On Becoming a Better Non-Singer

I did a great workshop this past weekend with a program called Operaworks. It's run by Anne Baltz, who is a highly esteemed coach in the opera world, and who has created this program for young singers and educators.

I went into the weekend with one objective: figure out what is wrong with my auditioning, and learn how to fix it.

I expected to get very concrete feedback. "Your dress is wrong." "Your voice is wrong." "Your diction is poor." "You aren't confident when you enter the room." Contrary to what I expected, I received praise for most of these things! Needless to say, there are still many, many things I need to work on. Some of them I was aware of, and some of them I only just became aware of.

For the past year or two, I've entered almost every audition as though it's completely out of my control. I enter with resume and head shot in hand, looking my best, hopefully sounding my best, greet the judges, do my sing thing, and then leave with a "bye, hope to hear from you if the fates are in my favor" attitude. This strategy has not served me well. It is time to change--to grow. It is time for me to leave "Elena the singer" behind, and become "Elena, the organic human being with a soul filled with music and depth and excitement and compassion and every other human emotion." It is no longer about how well I sing. It is about who I sing. Everything that happens when I'm singing a character--whether in a song or an aria--needs to be that person. Every gesture, every thought, every movement, every bit of imagination I can scrape together needs to form a character that is visible and audible to the audience. After all, isn't that why I love this in the first place?

This is going to take me a while to figure out.  I'll never have it completely perfected. It was an emotional breakthrough for me when I realized how much I have to change--things that are abstract and from within, rather than fixing something technical. But now I know what I need to do, and I know that I am more than capable moving the hearts of those around me. It is not because I am special or more talented than others, but because I have realized the depth of the human soul. I believe that this ability to relate to others is embedded in our beings, and it has become my job to translate that, with the beauty of music, for others.

It is no longer about the beauty of the music.
It is about the beauty of humanity.
The beauty of the soul.