Concert

Overall, the concert went well.  I sang well.  Of course I wasn't singing anything all that vocally challenging other than the Handel.  I made some (probably unnoticed) mistakes in the two most musically challenging pieces: the Jake Heggie/Sister Helen song  "Love is" and "Evergreen".

The biggest distraction (other than the piano being out of tune, which I didn't know because my accompanist couldn't come with me on the day that I was looking at the room, and anyhow I couldn't get to the piano that afternoon because someone was plunking on it) was a woman with Alzheimers, probably a former singer, who, like a dog responding to a whistle, sang along with me every time I hit a "high" note (meaning an F or an F sharp).  What she did, mostly, was sing the note an octave higher.  She really got going with this during "Love is", which was unfortunate, because I was having enough trouble.  She also did this all during "Mon Coeur", which annoyed some of my friends, but in that instance it didn't faze me because I could sing that aria in my sleep.

Several people sang along during the Gay 90s songs, which was fine, and my partner sang along during "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", which was what I wanted.

All the people who told me they were coming did come, and some have made videos, which they will get to me soon.

My teacher and his wife were there and he said he was "proud of me" for not letting the distraction of the woman singing break my concentration.  He called me a "pro". And then started talking about Trovatore, which made me happy.  He said he couldn't find a copy of the play in English that was reasonably priced (he found one online for $100) so he is going to see if he can find one in Italian and then his wife can translate it into English.

And before the concert started the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" to me because I had said that the concert was for my birthday.

So this was the special birthday I dreamed of, and it certainly makes up for last year.

The only fly in the ointment was I got an answer to my thank you note (in which I apologized for whatever I had said that had put her off) from LC that was incredibly smarmy.  She said her two most important values were being honest and being kind, but that she didn't feel she could tell me why she didn't want me to write to her without being hurtful, so she wasn't going to say anything,  Then she had the unmitigated gall to say she hoped we could part on good terms.  I wasn't going to write back, but I didn't want her to think she had "won" that battle; saying in a high-handed tone that she wasn't going to say the unkind thing she was thinking and then saying she hoped we could part on good terms.  I wrote three responses to her, each of which I deleted, before sending a final answer.  I basically said that she had already been hurtful, that I really didn't care if she disliked me, as she is not an integral part of my life, but that no, she can't have her "cake and eat it too" and no, we are no longer on good terms.  I felt that by encouraging me to do a lot of intimate sharing and then dumping me she had done a lot of damage.  So she can sit with that.  I deleted every email exchange we had had over the past two years, except for some Jacquie Lawson cards that she sent me, and of course I will keep the flowers.  So now it's time to move on.

I had a good solid practice session singing through "Stride la Vampa" and "Condotta".

A Real Birthday

Well, what a difference from last year!

A friend of my mother's took us out to lunch (how different he is from, um, "clueless"; he inherited some money and said he feels he should use it to treat friends) and we had a lovely time.

And on the way home my partner bought me a big bouquet of red roses.  That was in addition to the dress she bought, which I wore, and which she liked seeing me in.

And the two women whose birthday cards came back to them in the mail last year each sent me one, and one also sent a check, which she said could be for me and my partner to have a nice meal out.

LC, the woman who said she never wanted me to contact her again, sent me a bouquet of artificial flowers.  I was totally surprised.  She had said (when we were still speaking) that she was going to send me a bouquet for my birthday, but I had assumed she had become so "allergic" to me that she had totally cut me off.  The flowers are beautiful.  I don't care that they are not real.  The note that came with them was telling, though.  It began "BabyD" and ended "LC".  No "dear" preceding my name and no "love" preceding hers.  But I am  happy she sent them.  I don't care why she did.  In fact, one of the "discussions" she and I had once was about whether it's a positive or a negative if someone does something because they think they "should".  She thought it was a negative (we were talking about office birthday lunches, and coworkers getting together and sending sympathy cards).  I said it was a positive.  Even going to the trouble of doing something you think you "should" is considerate.  Far too few people these days even do that.

