Transfiguration Sunday

I have had a very stressful few days, emotionally.  Right now I feel like I've been through a wringer.

Just as I was really feeling happy for the first time in a long time, one of my Facebook friends reposted a blog entry by the woman I refer to as "Miss Blowhard" (a singer with a minor career - albeit a gorgeous voice - who is also a teacher and writer) about the whole issue of should you/shouldn't you sing for free, which went back and re-hashed the whole bookstore singing gig, which I really thought had been put to bed.

I am not even sure where her post was going, because first she said singers shouldn't sing for free, then she said yes, there were avocational singers and that that was an esteemable thing.  She did rehash in great detail a conversation she had with the woman from the publisher stating that she would not let her students (I have no idea what level they are at) sing something like that for free nor would she let them sing at a church for free.  In the process of all this she referred to me as "a dedicated avocational singer who appeared to have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the experience".  Part of me feels lucky to have escaped the barbs of her sharp tongue, and that that description of me was "charitable enough".  Later, though, I felt that there was something "booby-prizeish" about it and that my considering it a compliment shows how little self esteem I have.  I think if that posting had a "point" it was that people were entitled to use avocational singers but that they needed to be "educated" that they then were using a "lower tier of service".  So that's what I am then?  The Wal-Mart version?

Reading these sorts of things is really not helpful and just makes me unhappy.  So, I'm the Wal-Mart version.  Can't I have break from being reminded of that?  How can being told that possibly help me have a happier life using my talents as best I can?

Then I ended up really losing my temper (figuratively speaking) on Facebook about another perceived diss (I don't want to say who, what, because I learned my lesson about being tactless) and had a tiff with someone that did not do me any favors.  We hugged and made up without endless palaver, which is a good thing.  It was yet another incident involving Little Miss getting more than her fair share of attention.

Here's what I think bothers me so much, and it really ties all these themes together.

No, I don't think grieving is a good metaphor for whatever it is I'm feeling.  It's more like yearning.  An enormous yearning that nothing can assuage, that hurts more than anyone will ever know.  Yearning for recognition, for attention, for applause (not for nothing, but for all the hard work I've done, and how much better I sound each year than I did the year before, particularly now).  And then I realized that this is not the first time I've yearned and yearned and yearned for something I don't or maybe can't have.  But this is the first time that I've yearned and yearned and yearned for something for so long and not eventually found a viable substitute, which would then enable me to move on.  In high school if I yearned after Charlie and he wouldn't give me a second look, I could date Timmy, and eventually, I would be happy with Timmy.  If Beth made me feel fat and coarse, I could stop spending time with her and find a few other friends who thought I was glamorous and interesting.  But there is noplace I seem to be able to go with the talents and abilities I have now where they matter all that much.  I am not a masochist.  At some point I realized I would be happier if I cut myself off from the world of professional singers (or emergings, or semi-pros), stopped reading their posts and stopped going to see performances given by the opera groups that have rejected me.  I "unsubscribed" to emails from those groups, finally, so that I would not know what they are doing.  But you see, "Little Miss" has brought that world right into what I thought was a "safe haven" where I could be special - a choir that doesn't pay people.  And the whole tone has changed, which is why I lost my temper over something basically pretty trivial.

Well, today was Transfiguration Sunday, so maybe I will be transfigured.  And soon it will be Lent, so maybe I can meditate on my sins, of which envy is absolutely the biggest.

I actually had a nice day today.  I sang "Et Exsultavit" from the Magnificat in D at the Spanish service and everyone loved it.  Someone told me I should sing there more often.  And I may get a video.  And my Spanish is improving.  I understood at least half of the sermon.   In the Fall I plan to audit a course in Spanish at Hunter College.  People over 60 can audit courses there for $65 a semester.

A Lot Going On

Well, I suppose that expression is relative...

First, the bookstore gig.  An actress friend of my SO's was upset that I was being "taken advantage of" by not being paid, as this publisher is a commercial enterprise.  So I asked around, and the most succinct advice I got was from a former boss of mine, when I was in a management position in publishing, who is a publishing law expert (although he is not a lawyer).  He said the most important thing is that I need to have a contract stipulating what the publisher can do with the video they are making and what I can do with it.  If the video is my "payment", then I need a written statement that I can use it for personal promotional purposes.  Regarding pay, most of the people I spoke to didn't see this as so much of an issue because the company is using the video to sell copies of a new printing of Merimee's Loves of Carmen, which will not exactly be a big money maker.  The issue, my ex-boss said was being sure everything is in writing, which I certainly remember from my days as a Managing Editor.  So how things are at this moment, is that the woman from the publisher sent me a draft contract to sign and I made a few changes to it and am waiting to hear back with a revision.

The September 12 concert is taking shape.  In addition to my two solos ("Primary Colors" by Jake Heggie and "Angel" by Wagner) I may be singing two duets with a lyric soprano: the "Barcarole" from Hoffman (which I sang decades ago in my former persona as a trouser mezzo), and an abbreviated version of the duet from Hansel and Gretel, which I have also sung.

And the best news of all is that the woman producing this concert is eager for her singers to produce their own concerts in the room in her apartment complex (which is a very nice place to sing; clean and well kept, not like the studio where I sang the Verdi and almost choked to death), so I am going to definitely do the scenes from Carmen and will ask someone else to something for the other half (and I will need a tenor for Don Jose).  I proffered a few Saturday and Sunday afternoon dates in  May (I sing better in the afternoon) and she is going to get back to me.  After that I can start making plans!

