephistophelian, I can't just walk away from it.  This is something I am doing for the church.

Lent has begun.  For me it will be a time to ramp up my practice of my art, which is, after all, a spiritual practice.

And now, I see, it is now longer "today".

Random Thoughts

I haven't written anything for a while, and I also haven't gotten many hits on my blog lately.  I even posted something to the the Forum a few days ago, which is a place I had promised myself to avoid, just to see if my blog link would attract people. I was also thinking about the movie Julie and Julia, because someone mentioned it, and I remembered that it was that movie that got me blogging in the first place. "Julie" wasn't the world's greatest cook or the world's greatest writer, but her writing about her passion for cooking bought her a ticket to fame.

Yesterday I listened to a playwright talking about a play he had written in which one of the themes was The Road Not Taken which by now is a cliche, even to having been misquoted by the author of the book The Road Less Traveled - as my mother would have said, he missed the "prepositional verb". Robert Frost refers to the "road less traveled by."

So is that all these past 8 years have been?  Scrambling to try to get back to the "Road Not Taken" and feeling angry and bitter?

Or is it about something else?

The Mentor (whom I haven't mentioned in quite a while) took a sensually quiescent middle aged woman and taught her to sing "Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a ta Voix" for a moment of music, magic, and a frisson of eroticism.  Was this just meant to be a one-off?  Then back to business as usual?

Whenever I falter in my journey, I remember that Valentine's Day and have faith that this was not just for nothing. Whatever God I believe in - a Christian one (monogamy is the sticking point there), or a pagan one (a little more attuned to my Dalila soul) - s/he meant that Valentine's Day to mean something.

I am at Week 11 of The Artist's Way. The world looks brighter and I have more hope. The things this process have taught me are not that different from the things I picked up from the Mentor, not just about singing and sexuality, but about colors, textures, and smells. About surrounding myself with beauty. Or what I consider beauty anyhow.  I laughed at one point when I was reading the book.  It mentioned feeling free to add that finishing touch to an outfit, something that is special to you, even if conventional people think you are "ruining" it.  That made me realize that the "trashy" way I love to dress is my form of self-expression.  It is how I signal to myself and the world that I am always a diva, no matter what I am doing.

I believe that some people are hardwired to be divas.  (Many disagree and say that the only people who can use that term about themselves are those who have perfected an art form and are acknowledged to excel in it.)  If you are hardwired to be a diva and you have a talent, nurture it, make the right connections, and find a venue, you are lucky.  Many don't.  I see these all around me: the bank teller with braids that probably cost an entire week's paycheck, flaunting her elaborate "nail art"; the harried pediatrician who buys a different flamboyant gown to wear to each wedding and Bar Mitzvah she is invited to when she really only needed two.

So maybe a venue will present itself.  Meanwhile the Requiem preparations continue.

This morning I sang a piece by a little-known composer, Joseph Raff, called "Great and Wonderful are All Thy Works".  I think I sang well, and the choir director was happy.  I also found a new violinist to perform Bach with.  Very few people said anything to me, even ones who spoke to me (about other things) after the service, so part of me felt the whole thing sort of fell into a black hole, but I guess God heard me, and that's all that should matter, although divas always love applause.

ETA: I realize that in saying I felt my singing "fell into a black hole" I was being insulting to those people who did thank me (I got several thank yous on Facebook after I wrote this, one from a fellow choir member who means a lot to me).  I think the thing I was most peeved about was that I was sitting with a woman who likes me, and who had (out of kindness) chided me for writing on Facebook about being envious.  You would think that she would have said something about my singing, as she was at both services, but she never even mentioned it.  The good news: This oratorio is little known (hasn't been performed in this country in my lifetime in any event) so it might be a good vehicle to try to attract big players to.  (By "big players" I mean getting some of the serious  musicians at the church to look for a venue for it, which is a whole 'nuther thing from putting on a vanity production.)

Insights and Reality Checks

I hadn't planned on writing something again so soon, but this post is prompted by a lot of soul searching I did last night and this morning, triggered by a health scare my partner is having.

I also keep coming back to: what do I want and what do I expect out of my involvement with singing?  (This is an endless topic of discussion with the therapist, despite that my manifest reason for having been in therapy all these years is the stress of eldercare and the knowledge that at any moment I could be in the middle of an enormous psychological and logistical crisis.)

After that fateful Valentine's Day, all I really wanted was to take that feeling and bottle it. The rush of singing an aria associated with sex and glamour, in the arms of an ersatz (oh, how ersatz!) lover, in front of an "audience" for whom this was the unexpected highlight of an event. This was quickly followed by my "Habanera" at another dinner fundraiser, and several other arias during church services and fundraising concerts.  This was a tiny venue, the tiniest and most talent-poor of Manhattan churches, certainly in the area of classical singing, but what it lacked in human resources it made up for in imagination.

