Holiday hopes and such

I have had a request to change my blog...and I'm overdue for a post anyhow. Hi all! The holidays are coming! I'm very excited. I get so upset when people say that they hate the holidays, that they've become so commercialized, that they're too stressful, etc. Okay so they are stressful and yes, our economy has done a bang up job of making them a big extravaganza, but here's what I've discovered; the holidays are what you make them. If you want them to be stressful, they'll be stressful; if you want them to be a religious celebration, then they'll be about miracles and messiahs; if you want them to be about fun, then they'll be about fun; if you want them to feel commercialized then, chances are they'll feel commercialized. I prefer to think of them as a lovely time to see my friends and family and to give out gifts that say "thank you for being a part of my life, I celebrate you for who you are." Getting gifts is fun too, I won't lie. I also love how the winter holidays seem frozen in time for me. Ever notice how holidays seem to blend into each other? I think its because we do our best to recreate past holidays every year. Of course there will be variables and things will be different from time to time, but the essential ingredients seem to be always there. They are for me, anyway. I like that I get to be a kid again come December. It's cathartic and uplifting and it also gives me a chance to reflect on where I've been and who I am as an adult. The kid me and the adult me are essentially the same; they still need to be fed love and comfort in the same way, and both of them are very satisfied in front of a fire on Christmas Eve. People tell me I'm young and naive and that when I get older I will feel different. Well...who knows how I'll feel? I certainly don't and I certainly don't care to force myself into disliking the holidays just because its the more "adult" thing to do.
So this is why I fill my room with Christmas music and colorful lights after Thanksgiving. I really love the holidays because I love what they represent to me personally. If I see a really gaudy window display or something, I tend to just laugh. Clearly an oversized snowman doesn't define Christmas for me. I don't need it to get into the holiday spirit and so it doesn't bother me.
So I'm looking forward to family, friends and food this winter as I relax before what will be an eventful 2008.


That said...I have tons of work to do before then. Juries are scaring me as always. I've actually succeeded in memorizing all of my music, but somewhere in the back of my mind I've convinced myself that I'm not as prepared as I should be and that somehow I'll fail. Standard response from me, I feel. I guess the key is tremendous preparation, as the divine Ms. Renee Fleming says. I saw her at the Boston Symphony last Thursday...so lovely. It's funny, when you idolize someone, you're happy just to be in their presence. Renee almost doesn't have to sing for me to be happy with her. She sort of just has to be (although the voice is so warm and lovely it feels like a homecoming for me, same with Betty Buckley's voice). As with many other women I've encountered in my life, I have an immense desire to do what she does, to create as she creates and to have her experiences. I saw her in "La Traviata" last month and it was such a gorgeous experience I wanted desperately to be Violetta in the way that Renee was Violetta; to embody and live the life of a beautiful and tragic heroine. Thus the title of my blog, I suppose. And so I have my work cut out for me with juries and with operatic music. People before me have paved the way so deeply and beautifully that it will take all my strength and courage to "walk their walk," as it were. Ha ha...all of my blog entries seem to have a very common thread. MUST CHANGE SUBJECT.

So...winter break. I'm looking forward to it immensely. Tons of movies (Sweeney Todd!) and books (finally! Books!) and fun. Yay, fun. But first, work work work. Eight pieces; two French, two German, two Italian, one English and one Spanish. *Phew* German is especially kicking my bum. German is kind of a spitter's language. You feel like you're stuttering constantly. Oh well. Es geht!

