I just can't get you outta my head

I'll admit it, I'm in a music learning frenzy.

I've actually been really lucky in that I'm usually just learning one role at a time, or maybe learning one role while I'm performing another. Plus, with 4 cherubinos, 6 Rosinas and 6 Cenerentolas, I've had a lot of repeats. But right now I'm in a kind of obsessed state of learning a million and one things, and I kind of like it.

In addition to the Varese pieces which I talked about in the previous post, I am making sure I'm all learned and memorized for a concert of all Mozart music with an orchestra this weekend (3 arias and 3 duets), I've begun learning a new role which I may have to go do in about a month, I have two songs which are the beginning of a song cycle a composer friend of mine has begun writing for me and which we want to get a recording of asap, and I have a couple of new audition arias that I want to bring with me on my upcoming audition trip to europe. Going from Varese to Mozart to bel canto to modern American and back to Varese in one day makes my brain swim, but it also really inspires me. One second I'm practicing floating high B flats and the next I'm practicing belting a middle C in full chest voice. I usually prefer the part of this job where I'm around other people, whether it's working with the conductor on the music or just rehearsing the staging with the cast, but this self imposed solitude with constant learning is actually really making me happy. I've often only been leaving my apartment once a day, to go to the gym (okay, I've only been doing that this week, but I'm DOING it) and otherwise I just sequester myself. When my brain gets full I stop and do something else like catch up on my emails, but then my newly insatiable appetite for learning reasserts itself, and I'm back gazing at sheet music.

I'm usually a horrible procrastinator, but if this keeps up, I might learn the Mozart role I'm singing in France in 2010 by the end of the week.

difficulties

There are two different types of difficulties that go along with being an opera singer: the logistical difficulties (for example singing notes and rhythms - at the same time - in a foreign language, while standing on your head) and the emotional difficulties (why god whyeeeeeee didn't I get that job, or whyeeeeee did that person write that terrible review of me or whyeeeee do I have to spend so much time away from my loved ones?). Now, these challenges seem large, but they are far outweighed by the benefits, which Is why I keep on keeping on. But that doesn't mean I don't ever get to whine and complain a tiny bit, just for fun.

Tonight, let's talk about the logistical difficulties. Right now I'm studying a piece by Edgard Varese for singer and orchestra called Offrandes. I'm performing it at Avery Fisher Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra on March 22nd. It is two songs totaling about 8 minutes of music and it is HARD. The tessitura is kinda cray cray - I mean super high and super low at different times, and the music is not exactly tonal. Plus the orchestra is playing all kinds of stuff, but nothing that gives you a good sense of what beat you're on or even what tempo you're in, and they certainly aren't playing any of the notes that I'm singing. And after I've been practicing it for awhile, my throat sorta feels like hamburger meat from half singing half marking crazy high notes repeatedly. That being said, the piece is also REALLY cool because it transports you to an ethereal, impressionist, yummy french place. Plus, actually learning a challenging piece like that is a really satisfying feeling. But it ain't easy to float a high B flat out of nowhere, especially when the orchestra is playing a bunch of A naturals.

What I've been up to

So, for the past week or so, I have sequestered myself at my parent's house upstate to work on recreating my website completely. I created the new website with the help of an existing template (that is to say, I didn't hire a web designer to create it for me) and the work was often painstaking and it took FOREVER, but I am pleased with the result. Check out this link if you would like to see all my blood sweat and tears: www.jenniferrivera.com

