Getting back on my feet

It's been a while folks, and I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to spend much time with TOI over the last few weeks. It has, however, been a time of immense rejuvenation and vocal growth for me personally (well, except for the laryngitis I have been carrying around with me!), and I feel that the last two weeks were really life-changing in many ways. As singers we need those moments when we re-realize why we do what we do. The business is tough, rejections outnumber acceptances, what, 1,053 to 1 so we need confirmation that we're on the right track, that what we're doing really IS worthwhile, and that it does matter to the larger world order. This was just that kind of time for me.

There is always for me certain openness and intensity of life I experience every time I go to a new place. I feel like my eyes open wider, the colors are brighter, laughter is more infectious, and I am the very best of myself. Being an outsider or a foreigner makes me evaluate myself and where I have come from in the most wonderful of ways. I am eager to question of others and to answer the questions of others. In this case, Sweden of course does not feel like a completely different world, especially to someone who spent the formative years of her life in northern Europe. But still: it was a new country to me, a new - and so very beautiful - language, a different pace of life.

I went to spend four days of intense vocal study with my teacher and four of his other students (three Swedes and a German) and then I was able to stay on in Goteborg for two more days to continue studying with him. Here you see the lovely opera house:






Here's a picture of the season's offerings at Göteborgs Operan as well as the necessary Jussi Björlingsplats.














The location for our masterclass was absolutely idyllic!



The four other wonderful singers: Meta, Erik, Olof, and Kati, were incredibly supportive, and we all learned from each other in the most intimate and uncluttered way. All our lessons were "open-format" so all could come and listen in and learn from each other then on the last day we held a Masterclass where all of us sang an aria and were helped and critiqued by our voice teacher.

It really is amazing to me how much we work for the smallest things. It makes me think of the scientist locked up in a lab trying again and again to find just the right amount of one substance which, when mixed with just the right amount of another substance, will create the cure for cancer. Sometimes I wish I could bring some of my non-singer friends into a lesson and just have them observe as I spend half an hour trying to get the balance between the focus and the depth just right. Would they hear the difference? I'm guessing not. But it would still give me some sort of (almost sordid) pleasure watching them see what it is we do all day long in attempt to present with the world with a well-rounded and beautiful voice.

Well, we weren't all perfect, far from it in fact, but we worked hard... harder than I think I have seen singers work in a long time. Perhaps it's because we were all a little bit older or because some of us had already had a career or a sort of career singing under the guise of another voice (either another fach or a voice in the same fach that was so utterly unbalanced as to be almost entirely another voice), but the work we did was hard, inspired, and inspiring.

Thanks to everyone who made this such an unbelievably memorable experience, most especially to Ron LaFond, without whose expertise, light-heartedness and soulfulness none of this could have come to fruition. I will treasure these days always.