I was doing alright before I read the headlines.
The news came out via NATS this week that the future of opera was looking uncertain, and vocalists - the 'super-spreaders' of the Covid world - were going to have to make do with becoming lounge singers for the foreseeable future.
I'm honestly not complaining. Up until yesterday, I was feeling caution-to-the-wind optimistic about everything. Every day, I do wake up feeling immense gratitude. And God has brought me this far. But learning I might not be able to sing publicly for another two years after I'd been offered my first professional singing gigs in the UK in what felt like decades - only to have that promise ripped away - I felt that. I know God will make a way, and it will be even better than anything I could've imagined. But just for this moment, it got to me.
As I prepare her music for a concert in one week, I have to praise someone like I should. Someone who pulled rank, plotted her own coordinates, and somehow still reached the heights of commercial and artistic success.
The lovely, ethereal Kate Miller Heidke has been one of my long-admired Australian songstresses, right up there with the nutty Sia. There's something about the ockers - of course they pack much more muscle than us on the world stage; their sheer numbers can sprawl unendingly in the midst of an extraordinary expanse of land, which of course means they grow up believing they can conquer the world. But there's a lack of cultural navel-gazing (too busy tilting their heads back and laughing at themselves for that) and generally just forward momentum, that Kiwis seem to lack. Well, except maybe for Taika.
Kate's long list of credits makes for confronting reading. Daunting, considering she's not that much older than me. When Kate has just made her breakout single, 'Caught in the Crowd', I was on my way to opera school in Melbourne. We shared a country for a short stint before her star shot skyward. In fact, one of my opera school friends, Diipti Firmstone, had been at opera school with her in Queensland, and said she went off there like a bottle rocket. Or words to that effect.
Kate had easy finesse and charisma, and could clearly charm birds (seems like she has one in her throat.) I wondered what essential ingredients for success I was missing (bring out that navel, for I must gaze upon it.)
Writing had always come easily to me. The rusty gates of the writing establishment had swung in my direction one day, and stayed there. But somehow, I'd never been able to pry the key away from St Peter long enough to squeeze through to full-fledged success in the opera world. What lay on the other side remained a mystery to me.
I'd seen many friends, all lousy with talent, fall into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, never to emerge. An accompanist friend once suggested that some people just never got their techniques together. But was it more than. It had to be.
Kate's success had a cumulative effect. The general consensus was: she had singular talent. Loads of it. The undeniable kind. Her career had been growing year on year, while mine appears to have been in the shop for repairs indefinitely.
The lovely, ethereal Kate Miller Heidke has been one of my long-admired Australian songstresses, right up there with the nutty Sia. There's something about the ockers - of course they pack much more muscle than us on the world stage; their sheer numbers can sprawl unendingly in the midst of an extraordinary expanse of land, which of course means they grow up believing they can conquer the world. But there's a lack of cultural navel-gazing (too busy tilting their heads back and laughing at themselves for that) and generally just forward momentum, that Kiwis seem to lack. Well, except maybe for Taika.
Kate's long list of credits makes for confronting reading. Daunting, considering she's not that much older than me. When Kate has just made her breakout single, 'Caught in the Crowd', I was on my way to opera school in Melbourne. We shared a country for a short stint before her star shot skyward. In fact, one of my opera school friends, Diipti Firmstone, had been at opera school with her in Queensland, and said she went off there like a bottle rocket. Or words to that effect.
Kate had easy finesse and charisma, and could clearly charm birds (seems like she has one in her throat.) I wondered what essential ingredients for success I was missing (bring out that navel, for I must gaze upon it.)
Writing had always come easily to me. The rusty gates of the writing establishment had swung in my direction one day, and stayed there. But somehow, I'd never been able to pry the key away from St Peter long enough to squeeze through to full-fledged success in the opera world. What lay on the other side remained a mystery to me.
I'd seen many friends, all lousy with talent, fall into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, never to emerge. An accompanist friend once suggested that some people just never got their techniques together. But was it more than. It had to be.
Kate's success had a cumulative effect. The general consensus was: she had singular talent. Loads of it. The undeniable kind. Her career had been growing year on year, while mine appears to have been in the shop for repairs indefinitely.
While I was still tinkering away at stage one, she'd even had the audacity to turn her back on the opera world to pursue songwriting. And, it seemed, she hadn't even lost any ground doing it! On the contrary - the opera world applauded her daring. It flung its arms around her, to the extent that she was invited to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in 'Death of Klinghoffer' as the British Dancing Girl in 2014. While NOT pursuing an opera career.
No - someone from ENO had heard her singing in a modern opera in Australia. She didn't go looking for this stuff.
I realised she was good. But until I read that she had sung at Coachella, the Met, and Eurovision - the only person in history to do all three - I never realised how good.
Her latest incarnation? Composer for the 'Muriel's Wedding' musical.
Kudos where it's due, Australia.
I realised she was good. But until I read that she had sung at Coachella, the Met, and Eurovision - the only person in history to do all three - I never realised how good.
Her latest incarnation? Composer for the 'Muriel's Wedding' musical.
Kudos where it's due, Australia.
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