Because I've been getting this website up and ready to go, I've been walking down memory lane as I finally collected many of the production photos from the past few years. I hadn't looked through the production photos at City Opera since they were still on slides, so that should give you an idea of how long it's been since I ordered anything from them. It was funny returning to City Opera after this, my longest absence from the company since I began there while I was still crossing the plaza from my Juilliard classes to attend my first City Opera reheaersals. My last performance with the company was in fall of their last season before they closed for renovations, and I haven't had too many opportunities to visit the place since. I was happy that the security guards at the stage door still remembered me, and one of them quipped, "You still singin'?" I replied, "Yep - even though the place is closed I'm still singing - can you believe it?" Of course we were joking, but City Opera was my home away from home for 8 seasons - and some of my greatest artistic achievements and bestest friendships have come out of that place. It's very quiet right now, but everybody I ran into was hopeful and excited about George Steel, and they are all ready to climb the steep mountain and bring the place back. I saw this sign posted - it was a copy of that blue and red toned photo of Barack Obama that says "HOPE", except Obama's image had been replaced with Mr. Steel's. Not only was the suggestion that if Barack can become president, anything's possible, but also, even in the bleakest financial times, with an inspirational leader, we can all have hope that the future will be better. That scrappy company isn't gonna stay down for long, I can feel it.

Of all the photos I collected, one of my favorites has to be this action shot from Agrippina (taken by Carol Rosegg). Singing Nerone in that production of Agrippina has to be one of my favorite things I've ever done at City Opera (although choosing a favorite at NYCO is like Sophie's choice to me because there have been a lot of goodies). In this particular production, Nero is a chain smoking, coke snorting, drunk, sex crazed teenager. The opera starts with him waking up in bed with his mother, and goes downhill from there. In the first scene, I was playing a game of russian roulette that forced me to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. It freaked me out every single time, even though the gun was fake and there were obviously no bullets inside, putting a gun to your head and even pretending to shoot yourself is totally alarming - but it certainly had the desired effect dramatically:


But my favorite scene in the opera had to be in the second act, when I entered Poppea's bedroom in a drunk, stoned haze and tried to seduce her by yanking off my pants and singing a lot of crazy coloratura. I got to shake my pants right down during a particularly fast lick of coloratura after leaping onto the bed, and that's what's going on here:


And finally I got to sing one of the coolest arias ever written, "Come nube che fugge dal vento" which happens at the end of the opera when Nero really starts to have a psychotic break. I do look pretty psycho in these photos:



After that lovely stroll down memory lane, I'm back to real life and have to go study some crazy 20th century french music. Wish me luck.

Not curing cancer

As soon as I got back into town I was off and running, with three auditions in three days. I was grateful for the distraction since coming off gigs can be a little difficult for me emotionally unless I have something else to focus my attentions on. Two out of the three auditions went quite well, but on the second day, I decided to throw caution to the wind and start with an aria I’d never really sung in public before just to see what happened. I didn’t crash and burn, but I certainly hadn’t ironed out all the kinks, so I don’t feel like I knocked their socks off. Auditions are such a crapshoot anyway, I figured I might as well take a risk and see if this new aria was a better starter than the one I’ve been starting with for years. Turns out it’s not. Good to know. The best news about the auditions was that I was employing my new relaxed shoulders and upper body high note technique, and it totally worked every time. I actually wanted the panel to ask for my arias with the high notes in them!

I have this funny habit of trying to crack jokes and make conversations with the panelists. I know I’m not the only one who does this because my friend Georgia has told me a lot of funny things she’s said to panelists before – I kind of feel like doing a little stand up comedy routine before I sing to lighten to mood. Also, the panel has always been hearing singers non-stop for hours, which can cloud anyone’s brain, so I feel compelled in this tourettes sort of way to say weird things. My standard cracks usually have to do with the fact that I shouldn’t have worn a dress to sing all these boy parts, or “wow – I got to play two women in a row – how unusual!” Yeah, not funny at all, I know. But this is why I’m an opera singer and not a comedian. Once I jokingly offered to tap dance when they couldn’t decide on a second aria. Wow – I’m really not funny. How embarrassing for me.

On the second day of auditions, somebody remarked to my agent that he was dressed casually, and he replied, “well, it’s just an audition – it’s not like I’m curing cancer or something.” Fast forward to the next day, when I was warming up for my daily audition. I was staying with a friend for a few days while I waited for my subletters to clear out, and the friend I stayed with happens to be an oncologist who works at Sloan Kettering Hospital. She was working from home that day, and while I was singing “La la la la la la” she was fielding calls and emails about blood clots and hemoglobin and stuff. I thought of my agent’s remark from the previous day, and noted that she WAS in fact curing cancer while I was….singing arpeggios. I shared this with her, and she insisted, “what you do is just as important for people’s souls as what I do for their bodies.” I hope she’s right, because I think the two of us might have gone to school for the same number of years. Now she’s a doctor of medicine and I’m a wannabe comedian.

