Success
I’m starting this post without a clear vision of where it’s going to end up, but I’ve had some encounters in the past few days that need airing, things that might be interesting to young singers wondering what it means to “make it” as an opera singer. So bear with me...I had an audition on Friday (more about this later, but it was a far cry from last week’s!), and as is usually the case I ran into several colleagues in the waiting area. Audition Season is a fun time of catching up, a time for the intense relationships we forge during a rehearsal process to be revived a bit. It’s a time fo

Chart Madness
Some of you may remember this rather complex memory aid that I created to help me memorize the Act I Finale of Barbiere. The math dork in me loved the process of breaking down the music and text into a pattern and assigning numbers and letters, like a complex algebra problem. I carried the “cheat sheet” around with me through hours of staging rehearsal, and by opening night it was solidly memorized.I haven’t really had opportunity to put this method into practice again - until now! On November 19*, Jocelyn and I will perform Hillula for the third time, and this time I’m determi

Tweetie Bird
Just a quick note about Twitter: I've been really enjoying the ability to jot out a quick thought here and there via Twitter. I don't always have time these days to sit down and write a big thoughtful post, but I've had little things to share. Twitter has really fit that bill. It's becoming a good complement to the blog, I think.If you don't already follow theconcert, please do! If you're not on Twitter, you can add theconcert to your RSS feed and get the latest blips and blurbs through your feed reader. Thanks for reading!

Audition Lessons
So... Monday’s audition will probably go down in my version of my history as the worst. ever. I can not begin to tell you all the “lessons” I learned. But, since that’s kind of the whole point of this blog, I guess I’ll try. On the subway on the way home, I thought, “WHY did I mention this audition on the blog?! Now I have to tell them all about it!” It’s one I’ll never forget, but one that’s been surprisingly easy to leave behind.Lesson #1: Sing what you have been preparing for!! If you’ve been preparing a new aria and you have a low-stress audition opportunity in which to debut that aria, do not be swayed by the fact that you might also

Bet'cha didn't see THIS coming
I can’t believe I’m doing this, especially after the latest installment of Vocal Identity Crisis 2009, but I have an audition tomorrow, and I think I’m going to offer... Zerbinetta. What the... ?!?I’ll write more tomorrow after the fact. I’m not 100% sure yet that I’m going to offer it, but the audition is pretty specific and I feel like Zerb would best show the goods needed for this role. However, I haven’t sung it in about a year! I know I still know it - it’s easily the one piece I’ve spent the most time on that has never really seen the light of day. It has seen an auditi