In any event, I wrote back to LC saying that I had no idea what I had said or done that was so egregious that she enjoined me from communicating with her, but that whatever it was, I'm sorry.  I mean I'm not sorry if she doesn't want me communicating with her because I am more concerned with my own problems than with national tragedies.  There's nothing I can do about the big national tragedies, so what I do or don't feel versus what she does or doesn't feel is not relevant.

I did delete the blog post in which I said I hated her.  I don't really.  Hate is a strong word.  I just think she's a hypocrite and very selfish.  Also her level of lability (not in the sense of pathological mood lability but in the sense of being passionate about something one minute and wanting it out of your life the next) is not the behavior of a rational adult that I should have been trusting with personal confidences.

And "clueless" sent me a birthday card.  I thanked her for it.  I still think someone as rich as she is could make a better showing, but that's why I don't care if she's in my life or not.  I refrained from saying anything angry to her; I simply said that I was putting on a recital to celebrate my birthday because I was heartbroken that I had no celebration on a milestone birthday when so many people are given the party, the trip, or the present of a lifetime, so I was putting on a recital.  I told her I had been planning it for a year (true).

Now for the most important news: I did a little practicing and it basically went well.  The Handel is still difficult, and after singing it in church (either once or twice) next month I will probably retire it.

It looks like a friend will make a video with her iPad and upload it to Youtube to post on Facebook.

That's really all I want for my birthday.  Something to kvell over.

Calm After the Storm

Now we have new music to work on.

Ironically, one is a piece by a little known 20th century composer named Booth (he used to be the music director at the church in the 1930s) that was inspired by Lohengrin.  I would never in a million years guess that the piece was written in the 20th century.

It is absolutely gorgeous, but the soprano part involves way too much sustained high singing for this mezzo.  We're only talking about Fs and Gs, but it's a page that sits up there with noplace to take a breath. The alto part is in a decent rage (goes up to an E flat).  So I told the choir director that I would sing alto on that piece.  Ideally (and I only thought of this after the fact), with the current assortment of singers, the piece should be sung SATB as written with the second sopranos dropping down to the alto part for the last page.  This would be fine if there will be a high soprano or two to sing the top part.  I have no idea who will be there that day.  The irony is that I easily could have sung the soprano part in the Mendelssohn because it moved around and there were piano interludes between the parts that were sung.

Basically the problem (for the choir as a whole) is aside from the handful of trained lyric sopranos (who don't sing regularly) what the section has is me (a trained mezzo) and a group  of women with no training.  I can sing higher than any of them except one, and none of them can sing legato, so they need someone to hold the part together, sort of the way egg holds certain cooked dishes together (odd metaphor, I know).  So it's fine if the part doesn't sit high, then I can play that function.  Otherwise not, although it's rare for there to be a piece in so high a tessitura that I can't sing it particularly if I can sing full voice. (The alto section already has at least one, maybe two, women who sing with a nice line, they just don't have a wide range.)

Of course the upshot of all this is that high sopranos (and of course men) are highly prized and women with lower voices are not.

In any event, this is a beautiful piece of music.

So now it's back to working on my birthday concert.  This will be an opportunity for me to do a variety of different kinds of things that I don't usually: sing nonclassical music, research some of the songs and come up with things to say in between the sets, and connect to the audience through the spoken word.

I can invite 10 guests.  Whether my partner is one of them I guess remains to be seen.

Ah, Schadenfreude! And Now Let's Move On

Well, Sunday morning I woke up at 3:30 (I was really wired both about the upcoming service and about some plans to do with my birthday concert that didn't work out) and then was only beginning to be able to get back to sleep when the alarm went off at 6.  So OK, I got five hours of sleep, certainly enough.

When I got to church, there were only three (second) sopranos, none with any training and really only one who knows how to stay on a part so of course the section sounded God awful.  The Director of Music was there conducting and he had to work with them separately.  There was one line (no high notes; went up to a D) that was very exposed that they could not sing at all, apparently, so the three higher altos (me and two others) ended up singing it with them.

