It felt great.
Not perfect, but I was dizzy from the performance high for the rest of the day. Cooking couldn't even calm me down, which truly says something.
Tomorrow I'm auditioning for another thing, a project where I would sing Schubert Lieder in a museum to a solitary patron seated in the middle of people wandering, lingering, instagraming, feeling uncomfortable or disinterested and probably, for the most part, actively ignoring the lady in the big flowy costume singing loudly in German.
I'm not sure I want to do the gig even if I get it, but I know I want to audition. The preparation has been more than just time spent in the basement of Symphony Hall banging notes and figuring out how to hold long Schubertian notes in the middle of my range as quietly as I possibly can. I've walked all over Cambride and Somerville with these Lieder in my ears, allowing them to enter my world. Inviting my world to enter theirs. I've turned each syllable over and over in my mouth, finding the best spot for the rolled R and the allided "d" and "t". The melodies have intertwined with grinding of subway trains and screeching of the tired of awful boston drivers and melted into twilight on my dusky walks home and across town. It's good cold weather music, the kind that makes you want to hug your mom and cook your best friend a cake and talk long into the night. Instead I've mostly been talking to this cat Marcus who I'm cat-sitting and watching rom-coms. Well, when I'm not practicing.
Each time I go to sing "Du bist die Ruh", I try to have something or someone different in mind for the "du". Sure, I could pull out my musicology texts and look at the influences for this time period or perhaps there is someone specific Schubert had in mind, but maybe I'll do that after the audition.
For tomorrow, I've sung this song, this surprisingly simple lullaby of a song, with at least 20 or more different personas for the "du". I wanted to prepare myself to sing this intimate piece to the curator of the museum, to my coworker, to my oldest friend, to an ex-boyfriend, to a small child, to an old man, and so on. I don't want there to be any person who would be more of a challenge than another to sing for. Though it is something different entirely, to sing looking into someone's face. There's not much you can to do prep for that in the practice room. I've learned, the only thing you can ever trust in performance or auditions is your breath. Your heart and mind will both fail you, but the breath wil always sustain and allow you to keep singing. We practice to get the technique in place, so we can focus on the breath and let the sound blossom out naturally. If you rely to much on either your heart and mind to sing, you're never going to make it through singing the important piece of music for a difficult funeral in the morning the day after you've been dumped. Only breath gets you through that--- no thinking or feeling allowed.
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Oftentimes when I'm sitting on the T or the bus, I notice people who seem familiar to me. A few minutes pass and I'm gladdened by this small moment of recognition for it feels good to know people in the world--- but then I realize I only know them from seeing them before on my commute. I don't, well, actually know them.
There must be a couple dozen people in this city who have no idea that seeing them every other day or every couple of weeks is for me, a moment of peace and joy. Is that strange? Or is it kind of what the artist doing all of these performance pieces about intimate interactions with strangers is trying to get at?
Depending on what happens in the audition, and whether it's actually going to be a paid gig (still unfortunately unclear, but they want each singer to do a lot of hours over the run of the piece, so one would hope there's decent compensation--), I would imagine myself inviting the strangers on my commute. Could I do that? Hey, nice blonde guy with the knee brace who prefers to stand even when there's a seat and who's been wearing that knee brace for months on end, come let me sing for you, you can stand, I know sitting sucks for your knee. Hey lovely woman with the best velvet hats who gets on the bus to ride only three stops each time I see her, please take a seat and let me tell you that you, to me, are full of something deeply beautiful. To the Junot Diaz look a like who teaches at Berklee, from the apparel and occasional instrument bags, I would quietly say hi, check out this thing I'm doing. It's not really about me; it's actually about you. I want you to accept this offering. Consider it; let us have this moment.
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After weeks spent now living with these Schubert Lieder and picking my one to sing tomorrow, I blow-dried my hair, and ended the final prep night with some soul-rocking arias from Herr Kaufmann for inspiration to open my lungs and let er rip.
And we're off.
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