Opera Nuova: The End
Well, Opera Nuova is all over already... WEIRD!!
Also weird: I'm sitting in the Calgary airport writing this!!! I love the technological age, this is remarkable, truly. Also awesome: I used my facebook account to "log onto" this network, so I didn't have to do anything silly like create a new password or spend time giving Calgary Airport my name and information. *smiles happily*
Okay, so really truly, Opera Nuova is over, and I barely updated at all. That alone is pretty freakin crazy. But also crazy is that I spent 5 weeks of my life there, and it was changed all over again. Being at Nuova again this year was honestly the BEST thing I could have done for myself. To see who I am this year and compare that to who I was last year at that program was more than worth all the tuition monies. I have grown SO MUCH as an artist and as a singer, and as a person in general. And it was fabulous to hear all the people who met me last year re-affirm that to me.
Things got a bit weird this year in terms of health. A week before my show went up, I started getting the flu/cold/virus thing going around, and spent a day with a fever and aches and chills and whatnot. I kept saying, "tomorrow I'll be better", b/c, if you'll recall, Opera Nuova is ALL about the power of the mind!! Well, I got rid of the fever, but the ill settled in my chest (as it did for most people), and I started coughing. I had no more fever, but my cough got worse and worse, and I was hacking up huge phlegm balls, and losing my voice. I didn't want to go to the ENT (ear/nose/throat doctor) for fear he/she would say "No singing for 3 weeks!" and ruin my life. But after talking to my sister on facebook, I decided to go, to try to get some anti-biotics. Well, I ended up not getting in to see the ENT, and went to a walk-in clinic instead. Where I spent about 4 hours waiting to see a doctor (I truly hate those places). He took one look at my throat (and by this point I was pretty much constantly sucking on cough candies/fishermans friends/halls unless I was drinking tea (which I was drinking by the gallon), and said "throat infection, i'll prescribe you an antibiotic." (it was even the one Kelly recommended trying to get!! she's so smart.) Well, I started taking them immediately, and the next day I felt marginally better, but I still had no voice. This day was Wednesday, btw. My performance was Saturday. And I had NO VOICE. That night I prayed for a miracle. I prayed so hard I cried, I was so desperate. I pled with God to give me a miraculous overnight healing. I prayed so hard I couldn't sleep, and spent several hours in a semi-conscious state where I was convinced my throat was an outside entity, that strangely turned into a spaceship as I got more unconscious, and just a round pillar of fire as I got more conscious. Well, the next day I was not miraculously better... but I was getting there. Thursday I had a speaking voice, and spoke through my role for my rehearsal. Friday arrived... and I had a singing voice!! I had to be incredibly careful as I sang, and had to mark most of it. (For singers, marking means you don't sing with your full voice, although all professionals will be quick to add that you don't have any less intensity of energy or breath or emotional impact, you just save your voice.) At the end, I tried opening up, and all that got me was a cracked high C. Saturday morning arrived and... I HAD MY VOICE BACK!!! It was truly a miracle. It was maybe not the miracle I pled for, with the overnight dramatic healing. But hello... after 4 days of complete silence, and one day of half-singing, I PERFORMED A SERIOUS, PUCCINI ROLE ON STAGE, and i ROCKED IT!!!! seriously, a miracle.
And the performance was better than I ever could have imagined it. I had to be vocally careful, never giving more than I knew my voice could handle, always holding back and holding it in check. But at the same time, I managed to stay completely in the moment, the whole way through, focusing totally on communicating the text, and interacting with my co-singers. I was able to keep my left-brain almost completely shut off, and not analyze my performance as it was happening. At the crucial moment when Angelica learns that her son is dead, and screams and falls to the floor sobbing, I could do it, but not fall apart and start crying myself. (Although my sobs were partially coughing, as singing was loosening the phlegm sitting on my chords...) And then I was able to save my voice for the huge aria, and following soliloquy as Angelica prepares her poison and bids farewell to her sisters and prepares to meet her son, and her following anguish as she realizes she's just damned herself to eternal hell and separation from her son forever. And through the following pleading with the Virgin for a miracle - a feeling I knew very very well!! And at the end, as Angelica sees the miracle of the Virgin appearing, and offering her her son, and Angelica reaches for him as she sees him for the first time in 7 years, and he walks towards her... I cried. It was beautiful.
And as I died on stage, and the chorus finished singing, and the lights went down, the at least 5 seconds of complete silence were some of the best seconds of my life, seconds I will never forget. That whole night was truly a miracle. I got amazing feedback, particularly from the faculty members who are all professional singers in Canada (and some internationally) themselves. Some of the guys I talked to said they cried, which is obviously different from the many girls who said they cried. Being someone whose love language is words of affirmation, I wish I could have gotten them all in writing, or at least recorded. But I also know that in this profession I need to not focus on my affirmation as a singer coming from outside sources, but from within.
