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Out of the Box

Reading, writing and art

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This morning, I took a break from contemplating the ups and downs of the operatic rehearsal process, and popped on-line.  I quickly found myself reading the New York Times Magazine article about David Mitchell.  How I ended up there, I’m not sure.  My book club read his “Cloud Atlas” many, many months ago, and it sparked a good conversation.  This morning, the author’s name caught my eye.

I love that reading inspires writing.  Mitchell suggests that all the reading he did as a kid made him a writer.  Reading about him made me want to finally finish a post that I started writing a couple of weeks ago.  It’s akin to wanting to hit a practice room after attending a great performance, I figure.

The bit that suddenly jumped off my computer screen (and made me happy to have read the entire article instead of the first couple of pages) was Mitchell’s quote,

“I’m interested in human mud because, as you age, your life gets muddier. As an artist I think you realize that’s where art is art. I can only say it in very simple terms because it’s a very simple thing: art is about people, it’s not about experimentation.”

I admit that I had been dragging my feet on posting a post-Italy trip post because I couldn’t quite find my way into it.  I had all of these ideas about art reflecting life, and life reflecting art, and art reflecting art, but then David Mitchell had to announce that I was making things too complicated.  Art is about people.

The Caravaggio exhibit at the Pitti Palace in Florence then, is that about people?

A couple of weeks ago, I was standing in that exhibit, in the Medici’s old house, listening to a lot of strangers commenting to each other in various languages, all looking at the same 17th century artwork.  Yes, art is about bringing people together.

This particular exhibit highlights the aptly labeled “caravaggeschi,” the artists who were greatly influenced by the one great artist (who was, I can’t help but emphasize, influenced by other great artists).  Yes, art is also about the people who create it.

The paintings themselves are clearly of people: Biblical scenes, political figures, pretty faces…I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Caravaggio’s Tooth Puller.  Definitely about people.

My favorite part about that painting appeared the next day in the Santa Maria Novella train station.  I was guarding backpacks and suitcases while my travel buddy grabbed some provisions.  Guarding backpacks and suitcases in a busy train station affords ample time for people watching (art!), which is half the fun of traveling.  A little girl walked back and forth with her mom, panino in hand, then mouth, then hand, then mouth.  Suddenly, she yelped something of an Italian barbaric yelp, and before a second had passed, her mother’s hand, armed with a napkin, took the place of that panino and pulled out a tooth.  The girl was jumping at that point.  No grimace of Caravaggio’s Tooth Pull-ed, but a holey smile of straight up happiness.

Art reflecting life?  Life reflecting art?

Sunday night, some friends hosted a fundraiser for Union Avenue Opera on a rooftop downtown.  Yes, there was some singing in English, Italian and French.  There were flimsy swords, impromptu dance moves, scary pirates, sirens blaring, winds a-blowing, dogs barking, and napkins flying.  Most importantly though, the roof was filled with a lot of people having a good time.  How artistic.

Pirates on Deck!

Scary pirates in collared shirts. Frightened damsels in dresses.
Photo by Dana Stone, UAO administrator extraordinaire.
Out of the Box, Teaching

“Focus on the up”

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My Alexander Technique teacher said those words to me yesterday, mid-lesson.  The first thing I thought was of the sweet kindergarten boy who volunteered to be the bunny in Union Avenue Opera’s educational performance of Little Red Riding Hood last Friday.  He added a bounce to the role that I’ve never seen before, replete with upward commitment–a nearly tangible determination to be the best bunny he could be.  While continuing through the forest in my red cape, I inwardly marveled at that youthful, joyous expression of springiness.  Focus on the up.

My high school voice students were more nervous than bouncy last Thursday night when they gathered at my house with friend and colleague Elizabeth Schleicher’s students.  It was a non-recital.  A chance to sing in front of peers with an accompanist and no parents.  A chance to see how other people are doing with their voice and body exploration.  A chance to see how it feels to share music simply for the sake of sharing.  A chance express.  Their “up” challenge involved a little more focus, more poise, and more confidence.  Who couldn’t use an extra serving of that?

I witnessed yet another kind of “up” at the Girls on the Run 5K a few days ago.  I have been involved with the organization on and off during the last several years, and was invited to the microphone this year.

National Anthem

Photos by Tyson Kanoya

As I sang the National Anthem, I stared out at the crowd from a perfectly elevated perch.  Take the committed bounce of my little bunny, stir in the nerves of my high schoolers, add 10 weeks of preparation, some rain, and a Sunday morning, multiply by 4,400 runners, and you get a rocket of enthusiasm.  Neither gravity nor precipitation was going to bring that crowd down.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said a few words.

Pre-race

A six-time marathoner herself, she related to the focus, determination and commitment necessary to run any distance.   It’s the the same kind of focus, determination and commitment that the runners will take with them as they venture through life, she suggested.  It will lead them and the world around them to exceptional places.  They are on their way up.  Way to focus.

Lori Chalupny, member of the 2008 gold medal winning US soccer team took Mrs. Carnahan’s message and hit it home.  Work hard, and sometimes your sky-high dreams come true.  They did, after all, for her.

Up.

Starting Line

Teaching

Aunt Elise on vacation

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After eating breakfast in Portland, Oregon last week, I accompanied my nephew, his little brother, and his mom to pre-school.  “Does anyone know anything about opera?” I asked the smallish circle of 3, 4, and 5-year-olds.  Only a couple of hands went up.  During the next 15 minutes, they all tried a little bit of opera singing and acting, they watched me do the same, and they even processed a bit of what they heard and saw.   I’m a big fan of catching ’em while their young.  I think they might be too.

