Leah's Loafings

This week I am back to school, so to speak.  Back to daily practice and forward motion on the art of singing and the passion of living.  Here are a few places I have found inspiration.  Enjoy!!

Make it work:: Be invisible "You can think it. You don't need to perform it." How actors are being trained to blend in. Great article for the over acted opera singer gestures we love and hate.

Art Works:: Finding a Niche "It is not our business to analyze it as it takes shape, because analysis will ruin it." Replace the word 'write' for creative verb of your choice. Thanks Dani.

Back to School:: Here, Now, It is enough Letting go of Striving is one of my favorite blog posts of all time from one of my favorite writers and the only person I've ever stalked on the internet. You should read her, follow her, stalk her. Brava Patti and thank you.

It was like that. Recording Take One.

I took another giant somersault out of my comfort zone and made my first recording this past July. I say, 'out of the comfort zone', because I am used to live performances. I hunger at the energy of an audience and have referred to myself on many occasions as an audience whore. I use the audience, so the entire recording process has left me speechless for some time. Really, for nearly two months now I have sat down to write about the process and have been left without words. I haven't wanted to access those emotions but rather carry them around with me like a talisman for fear of losing those dear feelings or having that surreal moment of super-focused creativity pass me by, oh how I made friends with them! I also would have to be a fairly adept writer to describe with the writing process this journey into recording, but with my layman abilities, here it goes... I would liken it to being stripped of skin and every artery and vein is exposed and every rise and fall of breath is seen and every trickle of every cell is detectable and every morsel of care for humanity is in the throat and every joy for the wonderment of the great mystery is falling off your lips. You are ripped open and shown. It is at once the essence of being yourself, being heard and all at once there is a pulsating madness flowing out of you, full of expression and then, a longing for quiet, simple perfection. Day after day you show up to the microphone surrendering to the muse and shedding the noise of yourself to the greater light you long to shine through in that tiny window of perfect alignment.

Yeah, it was kind of like that.

Leah's Loafings

I spend a little time each day perusing through Facebook and Twitter and I find huge amounts of enjoyment reading posts of friends I don't see often enough. I've recently become a twitterer and I follow people and organizations to stay abreast of interesting things in my field of opera or other arts and hobbies I like. I tweet, I post, I retweet, I 'like' things on Facebook and although I'd rather be more connected physically with people, in your face so to speak, I see that our social media can do wonders for sending messages of goodness and spreading news about art and the need for more art and not less. So this is why I am bringing an occasional blog post linking you to the tweets and postings I find the most interesting and worthy of the retweet or like button. Enjoy!

Mind Body : : Awakening the Artist How Yoga can awaken your focus and skill and tap into your bravest creativity. Basically, tools to get your mind to shut up and your body to run the show.

Opera Beat: : Opera Idol My opera idol Renee Fleming offers a free concert in Chicago. Brava Renee!

Art Works: : Architecture from Music London-based architectural firm Orproject displays their proposal for the Busan Opera House in South Korea slated to begin construction in 2014. The design of the proposed structure, entitled "Anisotropia," is informed by a piano piece composed by the firm's director. The repetition of musical elements become the repetition of structural elements, such that "complex architectural rhythms...are used to control the light, view and shading properties of the facade." Check this out! Very unusual combination of two art forms. I think this is an incredible idea.

Time, well, spent.

