frustration abounds

sigh, sigh, and an even bigger sigh. sometimes being a singer is a roller coaster ride. especially when one moment you are so confident about something, and then it’s all dashed to pieces.

i am tired. i am sick and tired of people not seeing who i am. i’m not the freshman who was sick to her stomach the first day of class, singing a song from evita. i am not the girl who struggled through her first aria in the first few weeks of class. but apparently only i know that. (i and a select few anyway)

i’m not going to open the floodgates of my frustration upon you, mostly because i’ve learned from past blogging that mentioning specific situations with specific people can get you into a lot of trouble (without even mentioning their name, mind you). but, i really need to lay this out on paper, hopefully garner some support, and just figure this all out.

so i had an audition last weekend for the opera we’ll be doing later this spring at my school – dialogues of the carmelites. i usually get pretty bad audition anxiety, but i’ve been improving at my audition performance. i sang two arias – “when i am laid in earth” from purcell’s dido and aeneas and “ombra mai fu” from serse (we’re doing the opera in english, so they wanted at least one english aria). i pulled the dido piece out from the basement, i guess you could say. i first learned it as a freshman, and last time i tried to revisit it, i reverted back to all my freshman mistakes. not good. i had a feeling about it this time. something told me that i should try dido again, so i took it to my lesson, which was a few days before the recital, and it was immediately evident that it is a perfect aria for me. i sang it once, and it was like it had matured 110%. we spent a little time on it in my lesson, but it was pretty much where it needed to me. “ombra mai fu” has been a bit of a mainstay for me lately.

audition on saturday went wonderfully. once i got in the room my nerves subsided, and i fully committed myself to the emotions of the dido aria. i really felt that i captured the character, and infused it with the proper feelings, and i felt very good about the vocals in general. “ombra mai fu” was a smash, as always. as i was leaving the room, i even heard the stage director mumble to himself “very good work”. i was floating on a cloud after the audition, and figured that i would get a decent part – maybe not a lead, but a decent part.

the cast list went up a couple of days ago, and i am playing a chorus member titled “sister alice”. just sister alice. i know the chorus is just as vital to a production as every other part, but i am just sick and tired of constantly being thrown into the chorus, and it’s not really validating, because here at school, if you try out, you’re pretty much guaranteed a chorus part. there are other reasons for my frustration that i will not go into here, because the specifics should be avoided in such a public atmosphere, but i’ll just say that if it had just been a matter of me being given a chorus part, i would get over it. after all, i’m used to it.

granted, i came here with no experience. i’ve always been a choir girl. i didn’t have a voice lesson until i came to college, so i’ve had a lot of work to do. but i did do that work, and i’m not getting the returns on that work that i should be at this point. i am a junior in my undergraduate education, and i have yet to play a substantial role. how am i supposed to get experience if i am not given a chance. i feel like people in this department still see me as the feeble freshman that showed up a couple of years ago, but i’m not. i’m just so lost, and i don’t know what to do to further myself.

this is just an up and down journey. in my voice lessons i see the improvement, and i know that i have progressed there, and that my singing is much better, and much more informed, than it was a couple of years ago, but then when i look at my performance timeline, i feel like i haven’t moved at all. my teacher always points out specifically how i have improved, and assures me, with obvious truth, that i have the makings of a professional singer, if i want to be one, and i believe it too, but then it just gets thrown in my face everytime i’m not given the opportunity to prove myself on stage.

lately i’ve been considering graduate school, since i’ll be graduating from here in the spring of 2010. and i’m so excited about all the possibilities. my dream school at the moment is the schola cantorum basiliensis in switzerland. they specialize in early music, which is what i’m hoping to make my focus, because i love it more than any period of music, and it suits my voice so well. i’m hoping that i apply myself that i will get in eventually (whether it’s right after i graduate, or a couple of years after). however, after something like this happens, i wonder how i would even have a chance at that when i can only get a chorus part here.

so this is my conundrum.

~ by claire karoly on 25 January 2009.