Hot weather lessons learned by Cindy(rella)

I finished my last performance of La Cenerentola last night in Fort Lauderdale (where Florida Grand performs their final shows) and I have to say, I had a great night. Few things are more satisfying for a singer than figuring out how to solve a vocal problem and finally nailing what has been difficult up to that point. Sometimes certain aspects of your voice will give you problems, but you will occasionally do those things well by accident, and not really know what you did. However, last night I was actually able to solve a problem I’ve been having with a certain note, and I’m certain that it was not an accident, but that it came from hard work, good advice, and staying calm under pressure. And I thought they were going to have to tie me down after the performance so I wouldn’t float away from sheer joy.

As I have chronicled on this blog, I have found the final note of both Non piu mesta, Cenerentola’s final aria, and Una voce, Rosina’s entrance aria, challenging. I used to be a soprano, and when I first switched to mezzo, I had high notes for days. However, as my voice matured and I learned to sing with my true sound (and not just the tiny part of my voice I had been using as a soprano) I had to learn how to sing high notes in a completely new and integrated way, and gradually my voice has become one sound from top to bottom. Except those pesky high b naturals at the end of those two arias, which for some reason, although I could always sing them in practice sessions and in my dressing room before a performance, remained inconsistent in performances and I could not figure out why. The problem was that when I would sing them on my own I wouldn’t know what to fix, because they would be fine. So I had an idea.

After the third performance of Cenerentola, I just wasn’t happy with the final note. It wasn’t terrible, but I knew I could sing it much better. But again, I had sung 64 beautfiul perfect high b’s in my dressing room at intermission that night and was in great voice, so I had no idea what was going on. But there was someone who had watched me sing every rehearsal and performance from a mere few feet away, and who happens to sing a lot of great high notes himself every night – the tenor singing the Prince, Frederic. So I decided just to ask him to tell me what he observed while standing beside me every night while I sang my aria, and he kindly agreed to talk to me about it. He said that as I sang the first of the three high b’s (there are two lead ups before the final climactic note) he noticed that my shoulders were coming up almost to my chin, and that they kept coming up there for the rest of the high notes. He noticed that my body looked tense. Why didn’t I try a different physical gesture other than lifting my arms and shoulders?

Oh my god, I realized, this is my answer. What is different between the dressing room and the actual performance? I get so excited and hyper while singing that my shoulders come up, I hold a lot of tension in my upper body, including my neck, which is almost certainly constricting my larynx, and making the high notes tight and squeezed. Could this really be it? Could this be the key to years of frustration with this note?

Later in the week we had a brush up rehearsal, and I decided to try this new theory while singing the aria. When the aria gets fast and full of lots of coloratura, I focused on keeping myself relaxed and not using my upper body as any kind of a crutch. When the two first b’s came around, I forced myself to keep my shoulders down. It was a little scary – I was accustomed to bringing them up, but I kept them firmly down and the notes came out anyway. Then when I tacet for a couple of bars while the chorus sings, I walked around in a small circle (which is something the director had said I should do anyway – to regard everyone onstage with me in a final moment of joy), which relaxed my body even further. I turned around and sang a slightly different run up into the high note, kept my shoulders out of it, and BAM it was THERE in spades!!! It definitely didn’t feel like a mistake, I felt like I knew what I was doing – but – things are always different in a rehearsal and in a performance, so still had to find out whether I really had solved this problem.

Fast forward to last night, and I did exactly the same things I did in rehearsal, although understandably, I had a bit more adrenaline and excitement. However, when I did the runs up to the high note and started singing it, even I was surprised by how easy and free it was. I held it for what felt like a long time, and when I finally finished singing, I can tell you that in the final moments of the opera, there was no need for me to act – the joy Cenerentola was feeling at having become the princess was nothing compared to the joy Jenny was feeling at having sung a fantastic high note. “GREAT B!” the tenor whispered to me as the lights went out. “GREAT ADVICE!!!” I practically screamed at him as I all but skipped offstage for my bow. I think I might have even done a victory dance.

