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!
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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: This post has taken me too long to do. My hope was to chronicle my first experience at a summer music program. I wanted to create shorter, more frequent posts. Instead, I am bashing out this word vomit one week into the program. The reason: I am extremely busy here. My days have been filled with rehearsals, masterclasses, coachings, lessons, practicing, yoga, and making friends. I am so happy. I am working on my favorite thing in the world (opera, in case you have never encountered me at all in any way, shape, or form) literally all day. Even when I am just hanging out with my colleagues or the faculty I learn and discuss things. It's so wonderful.
I am so excited to be here. I am singing Nancy in Albert Herring (Benjamin Britten), which sits wonderfully in my voice. The music is extremely challenging, but makes total sense once you get it in your system and head. Everyone in my show is so on top of knowing their music. We were told to have it memorized by the first day of the program, but often there is that one jerk who just doesn't know their music. Not so in this production. Everyone came in on the first day completely solid. It was incredible. We've had to work on coordinating a lot of the scenes that involve the entire cast, but that is to be expected. The vocal lines are short interjections that dovetail or overlap each other, which take a lot of practice to get right. Everyone is also very quick when it comes to learning staging, which is just lovely. Really the amount of talent here is just astounding. I feel so lucky to be among such amazing singers. Also everyone is so ridiculously nice. And not fake nice, but truly, genuinely kind. They don't pretend to like you; they actually do. Or don't, but so far that hasn't happened. Everyone is getting along really well (knock on so much wood pleeease let there be no drama...actually, I would honestly be surprised if there was; this isn't a dramatic group at all). The faculty here are so supportive, knowledgeable, and approachable. I'm getting distracted by a conversation my friends are having next to me, so bye for now. I'll write tomorrow. I will probably be drunk, since a huge group of us are going wine tasting! Me: **sings "Svegliatevi nel core" from Händel's Giulio Cesare**
Sister: What was with your character, why's he so angsty? Me: Well, his dad's been murdered-- Sister: So he's Hamlet. Me: --and he has to avenge him-- Sister: So he's Hamlet. Me: Haha, well not exactly... Sister: He's Hamlet. I love my sister. When you spend months working closely with people on an artistic endeavor, you and your colleagues build a special bond. This bond is not necessarily based on sitting down and having soul-baring, deep conversations. It is a relationship that slowly unfolds while you expose yourself through your work. That is how you get to know each other. Then you bond through ribald jokes over beers. This bond grows while you geek out over nuances in your art form, while you watch each other rehearse, one watcher stroking another’s hair absentmindedly. It is very comfortable, it is open, it is vulnerable, it is inappropriate, it is highly entertaining. You can grab this person’s breast or ass and it isn’t weird. You sometimes speak to each other in strange, gibberish noises. You have inside jokes. Personal space is irrelevant. What you have with these people is a wonderful and different breed of love.
In any situation where a professional performer fields questions from an audience, the much-dreaded question "How much do you practice?" inevitably makes an appearance. Either that or its more specific twin: "How many hours do you practice every day?" This question makes all musicians writhe in their concert dress, but none more so than singers. The orchestra at my university invited the audience to text the maestro a question at intermission; any time there was a featured soloist, especially a singer, the dreaded question would be directed their way. It's something non-musical people are very curious about, since they only have the opportunity to see the finished product, not the invisible work. Even musicians are curious about other musicians; we want to know how we measure up.