Do I really care which part I sing on a gorgeous piece of music like that?  No.  Mendelssohn writes lovely alto parts that have a decent range.  The reason I was so angry is that it's all about perception.  I don't like being made to feel like a big oaf trampling on someone's flowers, which is so often how I am made to feel.  If that were counterbalanced by the choir director's occasionally saying something like "thank you babydramatic for holding that note without breathing!" or calling as much attention to something I did well as to something I did (in his opinion) badly that would be fine.

Also IMHO it was a wrong-headed decision to arrange the women the way he did.  If I were in charge of that particular assortment of women (I am being totally objective here) I would have kept me with the sopranos (there is already one alto with training) and told the sopranos not to sing the high A because really no one except a trained lyric soprano (not a trained mezzo with a loud voice and certainly not untrained sopranos) can sing it decently.  I could certainly hold the part together, sing the high Gs (which were all marked forte; they were not "float-y") and the balance would have been better.

Well, now it's on to the next thing, a lengthy piece in Hebrew that sounds a lot like Copeland (and it turns out that Copeland was the composer's mentor, so yes! I am developing a trained ear!).  It has eight parts and the second soprano part is quite easy to stay on (also it is written with only two parts per staff).  Sometimes there are only four parts and the soprano part goes up to a G, but it is definitely something I can sing, including one note that probably is float-y.  I just have to work on it.

As well as working on the music for my birthday concert.  A lot of it is non-classical (although I can sing it with my "legit" voice) so I want to work on style.

And a dear dear friend, the woman who gave me the idea for the birthday concert in the first place, who has very little money and lives mostly on Social Security volunteered to send me a bouquet of flowers for my concert.  She said she had wanted to surprise me but then thought she needed to know which day to send them, so I told her, and thanked her profusely.  Yes, that's what thoughtfulness looks like.

Milestones

Today would have been my mother's 99th birthday.  This is a photo of us at her 90th, the last big celebration that she had.

My mother always did birthdays in style: hers, mine, friends'.  She made much of celebrations of all kinds, including Thankgiving and Christmas, this latter even though she was an atheist.  And any occasion at all was an opportunity for a meal out.  When I was younger I rolled my eyes over this, thinking of how fat she was (by the time the photo above was taken she had lost a lot of weight).  This one (below) is a better indicator of our respective sizes, taken at Fiorello's some time after the millennium, either for her birthday or Mother's Day.

We didn't plan anything to celebrate.  Last week we went to the ballet.  I always think of my mother when I'm at the ballet, or looking at art.  

My friend L is now in a hospice in Columbus, Ohio.  I hear she is "out of it" most of the time.  Since 2007 I have lost my mother and three friends to death (I am not counting L here at this point), three to moving out of state, and two to an endless round of out of state commitments (including Clueless).  I have no idea how to replenish the well, other than by engaging in various activities while I'm not working, singing, or caring for my partner.  Last week I started working at an after school program at the church where I sing.  Maybe that will lift my spirits and be a source of human contact.  I actually do have a lot of "buddies" and people I can have a meal with from time to time but socializing is pretty far down their list of priorities behind family and work - or travel, which they all seem to do either for business, family, or pleasure.

On a more upbeat note, I finally made contact with the woman at the senior center where I want to put on my birthday concert.  Once that date is on my calendar I may be able to shake off the rage and misery I felt over this past birthday that never was.  I am not sure what it says about me (and I am willing to take the blame) that I passed such a big milestone with no one giving a flying fig except the Medicare office and the MTA.   So this date will be on my calendar.  The day (it won't be the exact day, but the Sunday before or after) will mean something.  It will be special even if none of my friends do a bloody thing.  When I wrote back to the woman in charge I told her that I was putting on the concert for my birthday but that that was not relevant as far as the audience there was concerned.  That is would be a mix of classical, musical theater, and "old favorites" from the Gay 90s and earlier, and was meant to be entertaining.  I also said I could tweak the repertoire if she thought that was necessary.  I know my teacher has sung in operatic concerts there, although not recently.