Bleh

So kind of an icky day. I cried in my voice lesson. This was the first time I've ever cried in a lesson since I've been at BoCo so I guess that's good. I hate that singing is such a physical endeavour. I wish it were entirely up to my brain to produce sound, but, as it stands, I have to rely on and trust my body. I also have to wait for my body. I'm training a very precise muscle that I can barely see and can hardly feel. I hate that. The process is ever so slow and then there are times when I make a gigantic leap forward and then I lose it and it doesn't come back for weeks. Boo. My coach says that I'm talented but there's some faulty mechanism between my mind and my voice that gets in my way; he says its like trying to program a very smart computer with a very small amount of RAM. Its good to know this but the knowledge doesn't help me any really. I am my own worst enemy. Thanks. Now what? How do I even begin to go through the process of becoming my own best friend? My voice teacher is very kind and says that I have lots of time to grow into my voice and that she's not worried about me or my development at all. I really want to believe her. Not so sure though.
I'm a little saddened by things around me as well. I marched this weekend against the war in Iraq. It was a good feeling (and Howard Zinn was there, which was amazing)but at the end of the day I still felt somewhat ineffectual. The administration doesn't care that thousands of us marched. They won't really pay attention. It seems that everything is in vain- the lives lost, the money spent, the anger that I share with millions of other Americans. It's so frustrating to want to make a difference but to feel that your voice is very very small. Ha ha. I suppose vocal troubles are plaguing me in more ways than one.
I'm reevaluating relationships as well. Trying to come to terms with my place in the world within my family and with my friends and so on. I'm just now coming to terms with the fact that people are very very hard to change. I always thought that if I expressed my feelings clearly enough, I could always help people to understand me, if not agree with me. Very naive of me. I'm hurting because of this. I keep telling myself that I have to lower my expectations of people, but what ends up happening is that my expectations remain high and I just get angry and frustrated. So right now I'm trying to shelve the hurt alittle bit...but that's not working so brilliantly...as my breakdown early today has proved. Oh well.
My Mom tells me that one of the marchers in New York said that our everyday frustrations are so trivial compared to the pain and devastation occurring in the world. He was very right. My experiences seems so trivial when stacked up against these thoughts. And so they are. I'm currently taking a deep breath and reminding myself to be thankful for all it is that I do have, for the opportunities I've been given and for the voice I was born with. It may be small and ineffectual and rough and not quite up to shape but its mine. I think I love it.

Being the change

"My job is a decision making...job. And as part of it I have to make a lot of decisions." -our President

"Mandela is dead." - also our President

I am so very sick of this. Beyond sick. There are no words to describe how appalling I find this administration. Which is why I plan to participate in a march against this God forsaken war. I have to sit up. I have to do something. I've been passive for too long.

On a more hopeful note, I've created a team for Lee's National Denim Day for Cancer Research (which is tomorrow!). If you are reading this and are so inspired, please try to donate to my team which is entitled "For Das" in honor of my mom :o) It's at denimday.com.

I keep seeing a magnet at Whole Foods that says "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Trying to take a few small steps towards that.

Fatigue

My feet hurt so so much. Stupid high heels. I had to dress up today to sing in class. It felt good, though. I felt prepared and a bit more together than usual. It's nice because every once in a while I get these flashes of self-acknowledgment ... I'll have this moment where I go "Hey, I can sing...I'm not so bad...I belong here in a conservatory." Those are good days. Today was a good day. I love love love my repertoire teacher. He's amazing. He's sarcastic, biting, sometimes even cutting, but he's also brilliant and caring and sincere. Pretty awesome. I like laughing and being inspired while still keeping my feet on the ground. It's good times in his classes. I'm working with him one on one this year; this scares me but it's also kind of thrilling. I want to see what I can achieve with his help.
So now I'm reeling from a busy day and a horrendously long (and ridiculously taxing) train ride yesterday. Dear God. I was stuck with a fellow passenger who was more than annoying and had no concept of personal space or social graces. So my feet are tired and my brain is tired. I know, boo hoo, I live such a tortured existence, right? I have to sing in class and be nice to people on trains. Wow. Ha ha. It's just the business of living that makes us tired I guess. It's all normal perfectly reasonable stuff but it often knocks us off our feet and makes us totally fatigued.
Incidentally, I went home to see Ian McKellen in "King Lear." This was such an important production for me to see. I was all set to go to England to see it, but then they happily announced it was coming to the US. I felt like I was witnessing history. Somewhere, years from now, someone will ask me "What's the best performance of 'Lear' you've ever seen?" and I'll be able to say "I was present at Ian McKellen's performance" and there will be awe and admiration. Hee hee. Well at least this is how I envision it in my head. It's been said a million times but he's phenomenal. I so want that from my own performances; the sense that everything, every line, note, whatever, comes out of something real and necessary...not out of something on a piece of paper. Sir Ian never reads Shakespeare off a page, you know? You get the sense that he's internalized it to the point that its second nature, so organically a part of him and his character. I'm sure this has been said about all great actors and one point or another, but it's no less true. The research and the understanding has to be there, but there also has to be passion and intention. That was the topic of my lecture in class today. Must....be....more...passionate. Too academic, Len. Start feeling in your music as well as in your life.
I never much liked "King Lear" it always seemed so sad an unnecessary to me. As a daughter who loves her father I always have such trouble with that play. The relationship between the father and his daughters is so dysfunctional and indicates such a lack of communication that makes no sense to my 20th/21st century mind. And yet, there it was, real and heartbreaking and fabulous. I love drama...I love the gamut of emotions it takes us through. Sir Ian's "Come, let's away to prison" speech was so beautiful. It was one of those moments that makes you believe that love between two people (filial, romantic, platonic, whatever) is enough in the face of anything. So lesson #2: The love is enough. The love is enough and the music is enough. Astoundingly simple. I'm really a deep thinker, aren't I?
So yes, Ian McKellen is my God. He and Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Lindsay Duncan, Renee Fleming, Olga Borodina, Frederica von Stade, Dmirti Hvorostovsky, Ramon Vargas, and the incomparable Luciano look down from my own personal Mt. Olypmus.

