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.
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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. Waffle Opera's double-billing of Bach's Coffee Cantata and Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona on Sunday outstripped even my excited expectations.
First and foremost, I have to commend the director of both works, Sarah Young. A perennial, very scary, and very legitimate concern that haunts opera directors is how to make a da capo aria interesting. Young found her answers time and again in this production and each returning melody yielded a new solution. Another directorial conundrum that she solved was what to do with those long orchestral interludes that Bach loved so much; she staged them. Young used the music to her advantage and furthered the story. Furthermore, she used the space very well; the performers entered and exited from all sides of the audience in both works and the minimal stage contours and set pieces were used very effectively. She also smashed the fourth wall multiple times in the Bach, which was a fabulous way to reel in the audience. Massive props to her for staging baroque works in an original and engaging way. There were no small parts (or small actors) in this production. Alan Briones consistently stole the show in the roles of "a businessman" and Vespone by totally committing to his characters. His one line in the Bach ("I'm reviewing this on Yelp!") was delivered with conviction, but this man needed no lines (or music) to endear himself to the audience. His acting was more than enough. Michael Desnoyers also shone in his role as Barista/Narrator in the Bach. His impersonation of a Mission barista, from the way he reverentially offered jars of coffee to the other characters to smell to how he tenderly mimed pouring hot water over grounds, was absolutely perfect. (I happen to know he's a coffee snob, so his accuracy comes as no surprise.) His singing was clear, lyrical, and crisp. Sergey Khalikulov appeared as Elder Schlendrian in The Coffee Cantata (making him Mormon was an excellent touch, and the audience laughed raucously the first time we got a good look at his book, aptly titled The Book of Mormon, by God) and Uberto in La Serva Padrona. He inhabited each character differently, making them distinct from one another. His melismas were not as clean as I wanted and he seemed to run out of steam two-thirds of the way through La Serva Padrona, although he found energy at the very end. However, he has a well-placed baby bass-baritone voice and I think age will fix any of the (slight) criticisms I had. The ladies outdid the men that afternoon. They were both spot on, with voices to match their characters and character to spare. Angela Jarosz was adorable as Lieschen, and her voice was bright and clean. She flirted unabashedly with the audience, not just as demanded by the direction, but with her vocalism and verve. A sparkling performance. Gabrielle Traub was flawless as Serpina. She made her voice nasal and whiny at the appropriate moments, but still kept beauty in the tone and line. Her acting was strong and believable; I actually found myself liking her early on in the show. It would have been so easy to err on the side of brattiness, but she managed to toe the line. Last, but most certainly not least, Misha Khalikulov on cello and Ben Malkevitch on "harpsichord" took the place of the orchestra and managed to make an orchestra seem unnecessary. They were wonderful. They balanced very well with the singers. They set excellent tempi and followed unerringly if the singers were faster or slower by even the tiniest bit. And they did it from all the way across the room most of the time. They played beautifully in the "orchestral" interludes. Brilliant musicians. Overall, this was a fabulous production. Baroque opera is a risky undertaking, but Waffle Opera mitigated the risk simply by putting on a brilliant show. They are a dedicated and incredibly talented group of young artists and I cannot wait to see Die Zauberflote in March and The Threepenny Opera in June. Find them at waffleopera.com. |
AuthorMaayan is a Manhattan-based opera singer. Archives
January 2019
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