I Live to Sing

Last night I watched this on tv. Of course, being me, what I took away from it was not what I was "supposed" to.  I know Apartheid was a tragedy, and that the living conditions of people of color in the townships are still shocking, even today.  That anyone can emerge from there an opera singer (or anything, really; a doctor, a judge) is quite astounding.  But having grown up in a Marxist family, I am sort of "immune" to finding political messages where I "should," the way some people who grew up fundamentalist are "immune" to positive messages about religion.

Since taking the writing class I have determined to be more authentic.  If I only write what I think people want to hear, I will be boring.

I have written here and elsewhere about the issue of being "discovered".  Most people don't understand what I mean when I write about that.  I don't mean singing at a bake sale and suddenly finding myself whisked away to the Met.  I mean having a talent that someone notices, and having that "someone" stick with me, maybe eventually passing me along to someone else who will take things from there, but always feeling "held" by caring people.  That is how I felt in AA; that is how I sometimes feel in this church where I sing, mainly about my problems with my partner and the toll it takes on me.  I have never felt that way about singing, except once, when the Mentor sprinkled me with stardust.  I was thinking about him just now because he is friends with a number of my friends on Facebook, and for the first time in the 5 or so years I've been on Facebook, he and I commented on the same person's post.  I wonder if he will read what I wrote and click on my profile?  Or read this blog?  (I really shouldn't care.)

The person I was most mesmerized by in the film was a woman named Linda. Linda had every possible strike against her. She grew up in the squalor of the townships, lost both her parents, and is struggling with tuberculosis (I myself am a TB survivor as a result, probably, of having drunk and used drugs in crowded crash pads in the late 1960s, while at the same time suffering from malnutrition).

In true Cinderella fashion, Linda gets the kind of "total immersion" at Glimmerglass that I so ache and long for, and seem not to be able to give myself, except in fits and starts.  The Mentor gave me hints of that: when we went over the "Habanera" he coached my diction, my facial expressions, my hand gestures, even told me what kind of flowers to use!  I don't get that from anyone now.  My teacher and various coaches sometimes correct my pronunciation and my choir director is a stickler for dynamics even when I'm singing a solo, but total immersion?  No.

Sometimes I imagine the vocal equivalent of an AA sponsor; someone who contacts me every day and reviews what I am doing in detail.  Or the money to see someone other than just my voice teacher to go over repertoire on a regular basis.  (I have such a superb ear I don't need a coach to drill notes and rhythm: I can do that myself singing "against" recordings.)  That's what Linda got.  Now if anyone deserved it, she did, but that didn't make me any less sad.

And the crown jewel of all this was: Linda was told by several coaches that she needed to feel entitled to be the center of attention and believed she deserved it!!  No one has ever ever ever said that to me.  I am always being told to be quiet, dress more conservatively, sing softly when I'm singing a church solo (which is 90% of my singing) because it's "about" people taking communion.

Well, I've got my "Habanera" moment.  I now have the sound file to rehearse with.  I will watch Youtube videos of different mezzos singing the Habanera. I will organize my costume and block out some staging.  Even though the purpose of the taping is to make a tape as a  promotional material, there may be a de facto "audience"  if people are in the store buying books while we're taping.

And no matter what, I will not let my partner spoil my happiness.  Or my birthday, for what it's worth.

As a friend said to me "I will walk into that bookstore as if I own the place."

Some Things Taking Shape

Next Tuesday is the first rehearsal for the September 11 concert (which this year will be on September 12).  I spoke with the woman planning it, and we agreed that I would bring the two Jake Heggie songs, Wagner's "Angel", "O Rest in the Lord", and Dvorak's "God is My Shepherd".  If she likes the Heggie songs I will try to get a flautist.  I need to drill these with the accompaniment.  This may mean that I need to buy a CD, because the sound on my computer isn't really loud enough to let me hear where I'm supposed to come in.

"Angel" felt much easier to sing even than it did in December.  Part of that is that I don't have to sing the entire piece ppp because most people are not as big sticklers about pianissimi as my choir director is, who seems to want everything at least one degree softer than what's written.

My singing in general feels easier, even (dare I say it) the B in the "Seguidilla".  One thing my teacher told me is that if I start my vocalizing routine lower, my voice will be anchored more and it will be easier to go higher, which, surprisingly, has seemed to work.  I also think using the Neti pot religiously has made it easier to lift my soft palate.  I think some of the problems I had with my upper register were caused by my having so much sinus drainage back there (something a lay person might not notice) that it was weighting down my palate and making it impossible to make space.

Also, details are firming up regarding my singing the "Habanera" at the bookstore.  I think I will tell my partner that I got this gig through someone I sent a publishing resume (aka my job resume) to.  I put at the bottom that I am a church soloist.  If she thinks I found out about the gig that way she will be less angry than she would if she thought I was trawling singer message boards.  Of course she may probably say something about my wanting to "display" myself (my costume does show some cleavage) but I will do what I can to blow that off.  (Really it never ceases to amaze me how much Lesbians have in common with right-wing fundamentalists when it comes to women's clothing.)  I also am not going to tell her about it until the week before, because my birthday is at the end of July and I don't want her to use being angry at me about this thing to cause her to do something vindictive (I mean all she can afford to do is join with one or two friends to take me out to lunch, and buy me some flowers, but still...)

I told the woman from the publisher that "in lieu of payment" I would like a copy of the videotape that she is going to have made, so that I can use it for my own promotional purposes.  If I had had one made, I probably would have had to pay several hundred dollars, so it seems fair.

This afternoon I am off to my lesson.