Ten years ago I entered the Santa Fe Opera Young Artist program, had the time of my life and began the incredible journey as an opera singer. Ten years. What? Really? Yes, here I am ten years into an aspiring and inspiring, yet challenging career and I've had an amazing time. I've traveled the world. I come from a three stop light town in Georgia and music has given me the greatest gift of meeting interesting people, learning about different cultures, devouring intoxicating food, seeing the beauty of the earth. Ten years have passed. There they go. Poof, into the twilight. There are so many things I could say about the passing of time but I'll save that for another posting. I'm focusing now on how I spent the past ten years and how thankful I am that I took risks and I listened to the positive voices rather than the dark gremlin on my shoulder. I wouldn't change anything from this time. Not even a tear shed or a lonely night. It was a wild and crazy ride and at times I held on for dear life and other times where I breezed through with loud pulsating joy in my heart. Don't worry, I know it may sound as though I am throwing in the towel. No, although I have thought about it, mostly seldom as most artists do during a difficult recession. I am not giving up on the opera business. But, I am finding myself as a new season begins thinking ahead a bit to other inspiring adventures and contemplating what I can add to my music making to ensure that I am putting it all out there to shine a bright light. You see, I make music so that the world is a better place. I feel when we gather together and experience beauty, raw emotion, primal sound, we are better off than if we run amok through our day to day only hearing the latest negative sound bite from the latest negative event. I feel a vibration that is higher than myself when I make music and I know I have a responsibility to put that energy out there for everyone else. There are many ways to connect to people and music just happens to be my medium as well as my occasional writings and my various twitterings. My job goes beyond standing on stage and playing a dying courtesan. So, the past ten years was time well spent on honing a difficult craft and knocking on doors to get it all strengthened into motion. I learned an immense amount of music and I dug my feet in the dirt, wiped the sweat from my brow, and never gave up. Looking ahead I can see all the remaining beauty and guts I have left to give to this business and I am more excited and eager than I was on that first day in Santa Fe. It is time for me to start throwing more into the mix. More guts, sweat, beauty, rawness, primal intuitiveness, and pure soul is what I aspire to give. I hope that whatever you choose to do, you can also find more soul to bring. Bring it. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? What risk would you take if you knew you wouldn't fall? Where would you go if, if, if? What awesome power would you be?

Crazy Grateful

Cyrano wrapped up in Miami a few weeks ago and I remained to enjoy some of the South Florida sun while also learning new music. My husband and I work in the mornings on our various projects and then we enjoy a fun adventure. We are making sure to enjoy ourselves outdoors going for walks, kayaking in the bay, or with yoga. We've had a crazy two years (we've only been married two years!). The life of an opera singer has its ups and downs and at times it the most exhilarating experience and then there are others that make you want to hunker down bury your face and cry. The same can be said for being in the financial or banking world these days, which is the business my husband is in. After a long ten years with a company in Atlanta he was laid off in 2009 during the big kick of the anthill, as I like to call it. He was lucky to find another job fairly quickly and for two years we were in Philadelphia where he worked for a small company. Now, we find ourselves at a junction once again, at least this time with less financial responsibilities, no house tying us down, and now we are free to go where the southerly wind takes us. At least I hope it's southerly enough to take us to Atlanta or further south.
I'm writing this personal information because I've been thinking a lot about trust and acceptance lately. In the music business we never know from year to year what money we will make, how many jobs we will have, whether or not we will get sick and miss a performance, or if the company we hope to work for will go bankrupt. It is a rickety life as a musician and one must learn to live moment to moment trusting in art that it will sustain us as it always has. It is a constant movement of faith and practice of letting go. Trust. Living with fear all around us, thrown in our faces everyday by every way imaginable doesn't leave much room for fear in our jobs and means of stability. The thing is, eventually you come to standing with hands up, face to the sky, and saying, "I have no control over what happens to me" and this realization somehow, somewhere, gives you peace. After all, no job is ever stable and nothing is forever. I don't mean to be so preachy and philosophical. After all, this is a blog about music. However, I find that in our music making we are at our best when we trust, when we surrender. We make the best music when we permit the creative forces to have their way, just go with the flow and allow the music to happen to us and through us. It takes us on wild adventures, moves us to tears, transforms our minds, and connects us to others. Imagine if we could let that flow into every area of our lives?

So, even though we are voyaging into the somewhat uncomfortable realm of the unknown, I am filled with excitement and as my yoga teacher says, "I am crazy grateful." Our next stop along this beautiful life path just might take my breath away.

My Love of Cyrano

For three weeks now I’ve been rehearsing an opera that is very dear to my heart. The opera Cyrano, by David DiChiera, was premiered in Detroit in October of 2007. I had the enormous opportunity to debut the role of Roxane, an extraordinary part in a breathtaking story. I am more than delighted that Florida Grand Opera co-produced the opera and have included it in their season. The past three weeks have been filled with much joy as I dig back into this character and bring to life, with deliciously gorgeous music, this precious girl, Roxane! For those of you unfamiliar with the story, the opera is based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand. You may also be more familiar with the late 1980’s Steve Martin film, Roxanne, which is a loose adaptation of the story. As I mentioned, the world premiere took place nearly 4 years ago. It was performed a few times in Philadelphia in 2008 but with the hardships of the economy, several performances at various opera houses had to be canceled. I am thrilled things are recovering around the country and that we are now bringing most of the original cast back together for these performances in Miami.

