I keep trying to find the exact origin of this quote, but the only reference I can give it is to a line from 'Frasier', a show I tend to watch whenever I am bored/stressed/depressed/in need of some snooty, dry humor...
For some reason this quote haunts me a lot as I 'grow up'. (Or, am I grown yet? ::continues eating nutella out of jar::).
The other day, I was rifling through my drawers to find the proper 'shape wear' for under the gown I am wearing as part of my costume in 'Die Fledermaus,' a production I am singing in in November. As I was searching for underthings, I pulled out a girdle trapped in the back of the drawers and immediately felt choked up. < I am aware that's the weirdest thing you've read today, yes. You're welcome.
This girdle is not a silky, fancy Victoria's Secret shaper designed to make you feel pretty while it sucks in all your 'wobbly bits' (shout out to any 'Bridget Jones' fans out there). It is a weird-looking, bumpy, scratchy velcro thing designed ONLY for one purpose: To help support your breathing as you prepare your roles as a coloratura soprano. And not only was it borrowed, and about three years delayed in its return to its original owner -- but its owner was the originator of my career as an opera singer: Rita Shane. My voice teacher. Who passed away just a couple of weeks ago after a very short battle with Pancreatic and Liver cancer.
No one really prepares you, when you enter college as a voice performance major, for what your relationship with your voice teacher may turn out to be like. You worry about what opera productions are going to be put on (or musical theatre shows, if that's your focus). You stress about auditions and the competition you're facing in your peers. Or, I suppose, that was what I worried about. I have always been given amazing luck with voice teachers in my life... but being picked by Rita for her studio at Eastman in 2007 was by far one of the luckiest things to happen to me in all my life.
Eastman was a very scary journey for me at first. I was coming from an intense choral background, and entered Rita's studio knowing how to use about a third of my voice, straight-tone, with so much shoulder tension I probably looked like I was disabled when I sang. My graduate student classmates were all unbelievably talented, and it took me less than a week to work myself into a bit of a panic about the work I had to do. I had support in the opera department staff who had faith in me, but I was a ball of nerves every time I sang for just about anyone. Rita, with a stoic, practical kindness, made it her mission to break my voice down to square one - an 'organic place' - remove the habits and find what my instrument truly was. I sang Mozart and various lieder for several months in just my middle range. I sang scales up to my highest register - which was much higher than I realized, with her prodding - hanging upside down with her hand on my back. I never stopped practicing. She became my coach/mother/grandmother/mentor/therapist in a very short period of time and we just kept working. When I was a small role in the opera and many of my friends were leading parts, she insisted she was not worried about me and we would just work. When I did not make the finals for the big competition we were preparing for, she finally said "You may cry over this," and let me fall apart in one lesson. (And that was the last lesson I did that in. I believe that was February of 2008). She hugged me. And then she said for the fiftieth time, "It's going to be okay Julie. You are getting there. We will just work."
And, sure enough, things started to work. I started to realize how easy singing can be with your true voice - a voice I didn't know I had, using a technique that hardly felt like working at all. Suddenly, every lesson included a breakthrough, and a moment where I'd cry "Oh, that's so much easier now!!" to which she'd reply, "Oh, imagine THAT! It's easier!!!" Nerves were replaced with an excited confidence in each audition. Then came some roles, some competitions where I did make finals, and some awards. And then... life after school, shutting the door on the fastest and most rewarding two years in my musical life.
I'll never forget my last lesson with her at Eastman. I struggled to find the right words for how much I wanted to continue working with her, afraid that I'd be told it was time to move on to someone new. Instead, she said to me "I remember when I worked with Beverly [Peck Johnson], and it just worked. I never left her. I was still her student when she died." With relief I planned my move to NYC for the following year, and eagerly prepared for the next phase in all of the singing madness.
Over the last few years, our lessons grew into lunches, walks in the park and endless talks as I attempted to maneuver this side of life the best way I could. She was there to push me forward when auditions did not lead to jobs, jobs led to sudden joblessness, family members passed away and relationships ended. She would walk beside me, listening, and then responding in a way that would swiftly make whatever problems I was over-dramatizing suddenly feel very small and manageable. Like her teaching style, her approach to life made everything easier, while I constantly tried (and still seem to try) to make it more complicated. Truly, no one was more capable of sharpening the focus in a big chaotic mess, when I was going through it. She would simultaneously sympathize ("I just don't know what they are looking for with that company anymore, Julie!") while quieting my silly worries ("Just don't audition for them anymore! Here, try this one, they do auditions in March...").
This fall, while rehearsing with some of the most talented singers I've ever worked with - many of which are her students - I have felt unbelievably grateful to have had these years and to be one of the thousands of lives she touched. With my singer family, I feel allowed to miss her - to mention her name and know I'm not the only one feeling a hole in the pit of my stomach when I work on the crazy coloratura lines and don't have her to tell me ''it's fine!!!" (Or tell me it's not on the voice, and force me to 'nang nang nang' my way back into the core). But I feel comfort in knowing I will absolutely always be her student, in more ways than just as a vocalist, and my life is not at all the same since I met her all those years ago.
And now it is up to me to find a way to make it all just a little bit easier while just doing the work...