Then it all fell apart.  Not only did my relationship with the Mentor disintegrate, but the church decided to do away with classical music for the most part, except for a brief nod at Easter and Christmas, and the minister (truly the one of the least empathic, albeit one of the brainiest, people I have ever met) hadn't a clue about (or an interest in) helping me continue to develop myself as a musician in that environment.  She preferred to have me on the Board helping her hire and fire people, which is what I had been doing for a living.

At that time I didn't know any real singers.

That started later.  After I left that church (and the Mentor) I began pseudonymously blogging and fell into some "communities" to do with classical singing. Naively thinking I would meet some people like me (amateurs at a loss how to deal with a talent and a hunger) I actually met working singers.  It actually came as a huge surprise that these sorts of people would even bother with pseudonymous blogging, which I thought was predominately for the bored and the unhappy, but blog they did.  One woman, who sings extensively throughout Europe, even shared juicy details about her sex life!

That was when all the "envies" began.

Soon I began also investigating all the "opportunities" for singers in my hometown (central Manhattan) and was astounded by the mass of talented people, most of them 20 or 30 years younger than I was, who were all jockeying for spots not only at amateur groups, but even at groups where you had to pay to sing.

I was totally out of my element, not just vocally, but in every possible way.  I had no education, no CV, not much mobility (while in a physically weakened state pining for the Mentor, I stumbled over the pavement in a strange city and smashed up my left leg), no confidence, and last but not least, some vocal issues to work out.  I couldn't even elicit much interest at the group get up and sing things that I went to.

So recapturing that Valentine's Day moment seemed beyond elusive.

I did manage to put on a concert version of Samson et Dalila, and sang my personal best that day, but I didn't get the sense that the church (I was now a choir member/soloist at a Lutheran church) would let me put on a sequel.  And speaking of the church, although I felt and still feel blessed to have many solo opportunities (as well as opportunities to improve my musicianship through choral singing) there, it is not a venue for the sort of pastiche events where I could dress to the nines and sing an aria as part of a group "talent show".  They are very formal.

After being raked over the coals by readers of my pseudonymous blog , I deleted it and decided to back off some of my voyeurism re: other singers. They are not a peer group.

I think the issue with pointless comparisons, which I only really just realized, isn't that there's a limit to how well I can sing (although there might be) or anything stopping me from producing any work I want to sing in, it's a question of "ages and stages".  And I'm not talking about being "too old" to have the stamina to sing Verdi (I  have much more stamina for singing on the eve of my 62nd birthday than I did when I met the Mentor or even when I sang Dalila in concert) or of being "too old" to play a sexy character (God knows I have a better figure than many 40-year-olds) but that my life is not structured the way a 20something, 30something, or 40something's life is structured.  And I'm speaking here of women who are childless.  Once you become a mother, and even moreso if you're a single mother, things get complicated and choices have to be made.

However problematic our relationship is, and friends with benefits notwithstanding, my partner is the most important person in my life.  And she is at the end of hers (not necessarily at the very end, we are waiting for test results) and I want to make it as joyful as possible.  And for the foreseeable future I have to earn a living.  The younger people I am so envious of are either earning money singing and teaching, or they work at day jobs and use all their free time running here, there, and yonder to rehearsals and auditions.  Some of them probably don't spend more than one evening a week - if that - at home.  I may have plenty of energy to sing a scene from Il Trovatore, but I don't have that kind of energy, which is why I would refuse any comprimaria role I was offered for no money that involved a heavy rehearsal schedule.

So I come back to "what do I want" and "what is possible"?  Although my teacher doubts I will ever be able to sing above a B flat in public, that still leaves a lot of opera and oratorio, particularly if I cherry pick scenes that I want to sing from the former, for me to sing.  And until I'm proven wrong, there is no limit on the extent to which my singing can improve.  But there are limits to my time and money.  And the point may come when I have to choose between ancillary singing expenses and rehearsal time on the one hand and having that last shared vacation on the other.  But for now I won't go there.

I asked God to bless my Verdi Requiem project and that's all I can do.

Valentine's Day and Beyond

I wasn't going to post anything about Valentine's Day as there is not much left to say about it after all these years. If you aren't familiar with my story you can read here.

But I posted this on my Facebook page, because every year on this anniversary I think it is important to take stock.

it is now 8 years since that fateful Samson et Dalila duet. Every V-Day I think about the Mentor (sometimes I don't think about him for months at a time, amazingly). Do I thank him for my big dramatic mezzo voice that I discovered in my mid50s? The passion for my art that has never waned not even for one day? The fact that nothing will ever be the same? Nonetheless, I am still going out for a simple meal with the love of my life, who never asked to come along on this journey. I am blessed that she is still here when so many are gone.