Surprises

Life is pretty amazing. When you're having the worst possible week you can think of, small little things pop up that make you very glad; glad to be alive, glad to be doing what you're doing, glad of the friends and family you have, and glad to be you.
My weekend had two very lovely surprises. The first was that I went to see Betty Buckley sing for the first time in about five years and nothing about her had changed. This was a nice surprise. For some reason I was expecting her to look different, sound different...to remind me that time had passed and that I'm older and that the same comforts I had when I was younger no longer have the same meaning. Like in "In My Life" by the Beatles..."There are places I remember/all my life, though some have changed./Some forever, not for better..." I was preparing myself for Betty to have changed. But she hadn't. She was phenomenal as always. She looked absolutely lovely (yet another one of my favorite people in their 60's who looks stunning) and she still had the same plaintive voice that I find so friendly and welcoming. It was a lot like coming home for me. It felt extremely natural to be there listening to her and watch her turn songs into little stories. So... Brava, Betty Lynn...I never should have doubted you for a moment.
I learned something from her too. Something incredibly simple and obvious but very necessary for me and something I had either forgotten or never really conceptualized. The music is enough for her. She seems so very happy just to be singing a song and it's what keeps her going and, I think, is what makes her so good. If the music is enough for you then your audience is no longer a group that passes judgment on you, its a group of people experiencing life with you. I want to get to the point in my singing where the music is enough. Not the accolades or the prizes or the amount of roles I've done or how fabulous I sounded or how terrible I sounded. That is my motto for this year and (hopefully) the rest of my life: The music is enough.
Surprise number two came this morning at about 11 when I was awakened by a phone call. I let it go to voice mail because...well I'm really lazy sometimes. It was Marina saying that she'd forgotten to mention that she was in Mass for a wedding this weekend and asking if we could get together for lunch. That made me really happy. That is one fabulous thing about getting older; no matter how far away your friends are, if they are your true friends you'll always find ways to see them and share with them. It was so lovely to see her and Adam (and their friend, Jim, who was also in town for the wedding). That felt like homecoming for me too; we laughed and swapped stories as if we lived right next door to one another and it was comfortable and effortless. It reminded me why Marina and I are friends and why we always will be. It also reminded me that I have a lot of fun with Adam and that I love them both a lot. So...good day, good weekend. Nice to have a few days to combat the awful ones. Thank you, life, for keeping me on my toes.
First day of classes tomorrow, should be a fun week. Looking forward to getting my music assignments and such. Also seeing King Lear next weekend! Hooray for the Bard and Sir Ian.

