Cheesy Tenors and Other Fun Things

Last night was my high school class reunion. What a great event! So many people are doing so well, and warmth and good cheer abounded. I'm so glad I was home to go to it.

With the exception of those few hours of visiting and Thanksgiving Day, I'm working away on a paper for my 19th Century Opera Singers class. Definitely up to my ears in 19th century newspaper articles, reviews of singers, biographies of singers, books on the context of the time in terms of opera history, class ambivalence (desire to advance to the upper crust but antipathy for the aristocratic "snobbery"), gender roles (women rarely worked outside the home. The stage was one of the few career paths open to them), and religious aversion to "those immoral theater people".

My favorite quote so far? From Clara Louise Kellogg's Memoirs of an American Prima Donna:

"Tenors are queer creatures. Most of them have their eccentricities and the soprano is lucky if these are innocuous peculiarities. I used to find it in my heart, for instance, to wish that they did not have such queer theories as to what sort of food was good for the voice. Many of them affected garlic. Stigelli usually exhaled an aroma of lager beer; while the good Mazzoleni invariably ate from one to two pounds of cheese the day he was to sing. He said it strengthened his voice. Brignoli had been long enough in this country to become partly Americanised, so he never smelled of anything in particular."

What do you think: should I try the cheese, the garlic, or the beer before I sing in the Messiah next week?

~Hope

Sing We Merrily on High

On Friday, I auditioned for some soprano solo parts of the American Choral Director's Association Messiah Sing here. They'd asked for us to come in with a piece from the work, and I walked in with "Rejoice Greatly", an air (aria) that's filled with all kinds of melismas (all the fast little notes.)

At my voice lesson last week, I learned that I'd been adding extra notes in many of the melismas. I think this is because I learned the piece when I was in college, and my voice had a tremolo then -- a really fast vibrato that is due, at least in part, to throat tension. (Thanks to a few Amazing voice teachers, my vibrato is now normal, and, man, am I grateful!) So I spent several hours in the practice rooms last week, taking the piece completely apart and singing the melismas on staccato notes. My abs certainly got a workout! Happily, by the time I got to the audition, everything was sitting much better in my voice.

The audition went well :) They asked me to sing a couple of the recits -- "There were shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying" These are the preludes to the chorus's "Glory to God". I adore this part of the work. Every year, as I sit next to my family at church on Christmas Eve, I have this insatiable longing to sing those recits as the pastor reads that very text from scripture. It just seems so much better to me, so much more expressive and joyous, with Handel's music carrying it along.

Anyway, today, I received an email congratulating me on getting the parts! I'm SO EXCITED!! The concert comes right after my crazy busy first week in December, and I'm sure there will be rehearsals which will add to the flurry, but that's okay. I just hope I can sing this incredible piece with all the joy and delight it merits.

~Hope

Recital Time

One of my classmates gave her degree recital tonight. Resplendent in a floor-length, plum-colored gown with her black hair and creamy skin adorned with sparkling jewelry, she looked every inch a diva.

Her program crossed many countries, time periods, and genres from 18th century Handel to 21st century Broadway. When the evening began, there were six chairs and a harpsichord onstage. Out walked two violinists, a violist, a cellist, two French horn players, and a keyboardist to accompany the Handel piece from Alcina: "Sta nell'Ircana". I was surprised and delighted. To think that you can have a Real Chamber Orchestra for your recital here! No "making do" with the piano reduction. So incredible!