I also posted this on the Forum because the pseudonym I've used for so long relates to this anniversary, and I thought I ought to just say something about it. The Forum is to me what young people call a "frenemy". I have gotten a lot of help from it but it has made me sad too, as being yet another place to read about the lives of "real" singers.

Right now we're friends again. I got suggestions from two people I really respect, which have spurred me on (if I needed more spurring) to proceed with the Verdi Requiem project. And I got a cute response to my posting about Valentine's Day and my name. This was from a gentleman whom I mostly knew through my pseudonymous blog. He was never a friend of mine but he was a friend of one of the women who wrote there, probably my number one envy-idol, because she not only had the singer-life I wished I had, but also had a lot of the kind of natural sex appeal that I seem not to have unless I work very hard at it (or am in a private situation with someone where we're all clear about what's what). Which is why, despite my leftward leaning political views, I am one of those women feminists love to hate because I still am not convinced that someone like Clarence Thomas is legion in the world of office work. I certainly never encountered anyone who ever even noticed my decolletage let alone commented on it or anything else in an untoward way and I worked in offices for 35 years.

In any event this gentleman was always flirting online with the lady in question, in a way no one has ever flirted with me, except in private, so I was quite startled when he responded to my off-topic post.

Here is my response to his kind comment that "music finds us":

This wasn't just any music. This was a moment of magic, during which I felt like a big diva, not to mention the sexiest and most beautiful woman in the world singing the sexiest aria ever written, and in a church no less!

How could life ever be the same after that?

And there you have it.

I have worked hard in the past eight years, put in hours of blood and sweat in my "practice room" (the loo), sung an entire concert version of Samson et Dalila (minus the chorus), several opera scenes in concert, and numerous church solos, but I have never found that ever again.

As for the Forum itself, it seems that the posted topics are a bit different from the last time I perused it (several years ago?) There are quite a few posts from people with much less experience than I have, and I can answer people like that if I choose. I know about vocal technique, fachs, church repertoire, even what arias and other music might be suitable for different voice types.

I also know quite a bit about health issues.

What I don't know much about are costume fittings, stage makeup (the real kind, not the DIY kind I wear all the time even to do the laundry), travel as work, travel as infidelity trap (the last time I had any hopes of that I was on a business trip for my last job and I fell and fractured my kneecap - a punishment, perhaps?), and dodging passes (if you want to dodge them) during love scenes onstage.

So I don't need to read those posts.

We will see if the Forum and I stay friends.

Now it's back to work, and off to choir practice.

I will wait until the 26th before checking back with the choir director about "Lux Aeterna"

Valentine's Day

For the past six years, I have done most of my writing of a personal nature under a pseudonymn, where I could write about things I can't write about here, but as time goes on I get somewhat bolder (the more compellingly I write here, the more readers I will get) albeit still careful not to write anything that would cause anyone else hurt, or me, embarrassment.

But as my life, for good or ill, changed forever on February 15, 2004, in ways that I both can and can't write about in a public blog, I began rooting around my pseudonymous posts for something profound to say about that day, and about how far I've come.

It has been 7 years since The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed and I sang "Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a ta Voix" together,ending with his spinning me around in his arms, bending me over backwards, staring into my eyes like Svengali, and changing me forever. It has been a long and painful journey, but I would never want to go back. In that moment I changed from a rather stuffy middle-aged woman, who had once sung opera, once been sensual and passionate, and now worked in a corporate job, wore suits that were two sizes too big, and had recently begun attending church, to someone who wanted to sing and embrace life with passion more than anything else in the world, even if it meant burning every bridge I'd ever walked over. I found God in that church, and my voice after more than two decades, but I also found passion that was painfully unrequited, a mentor who gave me my voice but tore me to shreds, and, later, my voice as a playwright, a new voice teacher (actually my old one from the 1970s), and a new church to sing in where I loved the music and was welcomed with nothing but love and respect despite my skepticism about their theology.

In 2008 I got to sing Dalila with a real Samson and now am a bona fide dramatic mezzo working on Amneris and Azucena (although God knows where I'll get to sing that material!)

Every Valentine's Day I ponder my pre-2/15/04 self, and wonder if I would be happier if I could turn the clock back and have things as they were. I don't think so.

Now I am off to have a nice lunch with my partner at La Petit Auberge, a charming French restaurant barely ten paces from her apartment, where we can always eat without worrying about getting her there. Old fashioned and charming. My pre-2/15/04 self would have been happy to do that, and I will be too!