A year. Quite a year, in fact. While I'm living life I forget that I'm slowly accomplishing things, but then I tally it all up and I see my progress. I always think I'm not doing enough, and I wonder why I'm so tired, not noticing that the reason I don't do more is that I'm already doing quite a bit. In addition to what you see below, I got a new voice teacher, was promoted to a new position at my day-job, and moved for the first time in a few years. Here's to 2020 being even crazier!
Things I've sung: Broadway concert (Regina Opera) - February Library concert (Regina Opera) - April 49th Anniversary Gala (Regina Opera) - April - premiered 2 pieces by Paula Kimper! Herodiade (New Amsterdam Opera) - May The Little Prince (Sherrill Milnes' VOICE Studio, Savannah) - August The Uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto (Premiere by Harry Bialor) - October Mercedes in Carmen (Regina Opera) - November Holiday sing-along concert at Sts. Constantine & Helen Church - December Other things I've done: The Blacklist (background) - January The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (background) - August Flamenco classes Scapegoat - my first larp! My first non-sub church gig - Sts. Constantine and Helen 2 larp playtests Auditioned for commercials Things I've seen: Megan Ihnen recital - January PRISM (Prototype Festival) - January Adriana Lecouvreur (The Met) - January Pelleas et Melisande (The Met) - January La Fille du Regiment (The Met) - February Williamstown Theatre Festival Gala (feat. AUDRA MCDONALD!) - February Jessica Niles' Bachelors Recital - February La Boheme cover show (Regina Opera) - February Tosca opera movie on YouTube - March Mary Rice's Masters Recital - March La Faranucci (Brooklyn Conservatory) - March Captain Marvel - March Samson et Dalila (The Met) - March The Queen of Hearts (Company XIV) - April Dialogues des Carmelites (The Met) - May Un Ballo In Maschera (Amore Opera) - May NYFOS - June Stonewall (NYCO) - June Blunderland at House of Yes - July Date Me, Do Me, Dump Me (musical) - July Liederabend (Savannah VOICE Festival) - August Nick Yaquinto: Unplugged (Savannah VOICE Festival) - August Dialogues of the Carmelites (Savannah VOICE Festival) - August Fanciulla del West (Met Lincoln Center free screening) - August Fine Life (band) - September Looking At You (Experiments In Opera) - September Denis & Katya (O19, Opera Phila) - September Betrayal (Broadway) - September Fine Life (band) - October Porgy and Bess (The Met) - October Akhnaten (The Met) - December Jojo Rabbit - December Things I've read: This is your brain on music The Red Threads of Fortune (JY Yang) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) The Steerswoman & The Outskirter's Secret (Rosemary Kirstein) - re-read Over Sea, Under Stone (Susan Cooper) On Tyranny The Dirty Streets of Heaven Space Opera - new favorite book! The Lost Steersman The Language of Power Little Women Shatterglass - re-read Dealing with Dragons - re-read
0 Comments
Now that it's almost a month into 2019, it's time for a recap of 2018!!! I had quite the year, but here is the gist of some things I did in bare-boned bullet points. It was really quite remarkable and formative for me personally, with even the horrendous downs tempered by incredible silver linings from the amazing people in my life. Here's to 2019 being even better!
Things I sang in 2018:
Opera is all about details. We practice and polish and hone and obsess, sometimes to the point where we forget what all those details are in service of: performing. All of it is so that when we get up on that stage we have the tools to really, truly, make the art as we want it to be. We so desperately want to share and communicate with the people watching on a primal level, and working towards perfection allows us to communicate more easily and deeply.
Last Saturday I was able to do that thing where you make a roomful of people forget to breathe and wait to clap. Where they're still with you as the last chord fades and they need to sit with you for an extra few seconds while you hold the final energy of your aria. Honestly, that's the moment I live for in opera. It was exactly what I was aiming for with that particular piece, so even though I didn't advance in the competition I was singing for, I'm proud of myself. I didn't sing perfectly, but I took the audience somewhere else. I performed. That's what it's about. That's why I do this. To make people feel, to make them empathize. Not sympathize; empathize. To help them immerse so deeply their neurons line up with mine and they feel with me. I forget what I'm about sometimes when I get caught up in the day-to-day of making specialized throat noises, but that was not one of those days. I lost, but I won. Late last year I hung out with jazz musicians for the first time in a long while. My friend (a jazz pianist) and I had just watched an amazing band play a great set, and went to talk to the clarinetist. We introduced ourselves and midway through the conversation the player casually asked, "oh, are you a musician?" in response to me using some musical jargon. I outed myself as an opera singer and suddenly he looked really impressed. His eyebrows went up and he said, "that's amazing, you're a legit singer!" He then explained that legit was the jazz-industry term for singers who sing in a more classical style. I knew the term, and nodded and smiled as the conversation flowed back to what we were previously talking about. This man had just shredded on the clarinet, playing with an easy and virtuosic style that had me alternately slack-jawed and grinning like an idiot, but deemed me worthy of extra esteem just because of the style of music I perform.