When I prepare a role I spend some time listening to the singers of the past to gain familiarity with the score. I like to hear how different each performance can be and how the slightest change of tempo can alter the mood of the scene and intention of character. It is one of the most fun parts of learning a new role. Obviously, being part of a new opera meant that this learning curve was no longer available to me and that gave me an even more exciting learning opportunity. For the first time, I have been able to create a role from the bottom up, note by note with my personal stamp on it first! Dr. DiChiera wrote most of the role with my voice in mind. I remember in fall of 2006 when I was covering Natalie Dessay at the Paris Opera, I received a phone call from Dr. D. He was working on Act II and specifically my aria that would start the act. We talked about things that I liked to do with my voice, things that I thought made it unique. I remember telling him that I loved high notes! He asked for ones in particular and I told him that high D’s would be just perfect! I remember thinking of how extraordinary it was to request how a piece be written and it made me wonder how much other singers in the past influenced a composer’s writing. We do know that Mozart was highly influenced by his women! I felt honored to be continuing in such a long tradition. So much so, I had to pinch myself!! Roxane’s music has many arching lines and sustained high notes and the aria Dr. D wrote is exquisite. It’s a sensual explosion in reaction to the letters of Christian.

My dear character Roxane is a delight to play. Our director and librettist Bernard Uzan, upon being asked by me if I was being too cute and cunning with my character, kindly suggested that I need not to worry. He said they cast me as Roxane because I WAS Roxane. Bernard said, “You need not do anything but be yourself.” It’s amazing how we don’t see ourselves the way others see us! Of course, he is right. I only need to focus on those elements of myself that are most like the character. I love that she obsesses over beautiful things. It is most poignant that her allure to what is beautiful and perfect blinds her from ever seeing the possibility of love with Cyrano who was the most genuine love she could ever have known. I guess we all tend to miss the forest for the trees? She is elegant and intelligent and I love how passionate she is about Christian without even knowing a thing about him. She reminds me of my 16 year old self and maybe some of my 35 year old self who tends to day-dream and create wild stories of love and romance. These lovely parts of Roxane make the character pleasurable to play and it is easy to find myself in that realm of naïveté. The challenge of the role is the realization of Cyrano as the one behind the letters and the voice of Christian. The realization happens during a duet and can’t happen all at once. Finding the balance of when the tears come, the shock, or the desperation, has been the largest challenge. Sometimes just the beginning phrases of the music make me cry and I know I have a lot further to go, but I just go with it and hope that the tears can seem to be coming from many levels of emotions. Pacing emotions over bars of music can sometimes be quite difficult, but it has now become my favorite scene. The words in this scene are the most stunning. Cyrano tells Roxane that he was unaware of feminine comforts and that his mother didn’t find him handsome, he had no sister, and he dreaded the lover for fear of being mocked. He tells Roxane, “Je vous dois d’avoir eu, tout au moins une amie. Grâce à vous, une robe a passé dans ma vie.” (I owe you to have had at least one friend. Thanks to you a dress has passed through my life.) After this incredibly heartbreaking line Roxane replies with my most favorite line in all of opera, “Je n’aimais qu’un seul être, et je le perds deux fois.” (I loved only one soul and now I have lost him twice.) Well, the rest you will have to come to the opera to see. To say that I am completely infatuated with this role and this music is an understatement.

I know that it is typical to boast about how perfect everything is in an opera in order to lure the public into buying tickets. I do not take my words lightly. It certainly isn’t like me to sit and write a dissertation about an opera just to get you to come. I write these things because I believe in this opera AND because I do think we have the perfect cast. Our Cyrano is being inhabited by the extraordinary Marian Pop. I say inhabited because that is really what he does. It is as if all the great parts of Gerard Depardieu, José Ferrer, and Kevin Cline morph into Marian. If only any of these legends had Marian’s voice! He gives a splendid, exhilarating performance and is truly the definition of a singing actor. Our Christian is new to the role and comes from France. Sebastian Geuze is everything a Christian is supposed to be. Handsome beyond words, witty, and he is a formidable singer. The duet between Christian and Cyrano is stunning, reminiscent of other great tenor/baritone duets we have come to love in opera. I am thrilled to be singing again with the great bass Peter Volpe. Peter plays the role of De Guiche, a lustful, vengeful count who attempts to marry Roxane off to another man so that he can have his courtly rights with her. In my scene with Peter I get to trick him into keeping Christian and Cyrano out of harm’s way by suggesting it would be the best way to get revenge since Cyrano adores dueling and action more than anything else. It works and crisis is averted. I secretly marry Christian instead!

