(no subject)
So. Recital.
By about noon on Friday I was definitively ill. Aching sinuses, swollen throat, fever, cottonwool head, bumping into things (because for some reason being ill makes me lose all proprioception), the slight tightness in my chest that always accompanies being sick since last October, when I pneumonia. And absolutely zero energy.
What splendid conditions under which to prepare for your first big college recital. Someone in charge clearly adores me.
Nevertheless, I took my Japanese quiz, turned in my German paper, studied for and took my music history exam, joked with Daniel about what a good idea of his it had been, being sick before the recital instead of the day of. Then I walked a mile to the grocery store and bought grapes, melon, oranges, strawberries, phyllo dough, honey, butter, walnuts, paper plates, cups, teas, cocoa, flowers, napkins, forks... so on and so forth. Took all fifty million pounds of groceries back home. Cleaned the kitchen a bit. Began to pound walnuts to make phyllo dough. Sat down on the kitchen floor and fought back tears of sheer tiredness. Called katamarinka, who promptly and angelically agreed to come home and help me. She and Anne and I spent the next two hours churning out foor trays of baklava and several platters of gorgeously cut and arranged fruit. There was a disaster with honey. I went upstairs to 'nap', a.k.a lie with a hot towel over my puffy face and curse the fates. I came downstairs. There had been another disaster with honey. I ate, steamed my poor stupid sinuses, showered, dressed, applied roughly twice as much makeup as I usually wear in an effort to hide the evidence of total wiped-out-ness, and walked back to school carrying one bag's worth of the reception we'd prepared, my dress for the second half, music, coat, water, purse, and three plastic fedoras. All this in an low-cut, full-skirted recital gown. A neighbor watched me go, with a look of deep perplexity on his face.
I warmed up, trying not to listen to how incredibly tense and tired (and, frankly, flat) I was. I danced around for a while to try to get some energy back. Said hi to Daniel, but was unable to help him decided on the pressing issue of 'tie' vs. 'no tie'. Said hi to Lauri and Lawrence and Gloria and the backstage student workers. Drank another gallon of water. Tossed back a couple more Sudafed capsules. Sloshed back to the greenroom to fuss with my hair and take deep calming (slightly painful) breaths until 8:05. Was too out-of-it to feel nervous, which is a first in my life.
I actually did have fun performing. The illness made itself apparent mostly in my inability to take a full breath (my chest hurt), and my difficulty placing the sound correctly in a head that felt like an overstuffed sofa cushion. I was flat a lot, sometimes painfully so. And any notes in my passagio were simply for shit -- sounded like a terrified twelve-year-old boy. And I totally, utterly blew the first cadenza in the Rossini. Horrific. Train-wreck.
Nonetheless, the acting part was still a hell of a lot of fun. Even three-eighths dead, making 'I am a lonely-but-passionate gaucho' faces at the audience, vamping up a storm, kicking things, cuddling up to Daniel, smirking and primping and messing around with a plastic fedora tilted over one eye -- I'd have to be more like seven-eighths dead not to get some kind of a kick out of all that.
We had a bigger turnout than most junior recitals; probably somewhere around a hundred, just for a guess. People said lovely things to me afterward, particularly about my acting and my clothing and my 'presence' and my repertoire choices. (Someday it will be about my actual voice. Maybe. I can only hope.) They loved the baklava. I got flowers from sweet Eszter and Irina, as well as from my family who (I think) had had to make an awful lot of phone calls to make sure the bouquet made it to me. And a courtly hand-kiss from Lawrence, who said he would forever associate those three Argentinean songs with me and would never want to accompany them for anyone else as long as he lived. Daniel and I gave Lauri and Lawrence flowers. I repeated the words 'oh thank you. That's so kind of you. Thank you so much for coming' until they stopped sounding like English any more. Tried to make small-talk with some people, may possibly have recited the Gettysburg Address to them, I have no bloody idea, because at that point all I wanted in the world was to be out of my sexy dress and high heels and lying flat on my back somewhere dark and quiet.
We all made it back to the house with the carefully packed-up carnage from the reception. Spent an hour or so working on cleaning up the sticky remains of the Honey Disasters (which might end up going down in our household history as being the domestic equivalent of the World Wars). Left the rest until morning.
And there you have it. I've spent most of today being sick, and feeling a little lost and fretful -- listening to the CD was discouraging for me in a lot of ways, although encouraging in a few. (i.e., yes, when I'm singing properly, I do sound like a mezzo. Yes, I perform best when I'm having fun, meaning when there's something I find theatrically engaging about the music. Yes, my low range has improved. No, I STILL do not consistently sing in tune, and yes, absolutely every aspect of my technique has a LONG way to go, and until I make major improvements on breath support and consistent placement I will continue to wince when listening to recordings of myself.)
Sigh.
I will feel better about it all when I... well, when I feel better. I have a lot of other performing opportunities coming up to look forward to, at which I will (I hope) NOT be sick, and by which point my technique will have improved just that littlest bit more.
And maybe by that time I will have truly started to learn how to hear progress and opportunity, rather than flaws and embarrassments.