And last but not least, I will be good to go with the high soprano part in the Handel for Reformation Sunday. It really is not hard.  It isn't as high as the duet I sang from Anna Bolena.  We sang through the piece several times last night and I did not get tired or nervous, nor did I start singing "off the voice" to try to keep the volume down.  So the drill is: I can do chores for my partner tomorrow, but not much talking.  So I will promise myself not to get into an argument.  And Sunday morning I will keep stumm other than singing the anthem.  There will be a small orchestra there, so let's hope we don't overrehearse it.  And I will bring a protein bar.

                                                                                                                        

Post-Birthday Letdown? Or Something Else?

First, on an upbeat note, here is a link to a really inspirational piece by the esteemed Susan Eichhorn Young.

http://susan-oncemorewithfeeling.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-beauty-of-cream.html

I really really need this right now.  Reading this piece made me feel it is "OK" for me to think I have something special that is worth fostering.

Here's one big problem.  I have said (and meant) that I don't really care if I get paid for singing.  I have something else that I get paid for doing and I am lucky to even have that in this economy.  It's dull (although I take pride in doing it well, and can get caught up in narratives about people dying of cancer, historic Supreme Court cases from the turn of the 20th Century, the latest techniques for using lasers for root canals, etc.) but I can do it at home on my own time.  Where there's a problem, is that if you don't do something for a living, other people don't think you should make it a priority.  So - it's OK if you can't do something because you're working but not if you're involved with something that's a hobby.  Singing in church is ok because people should have a right to practice their religion.  Even prisoners (which I sometimes feel like and certainly identify with) get to do that.  Never mind that it doesn't happen to be my religion - although that's not actually true.  If one of my religions is High Art, then I get to practice it every Sunday that I sing a piece by Bach, Beethoven, or Benjamin Britten, just to name a few.  But once I step outside the acceptable box of work, family, and religion, it becomes more problematic.

I was feeling excited about making plans to choose some things to sing in a concert on September 11 (which I don't even know yet if I have a spot in).  When I mentioned this to my partner I will give her credit that she didn't ask my why I was doing this and give me a hard time, but she did say "well, I assume you're not getting paid, but I know you will be happy to have the experience."  So OK.  An improvement over telling me I am wasting time and money, but not exactly a big thumbs up.

(I have decided to postpone telling her about the Requiem until another day.)

One of my problems is I don't just love singing, I love all the ambient trappings that go with life as a singer, and I have even less access to those except in a contrived way - out-dressing everyone for an evening in the theater - that people find silly and superfluous.  Many singers don't love those things.  They see them as a necessary evil, the way I saw numbers as a necessary evil when I had a job supervising 20 people.  I was interested in the people, not in bloody metrics!!  I not only want to wail out an aria with technical precision and passion, I also want to get dressed up, talk to people about my hair, makeup, and outfits, have pictures taken, travel, live in hotels (some people want a McMansion - my dream is to live in an expensive hotel where I never have to lift a finger), see the world without having to shell out thousands of dollars for a "vacation", flirt with "coworkers" as part of my "job", and, just, in general, be a public person.

Even the friends with benefits I hide under the table have to be, well, hidden under the table, so I can't even brag to the universe about having that at 62.  Which is no mean feat, considering that they're both 45.

So I have this exciting life that is meaningful to me, and then there's the person other people think they see and interact with: the stay-at-home copyeditor, the tenant advocate, the friend, the caregiver, the museum attendee, the person who reads the New York Times.


Maybe I should work on my "happening".  If someone can dress up as the Statue of Liberty maybe I should put on an evening gown, stilettos, and a wig, and pose outside the Food Emporium.  All I need now is a photographer.  And I can't let my partner know - she would be horrified.

And now it's time to go practice.

An Ode to Frivolity and a Seguidilla Surprise

This isn't strictly about singing, but it is about me, and I really need an outlet right now.  As I no longer have the pseudonymous blog, this is it.  So now to keep it honest yet discreet.