Don't think I'm getting out of bed today

Today is an awful day. Yesterday was an awful day. I'm feeling depressed and very inadequate. Very second-rate. I've always worried that the work I do is not enough, that at heart I'm very lazy and have little talent and that it's just a matter of time before people discover this. I'm definitely believing in that today. I don't really know what I have going for me. I sing songs. Apparently I don't even do that very well. My voice teacher says I have a big voice that "takes a while to organize," implication being that most of my colleagues at the conservatory are organized but I am not. I have friends who write, teach, are becoming doctors, work with people in need...things that change the world. All I do well is sing. And again, I'm not even very good at it. I feel that any contribution I have to make is very small and limited.
This was how I was feeling yesterday and this morning, they announced that Luciano Pavarotti had died. That's reason enough to stay in bed. It's a big blow to me, to the opera world and to my family. My parents fell in love to the opera that Pavarotti sang. They followed him to Italy and back. When I was born, they played me his recordings and took me to see him.
His death scares me on several levels. After an opera singer dies, even a hugely famous one as Pavarotti was, what's left? They leave behind recordings which capture some lovely memories. But beyond that, what is their legacy? The New York Times today thought they did the world a service by discussing Pavarotti's life in all of its glory...and all of its shame. They had no scruples about mentioning those times when he appeared "unprepared," or had trouble moving about the stage or failed to put over a character as best he could. How awful. How awful that The New York Times acts as our own personal Judgment Day....stacking up the good against the bad, as if God needed some help deciding whether or not to let you into heaven, so the NYT thought they would just give Him a hand. That's not your job, Bernard Holland. You have no say in who makes it into heaven. I defy you to sing even one note with the clarity and depth that Pavarotti had. It's not honorable to give audiences an unflinching look at someone's life the day after they died, it's tacky.
I know I can't even touch what Pavarotti accomplished. And there's no guarantee I'll leave behind any memorable recordings. So what do I leave? At the end of the day, what do I have to offer? I'm not feeling as though I have much today. Therefore I think I'm sleeping in. I've rented some movies. Escapism seems the way to go. Maybe some junk food. Not looking forward to looking any of my friends in the eye today. The weight of the day is making me very tired.

People and Things (other than friends and family) that Currently Make Me Very Happy

1. Helen Mirren. I kind of want to BE her. She's got such an elegance and a confidence about her that is effortlessly sexy and, at the same time, she seems incredibly kind and grounded. Plus she has done some amazing roles on stage and in film. I had totally forgotten that I actually saw her on stage with Ian McKellen in "Dance of Death." I'm so lucky that I have that memory. (Incidentally, did anyone know that she was in a film in which Cuba Gooding Jr. was her love interest?Not quite sure how I feel about this).

2.Vanity Fair's March 2007 Hollywood Portfolio. Apparently I slept through this, but Annie Liebowitz did a film noir-esque photo shoot with tons of cool actors. Naturally, my favorite shot is a glam photo of Ms. Mirren and Dame Judi Dench (who is all kinds of awesome).Check out the fabulous photos. Angelica Huston likewise looks awesome.


3.The fact that the "Sweeney Todd" movie is coming out very soon. Hooray for Gothic musicals about people who slit people's throats starring Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman! The poster looks amazing. I was talking to Gretta today about how fabulous the musical is and how the movie has the potential to be mind-blowingly wonderful or tragically terrible. I kind of don't care. I want to see it so badly. The poster looks extremely tantalizing. Depp certainly has the Todd look down.


4.Glenn Close. Yes my idol of years ago is still pretty great. "Damages" is a fabulous show and I'm looking forward to getting a paycheck so I can catch up with the series on iTunes. She's been making the talk show rounds recently and she looks drop dead gorgeous (she just turned 60, by the way, more proof that aging gracefully is infinitely more attractive than aging plastically, as it were).YouTube has her interview with Letterman which is funny. Rumors are circulating about a "Sunset Boulevard" film adaptation and I'm beyond excited at the prospect of being fourteen again and experiencing the ridiculously melodramatic but gloriously romantic musical on the screen. Please, dear God, let them find a good director and not rip the thing to shreds.

5.Laughing till I cry a little. Allison made some comment today about a certain singer's Christmas album that has an original song. In the song, the woman mentions her newborn son's eyes. We both felt that the lyric was a little self-indulgent and Allison said something sarcastic like "No one cares about your son. He has ugly eyes." So ridiculously funny. I was tearing on the ground floor of Newbury Street's new Best Buy. Good times.

6. The fact that the Red Sox won tonight and are currently seven games ahead of the Yankees and that Manny Ramirez is healing coming back to play soon. Go Sox!

My Audition

Went pretty well, I think! Yay. Basking in the glory of not having to sing in front of a panel for a least a few weeks. Should be an exciting year with tons and tons of music. Looking forward to it and fearing it at the same time. Woohoo! Welcome to graduate school year two.