That term bounced around my head the rest of the evening, as I kept meeting new jazz musicians and seeing their eyebrows raise, newfound respect crossing over their faces, every time I said those magic words: "opera singer." Mind you, none of these people have ever heard me sing -- I could be complete crap for all they knew -- but the mere mention of my "legit" style was enough to earn their admiration. My friend received no such response; when he or I would mention his prowess as a jazz pianist, he would get a nod and warm smile of camaraderie. I have immense respect for vocal musicians in other styles; it takes practice and skill no matter the genre. Musical theater singers have to be in insanely good shape to meet the demands of their genre; jazz and R&B singers can riff in ways that put my coloratura to shame; country music has that wonderful ping ("twang") to it that I aspire to in my squillo; folk music from all backgrounds involves meticulous research and immersion into regional styles and oral histories; pop is universally appealing to a degree that no other genre can match; rock and metal put demands on the voice that I can't even begin to rival or comprehend. Opera is a demanding, physical, technical, emotional art form that takes a mind-blowing amount of invisible work, but other genres are equally deserving of respect. This happens among non-musicians as well. When I (eventually) get around to mentioning that I'm an opera singer, I get the same sky-high eyebrows and genuine excitement. I'm not going to lie, it feels nice to get automatic awe, but it also makes me uncomfortable, especially considering the usual shape of the conversation immediately after the revelation. Me: I'm an opera singer. Person: Wow that's so cool! I've never met an opera singer before! Opera is amazing! Me: [excitedly] Oh you like opera?! Person: Well I've never seen one, but I've always wanted to go. Me: If you don't mind my asking, what's stopped you from going? Person: I've just never gotten around to it. I've had this conversation easily 10-20 times in the past year. If it continues on past that point, I usually end up recommending easy/cheap places to find and experience opera (during the summer there's the Met Summer HD Festival, which is free, easy, low pressure, and fun, and the NY Opera Fest, which has a wide variety of affordable options). If I have something coming up, I'll also invite them to that. Opera just isn't that high on people's list of leisure activities. It's seen as Work, as an Event, a Special Occasion. It's the art-house foreign film of live performance. This elitist stigma and niche core audience hurts ticket sales, but translates to respect in a one-on-one conversation. Opera is incredible and has the ability to bypass logic to reach directly into the emotional core of a person, but the fact that people have a distant reverence for it without having experienced is a little disconcerting. I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I just wanted to bring it up. It's one of those weird things that come up as an opera singer. Fellow artists (of all styles!), have you experienced this? Do you see it as good, bad, neutral, hilarious? What have you observed? Let me know in the comments! I have finally started making vlogs! This first installment is my adventures on Sunday, 29 April. So excited to share this first video with you! I had the privilege of attending the Met Opera National Council Finals and learned a lot. If you are a singer, I highly recommend watching as many competitions as you can. It teaches you about, in no particular order:
In case you were wondering (and didn't just click on the MONC link above), the winners are: Ashley Dixon, Mezzo-Soprano, Northwest Region Jessica Faselt, Soprano, Upper Midwest Region Madison Leonard, Soprano, Middle Atlantic Region Carlos Santelli, Tenor, Western Region Hongni Wu, Mezzo-Soprano, Eastern Region I had a lot of fun making my first MezzoNerd video. Please subscribe to my youtube channel - there will be more vlogs in the future! My generation is doing this odd thing where we call out our own #adulting, and I honestly think this celebration and glorification of adulthood is good. Gamifying achievements like cooking something elaborate, opening a savings account or retirement fund, or just actually doing that laundry you've been putting off gives you a burst of dopamine, making you more likely to adult in the future (yes, "adult" has colloquially been verbed -- deal with it). Sharing accomplishments boosts self-esteem. Honestly, I feel great every time I pay bills. Still. I've been responsible for paying at least one utility since I was 17, so you think that would have worn off by now, but strangely enough the novelty remains. I batch-cooked a beef and vegetable soup for the week and brought in a tupperware-full for my coworker. When she wolfed it down today, starting when it was still too hot but persevering because it was yummy, making happy noises and faces and exclaiming "this is so good!" more than once, I felt an indecent amount of pride. I didn't want to let it show, but having another person -- especially an older colleague whose opinion I respect -- really enjoy my cooking straight-up made my week. I've also been riding the high from organizing my bookshelf and tacking up fairy lights in my room for like four days now. And I know I'm not the only one to experience these small moments of pride and joy in everyday events.