The other pieces on the program were:

• "Frauenliebe und Leben" by Robert Schumann - a gorgeous and poignant song cycle about the stages of life through love - youthful infatuation, falling in love, gaining the one, becoming married and devoted, separating from friends to follow one's spouse, having a child, being delighted and rapturous over one's child, losing one's spouse to death, and finally blessing the child and passing on wisdom about the path

• "Connais-tu le pays" from Ambroise Thomas's Mignon

• A set of Spanish art songs by Fernando Obradors: "En el Pinar", ¿Corazón, porqué pasáis…?", and "El vito"

• Some Cabaret Songs by William Bolcom: "Over the Piano", "Waitin'", and "Amor"

Her encore was a hilarious piece about how mezzo-sopranos never get the solos or the melodies but are always asked to sing the alto line. It uses excerpts from recognizable Broadway tunes that are harmonized as if an alto were singing them: "The hills are alive" from The Sound of Music, "Touch me, it's so easy to leave me," from "Memory" from Cats, etc. She has so much personality and expression that the entire audience was laughing throughout.

What a wonderful performance!! She has this beautiful and rich sound that just floated out over all of us, pulling us in to the incandescent web of song. And her expression was so nuanced and grounded and engaging.

I'm so glad that her recital went well!! Yay!!

~Hope

The Alps

The first "real" snowfall happened today. The inch or so stuck for a few hours, giving a glimpse of the winter wonderland to come. The sun melted most of it by the time I left for home this evening, but the blanket will be here to stay soon enough.

The snow wasn't the only thing putting me in mind of the Alps; the semester is really beginning to crunch. In most academic environments, it seems like there is a peak around midterms followed by a trough until the ramp up for finals. But here, things peak mid-semester and then intensify through till the end. I'm in the midst of a whirlwind of papers, practicing, and performances. But mostly papers, papers, papers. I'm beginning to schedule in time for sleep. It's not exactly the consulting lifestyle - the Alps are definitely a hyperbole - but I'm still running.

Or maybe I should say climbing... :)

~Hope

Milestone

A wonderful present was given to me on Halloween. That day, I had to perform "Laurie's Aria" (from Copland's The Tender Land) in Opera Workshop. When I got to class, for the first time ever, I couldn't wait to perform. There was no nervousness, no anxiety, just an excitement to get up there and do it.

This is really big for me.

Every time I've sung before, I've had this mixture of a love of doing it that was completely overshadowed by stage fright. It didn't matter whether I was singing for 2 people or 20 or 200, whether I was among friends or strangers, or whether I was in a big hall or a small classroom; I still quaked.

But then Halloween came. And everything changed.

I sat there in that class and was the first to volunteer to sing. I was so excited to be able to take what I've been doing in the practice room out for a spin. Granted, the situation was helped by really lovely circumstances: I had a fantastic accompanist, the class is about drama instead of technique (usually I'm nervous because I self-critique my technique), the room acoustics are perfect, and my classmates are friendly and celebrate when folks sound great and understand when things don't go well. But still.

What's really neat is that my chutzpah has lasted. The following Monday, I went to an Alexander Technique class where I knew nobody, and I volunteered immediately and without a drop of hesitation to be a guinea pig. I sang "Laurie's Aria" again, this time unaccompanied, and let myself be fiddled with. In studio class this past week, I was a little butterflyish, but the nerves left and only excitement remained when I stood to sing.

If this present sticks around, if I can continue to be joyful when I get to perform, if I can keep recognizing that no performance is ever perfect and that's okay, realizing at the same time that it's perfectly valid to perform while you're still journeying and learning and improving, that's a pretty fantastic milestone.

What a wonderful gift.

~Hope

All is Well

The happy news is that my vocal cords are completely healthy, smooth, and normal. The ENT did a videostroboscopy, which is when they stick a camera down your throat to photograph your vocal cords while you sing various pitches. Quite interesting, actually.

So that means the pain I'm feeling is just muscle tension. My voice teacher said yesterday, "I want you to have a massage no less than two times a month."

I think I can live with that prescription :)

~Hope

Complicated

Such a twisty and complicated little instrument we have. All of us. Anybody who sings in the car or the shower or just the occasional lullaby uses his/her voice. And folks who use it to sing opera just expand that a little bit.

But despite its relative ubiquity, its accessibility in terms of almost anybody being able to "play it" without training (think of how 2 year olds make up songs), this instrument also seems insanely complicated to me. It is hidden. I can't tell which of the thousands of little muscles I'm manipulating when I sing, and I'm not really supposed to. The only time I really notice them is when something is wrong. Then, they protest and hurt. Which is what has been happening over the past few weeks after I practice.