For someone who is - OK I will say it - basically narcissistic and diva-esque, I am not sure sometimes how I ended up where I ended up.  I never wanted to save the world or rescue people.  One exercise in The Artists Way asked you to list five imaginary lives/professions you could see yourself in and not a single "helping profession" was on my list. I am not a compulsive caregiver. (When I was in that dismal LGBT caregiver group a number of the members referred to themselves as having a caregiving addiction, something I had zero identification with.)

I do have a strong sense of ethics and feelings of compassion for the people who are in my life.  Well, the person who is in my life.  I haven't noticed myself jumping to help people in my broader circle, mostly because I feel like a rubber band stretched to capacity.

Although we never legally married, my partner and I did have a commitment ceremony complete with vows, and although in the physical sense when I got too lonely I chose to ignore the one about "foresaking all others" I believe that it is my duty to honor the rest: to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, 'til death do us part.  And I will not waver.

But when you add up limited funds, limited time, a livelihood spent at home at a laptop editing articles many of which are about people dying of cancer, much time with significant other spent at her home, doing chores, and making plans around her various health challenges it can be very wearing.

I don't know why (maybe it was my upbringing?) but everyone I know is what I would call "terminally serious".  No matter what my mother talked about, it always felt like listening to the New York Times Op Ed page.  She could take almost any potentially juicy topic and wring the lust and laughter out of it by turning it into a polemic.

Then, Heaven help us, because as a young adult I decided I was attracted to women, I got dragged kicking and screaming into The Women's Movement, which was really just a suffocating multiplication of my mother haranguing at me not to buy cosmetics.

Most of the friends I have now want to talk about politics, their health, or their money problems.

Where has all the laughter gone?

Yes, I have political opinions but I rarely talk about them, unless I start to get scared that my senior entitlement programs are going to be taken away.  I don't define myself by them.  Many of my friends, particularly from other parts of the country, define themselves as liberals in a sea of conservatives (their families and childhood acquaintances? neighbors?) whereas I have always defined myself as a bimbo in a sea of intellectuals.

So why now.

I have known for a while that my partner was having cataract surgery on the 20th, but it was only today that she found out that this means she can't bend over to tie her shoes for 10 days.  She often stays in the house for that many days, and I always go over on Friday night and do chores for her on Saturdays, but this means that not one but two weekends, the second one being my birthday, will be taken up either with waiting on her, or staying in the house with her.  She will not expect me to be there during the week.  That is my work week.  But still.  Is it childish to care about my birthday?  For a long time I thought birthdays were primarily for children.  Mine is in July and I remember being reprimanded by a camp counselor (I was 9) for, in response to her asking me what my favorite day was all summer, saying it was my birthday.  But then suddenly in the "greed is good" 80s I would hear many of my coworkers rhapsodize about the expensive jewelry they got from significant others.  Jewelry (unless it was arty costume jewelry or something ethnic) was totally frowned on in the circles in which I moved even if someone could afford it.  In all fairness, during that brief period when my partner was working she did buy me a few pieces of jewelry, but those days are long gone.  I am lucky to get an inexpensive lunch and a discounted theater ticket (we are going to see "Mary Poppins" as a joint birthday present, sitting in discounted seats for the disabled).

What are all these young people giggling about in all these pictures on Facebook?  One of the nicer readers of my pseudonymous blog said I probably was envious of people having a good time, which is absolutely true.  Maybe I have "a good time" once a month if I'm lucky.  How do I define that?  Doing something totally frivolous where I don't have to be constantly poised to take care of someone else's needs, worry about their well-being, slow my pace, go gently, not overdo, take lots of breaks, cut out early,  be home before dark....something where I am not worried about money or time, where I am by myself without my partner (whom I sometimes laughingly refer to as "the cleavage police") censoring what I'm wearing.

I will try to do something for myself over these next few weeks. I will have to give up a trip to Giverny in the Bronx and one to a concert at the Met Museum, but maybe I can go to the women's Moon Circle (a place I can wear bright colors, engage in sacred play, and honor my pagan self).  (My love for this activity is one reason that no matter how much I love singing Bach and respect the social outreach at the Lutheran church, I am not converting to Christianity any time soon.  Also pagans can be nonmonogamous.)

