NWR: Recital Woes

Posted Saturday, December 19, 2009 5:05 AM

As a classically trained singer with 10 years of one-on-one training, I am used to having to perform in front of an audience, sometimes on the fly. My teacher is like mother to me, and vocally, she knows her stuff.  But one thing about her that really, really gets on my nerves is that she can be extremely disorganized(almost to the point where it's inexcusable)

Case and Point:  I told her that I would be leaving to go and see Phil, my fiancee, this December(just like I have done every December for the past 6 years) for the Holidays.

Now sometime mid November it dawned on her to have a recital sometime right before Christmas.  And I told her in advance, I want to see my fiancee and that she better have it before I go because otherwise I am not going to be singing.

I even had to book a plane flight that was twice as expensive that what I usually fly out to St. Louis on the 20th of December, two weeks later than when I usually leave.  I told her on the phone before Thanksgiving that the latest I could still make it to the recital was the 19th of December.

 Well, guess what date she picked:  you guessed it, today, the 19th of December.  The dieting that I have done to fit into my dress(I'll get to the dress later) this week has affected the richness of my voice. My tone is a little thinner than it was, and my stamina is a bit lacking in order to give it the smoothness I like to have.

I am performing 3 pieces from my repertoire this afternoon:

Panis Angelicus  by Cesar Frank

The Trees on the Mountain  by Carlise Floyd

Mein Glaubiges, Herze, Frohlocke  by Johann Sebastian Bach

The Panis is a fairly straightforward piece that almost anyone with a half-decent voice can perform.   But it sounds better when a singer with great technical know-how and vocal training does it.  You can look up Luciano Pavarotti on Youtube.  Just type in "Pavarotti Panis Angelicus."  The difference is night and day when compared to a more contemporary and less experienced tenor like say Andrea Bocelli.

Trees is right now the hardest aria in my repertoire.  It is hauntingly beautiful, the first time I heard it it made me want to cry.  The melodic line is deceptively simple.  The combination of 1 1/2 octive jumps, high tessatura, and wide notation of this song(going from a d flat above middle c to a high b flat just below high c) make it treacherous even for an experienced singer.  There are many songs that sound nice no matter who sings them, and then there are songs that are so technically difficult they expose every single flaw in a singer's voice.  This song is one of them.  Look up Renee Fleming on Youtube: "Renee Fleming Trees on the Mountains," it should be there.  In my opinion though her voice is too thick for the song, it looses a lot of its purity and sultriness when sung by a dramatic soprano.

Mein Glaubiges is a piece I know from singing in choir,  it translates to "My heart ever faithful."  It's a fast song, from the Baroque period, it goes up high and requires a great deal of flexibility and breath control. Because it is Baroque the beat must be followed perfectly(those darn Germans and their clock-like exactness) which is tricky because the melody again is so delightful it is easy to get ahead of the beat.  If you look up Kathleen Battle on Youtube using "Kathleen Battle My heart ever faithful," you can see she falls into that trap too and is not exact on the beat. Even though she has the voice for it, she's being sloppy. The reason I know is that I tried to sing it the way she was doing and my teacher was like "What are you doing?  You are totally ahead of the beat.  It's wrong. All wrong!"

On top of these songs, yesterday, we had our dress rehearsal.  Due to poor time management and all sorts of drama on my teacher's part, we didn't finish until almost 10 pm at night. And we didn't go over every song, we didn't even get our programs.

One thing I TRULY HATE is that I am forced to do ensemble work(sing with other singers).  I have been there; I've done that. I know how to do it since I've sung in choirs for the past 17 years--I don't care for it anymore.  Well she subjects me to singing with other singers who cannot harmonize to save their lives. On top of it all, even though I have the strongest soprano voice of all her students with the highest range, I am relegated to sing the alto parts because I can pull off harmonizing against the melodic line without getting lost like the others.  And what is worse, that an hour of the 2 hour lesson that I get from her each week was devoted to stupid ensemble work!  Seriously, I am not paying her to learn how to do choral work.  I could learn that elsewhere for free!

This recital will be my last with this teacher, and more than likely I will not have any more lessons with her when I get back to Los Angeles.  When I move to St. Louis, I will have to find a new teacher, hopefully one I jibe with better.

The thing that really worries me is that I made the mistake of putting her into by bridal party.  And I have a sinking feeling she's going to be more of a hindrance than a help. My fiancee was very upset at me for asking her since he thinks she's very self-absorbed and has not done enough to help me develop professionally as a singer.  He keeps harping on it every day, and I have to snap at him and tell him "okay, enough already!"

I have to pack after the recital, put my invites together, and then decide if I want to bring Clovis along on this trip out to St. Louis also.  My plane leaves at 8:00 am on the dot on Sunday from LAX.

On a side note: I have no idea why I was selected Knottie Blog of the week.  Much of my blog has been a way to blow off steam, some of it wedding related and other parts not so much.  I try to be informative with major issues like gown shopping, and reception venue shopping(both very important issues when planning a wedding).  They can both be easy money sinkers.