By about noon on Friday I was definitively ill. Aching sinuses, swollen throat, fever, cottonwool head, bumping into things (because for some reason being ill makes me lose all proprioception), the slight tightness in my chest that always accompanies being sick since last October, when I pneumonia. And absolutely zero energy.
What splendid conditions under which to prepare for your first big college recital. Someone in charge clearly adores me.
Nevertheless, I took my Japanese quiz, turned in my German paper, studied for and took my music history exam, joked with Daniel about what a good idea of his it had been, being sick before the recital instead of the day of. Then I walked a mile to the grocery store and bought grapes, melon, oranges, strawberries, phyllo dough, honey, butter, walnuts, paper plates, cups, teas, cocoa, flowers, napkins, forks... so on and so forth. Took all fifty million pounds of groceries back home. Cleaned the kitchen a bit. Began to pound walnuts to make phyllo dough. Sat down on the kitchen floor and fought back tears of sheer tiredness. Called katamarinka, who promptly and angelically agreed to come home and help me. She and Anne and I spent the next two hours churning out foor trays of baklava and several platters of gorgeously cut and arranged fruit. There was a disaster with honey. I went upstairs to 'nap', a.k.a lie with a hot towel over my puffy face and curse the fates. I came downstairs. There had been another disaster with honey. I ate, steamed my poor stupid sinuses, showered, dressed, applied roughly twice as much makeup as I usually wear in an effort to hide the evidence of total wiped-out-ness, and walked back to school carrying one bag's worth of the reception we'd prepared, my dress for the second half, music, coat, water, purse, and three plastic fedoras. All this in an low-cut, full-skirted recital gown. A neighbor watched me go, with a look of deep perplexity on his face.
I warmed up, trying not to listen to how incredibly tense and tired (and, frankly, flat) I was. I danced around for a while to try to get some energy back. Said hi to Daniel, but was unable to help him decided on the pressing issue of 'tie' vs. 'no tie'. Said hi to Lauri and Lawrence and Gloria and the backstage student workers. Drank another gallon of water. Tossed back a couple more Sudafed capsules. Sloshed back to the greenroom to fuss with my hair and take deep calming (slightly painful) breaths until 8:05. Was too out-of-it to feel nervous, which is a first in my life.
I actually did have fun performing. The illness made itself apparent mostly in my inability to take a full breath (my chest hurt), and my difficulty placing the sound correctly in a head that felt like an overstuffed sofa cushion. I was flat a lot, sometimes painfully so. And any notes in my passagio were simply for shit -- sounded like a terrified twelve-year-old boy. And I totally, utterly blew the first cadenza in the Rossini. Horrific. Train-wreck.
Nonetheless, the acting part was still a hell of a lot of fun. Even three-eighths dead, making 'I am a lonely-but-passionate gaucho' faces at the audience, vamping up a storm, kicking things, cuddling up to Daniel, smirking and primping and messing around with a plastic fedora tilted over one eye -- I'd have to be more like seven-eighths dead not to get some kind of a kick out of all that.
We had a bigger turnout than most junior recitals; probably somewhere around a hundred, just for a guess. People said lovely things to me afterward, particularly about my acting and my clothing and my 'presence' and my repertoire choices. (Someday it will be about my actual voice. Maybe. I can only hope.) They loved the baklava. I got flowers from sweet Eszter and Irina, as well as from my family who (I think) had had to make an awful lot of phone calls to make sure the bouquet made it to me. And a courtly hand-kiss from Lawrence, who said he would forever associate those three Argentinean songs with me and would never want to accompany them for anyone else as long as he lived. Daniel and I gave Lauri and Lawrence flowers. I repeated the words 'oh thank you. That's so kind of you. Thank you so much for coming' until they stopped sounding like English any more. Tried to make small-talk with some people, may possibly have recited the Gettysburg Address to them, I have no bloody idea, because at that point all I wanted in the world was to be out of my sexy dress and high heels and lying flat on my back somewhere dark and quiet.
We all made it back to the house with the carefully packed-up carnage from the reception. Spent an hour or so working on cleaning up the sticky remains of the Honey Disasters (which might end up going down in our household history as being the domestic equivalent of the World Wars). Left the rest until morning.
And there you have it. I've spent most of today being sick, and feeling a little lost and fretful -- listening to the CD was discouraging for me in a lot of ways, although encouraging in a few. (i.e., yes, when I'm singing properly, I do sound like a mezzo. Yes, I perform best when I'm having fun, meaning when there's something I find theatrically engaging about the music. Yes, my low range has improved. No, I STILL do not consistently sing in tune, and yes, absolutely every aspect of my technique has a LONG way to go, and until I make major improvements on breath support and consistent placement I will continue to wince when listening to recordings of myself.)
Sigh.
I will feel better about it all when I... well, when I feel better. I have a lot of other performing opportunities coming up to look forward to, at which I will (I hope) NOT be sick, and by which point my technique will have improved just that littlest bit more.
And maybe by that time I will have truly started to learn how to hear progress and opportunity, rather than flaws and embarrassments.