That night, I went to my brother’s neighbor’s house, the wife of whom incidentally grew  up next door to us in St. Louis.  Small world.  Guitarist, singer, composer, rockstar Walter Parks married one of those beloved next-door neighbors (there was always a smooth path between their house and ours), and he gave his first house concert in his wife’s sister’s living room.

Walter Parks plays a house concert

photo by Tim LaBarge

He invited me to sing along.  “Just improvise some operatic oohs above the melody.”  Huh?  I wondered what these Portlanders would think.  They’re accustomed to hearing folk/songwriter/blues singing (they live in Portland, after all), but operatic oohs, not so much.  Turns out, they liked it.  I guess it’s good to catch ’em while they’re older, too.

Cabaret

A lotta keeps

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I had hoped this weekend’s Lotte Lenya Competition finals would provide some career-path clarity.  After all, standing up in front of a panel of judges and curious audience members twice in one day should shed a little bit of light on how it feels to be nurtured, appreciated, and scrutinized all at the same time–in a nutshell, how it feels to be a performing artist.  If it feels bad, then maybe it’s time to change directions.  If it feels good, then maybe it’s time to punch up the efforts and take advantage of the momentum.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple, and clarity rarely comes with want.

After the singing was over on Saturday night, the judges disappeared to continue the “lively discussion” they had started earlier in the day, promising to return with a list of winners.  The audience shuffled about, awaiting the results. The singers nervously chattered in the green room, awaiting the results.   A couple of shufflers walked by some chatterers and stopped.  “You,” the lady who showed up to Kilbourn Hall on a whim said to one of my colleagues, “you made me cry.  I have no idea why; it must have been something in the music, or what you did, but you made me cry.”  Bingo.  Job well done, dear contestant.

When the judges returned, the audience welcomed the 15 singer-actors with applause.  It was an applause filled with a similar kind of “You made me cry” affection.  Ah, I think we did our jobs, dear contestants.

After introductions, each of the three panel members said a few (and sometimes more) words.   Then more applause.  And in the end, everyone–audience, judges, directors, administrators, singers, accompanists–seemed to be singing, “there might be a box, but we’re not sure what it is, so don’t worry about fitting into it.  We like what you’re doing.  Keep working on it.  Keep expressing the music according to its style.  Keep expressing the drama that inspires the music.  Keep inspiring the music with the drama.  Keep letting the story come out of you and keep telling it.  Keep stirring our souls.  Keep us laughing.  Keep crying.  Keep us crying.  Keep sharing the excitement.  Yes, keep sharing.”

Inspiration came, mais hélas, clarity cameth not.  “Everyone has her own path,” Lisa Vroman (and thousands of people before her) affirmed.  Okay, great, but how do I get one and who’s going to give me the topo map?  I want a path, I want a path!

And then I looked back and saw it.  “Hey, there it is!” I thought.  I don’t suppose I know where it’s going, but I’ve been making one all this time, and I think I’ll keep on…

2010 Lotte Lenya Competition

Teaching

Time

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I subbed for another voice teacher this weekend, which can be tricky business when it involves girls ages 9-12.  The 5 girls were great, though.  They paid close attention, sang their hearts out and gave one another very thoughtful and positive feedback after singing solos.   Near the end of the hour, I received the best compliment a teacher could get.  “Wow,” Maddy said as she glanced at the clock, “this class is flying by.”

Then there’s NPR.  Where else would Alec Baldwin’s interview with Laura Linney be put on audio display?  I listened to the two actors talk as I drove home from teaching.  They started with a discussion about Linney’s current role in “Time Stands Still” on Broadway, and ended with her quoting a past stage director.  It seemed to contradict Maddy’s compliment.  “Okay, we don’t have a lot of time, so we have to work very slowly.”

Maybe a contradiction, but probably not.

A good friend just had collarbone surgery.  Ouch.  “Healing happens way faster in the movies,” he jokingly complained the other day.  Oh, cutting room floor, how you make a mess of our already slippery notions of time.

When we work slowly, which I imagine to mean very focused and intently, do we automatically edit out all the boredom, the ineffective stress of rushing, and the overwhelming jumble of thoughts that make time lag or pass without our noticing?  Is that what the stage director (I didn’t catch her name–Josie something) was getting at?  I might be starting to understand what the proverbial They mean when they say “live in the present.”

Pay attention, sing your heart out, allow your body to adjust, let time fly, and work slowly.  It’s my new mantra.

Cabaret

The Kindness of Strangers

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I’ve been so regularly surrounded by familiar faces in my life, that I haven’t often needed to rely on the kindness of strangers.  I say that as if it’s a good thing, which I do believe it is.  There is, however, something surprisingly wonderful about encountering helpful strangers.  Perhaps it’s simply because it’s just that, a surprise.

I spent the past couple of days in Rochester, NY rehearsing and performing for the Kurt Weill Foundation’s annual Lotte Lenya Competition.  It was a solo voyage to an unfamiliar city for an audition I was (and am) deeply invested in.  I was anxious.

In the middle of navigating the city and my nerves, I met a handful of people–men and women of all ages–who paused for a moment to reach out to me.  They gave me mini tours of the town, taught me new dance moves, chatted with me over a drink, took me to lunch, and even cheered me from the audience on the big day.

Combine my Kind Strangers with singing in Eastman’s regal Kilbourn Hall, and I think this past weekend might have changed my opinion of audition trips.  In fact, I might actually start looking forward to them…