Leftover Stuffed Grape Leaves and Reruns

Hola! I'm finishing my left over stuffed grape leaves and watching reruns of TNT's "The Closer." I love forensic dramas. My Mom thinks I'm weird, but I find them fascinating. I found the funniest picture of a Hirschfeld drawing of Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston on "Law and Order." Here's a link to Hirschfeld's TV drawings. So priceless.
Feeling a bit more connected to the outside world today. Had a few im chats with Kavita and Cindy. Got calls from Aditi and Archana yesterday. Ditz was busy and the conversation was kind of brief (but fun!). Her parents are about to move clear across the country. I don't think I'd be holding up as well if I were her. Arch and I had a long and lovely conversation. She's experiencing much of the same anxieties about the new school year. Probably more so, since she's just beginning med school.We shared tons of thoughts on life, love and family. Big issues, I know. So good to hear the voices of people you know and love. Got an e-mail from Marina as well and she says she wants to call today and catch me up on her new life as a married lady. MARRIED! So so crazy. Archana and I were talking about that. Marina...is...married. Nuts. I still see her in jeans and glasses on the floor in the RHS hallway during lunch. I vividly remember the time we had an instant message conversation and she told me she had an actual honest-to-goodness boyfriend named Adam. I remember meeting Adam, sizing him up, making sure he was good enough for her. And now they're husband and wife. So odd how in one day you can go from being a single person to being someone's wife. I remember that at the wedding I said something to Marina like "Oh, look, your husband's doing so and so..." and the word "husband" came so easily. So much easier than the actual idea of their marriage. I know they will do great and I know they will last but I reserve the right the be shocked about it for a while.

Weddings invariably make one think about when they too will be married. I'm inching closer and closer to having a full subscription to Match.com. Who knows. My BoCo friends seem to be doing well with it. We'll see. It still kind of freaks me out. My friend, Maggie, and I used to joke about how we would both never marry and become old and gray Miss Havishams and immerse ourselves in books and false romance. She's married now, natch. Boo. Len is alone. I suppose it would be easier to take if I weren't an absolute helpless romantic. No joke. I AM Kate Winslet in "Sense and Sensibility"...so ready to be madly in love, foolishly expecting her life to end up like something in Shakespeare. Well, I guess I'm a bit more realistic than that. Again, we'll see. Ha ha. Any man who finds me is gonna lose his mind. Oy vey. For now I'll stick to my Frasier DVDs and imagine a world in which I find my very own opera-loving, Eliot-reading, sherry-swigging fancy pants. Well, okay, at the very least. someone who will make me laugh

Missing Maine

I played some music by Betty Buckley on my iPod today. She does a cover of Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Come On Come On" which is a beautiful song about loss and the uncertainty of the future. My mom and I listened to it on our dock in Maine on one of the last nights before I left for college. I also played it after they dropped me off in my dorm and I unpacked things.
It's fitting for today. I miss Maine. It's such a safe and happy cocoon. And so so lovely. I get to revert back to childhood a few weeks out of the year and its almost devastating when I have to return to the adulthood thing. I'm trying hard not to think about it too much. Autumn is lovely after all, and I have things to look forward to. I'm excited for the apple picking and Halloween (hopefully a trip to Salem!) and other things.

I miss Mom and Dad and Morgie, though. It's really nice to have people around who know every part of you and don't care and still love you. It's nice to be able to share things with them. It's also nice to have a puppy to cuddle with at night. She's fast becoming my significant other.
I'm feeling listless today. Not much to do. I've been on the internet forever. I should make dinner soon. Kinda lonely. Oh well. Back to adult life.

Giving In

So,
I always thought that blogs were a little strange. I mean, their sort of impersonal, and they seem like an odd way to keep in touch. I also am a little uncomfortable with this idea of everyone reading my internet diary, as it were. I don't expect them to. They shouldn't have to, nor should they really want to. My day, my life, my thoughts, they're inconsequential and minute...with every single thing happening in our world it seems really silly. I know that sentence in and of itself is silly and cliche but still. I'm still down with one-on-one contact. I don't want this blog to replace personal updates, phone calls, etc. I'm just excited to finally jot down my ideas. I like that. I think its more for me personally than anything else. Is that selfish? I'm not sure. I hope that if people do read my blog that it makes them smile and sparks conversation. So here goes, this is my first blog. Let's see how long I keep it up and if anyone at all is interested. Hee.