The night continued in awesomeness as I could barely escape for all the congratulations. One of my favourites was as I was sitting down to watch the second one-act Puccini opera start, a guy in the program, whom I'd barely ever talked to, ran up, reached over my parents who were on the outside of the row, pressed my hand, and said, "I love you. I seriously love you." When he walked away, I just laughed, rolled my eyes and said "singer!!" And Kelly said something about over-dramatic-ness. : ) And then I escaped, skipped out on strike (am I not awful?!? I love it.) And I went out with my parents and Kelly and my cousin, and had some chocolate cake, and started to come down a bit from the performance high. I missed out on the cast party, but I spent that time with family, which I think is a pretty fair trade off. I was suprised I slept at all that night, what with the performance high and chocolate caramel cake sugar running through my veins!! :)
The next day was not nearly so good. It was that day-after-Christmas feeling, where you've had that huge build up for EVER, and the day comes, and suddenly it's gone and all you're left with are some cool new gadgets and leftovers in the fridge. For me, this has been a build up since December, and all I was left with were lingering memories of compliments, a vague sense of what happened on stage, and another notch on my resume. I was no longer the star of the show, but another participant in a huge opera program. It was a weird day. Good, but weird.
And since then, I've done all my goodbyes, and started hard core learning my music for the next program on the list: Queen of Puddings Songs and Scenes Summer School. It's contemporary rep, and cabaret music - a huge switch from Puccini!! I'm supposed to arrive with the music learned and memorized... well, I'll be lucky if it's all learned!! I'm going to work on getting the easy stuff memorized, I think I can do that easily. But there are 2 KILLER pieces, and if I show up knowing all the notes, I'll count myself lucky. I'm pretty excited for this program. A friend I met at Nuova said it made it into who she is. And Nuova has done that for me, but I want to keep growing and learning and changing into who I'm going to become. Okay, that sentence is kind of retarded, bc OBVIOUSLY i'm going to do that, but I think you know what I mean.
Anyways, I have to pee like CRAZY!! And it's 12:30, and all I've had to eat today was oatmeal at 6:30 am, several candies, and a chocolate cookie. So it's time to hunt down some lunch. I hate going to the bathroom with all my carry on luggage around, but such is life. It's been fab to spend a large portion of this layover on the internet, not to mention having an outlet to keep my laptop battery fully ready for watching a movie on the plane... :)
See ya'll back in Ontario!!!
Also weird: I'm sitting in the Calgary airport writing this!!! I love the technological age, this is remarkable, truly. Also awesome: I used my facebook account to "log onto" this network, so I didn't have to do anything silly like create a new password or spend time giving Calgary Airport my name and information. *smiles happily*
Okay, so really truly, Opera Nuova is over, and I barely updated at all. That alone is pretty freakin crazy. But also crazy is that I spent 5 weeks of my life there, and it was changed all over again. Being at Nuova again this year was honestly the BEST thing I could have done for myself. To see who I am this year and compare that to who I was last year at that program was more than worth all the tuition monies. I have grown SO MUCH as an artist and as a singer, and as a person in general. And it was fabulous to hear all the people who met me last year re-affirm that to me.
Things got a bit weird this year in terms of health. A week before my show went up, I started getting the flu/cold/virus thing going around, and spent a day with a fever and aches and chills and whatnot. I kept saying, "tomorrow I'll be better", b/c, if you'll recall, Opera Nuova is ALL about the power of the mind!! Well, I got rid of the fever, but the ill settled in my chest (as it did for most people), and I started coughing. I had no more fever, but my cough got worse and worse, and I was hacking up huge phlegm balls, and losing my voice. I didn't want to go to the ENT (ear/nose/throat doctor) for fear he/she would say "No singing for 3 weeks!" and ruin my life. But after talking to my sister on facebook, I decided to go, to try to get some anti-biotics. Well, I ended up not getting in to see the ENT, and went to a walk-in clinic instead. Where I spent about 4 hours waiting to see a doctor (I truly hate those places). He took one look at my throat (and by this point I was pretty much constantly sucking on cough candies/fishermans friends/halls unless I was drinking tea (which I was drinking by the gallon), and said "throat infection, i'll prescribe you an antibiotic." (it was even the one Kelly recommended trying to get!! she's so smart.) Well, I started taking them immediately, and the next day I felt marginally better, but I still had no voice. This day was Wednesday, btw. My performance was Saturday. And I had NO VOICE. That night I prayed for a miracle. I prayed so hard I cried, I was so desperate. I pled with God to give me a miraculous overnight healing. I prayed so hard I couldn't sleep, and spent several hours in a semi-conscious state where I was convinced my throat was an outside entity, that strangely turned into a spaceship as I got more unconscious, and just a round pillar of fire as I got more conscious. Well, the next day I was not miraculously better... but I was getting there. Thursday I had a speaking voice, and spoke through my role for my rehearsal. Friday arrived... and I had a singing voice!! I had to be incredibly careful as I sang, and had to mark most of it. (For singers, marking means you don't sing with your full voice, although all professionals will be quick to add that you don't have any less intensity of energy or breath or emotional impact, you just save your voice.) At the end, I tried opening up, and all that got me was a cracked high C. Saturday morning arrived and... I HAD MY VOICE BACK!!! It was truly a miracle. It was maybe not the miracle I pled for, with the overnight dramatic healing. But hello... after 4 days of complete silence, and one day of half-singing, I PERFORMED A SERIOUS, PUCCINI ROLE ON STAGE, and i ROCKED IT!!!! seriously, a miracle.