This feeling goes hand in hand with the impostor syndrome common among my generation where we can't quite believe we're adults. For many of the financially middling and more affluent among us, our parents have been helping us pay for basic expenses into our late 20s, which definitely contributes to that phenomenon (let's be real here, I'm still on my mom's cell phone plan and I lived with her for 2 years post-college). But is it so bad that we're holding onto our sense of fun? Is it so bad that we're turning being an adult into something to be excited about? As long as we're actually being responsible human adults, where's the harm? I was lucky enough to represent OperaWire at the Girls of the Golden West Works and Process presentation at the Guggenheim on September 21st and had the opportunity to write an article about it. They let me write from whatever angle I wanted (!), and Peter Sellars (librettist/director) and John Adams (composer) were so woman-oriented in the way they talked about the opera that I had to go with a woman-centric take. It was really special to be able to hear them talk about the show. Both men are so meticulous -- everything they do is well thought out -- and I love hearing Sellars in particular speak about opera. He always touches on something profound or historical and makes me think about the work in a way I hadn't considered. I heard a radio interview about his Clemenza this summer and it completely blew my mind. Watching the creative team during the discussion last Thursday really brought home that there is no excuse for writing operas dominated by white males. These two white men, one of whom just turned 70, spent a majority of the time talking about the forgotten multiculturalism of the Gold Rush. The story they wove for the opera revolves around real-life accounts of two women, Louise Clappe and Josefa Segovia, and although they took artistic license with the details and how they structured the story, especially given the lack of historical records surrounding Josefa, they clearly did extensive research and made every effort to create real, powerful women. These men looked around at their privilege and opportunities and decided to tell someone else's story. Click below to read my article! Also, on a personal note, I got to meet J'Nai Bridges and Peter Sellars, and re-meet John Adams and let him know what an impact he had on my affinity for new music (On the Transmigration of Souls was one of my earliest experiences performing contemporary vocal music). It was awesome! "Opera is sexy!" I remember the time this innocent tweet from a music community tweep sparked a long, lively conversation between me and another tweep. His problem was that people always say that in an attempt to give opera broader appeal and reel in new audience members. He argued that not everything needs to be sexy, that opera can stand on its other merits, that "sexy" doesn't have to come into play. He's right. For example, The Met's ad campaign from last year clearly utilizes the sex appeal of the international stars gracing its stage, with Anna Netrebko in the throes of ecstasy, Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo entwined atop silk sheets, and Elina Garanca giving us her best 90s Leonardo DiCaprio, one hand seductively stroking Renee Fleming's hair. This is only the latest in a string of aesthetics-based choices at The Met. Then we have those regie European productions, where nudity is practically de rigeur. Gratuitous nudity is in vogue, for example the shower scene in Glyndebourne's Der Rosenkavalier.
So, yes, not everything needs to be sexy and this trend towards hyper-sexualization is not doing the art form any favors. He's right. He's also wrong. Opera IS sexy. It's intrinsically sexy, for so many reasons. The stories are emotionally charged and sparks constantly fly between lovers. They deal with seduction, revenge, sex, and passionate love. The music is intoxicating and sweeps through the fourth wall to envelop and arouse the audience. Singing opera can be arousing. Opera is a safe space to explore and experience the many facets of desire. Opera doesn't need to be sexy. It just is. In case you missed me yelling about this in person or on every social media platform known to man -- I have a concert this Friday, June 23rd. I am insanely proud of this particular concert. It features works by a bunch of composers, and excerpts from an opera in progress. I am singing one of the lead roles in the opera scenes and an entire song cycle by the super-talented and crazy-nice Ross Crean, who is in absurdly high demand in the Chicago new music scene. I am extremely passionate about new vocal works, and this is an opportunity to really dig into some very satisfying music. These composers are all so smart; their music is full of nuance and little touches that bring home just how talented and brilliant they are. AND THE SINGERS. We have a group of amazing singers who have really brought this music to life. I'm so excited to bring this concert to fruition. I can't fully express how important it is to me, and I hope you come to see it. TICKETS June 23, 7pm at Opera America National Opera Center (330 7th Ave) I'm going to start a regular vlog in the next couple months. Keep your eyes peeled! It's going to be a smorgasbord of things that interest me, published in vlog form! You can find me under the tag MezzoNerd once it's live. For now, get a sneak peek at my title sequence: |
AuthorMaayan is a Manhattan-based opera singer. Archives
January 2019
Categories
All
|