So I'm off to see the otolaryngologist tomorrow. I feel lucky that this community has people who really specialize not only in the ENT side but especially in dealing with singers. The gentleman I'm seeing is supposed to be fantastic, so I'm sure he'll get me right as rain in no time. But in the meantime, I confess to having a smidge of worry. I do love to sing, and it is a little disconcerting when that part of me and my life feels "off".

~Hope

Happy News

The cast list for the spring opera, Le Nozze di Figaro/The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), was posted tonight.

I GET TO SING IN THE CHORUS!! I am a very happy camper :)

The people who were cast in the lead roles are tremendous. Both Countesses (it's double cast) and one of the Susannas are in my voice teacher's studio, and I just melt every time I hear them sing. I know one of the Counts, and he has a beautiful baritone voice, very rich and mellifluous. And the Figaro is fantastic, too. Literally everybody whom I know in this cast sounds beautiful and has a lot of charisma. It is going to be an incredible production!!

The chorus will be 20 people, 5 on each voice part. I'm so thrilled that I get to be a part of this show!!!! I'm going to learn so much from the director, who is wonderful, and from watching all the leads learn and perform. It's going to be oodles and oodles of fun!!

I think I'll go eat some more ice cream to celebrate.

~Hope

Musical Dinner Party

My friend M.E. (not me) decided to throw a dinner party tonight. There were seven of us: 4 music education masters' students, a PhD music ed. student, ME's next door neighbor who is a chemical engineer, and me. ME made salad and a refried bean and cheese dip appetizer and then ordered Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks as our "entree". Most people brought beer or wine. I decided to bring dessert.

The cake you see above is a chocolate gingerbread swirled cake from a Scharffen Berger dessert cookbook (thanks, Stacie :) ). After finishing it and contemplating its likely taste, I realized that something was missing. More Chocolate. There just wasn't enough swirled through for my liking. So I decided to make a chocolate sauce to go along with the cake. That way, people could choose how rich they wanted their dessert. Mine had lots of sauce.

Over dinner, conversation batted among pedagogy class comparisons, descriptions of learning to play various instruments (music ed students have to learn a wide array), why jazz musicians now only play a couple sets and go home instead of staying through the night to jam, how jazz education occurred in the early years, and a smattering of chemical engineering talk to help ME's neighbor, N, feel more comfortable.

We soon migrated to the living room where ME played some popular tunes and the piano and created a mini singalong. Then, the two jazz musicians stood up to play. One trumpeter sat down at the piano and began some incredible jazz piano, while the other one pulled out ME's practice trumpet, muted it, and played. "I Got Rhythm" was first up. Then came "All the Things You Are". And finally "Summertime." I sang some, as did the rest of the room. My jazz sense is so rusty, and I never sang with an instrumental combo, so I'm not that comfortable with it. But it was so amazing to be a part of that music, even as a complete amateur. And hearing those two players...wow. The trombone player in the room joined in midway through - playing the walking bass line on the piano. It was a private and personal and spontaneous jazz performance, and it was wonderful. Take the typical "we're all at a party and there's a piano so we gather round" and kick it up about twelve notches. I would have paid to hear these guys perform. The improvisation and the cool swing of it...There's a reason I love jazz so deeply.