And the performance was better than I ever could have imagined it. I had to be vocally careful, never giving more than I knew my voice could handle, always holding back and holding it in check. But at the same time, I managed to stay completely in the moment, the whole way through, focusing totally on communicating the text, and interacting with my co-singers. I was able to keep my left-brain almost completely shut off, and not analyze my performance as it was happening. At the crucial moment when Angelica learns that her son is dead, and screams and falls to the floor sobbing, I could do it, but not fall apart and start crying myself. (Although my sobs were partially coughing, as singing was loosening the phlegm sitting on my chords...) And then I was able to save my voice for the huge aria, and following soliloquy as Angelica prepares her poison and bids farewell to her sisters and prepares to meet her son, and her following anguish as she realizes she's just damned herself to eternal hell and separation from her son forever. And through the following pleading with the Virgin for a miracle - a feeling I knew very very well!! And at the end, as Angelica sees the miracle of the Virgin appearing, and offering her her son, and Angelica reaches for him as she sees him for the first time in 7 years, and he walks towards her... I cried. It was beautiful.
And as I died on stage, and the chorus finished singing, and the lights went down, the at least 5 seconds of complete silence were some of the best seconds of my life, seconds I will never forget. That whole night was truly a miracle. I got amazing feedback, particularly from the faculty members who are all professional singers in Canada (and some internationally) themselves. Some of the guys I talked to said they cried, which is obviously different from the many girls who said they cried. Being someone whose love language is words of affirmation, I wish I could have gotten them all in writing, or at least recorded. But I also know that in this profession I need to not focus on my affirmation as a singer coming from outside sources, but from within.
The night continued in awesomeness as I could barely escape for all the congratulations. One of my favourites was as I was sitting down to watch the second one-act Puccini opera start, a guy in the program, whom I'd barely ever talked to, ran up, reached over my parents who were on the outside of the row, pressed my hand, and said, "I love you. I seriously love you." When he walked away, I just laughed, rolled my eyes and said "singer!!" And Kelly said something about over-dramatic-ness. : ) And then I escaped, skipped out on strike (am I not awful?!? I love it.) And I went out with my parents and Kelly and my cousin, and had some chocolate cake, and started to come down a bit from the performance high. I missed out on the cast party, but I spent that time with family, which I think is a pretty fair trade off. I was suprised I slept at all that night, what with the performance high and chocolate caramel cake sugar running through my veins!! :)
The next day was not nearly so good. It was that day-after-Christmas feeling, where you've had that huge build up for EVER, and the day comes, and suddenly it's gone and all you're left with are some cool new gadgets and leftovers in the fridge. For me, this has been a build up since December, and all I was left with were lingering memories of compliments, a vague sense of what happened on stage, and another notch on my resume. I was no longer the star of the show, but another participant in a huge opera program. It was a weird day. Good, but weird.
And since then, I've done all my goodbyes, and started hard core learning my music for the next program on the list: Queen of Puddings Songs and Scenes Summer School. It's contemporary rep, and cabaret music - a huge switch from Puccini!! I'm supposed to arrive with the music learned and memorized... well, I'll be lucky if it's all learned!! I'm going to work on getting the easy stuff memorized, I think I can do that easily. But there are 2 KILLER pieces, and if I show up knowing all the notes, I'll count myself lucky. I'm pretty excited for this program. A friend I met at Nuova said it made it into who she is. And Nuova has done that for me, but I want to keep growing and learning and changing into who I'm going to become. Okay, that sentence is kind of retarded, bc OBVIOUSLY i'm going to do that, but I think you know what I mean.
Anyways, I have to pee like CRAZY!! And it's 12:30, and all I've had to eat today was oatmeal at 6:30 am, several candies, and a chocolate cookie. So it's time to hunt down some lunch. I hate going to the bathroom with all my carry on luggage around, but such is life. It's been fab to spend a large portion of this layover on the internet, not to mention having an outlet to keep my laptop battery fully ready for watching a movie on the plane... :)
See ya'll back in Ontario!!!