The Painted Tape Logs

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I can't keep up!!!  How do those opera singers with complicated schedules and different operas every night do it??? That's what I want to know!!!  A week and a half of rehearsals, competition, and concert have got my head spinning!

On Monday night I gave a recital at the home of a great patron of the arts here in Alaska.  I was so excited to finally be giving a house concert -- I imagined it just like those days in the 18th-19th centuries when Schubert gave little house concerts...sigh...:)  It was so neat! 

My patron has a beautiful house with a huge living room and large arching windows -- from which you can see Mt McKinley and a couple other mountains on clear days -- which is neat considering her husband climbed Mt McKinley about 30 years ago (and has a fantastic poster size photo of him on the wall on top of McKinley -- I tell ya, are Alaskans cool or what???)  The guests started showing up promptly at 6pm with home-baked struedels, meatballs, sushi rolls, cheeses, taquitos, and fresh baked bread -- of course, I ended up singing for my dinner quite literally.

I started out the program with an aria from Bach's "St. John Passion" and proceeded to greet the crowd in German -- yes, I pulled the showing off card!  and why not? I'm proud of being able to speak another language!  One of the things I really have yet to learn about recitals is programming issues -- I tend to love the long, slow, beautiful songs more than the fun, happy, funny ones -- so in the end, I'm extremely tired vocally from all my tough songs.  Ach! 

In the end, I got some very helpful, sweet, and encouraging comments that I will treasure through this audition season.  The other day I got my first denial of an audition -- which I won't say was from Sarasota Opera -- but the difference this year is my attitude towards the auditioners.  This year my motto is, "Too bad for you, your loss!" and I'm banking on it to get me through.  But which is also where I have to curb my irrational, impulsive mind -- which has the urge to actually write the people and tell them what a mistake they would be making to not accept me into the program.  And then I wonder if anyone has ever actually done that -- and what the directors would think about that -- and if the boldness of the move would actually change their minds.....yeah, probably not. 

So, I stuff that excitable side of me back down and accept their decision to not hear my wonderful performance -- not trying to be egotistical, this is all part of my new mindset to stop putting my singing down -- and focus on getting ready for the smart people of the world, which I will mention is Opera Colorado, who have intelligently granted me an audition!

BREAKING NEWS!

Well....I have some very exciting news for all my fans and supporters out there!

Yesterday, despite a horrible sleep and major indigestion (what's new?), I competed in and won 1st prize in the R. Dean Allen Vocal Competition here in Anchorage, Alaska!  The competition was set up by Gloria Allen, a former world-class soprano who used to teach in Anchorage and to whom Alaska owes much of it's arts culture to, to honor her late husband who was a great fan of opera himself.

I competed in the preliminaries at 2:45pm -- I was a bit nervous because I don't have any idea of who the singers are here in Anchorage.  I sang a Mozart concert aria, followed by "Willow" from "The Ballad of Baby Doe", and ended with R. Strauss's "Amor" from the Brentano Lieder -- for all you music nerds!  Gloria was super nice and her former student, Steven Smoot, was a hoot!  So, overall, the competition was quite fun. 

At about 5 I got the call that I made it to the finals at 7pm that night.  I was the last singer to go out of four sopranos -- coloraturas at that!!!  Sheesh....I think I need to go learn to tap dance to add to my routine.  I was getting pretty intimidated by my good friend Lauren Green -- who sang the stink out of "Caro nome"!!  For the finals I sang "Chacun le sait" from "Daughter of the Regiment" and "Willow" again, which I am thinking of rewriting with the title "Pillow" -- can you just imagine?  "Pillow, you're so soft and fluffy...Pillow, are you down or cotton?...Pillow, I hope we'll always be toge-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ther!!!...oh pillow how I love you so!" :)

Well...in the end I guess it was no contest that I had won ($2,000 1st prize!!!!!)...but sure didn't feel like it to me!  I was so impressed with the voices coming out of Alaska!  We've got some good singers up here so watch out lower 48!!!  The Alaskans will soon be invading!

(I'll be putting up a gallery of pics soon!)

Binder Blunders

I like to pride myself on always being prepared and professional at auditions, taking great care that my audition binder -- the binder with all my audition music -- is in order and neat and tidy....so it kinda drives me absolutely batty when I find a mistake.....especially when I find the mistake DURING an audition. 

Many have inquired after my Fairbanks Opera audition...well here's the 411 on that.  My first selection, "Chacun le sait" from Donizetti's "Daughter of the regiment" went well.  I felt a little under-energized due to the fact that it was already like 40 degrees in Fairbanks!  Don't get me started on Alaska's non-existent summer!  But my next selection, "In uomini" from Cosi fan tutte was not as stellar.  So here's how it went down.  We get to the final section and the pianist starts playing some weird sh...uh....stuff.  Now, I'm pretty good at the ole "fake-it-till-you-make-it" mantra, but there was no saving this.  I had no idea how I was ever going to get back into where she was.  So I apologize to the director, consult with the pianist, and try it again.  She does the same off in Timbuktu playing! 

Now, to be honest, my first reaction was that this pianist was missing a few eggs short of a dozen.  She had already chopped her way through my first aria and here she was off in la-la land for my second piece.  However, upon closer inspection, it was in fact my fault.  I had switched around the last two pages of the aria in my binder.  Yep, my bad.  Anyways, the director was like, "That's alright, I think we get the idea"....ok, that is not really a desirable reaction to have at an audition, but oh well....maybe it was not meant to be.

In other news, here are a few links to some pics from the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.

http://parispub.smugmug.com/gallery/5575914_thPLS#341888270_mWNev
http://parispub.smugmug.com/gallery/5480750_VCgVX#335138606_qLWw4