As that set ended, we sat and visited for a while. Then ME pulled out her flute and did a few lovely pieces on it. She has a gorgeous sound. This led to someone asking whether we'd ever heard the beatboxing flute guy on YouTube. (Look it up. Seriously and insanely amazing. A conservatory-trained classical flute player who riffs popular tunes while beatboxing.) The next hour or so was spent gathered around ME's laptop watching various YouTube specialities. Numa Numa. French techno dance. Oscar Peterson and his trio. Santana Shreds. Jaco Pastorius Shreds and then the real deal. The Rachmaninoff Prelude in C# Minor as a hilarious skit by an Asian guy with small hands. (Rachmaninoff had incredibly large hands and a very wide span. His music is extremely difficult to play without that dexterity.) I contributed the Muppets' Carmen. (Swedish Chef and Beaker :) )

The final set of videos we watched was of two varieties of Indian classical music. ME's neighbor, N, is from India, and she had been asking about the differences between Western jazz and classical music. This is an interesting question and not as straightforward as you might think. Certain pieces can be either: Summertime was originally written for the opera Porgy and Bess. You can hear this piece sung by Renee Fleming in a fully classical style. It is also one of the greatest and most played jazz tunes of the 20th century. Rhapsody in Blue is another that can defy characterization. And it seems there are exceptions to every rule. Think string bass is always plucked in jazz? Think again. There's a jazz guy downtown who evidently bows his bass when he plays. And there's some group that takes classical tunes and syncopates them and changes other aspects to "make them jazz". Very exciting.

Anyway, the discussion of jazz vs. classical led to a question about Indian classical music. N showed us hindustani and the other variety and talked about the differences. We all sat riveted for a while and then the commentary flowed.

"It's interesting. The variety all comes from the rhythms and the melodic line. There isn't really an underlying harmonic structure."

"And there are so many more notes. The tuning is different." (Many of the pitches arise between what we think of as the notes in the scale.)

"The drone underneath - what's making that sound?"

"I think my roommate has a machine that does that. It sounds like that."

"It's very rhythmic, almost trancelike."

N cut off the final video at the 7 minute mark or so, fearing that we were finding the sounds and repetitive nature grating. Instead, as soon as she clicked stop, groans erupted from most of the people in the room. "It was almost to the climax!" moaned one person. "Yeah," echoed another. It was the same outburst as when you're in an exciting movie and the projector cuts out right before the bad guy gets thwomped.

Everyone was so fascinated, deeply intrigued, by different kinds of music and their applications. We played everything on both YouTube and on real instruments from classical to pop to jazz. And our conversation hopped from the music of America to Africa to China to India to "Western Europe." Very, very diverse.

The close of the evening was a lot of wonderful conversation back and forth on a variety of non-musical topics. It was one of the most interesting and engaging evenings I've had in a long time.

Very happy. And not just because of the chocolate :)

~Hope

Scatterbrained

So many different snippets floating around in my mind right now that I need to blog about. I'll give you a hodgepodge for now.

The picture is from election day. A neighborhood coffee shop put out two tip jars. Needless to say, the music school community is a bit more liberal than conservative, so the Obama jar was significantly richer by the end of the day.

Brilliantly disturbing was the opera I saw tonight. Britten's Turn of the Screw, cast in a new light that fit beautifully. Flat out one of the best productions I've seen in my life - professional or not. I spent most of the evening with my mouth open, and I found myself reminding myself to breathe. The acting, the singing, the orchestra, the sets were all so tremendous. Usually, I'm enamored with one or two singers, clinging to their sound and wanting them to sing forever. Tonight, every single person but one had that effect on me. The one who didn't was an exception in the best sense. He was a high tenor who played Peter Quint, and he was so creepy in everything he did that I had a visceral recoil reaction to him. Just amazing. I don't want to spoil the concept by revealing it in case there's anyone reading this blog who still wants to see the opera, but I'll link to a review next week if I find one.

My current struggle is learning how to "be" and not "do". Given my propensity for making to-do lists, for creating a plan and sticking to it, and for wanting to "get it right", this whole "being" thing is proving harder for me than I'd like. I'll blog more about this when it's not 1 am. For now, let's just say that I'm working on letting go while still checking off the things I need to accomplish on my daily to-do list.

Well, I've had my chocolate, and I'm about to prescribe myself some Muppets before I go to sleep. I'm hoping those will prove sufficient antidotes to the opera tonight. Not sure I want the nightmares that the cast members have been dreaming for weeks.

~Hope