Things I wish young singers knew now, that they don’t know now…
PART TWO ossia “TOUGH
LOVE”
Preparation means
score study, not highlighting your part:
Young
singers who make it as professional singers are either naturally adept at
learning opera roles easily or they have a much more evolved work ethic than
their peers. It’s that simple. If one doesn’t like learning music for the rest
of one’s life, then you should find something else to do with your life and not
muddle up the young artist market with your fantastic kissed-by-god voice. Step
aside and make room for those who truly want to work in the operatic field.
Lara Ciekiewicz recently posted the great Maureen Forrester’s 3 Rules:
Lara Ciekiewicz recently posted the great Maureen Forrester’s 3 Rules:
1)
Be Prepared
2)
Be Punctual
3)
Be Nice
Pretty
simple, eh?!
Learning Music Is Not
Work, It Is A Privilege:
Studying
is not working. When you get paid for doing something, that is working. Opera
singers are paid to perform, not rehearse or learn their music (there are a few
exceptions here, and this is one of the great differences between Opera and
Musical Theatre. You get paid to rehearse in musical theatre and that’s usually
when you are taught the score too – sounds like a better deal, no?) Please stop
thinking that learning music is work.
Back
to the Privilege part… I feel so strongly about this. There are billions of
people in the world striving to find water, food, and shelter. They work till
their hands bleed. They work miles from home and never see their families.
Children are making shoes and t-shirts somewhere in the world, working for
practically nothing, right now as I type these words. Learning is a fu#*ing
privilege. Get your heads out of your arses and dance into a practice room! Do
it with joy and remember just how special you are for possessing enough talent
to be in that practice room, or in a rehearsal room, or onstage working on some
masterpiece. You are a re-animator of a composer’s intentions, their minds and
artistic souls. It’s just such a precious gift!
But
it is not WORK!
The current operatic
choices for Career Paths can, and should, be followed (as in, “If I get my
degrees, do summer gigs, get into a paid apprentice program, get into a
resident young artist program, and then get management, I will find my career
like Dorothy following the Yellow Brick Road to find the Wizard”):
No,
No, No.
Dorothy
had to murder a very misunderstood and emotionally disturbed green woman in
order to get what she wanted. That horrid Glenda could have told her back with
the Munchkins to click her freaking heels, but no… Bitch. Glenda was a Bitch.
She wanted the green woman killed but wouldn’t do it herself. Manipulative
Bitch, really.
The
idea of following the 20th century young artist path to a career is
simply so last century. And it didn’t work for most people who
tried it. It only worked for the very lucky few. It probably worked for your
teachers and for the singers that your coaches know in the field. Wait for it…
That’s because they were the lucky few, so of course they’ll think their path
was a pretty good one.
It
is 2015 and things have changed, Jo.
What’s
changed the most? The Market? Certainly.
The Demand? Probably. The Supply? Absolutely!
Career
Paths open up because one creates the environment in which to find and follow
your OWN Path(s). You are responsible
for stepping into the operatic forest and for creating your paths. And the
kicker is that these Paths are only apparent once you turn around and look at
where you’ve been, realize how you got there, and understand the people who
helped connect the breadcrumbs along the way.
What
to do then? Open your field. Imagine. Have Plan B, Plan H, and Plan Q. Work on
as many fronts as possible. Network, Network, Network. Stop putting other’s
paths and successes in front of your own. Listen to yourself. Listen to Oprah. (There
is something to what she says about success in life.) Regardless, one cannot
passively pursue any kind of career, let alone an operatic one. So step up to
the plate and start swinging. Or if baseball metaphors are too last century…
Don’t
follow that yellow brick road; you might have to murder a green woman. Click
your heels together and use your imagination to get you where you want to be.
Lost opportunities
seldom, if ever, return:
When
I’m out and about down in the United States directing, I spend oodles and oodles of hours in coffee
shops with members of the local chorus, with cast members, or with production
staff; they talk about their career aspirations and ask to hear my thoughts.
It’s not brain surgery, nor is it life changing I’m sure, but it can get you
thinking about yourself in another’s light. I wish more young singers would ask
for one-on-one time from guest artists, ask them for a coffee, let alone a beer
or a perhaps even a dollar taco night. Massive lost opportunities.
David
Daniels recently posted on Facebook how upset he was that at his guest recital
at some university because so few students showed up. Just last month, Michael
Ching was here for three days in rehearsals for our latest opera production (a
double-bill of his Buoso’s Ghost and Speed Dating Tonight!). My cast was
there to listen to him talk about his music, his music making, and his thoughts
on the current state of operatic composition. It was a great talk that also
culminated in his singing one of his songs at the piano (a song about a
veteran, sung by the Michael on November 11th – quite moving and
quite an insight into Michael as an artist). Were other students there? Outside
of my most exceptional students, no. Were they invited? Yes. Were they free to
come? Absolutely – it was during our regularly scheduled class time.
So
why didn’t they come?
I
think it has something to do with how young people think they’re supposed to
learn – Directly. Information comes direct via Google and Wikipedia now. No more
skulking about the library stacks digging through card catalogues looking for
unlooked for connections or happening upon a book that was next to the book you
were looking for. Information seems to be treated as only something needed to
answer specific questions or situations. But we all know that connecting dots
happens INDIRECTLY as well as directly. Sitting and listening and watching connect
huge dots!
But
maybe it is just another example of the disease that has hit so many of us (including me!) in this
Information Age. Perhaps the loss of attendance at special events also has to
do with the sense that everyone is a bit “overbooked” or “overscheduled”.
Everyone has “too much to do”. This is a viable argument when looked at from certain
standpoints.
Yet
– look at the successful people in this field. We all have the same amount of
time in our days as they do. We all have the same number of hours in our days
as Lin-Manuel Miranda. He wrote a hit rap musical, is currently starring in it,
and also scored some of the new Star Wars movie (the Cantina scene). He gets
things done. He shows up, I’m sure.
And the last thing I
wished young singers knew now…
Opera
is such a joyous field. The people in it are filled with the best kinds of
noise and knowledge, filled with good times and expansive hearts. Most people
who make music for a living are filled with a very special kind of light. I
think it’s like Galadriel’s phial that she gives to Frodo in Lothlorien. Sam
uses it to fend off Shelob. It’s filled with a blinding light that sends evil
running for cover. Filling yourself with opera can be like carrying around a
magical cordial. It keeps the bad times at bay, it emboldens your imagination,
it whips at the wild beasts that surround you. It spreads the light of creation
to others.
And
that is our work really. Spreading our special kind of light into this very
dark world.