On a more cheerful note, I am finding the Seguidilla much easier.  I just had to sing it into my voice.  I can do the ending up to the high B well enough to keep the role in my repertoire.  I mean it's one note and that's not really what the role is about. (God would I love to sing this role in full costume!!) And FWIW, I was just listening to a recording of Carmen with Grace Bumbry, and she transposed the Seguidilla down a half a step!

ETA: Right after I posted this I spoke with my partner.  She is really quite frightened about the cataract surgery (it usually goes smoothly, but she had to sign a waiver that mentioned blindness and death) and I want to be there for her.  I suggested going this weekend to get her another pair of sneakers that has a velcro closing instead of ties, that she can put on with her reacher.  In addition to the cataract surgery there is also the issue of her having an artificial hip replacement and not being able to bend into certain positions.  She also cried and said it hurt her when I invited her to go with me to do things at night.  One thing I have very poor judgment about is when I am being unreasonably selfish and when I am being unreasonably self-abnegating.  I grew up thinking I was much more selfish than most people (the kids I grew up with, even the rich ones, were punished if they acted greedy about, for example, wanting an expensive birthday present) but as we moved into the Reagan Era and beyond, I continue to be surprised at how selfish and self-absorbed many people are, regarding wanting presents, treats, etc., even middle aged adults, who expect expensive birthday presents from spouses, etc. or the younger performers who endlessly post photos of themselves in various outfits.  So I have no benchmarks that I trust.

Dawn, Maybe?

I wanted to make a post last night, but was at an all time low ebb (usually I save these sorts of posts for "the other place").

I am still dangerously underemployed (I'm supposed to get some regular work starting next month but don't know how many hours t hat will be) but am determined to stick with freelance. I get health insurance from my previous employer and simply can't face having to go into an office for 8 hours a day on someone else's schedule. It's really really nice to be able to sleep a little later and make daytime appointments. I can work at my computer at night, which is a good time to be in my apartment and cozy.

Even in this precarious state, I am the financial "anchor" for my (mostly ex) partner who is practically destitute living on a fixed income. I am finally getting her some much needed social services but nonetheless....

The current bone of contention is $200 she owes on the cell phone. It was easy for her to overuse it when she was in the hospital and neither of us could ever figure out how many minutes we had left (I spoke to a live person over the phone and I think I now have this figured out).

I am also feeling very depressed because my 60th birthday is next week. Aside from feeling that my "last gasp of healthy middle age" is slipping away due to financial insecurity and eldercare responsibitilies (I mean I chose not to have kids, for Pete's sake! I'm not a nurturer except in small doses - I was a great, mentorly boss, for example), I am depressed that there really is nothing/no one to do anything special for me. I don't have a "Circle of Friends" IRL although I have a lot of acquaintances. Between working 50 hours a week at a job for the past decade, eldercare, and trying to sing, I haven't had much time for socializing. My ex partner is supposed to take me for a restaurant so we'll see. If she gets into a snit with me over the phone bill for all I know she might not. Ironically, she bought us a ballet subscription (a birthday present for me) which she really couldn't afford. This was before she knew about the cell phone bill.

The one thing that is going well (a strident B flat here and there notwithstanding) is my singing. And it isn't just that I'm singing well, it's that I'm on people's radar screen, something I never thought would happen.

The glorious rising young tenor pictured Here asked me what opera I was going to cast him in next!!! So maybe I can get to the next thing on my "Bucket List" in the Spring of 2011!! I know that's when I'm doing a concert with my teacher. If they weren't both tenors, I would try to include them both in something, but I'd rather do a pocket version of Carmen or Aida as another concert.

Now I just have to find a place. The Lutheran church where I sing had a concert series to restore their historic Tiffany windows but I think that's over and the message I had gotten was that if I wanted to do something else I would have to pay for space rental. So maybe this guy can find something. But he thought of me.

And he's using the photo of us as his Facebook profile pic!!