Am I crazy for being so happy about a good high note? Absolutely. But striving to improve is one thing that makes every person happy, and the journey is what connects all of us. And maybe relaxing my shoulders can be a metaphor for solving all my problems in life. Or maybe just this one - but that would be enough for now.

Lows and Highs

Right around the time of performances is often when I experience the biggest emotional roller coaster that comes with being a performer. There is the excitement, nerves and energy of the lead up to the opening, followed by ecstasy if I'm happy with the way it went or horrible depression if it didn't go well. Then, after the show opens, suddenly I have a ton of free time on my hands because I only work for 3 hours or so once every few days. The free time can either be really fun or really shocking, depending on the situation. If the gig is full of people I've loved hanging out with and we continue to spend tons of time playing around, the free time is super fun, followed by the depression of having the gig be over and having to leave all these wonderful new friends and go somewhere else. Or, if everyone's significant others, parents, family, and friends descend into town for the performances and we all go our separate ways, I get bored and lonely after all the playing around we did in rehearsals, and start to feel low. But then maybe one day my agent calls to tell me about a great gig I've landed in the future. Yipee!!!! High high high!! Then I find out about another gig I really really really wanted that went to someone else. Low low low. Then I read a great review of the performance. High, but tinged with the knowledge that if I believe the good ones I have to believe the bad ones. Then I read a mean comment posted by a random person on a blog saying awful things about me and my singing. Loooooooooow low low. Then the gig is finally over and I get to go home and sleep in my own bed and see all my friends in New York. Hiiiiiigh!!! Then I wake up the next day and really miss the new friends I made on the gig and realize that I have no idea when I'll see any of them again. Looooow. Then I get out of bed, repack my suitcases and get in line for another ride on the roller coaster. After all, what's the point of life if you can't experience it from different altitudes.

mundane to extraordinary

I'm sitting here doing my laundry and getting ready for tonight's third performance of Cenerentola, and thinking about day of performance rituals. Some singers are really specific about what they need to do on a day of a performance - exercise at a certain hour, eat at a certain hour, nap at a certain hour etc. I used to be impossible to be around on performance days (just ask my parents about those fun years) because I would be so nervous and anxious that I just felt miserable. I also used to be really specific about what I ate and when I ate it, when I could eat anything at all because a nervous stomach is not a hungry stomach. Things have changed considerably since those days, and I've actually made a specific effort NOT to have specific things I do, so that if I ever have to do things differently because of circumstances beyond my control, I won't freak out.

Today, for example, I woke up and ate some breakfast and checked my email. Then I went and bought a cheap pair of sunglasses and a beach towel for my dad, who is visiting. Then I took my dad to South Beach so he could swim a little in the ocean. I was a little specific about needing to sit in the shade and not going in the ocean myself because I didn't want to get too hot or tired before singing. Then I took my dad to a bookstore I really like with a cafe, and we had lunch. And now I'm doing my laundry. It's hard to imagine that in only a few hours, I will be onstage singing for thousands of people and assuming an entirely different persona for 3 hours.

My dad told me something interesting today. He said that when I was a kid, my first voice teacher Thelma, who was a retired opera singer herself, gave me the advice that I should never develop any specific performance day routines, nor should I ever have any good luck charms or rituals. She said it's just too dangerous - that having specificity is like having a crutch, and if you have it taken away, you have big trouble. I have no recollection of her telling me this (I was only 9 when I started studying with her) but it's funny that all these years later I am in fact taking her advice. The more normal and relaxed I feel, the better I sing, and the easier it is to communicate something while onstage. So if doing my laundry a few hours before I'm onstage makes me a better Cenerentola, bring on the Tide. But only sometimes!

