Happy

Yes, I'm happy!  *does Happy Dance* Sure, there were bits I didn't sing as well I would have liked in a perfect world, but I'm not going to beat myself up over them. (Maybe I'll do that when I hear the recording). But hey, I've ticked something off my bucket list, so that's a bonus, right? 

It was a big day in more ways than one. Because we had musicians coming from Dunedin, the rehearsal was held the same day. Certainly not ideal, but when you're on a strict budget these things sometimes have to be done. The rehearsal went pretty well, and I tried not to sing to full out to help preserve my voice for the performance. 

'Belinda' sang her first aria then we were into the first chorus, the short 'Banish Sorrow'. By two-thirds of the way through my heart was beating so hard and fast I thought it was going to leap out of my chest. I stepped out and tried to look as if I were 'press'd with torment'. It is entirely possible that my expression could have been interpreted as 'deer caught in the headlights'. The first 'Ah' was a bit short due to me not having prepared for it properly but I had myself sorted by the second one and the aria went well - I even got through the longest 'I languish' phrase with breath support intact. 


I enjoyed the latter part of the performance best, as I was able to interact more with other characters, in particular Aeneas in the scene where Dido compares him to 'a deceitful crocodile'! And finally the Lament. About half way through I thought 'Let go! Don't think, just be Dido!'  and so I just let myself get swept up in the emotion and it felt amazing. Someone afterwards told me that I really conveyed Dido's despair, which made me feel pretty good! I stood there and let the choir's 'With Drooping Wings' wash over me and wished I could do it all over again. Although ideally I would want it to be a full opera performance. 


Now my performance calendar has a bit of blank space, so I can sit down and work on some things that I haven't had time to - Tornami a vagegghiar from Handel's Alcina for one. Here's La Stupenda in a 1960 rendition....

I can't back out now, my name's on the programme

It's Wednesday and Dido & Aeneas is this Saturday at 4pm. Of course I don't really want to back out but I have, over the last week, been subject to bouts of  'who the hell do I think I am to be singing Dido?' I always wonder at what point someone like Jessye Norman or Pavarotti or any other world-famous singer goes on stage and thinks 'I have every right to be singing this'. Is there a light-bulb moment when they realise that their technique, quality of voice and ability to convey whatever emotion is needed is all there, and they are completely confident in their own ability? When they think 'Yeah, my voice IS so awesome that people will gladly pay a large portion of their weekly income to hear me?'

Obviously I'm a journeyman (journeywoman?) singer in a small city near the bottom of the world so the expectations on me are just a tad lower, but I still angst over the fact that people are using some of their precious time and money to listen to me. They have a right to expect something at the very least competent. And I realise that I'm being overly dramatic (no, really? Me?) because I'm not the only person they're coming to hear. It's just that there's this little song at the end of the opera that Dido sings. The one everyone knows. And because they know it, they know when you don't get the timing quite right, or a note exactly where it should be.

And so this morning, as I practised Dido's Lament in the shower - don't you love shower acoustics? - I thought, to hell with it, I know the notes, I can sing them competently, I'm just going to let go and invest it with all the emotion that I feel when I sing those sorrow-laden words. Maybe I'll come in half a beat late on a  'Remember me'. Maybe I'll forget a bit of ornamentation. But by golly the audience is going to feel my despair! 

Because that's what it's really all about isn't it? Not just pretty notes - it's about making people feel something.

I'll be back after the performance to let you know if I succeeded.

Once a Day and Twice on Sundays.

I sing with the small choir at St Mary's Basilica in Invercargill, usually every second Sunday. So far, I don't think they have figured out that they have a cuckoo in the nest, me being a Baptist-raised agnostic, although my ingrained version of the Lord's Prayer complete with thou's and trespasses might have tipped them off. Anyway, it is a musical education for me, as I learn all the setting of the Glorias, Amens etc. Every so often I get thrown into the Cantor role, where I have to concentrate very hard. It's a whole different style of singing and at the moment I still tend to sing it as a song rather than as musical speech. But I'm slowly getting there.

The other great thing about singing with this choir (I use the term choir relatively loosely given that on a good day we have one bass, two tenors, two altos and two sopranos) is that there is often solo work to do - an aria from Messiah, the Vicar of Dibley version of The Lord is My Shepherd and so on. We sit up in the choir stalls so are hidden from the view of all but the Priest and any parishioners who dare to risk putting a neck vertebra out of alignment to have a look. That means the focus is on the music and not the person singing which is much more relaxing. The acoustics are great too.

Easter in the Catholic Church is A Big Deal. From Holy Thursday we sang every day and twice on Sunday. I love that we get to sing plainchant and music that has endured for centuries in the same form. It's amazing to think that the notes we sing are the very same as would have been sung by someone in the 12th century. I had quite a bit to do, including Cantor work and two Mozart arias - the Laudate Dominum and the Ora Pro Nobis from Regina Coeli K128. It was the first time I'd sung the Ora Pro Nobis and it appears that it was the first time anyone there had heard it which is a shame because it is the most gorgeous piece of music. The choir also discovered a new talent we hope to retain, Joy Kerr, who sang a marvellous rendition of 'Were you there when they crucified my Lord?' 

By Sunday evening I was well and truly sung out and the medicinal application of chocolate and wine was a necessity. And now it is full steam ahead with Dido, reminding myself that I don't have to rush the phrases, that Purcell was very fond of word-painting and I can use that to colour the notes. 

Yes. Yes I Can.

This photo was taken after I got home from the concert. Because if my dearly beloved had tried to take this photo beforehand, I would have a) most definitely not been smiling and b) snapped at him for...oh I don't know, taking too long, not taking long enough, not finding a better place to pose...heck I would have found something. I was wound up tighter than a badly-tuned lute.

