Resistance is fertile

As I write to you from the train to Newcastle dear readers and England’s green and pleasant land my thoughts continually return to the land beyond. Let’s resume our story.

Travelling the seven seas I couldn’t help thinking of the distance involved and the many miles encountered by my parents on their month long boat trips. And now here I was, less than 24 hours and in arguably the greatest city in the world. New York offers you a wonderful sense of power, completely fraudulent of course, but power nonetheless; a sensation that you can actually do anything. It’s true that someone should take the State of New York to a court of law, and prosecute her for fabricating and selling such dreams illegally under the counter to every new migrant that tumbles onto her shores.

The view from the 26^th floor drugged me and dragged me in quiet submission towards New York’s charms, and pretty soon I was asleep. My room was stifling hot when I woke up the next day at around 6 am and I started my routine for the day, as I knew it was going to be a rigorous one. I heard Sherry, my housemate, a few hours later. She wanted to get Thai food. We ordered door-to-door. I kept warming up and jumped on the piano. The food arrived and pictures are to follow. I ordered Thai chicken basil with beans and jasmine rice – I thought I was ordering for one, but apparently they heard 11 because enough food arrived to last several New York winters. I quickly adjusted to the fact that a $10 US meal can last you for two or three days (Americans eat several of these a day so they must have an additional stomach) and one slice of pizza is the equivalent to a family sized meal in New Zealand. More on this later.

Feeling well and truly sated I got back to work and Sherry went out. Opening the doors onto the 26^th floor I could hear the world: snippets of Spanish conversation, Chinese, Italian – I don’t think you can sense the whole world from the one spot anywhere else quite like you can in New York.

Getting ready seemed to take me forever, I kept on with my warm up but the voice wasn’t really playing ball as I’d hoped. I’d been supposed to head to NY on November 4^th and spend well over a week there, working alongside top coaches and preparing for the audition for Merola which is a really prestigious programme with San Francisco Opera. Every day that you wake up and try to sing, you are taking a huge risk – will my voice fail me today? Will the alchemy I have tried to master and the involuntary muscles I have somehow, sometimes, managed to control work for me or against me? Will I forget everything I have worked so diligently to master and become unraveled in one moment of pressure cooker stress? All these are unfortunately very real possibilities.

Until you get to the point where you by some miraculous powers far beyond human understanding manage to wield some form of control over your instrument, you are constantly at the mercy of fate. That consistency is vital in performance but takes a long time to obtain. Until then, it’s a numbers game. You keep booking the auditions and sometimes it’s on, but more than often it’s not. And when it’s bad, it IS horrid. Yet auditions are a necessary evil. It’s vital to learn the coping strategies and automatic reflexes required to sing well in any environment, no matter how you are feeling. I’ve yet to master this.

Today did not seem like it was going to be my day, no matter what coaxing I was doing to jumpstart my vocal folds  to life. Sometimes you get lucky – the voice is just sluggish and will wake up during the day. There’s very little you can do with a truly tired instrument. And I was Tired. Unfortunately, instead of travelling a week ahead of time to NY, like I had planned, and being well and truly rested and settled for the Merolas, I had to completely rearrange my entire trip due to the requirements of my job at Opera North in Leeds. Additionally, I’d also had an audition in London on the 7^th which, unsurprisingly due to the stress levels of attempting to plan intercontinental travel whilst negotiating train stations, tube stations and suitcases, bore a striking resemblance to Regent Street circa 1940 in how badly I bombed it.

When you wake up still feeling exhausted, with the airborne crap from a thousand hours plane and train rides lodged squarely in your sinuses, you know you are in trouble. I was jetlagged. I had only just arrived and the audition was already here. With that slightly out of control feeling that a lack of sleep elicits, which didn’t seem to be dissipating anytime soon, I manfully pressed on, coaxing the larynx this way and that for a chance that peace talks might resume. Alas, my high notes were as wobbly as a newborn English spring lamb. Other parts of my voice resembled some kind of barnyard animal too – the passagio mooed and bleated and baaed as the tongue root tension decided to well and truly dig in for the day. I tentatively reached for a high B that was vital for my performance that day –  “BAAAA!” My larynx rebelled. It was a no go. I tried it again – slightly better. But where was my support? I got on the floor and tried to start breathing deeply lower and lower. But my pelvic floor still wasn’t kicking in, and my neck muscles were etched with tension. I got out my secret weapon – a straw – and started gently blowing into my water glass while humming Frère Jacques. This theoretically should remind the intercostal muscles and the ribs to do their job and stay buoyant, but it doesn’t always work.