Since most of us have performed this opera before we have had the great opportunity to be adding layers to our characters. Whenever you perform a role for the first time you are really focusing 75% on getting the music and words right. The other 25% is spent on remembering where you go on stage, how to remove hats, capes, and gloves appropriately, and then add some layer of believability on the top. This time we have the luxury of knowing the part really well, so we have spent a lot of our time working as actors do. Our director Bernard Uzan has pushed us to find ourselves in our roles and to layer many more specific elements to our characters that we just didn’t have the space for when we performed it in Detroit. Not that our performances were bad, but this time we are coming from a place of knowing how it goes which gives us security in knowing we have room to play and grow. I’ve loved going to work each day trying to find new ways to say a word or new ways to respond to my colleagues. The level of commitment and effort put into this production astounds me and I am very proud of our work. Our conductor and orchestrator Mark Flint has helped us everyday stay true to the score and his orchestration is stunning. The colors he brings out in the orchestra really make this piece come to life. I know that I am very fortunate to be working in the arts these days. It isn’t lost on me that times are hard and we must enjoy the opportunities when they come our way. I hope that if you are in the Miami area you will come to see Cyrano. We open next Saturday night, April 23 at the Adrienne Arsht Center in downtown Miami. You can find tickets at www.fgo.org and you may want to follow my tweets this week. I’ll be tweeting all about the final rehearsals and be giving some backstage pictures as well. I can be found on Twitter as leahoperabird. Come join us and may I suggest you bring your tissue?

Singing in the Crooked Letter State

A few weeks ago headed south through thick northeast snow to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I was invited by my dear friends from graduate school, Kerrin and Taylor, to come and do a recital and master class at the University of Southern Mississippi. It was a great opportunity to perform the songs I am recording on my first recording project which is coming up soon. I loved being back in the South and being with old friends, staying up late, getting to know their three young children, and cooking all our favorite fattening foods. I had birthday cake three days in a row because Kerrin makes specialty cakes. I had to try all her new fabulous flavors. I also had the most incredible smoked barbecue made by Taylor which he cooked in the smoker for nearly 24 hours. I spent time playing doll house, reading books, and playing the Wii with the kids. I made fake lolly pops for Graces' birthday party and a wreath for Kerrins' front door of her new house. It was a great week for me to step aside from the constant climb up the singing success ladder and just be with people. It was important for me to get back to myself and remember other things I used to do a lot of, like cook, decorate, and sit in the sun and visit with friends. A lot of times I find myself working so hard and being focused that I forget the substance from which all of this music revolves. I loved every second of my visit even with one of the kids having the worst time with a bout of stomach flu, which thankfully and surprisingly, no one else got.
To be down there spending time in this way was therapeutic for this country girl currently caught up in the big city life.

Having the recital and master class was just icing on the cake! I had a great performance with Mary Chung, a doctoral student at Southern Miss. She was such a great collaborator and hard worker. We managed to pull together a really nice performance with such little time. I salute her for her hard work and fun spirit. We really enjoyed working together and laughed when we realized we were both married to men named Carlos.

I didn't' think the week could get any better or more rewarding and then it was time for the master class. I don't usually like master classes. More often than not they turn into episodes of American Idol with better music. I've never really liked the term 'master' as part of the class. I'd prefer it to be called student class , since that is what we all really are and should never forget we are all always learning and always searching for better ways to sing. Anyway...
The master class was incredibly fun and the singers were very talented and most importantly, extremely receptive to my suggestions. All the ladies who sang had such eager personalities and were good sports. It isn't easy getting up in front of people to sing. It is double hard getting up in front of people to sing knowing that critical thoughts are going through everyone's head. But, they did it and took my suggestions, and all in all, made some enormous changes fairly quickly. I didn't have any magical words to say. I mainly focused on having them take breaths that were part of the character and getting each singer to take their own time in the phrasing of the music. We often get ahead of ourselves as singers, trying to fit into someone else's tempo whether it be the pianist accompanying the singer or a conductor. Finding your own tempo and own space to breathe is a challenge and one that has to be incorporated in a young singers' practice. I loved my time with these ladies in Hattiesburg and heard some really great, mature singing. I saw eager students willing to put it out there and experiment with new ideas and I felt a true openness from them, too. There are good things going on at so many schools across the country and after this visit down south, I am hopeful for the arts knowing that they will continue through these fine talented young ladies! Bravi girls!