Writing your own review

So, I just deleted the original post I wrote about my opening performance of Cenerentola in Miami. (I want everyone who commented on that particular post to know I appreciate their thoughts, and I saved them all in a file on my computer). In the post, I talk about the fact that while the performance went incredibly well, there was one note that wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be. Not only have I realized in the last day or so how much I was overreacting about that one note, but a friend and fellow singer and blogger reminded me that writing your own bad review and publishing it on the internet is not exactly conducive to furthering one's career, nor is it fair to one's public who may have loved your performance and doesn't want or need to know about your picky little perfectionist problems with it. Writing my blog is cathartic and a way for me to work out how I'm feeling about things, but it's not my job to tell other people how I sang in a performance - it's only my job to sing the performance.

But I am happy to talk about how I felt during the performance. I was relaxed and centered, and even able to enjoy myself and try new things. My voice did what I wanted it to do, which allowed me to act with abandon and communicate in the fullest way possible. Are there things I would like to do differently and even better? Always. Can I be content with how far I feel I've come both vocally and dramatically with this repertoire, and about the fact that I seem to have completely overcome my issues with nerves? Absolutely.

I just hope the woman who does my makeup for tomorrow's show isn't mad that my nose is a little sunburned from spending all day today at the beach. Yes, I swam in the ocean. Yes, you can hate me for it if you need to. But just remember that I return to the 18 degree weather and dirty snow banks in just over a week, and knowing that is punishment enough.

The Caste System, part two

I wrote a post about the first cast / second cast business back when I was in Italy, and I was singing second cast, which meant in that situation sitting on my butt and not rehearsing at all and then getting up and performing. Here in Miami, the only role double cast is Cenerentola, and even though I am technically singing the opening, there isn't really a first cast / second cast situation - we are just both singing 4 performances each, and we have been splitting the rehearsals evenly. Frankly, I guess I'm more used to either being first cast, where I never end up watching or having anything to do with the other cast, or being the full-on underdog second cast, where I have to do my best in difficult circumstances, and if I do succeed, everyone can say "wow - she managed!!" At first, I thought that this sharing of the role would be no issue for me, but I find that I'm actually more comfortable in the underdog position because then there is far less pressure, and if you're fantastic, people are pleasantly surprised. If you're in any way associated with the first cast, there is no space for error - you'd better be freaking amazing or risk disappointing everyone. No wonder famous singers act crazy from time to time - I imagine the pressure on them would be pretty overwhelming.

I've been thinking a lot lately about comparisons between singers. I've had a bunch of conversations with friends recently about that very subject and it has caused me to think seriously about my own feelings on the matter. I tend to think of myself as a relatively centered person who doesn't get too caught up in professional jealousies (I count as very good friends several mezzos who I could consider my "competition" if I chose to look at it that way), but like everyone, I certainly have my days of utter insecurity where I wonder why so-and-so has a certain job I would have liked, and days when I get horribly jealous of someone else's career. I've had some very interesting conversations with other singers lately where they wonder if people of the same voice type can really be friends, and whether singers can have successful romantic relationships with other singers without being jealous when one's career is going better than the other. My initial reaction is always to pooh-pooh such talk as small minded and insecure, but as soon as I do that, I'll have a day where I'll be crying because I find out somebody has better jobs than me and I'll find myself wailing "WHY GOD - WHYYYYYYYYYYY NOT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE????"

When I manage to pull myself together from the pity party, I realize something very important: Comparisons kill art. As singers, we are subject to constant comparisons - we enter competitions where we are ranked and and awarded prizes for the "best", we audition for schools and then jobs, where the "best" is awarded the position. There is the famous 'arc of a singer's career' joke: "1. Who is Jenny Rivera, 2. Get me Jenny Rivera 3. Get me somebody like Jenny Rivera. 4. Get me a young Jenny Rivera 5. Who is Jenny Rivera?" Comparisons are inevitable by the people who cast and hire us, but among artists themselves, they are terribly dangerous. Because what makes a great artist is their uniqueness - and thank god, every artist is unique, and there is no real way to compare two singers because it is always like comparing apples and oranges. We aren't stockbrokers, with a dollar sign to show for our success - we have only each individual performance and whether it was able to affect somebody and create something special and...UNIQUE. And spending time comparing ourselves to other artists only ruins the "in the moment" qualities necessary for creating the best performance we are capable of.