So to the concert. I was second last on the schedule. There were some lovely items before mine. At least I'm sure they were lovely because they were all by people I know and love who would have sung/played beautifully. I have no idea really, because all the time they were performing the little voice in my head was going "You have to sing the Alleluia! You have to do all the runs without ending up in the rose bushes! You have to sing a top C at the end. Fleeeee!!!"  Except I couldn't flee because I was sandwiched in the middle of the row between all the other performers.

As the singers among you will know (Hi Sarah! Hi Amanda!) singing without a warm-up is far from ideal. As a soloist in a choral work, you can usually do some humming exercises under-cover of a loud chorus but no such opportunity here. The first word I was due to sing was 'Es' so not even the assistance of a  consonant to get me started.

So finally the moment arrived. I stood up, moved gracefully up to the stage in my new posh frock (if it was going to be a disaster at least people could say "Never mind dear, you looked lovely" as I sobbed into the folds of my chiffon skirt). First up 'Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen'. At least the tessitura was nice and low to middling. I probably mangled the German but all in all it went well. Next up was what the organisers had described in a newspaper article earlier in the week as a 'highlight of the concert' - the hymn written by the late Russell Cowley 'Sweeter Sounds Than Music Knows'. Apart from a bit of a tight-sounding 'sweeter' at the start, I think Russell would have been happy with my rendition.

And then, old Short-and-Deadly, the Alleluia. I'm going to go a bit stream of consciousness on y'all here and channel the voice in my head. Accompanist starts at a nice comfortable pace. First few phrases nice and firm and clear. Here comes the first run, big breath, muscles supporting and......away we go! Nice and even, no mistakes - bit tight on the A at end of the run but not bad, not bad. First half down, no dramas. But uh-oh, second section, the big runny bit and....... hey no worries, all in one breath, no mistakes, niiiice smooth singing on the offbeat accented bit. Woo I can do this!! Settle petal we've still got that top C. Open throat, here it comes, take foot off pedal to prevent yodel.....oh bit over-excited there, small yodel, don't care IdiditIdiditIdidit!!!

And there you have it, a mountain has been scaled and I can't tell you what a weight off my chest that is. Next up a whole bunch of lovely Mozart for Easter church services and then into Dido & Aeneas. Thanks for putting up with my drama queen-ness darlings :)

I can do it. No, I can't!! Well, maybe I can?

So the Concert South 100th concert is this Sunday. You know, the one where I have to sing the Mozart Alleluia. With all the runny bits and the high C at the end. The piece I have renamed not-so-affectionately as 'Short and Deadly'.

Rewind to Tuesday this week. I went and had a first practice with my accompanist. We ran through Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen. Fine - once we'd worked out the weird repeat markings in this particular version. We did 'Sweeter Sounds than Music Knows'. Nothing too terrible there. And then....the Alleluia. If singing this piece was the equivalent of cycling down a straight path between two beds of rose bushes, then by the end of the first runny bit you would have found me upside down, impaled on rose thorns, bleeding copiously with bits of bicycle strewn over the pathway. Not pretty. The high C was a yodel on C/C#. I bet even the Topp Twins couldn't manage that and I did it without even trying. Ha! 

Cue hyperventilation. And me explaining to the accompanist that it might really not be a great idea to repeat this scenario at an actual concert. Because really it would be a like a car crash you have to drive past where you don't want to look but you just can't help it. I said I would make a decision the following day after my singing lesson. 

Wednesday, lesson. (And an opportunity to coo at my teacher's brand new gorgeous little girl). Me: I just can't do the coloratura bits with that pearls-on-a-string technique-thingy!! Teacher: Well that's not a problem, these are essentially scales, they can be done legato. Me: Oh? really? .......

Half an hour later...♫♪ Aaaaaaa, a-a-le-e-lu-u-ia aaaaaaaaaaaa ♪♫ So maybe I really can do this! Me: OK but what about the hIgh yodel - I mean high C? I can do it if  I make a really narrow pathetic sound like this *makes narrow pathetic sound* but if I try and do it full voice I do this *yodels*. Teacher:  What's wrong with the first one? It will just ping out - don't forget you're in a Church which will help fill the sound out. Just don't put any welly on it and it will be fine. 

And so here we are, two days out from the concert and there is no.turning.back.  Stay tuned for the next instalment which will either be happily triumphant or strangely echo-y having been written from the depths of the hole I dug myself. 

When I am laid, am laid in earth.....

...squeeeeeeeee!!! ♪♫♫♪♫♪♫♪ !!!!!

Ahem.....sorry about that, normal transmission is now resuming.....

Yes my friends, I have secured the part of Dido and to say I am excited would be the understatement of the year!

Right enough excitement.... Ah, ah, ah Belinda, I am press'd with torment.........

Waiting.....waiting......

I had my audition for Dido and Aeneas today. My favourite opera and one which I know very well having studied it at high school. It turned around my perception of opera and allowed me to open my ears to singing that was greatly different to the angelic but small voices of the girls in the choirs I belonged to at the time. 

My choir is doing a concert performance of D&A in late April and all solo parts are being done by choir members. Obviously the plum role is Dido, and in other circumstances I wouldn't even get a look-in, but there are no dramatic sopranos in our ranks and for once my voice has sufficient weight, compared with others, to be considered. I also threw my hat in the ring for Belinda as in general terms it is more suited to my voice. If I were to get either I would be thrilled but I'm secretly harbouring a yearning for Dido, as it likely the only time I'll ever get the opportunity to sing the full role. I want to imperiously dismiss Aeneas with a dramatic gesture and an 'Away! Away!' that bounces off the walls. 

I think the audition went ok. I probably rushed a little in some places where I could have allowed more space but overall I was happy. I should know by the weekend. Please cross fingers, toes, eyes etc for me :)