I fielded this question several times in college, mostly from children who wanted to know how little practice they could get away with. Twice in college I was the recipient of a small scholarship whose one very easy stipulation was that you had to participate in an outreach at a local elementary school. The scholarship was awarded to four students and included instrumentalists and singers. My first year the scholarship was awarded to a pianist, a flautist, a bass-baritone, and me (a mezzo-soprano). My second year it was awarded to a pianist, a violinist, a fellow mezzo, and me. We each performed one or two pieces and then had an open question-and-answer with the students. The first kids called on, both years, asked the specific twin version of the dreaded question. My first year, the pianist and flautist both said "four to six hours a day" with no hesitation. The second year, the pianist said "two to three" and the violinist said "four," again with very little hesitation. Both years, my fellow opera singers and I looked at each other with "oh no; I hate this question" faces and then proceeded to equivocate before agreeing that we each practiced "about an hour a day," internally wincing at how much we look like slackers to these kids. The second year I was anticipating the question and answered it with more conviction and more concise equivocation (paradoxical, I know), but I still winced at how it must sound to an outsider. When singers have to answer this question, we often begin with explanations such as, "well, singers do a lot of work outside the practice room" and "we use our instruments all day long to speak so we don't have the stamina of other instruments." We then go on to touch on things like translating and learning our words and the amount of rehearsal we have per day before ending with the lame-sounding, "I practice about an hour a day." "An hour a day." That answer is bullshit. Singers work on their craft far more than an hour a day, but that is all anyone remembers from a sparknotes-style explanation. Spending time in a practice room and vocalizing in a deliberate, problem-solving way is only part of what "practicing" means to a singer. Or any performer, for that matter. Asking a performer how much they practice is like asking a soccer player how much they exercise. If you define exercise as "time spent in a gym" or "deliberately and specifically honing your body" the answer is very different than if you include scrimmages and drills with the team in your definition. Spending that specific time sharpening your metaphorical tools is very important, but that time spent on the field is a huge part of what makes you good at the game. The same goes for the arts. Time spent in the practice room is far outstripped by time spent in rehearsals, score study, listening to other performers, masterclasses, lessons, coachings, and research. However, that time spent outside is crucial to making the time inside productive. Performing and working in front of and with other people helps you figure out where you are solid in your craft and what you personally need to work on. That way you can enter the practice room with a sense of purpose and direction. Instead of thinking, "I need to practice my breath support because my teacher told me to," you think, "I need to practice my breath support so I can nail that really long phrase in the Mozart." What you do in your warm-ups and practice time is easier to translate to reality and makes it feel more worthwhile. Singers have concerns that instrumentalists do not. For example, singers' instruments are part of them. We think of everything we do in life in terms of whether it is good or bad for our voices. We curtail drinking and yelling when we have auditions or performances coming up. We have a whole different way of maintaining our instruments from other musicians. If ours are broken, the only fix is rest and healthy practices. The stereotype of the hypochondriac, scarf-sporting, tea-toting opera diva did not come from thin air. Also, we have words. No other instrument deals with them. Singers have this whole other layer of what it means to make music. Not only do we have to say the (often foreign) words perfectly; we have to understand what they mean and try to communicate that with the audience. Translations and supertitles help a lot, but the singer still has to know what each word means. We research translations, looking at what has been done by others and referring to dictionaries on our own for specific words. In reality, we often memorize two sets of words: the original language and our language. We agonize over pronunciation, debating things like open and closed vowels and nuances of syllabification. A lot of our lyrics are poetry, so we also have to be able to analyze that and delve into poetic meanings and subtext. I probably spend a cumulative half an hour a day learning or memorizing words. Walking down the street, I often look like a crazy person because I use that time to practice the words of whatever piece I am memorizing at the moment. Like I said, a lot of learning happens outside the practice room. Singers have an extra layer of complexity on top of being stellar musicians and strong linguists; we have to be compelling actors. Acting is not easy. It is not something you can work on for four hours a day and leave in the practice room. To act is to wholly embrace your humanity. Acting is an exchange of energy. Acting is paying attention. Acting is an awareness of others. Acting is empathy. Acting is affecting others and being affected by them in turn. Acting is sending energy out into the world with all your might. Acting requires an enormous amount of vulnerability. It takes a willingness to expose yourself; to expose your innermost emotions; to rip open your chest cavity, pull out your bloody, beating heart, hold it out to the audience, and say, "look." Acting is scary. Acting is something you practice every moment of your life. As opera singers, we have a head start on affecting those around us; the music is our ally. So sometimes we phone in the acting. Sometimes we let the music do the work for us. And it's fairly effective. But we know that in order to be the best performers we can be, we need to put in the work as actors, not just as singers. So on top of learning our music, words, and staging, we develop our characters. We research the period in which our production is set. We write back-stories for our character. We discover relationships with every other person onstage with our character. We mine and we pay attention until we, radiating through the gauze of our character, are affected by what is happening around us. And we integrate all of that with our music. The time we spend in the practice room is crucial because while we are sending and receiving all of that energy, we need to sing. We need to sing beautifully, with flawless technique and perfect diction. That hour in the practice room is fully utilized because we understand the importance of laying that foundation. The next time someone asks me how much I practice, I am tempted to say, "every waking moment." I encourage all musicians to do the same. Because that is truly the answer. |
AuthorMaayan is a Manhattan-based opera singer. Archives
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