I have to keep reminding myself of this - not just when I'm double cast with someone, or when I have a cover, or when I am a cover, but in each day of my life as both a singer and as a person. In life I'm often trying to fit myself into a comparison - am I prettier or uglier, skinnier or fatter, smarter or dumber, richer or poorer, more or less successful than person X? But those comparisons only remove me from living in the moment of just being me. Being the best artist and person both require living one moment at a time, and making that moment the most important. The game of comparison is just iceberg lettuce for the brain - requires chewing but has no nutritional value.

Cinderella, Miami style

Wow - sorry for how long it's been since I've written an entry. I've been in Miami to do a production of La Cenerentola with Florida Grand Opera since January 1st, and I'm just now getting around to writing a post about it. But I have a few excuses for my lack of posts!

First of all, FGO is one of the companies that require each artist to find his or her own housing arrangement, and since my friend Scott, who directed the production of Barber I did at Opera Pacific a few months back was also directing this production, we decided to save a few clams and get a two bedroom apartment together. It's actually really fun living with somebody while on the road, because usually I spend A LOT of alone time - more than I really would like to - and this way, when we get home from rehearsal at night, I actually have somebody to talk to about the fact that I didn't like the way I sang that scene today, or wasn't it funny when so-and-so made that joke today, etc. But this also means that I'm never really alone, and when I'm alone and pensive is when I tend to come up with ideas for what to write about on my blog. Add to that the fact that this cast is particularly social and friendly, and that I've been spending a lot of time with the other singers, and this job has been anything but solitary. Which is great for me - but bad for the blogging.

So let me fill you in. I arrived January 1st with no voice whatsoever. I sang a concert on New Year's Eve, but it made me completely lose my voice because I was already battling with laryngitis. I arrived to the first musical rehearsal and couldn't even really speak, so I sat and listened while the other Cenerentola (thank goodness there are two of us) sang the musical rehearsal. I both loved and hated not being able to sing for that first rehearsal. I loved just listening to this EXCELLENT cast (it really is one of the best groups I've had the pleasure of singing with in awhile) knowing that I would get to sing with them all eventually. But I also hated not being able to make the music myself and "show my stuff." Luckily after only a few days, my voice returned and I was able to start singing in the rehearsals.

The rehearsal process has been mostly fun, although a tiny bit stressful at times because only the Cenerentolas are double cast, so if we both want to rehearse, everybody else has to do everything twice. I'm one of those people who loves rehearsing -it's definitely one of my favorite parts of the job. I love making the music and exploring the drama with absolutely no pressure to be perfect (as in a performance) and repeating the scenes many times to find the endless dramatic and musical possibilities. With two Cinderellas, I find I don't quite make it to that point of comfortable exploration as often as I would like. But the positive is that I actually get to see what things look like from the outside, and I happen to be double cast with a brilliant and musical singer who I can learn things from by listening and watching. And since this is my sixth Cenerentola, I should probably be able to do the performances on no rehearsals and blindfolded.

Oh, and it would be really ridiculous if I didn't mention the fact that I'm in Florida in January and it's EIGHTY DEGREES AND SUNNY outside! There are three singers from Montreal in the cast, and we keep pulling out my iphone and opening the weather application, just to look at the fact that it's 16 degrees in Montreal, 26 in New York, and 78 here - all in the same time zone! I was swimming in the blue-green ocean with one of the singers, and we both looked at each other at the same time and said "Can you believe we're here for work?"

Besides being an amazing tenor, Frédéric Antoun (my Prince Ramiro) is a great photographer, and he took this photo of Scott and I standing on his balcony on our first day off. I wouldn't recommend looking at this photo if you are about to go outside and slip and fall on a patch of ice, or if you have your feet in a bucket of warm water because it's so frigging cold outside. This is right before we all headed down to the beach to soak up the sun for several hours. I'm sorry!!! I really am!! Don't hate me!!