Finally, after a long workout where I tried to encourage all the vital elements of my technique to cohere, and all the extraneous elements that didn’t help me to take a hike, my support finally switched on. The fatigue was winning, however, and it started to fuel the paranoia as the time to leave drew closer. I looked into the mirror. Was I REALLY going to be able to sing the Puccini today? The voices started in: “But you bombed that at the last audition!” “What about the high note? It’s not really there today is it?” “I don’t think you can pull it off.”

Another wave of mild panic hit. Maybe that was true! Should I sing my easier mid-range piece that was in English first? But then I simply didn’t know that one as well as I did the other. It was a huge risk.

When you are tired, these helpful accusers often win in the daily face off between you and your subconscious. I went back to that mirror, and attempted to look it squarely in the eye. I practiced my centering technique, trying to bring my energy lower and lower. The mirror. “I can do this. I sing with confidence and ability. I communicate something. People want to hear me.” The mirror grinned back at me in the best impression of a manic American televangelist as I tried to persuade myself that I had just as much self confidence as any Yank who ever trod the boards.

Half an hour to go and I finally decided what I was going to sing. I was sticking with Puccini. I had sung it before in auditions, and besides, they wanted something well known. I tested out the B once more for good measure. It was hanging around. Good. But my larynx was still complaining. It did not want to sing today. I gave the Mozart the once over in case they asked for it and checked the time. 4:40! – but my audition was at 4:55! How did THAT happen?!! I would have to get a cab – I couldn’t believe how time had got away. I reached the lobby and it felt like I was stood hailing a cab for at least 20 minutes. That mild panic started to crescendo to a shrieking forte. I was going to have to walk it – it was only a couple of blocks away. I started to run.

By the time I reached the theatre, it was 5:10. A bunch of stony faced young musicians sat in a semi circle outside the doors waiting for their call. Rows of unreal looking and immaculately turned out young women from Eastern Europe and Korea shifted listlessly in their seats. A young man was standing waiting and ready for his turn.

“I’m so sorry ...” I gulped out.

The woman looked from underneath her glasses. “I’ll deal with you in a minute!”

I managed to nod and slumped down in my chair. The other competitors stared over witheringly. I couldn’t believe that I’d come all this way for this opportunity only to be foiled by my own unbelievably poor sense of time management. For this and every other reason I could mention but won't I am the world’s most rubbish administrator.

Tall Frosty aka Sub Zero backed out of the room. “I’ll have to check if they can still see you – they’re running to schedule!” She barked. My gut felt like a chrysler doing donuts at 500 mph on the M25. “Next!” The roll call marched on as victim after hapless victim walked to the gallows. I desperately tried to regain my composure – whatever that was. I felt like the protagonist in a bawdy 1920s Kurt Weill ballad who was going to find retribution for their sins in no uncertain terms. I am sure auditioning should not feel this way. The air raid sirens started going off all around me.

The words every singer dreads: "they’ll see you now.” And then a blur. Bright lights. Featureless faces that you barely remember or even see. The piano starts. A bungled high note. The first piece was over. Then the next. White North American teeth. “That’s great, thank you!”

I turned and headed out into the night. The hours of work, the years of your life, erased, dismissed, in 5 minutes.

I watched the happy people skating around the winter gardens and felt the first bite of New York disappointment.

ETA: I wish I could say I was embellishing the previous story for dramatic effect. Sadly it’s as true for me as it is for hundreds of singers. We’re all working and waiting for that moment when it all comes together – but for so many singers that’s only ever just around the corner. It doesn’t mean they are less talented, or less worthy – though perhaps they are a bit less lucky.

Music: Queen of the Slipstream: - Van Morrison