Fugue

Tonight, what seemed like the never-ending story at the beginning will come to its conclusion as we sing the last notes of the fugue that ends Falstaff, and the 2009 Glyndebourne Tour will come to a close. At Wednesday's show here in Plymouth, I looked up at Elena as she effortlessly sang the first of her three answers to my call of "Bocca baciata non perde ventura…" and felt a twinge of melancholy, sad that we only had one more show to go. It surprised me, because as we had entered the home-stretch of this tour, my homesickness had started to take over, and I was beginning to get excited at the prospect of sleeping in my own bed for this first time since August.

We arrived to start this journey at the very beginning of September, and during a conversation with a friend back in the states the other day, they pointed out that this has basically been like a semester abroad. Yesterday, during a farewell lunch with my dear friend and colleague, Susie, a good friend from my HGO Studio days who has been on the music staff of the tour and also playing the continuo for the Così fan tutte performances, she asked me what I have learned on this tour. It made me think back to student days when our lives were actually divided up into semesters, and our lives changed dramatically in the span of those 12 – 14 week stretches, our minds soaking up new a constant, endless flow of lessons like sponges.

Some of the things I've learned have been new information. Little things like the English have this habit of saying "Are you alright?" instead of "How are you?", which had me thinking that I constantly looked like I was depressed for weeks until I realized what they were actually asking. Many of the discoveries I've made about life and music in the last three months have been a deepening of my understanding of things I already thought I understood thoroughly. I've rediscovered how much I love to perform. After last season's intense study with my teacher in New York, I've had ample practice time to integrate a lot of what I learned there into my repertoire – both new and old – and I have new questions for when I head back. I've learned how to be rooted a bit more in the present moment and really enjoy the positive aspects of my time on the road, despite the great homesickness I feel at times. I've discovered new friends and deepened friendships with old ones. I've dug deeper into Fenton's character, finding more layers to him than I realized were there before. I've learned that we can always give the audience more. At the end of this adventure, I find that while I feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride, I also feel quite humble and more open than ever.

To all of my colleagues in the cast, orchestra, crew, music staff, and chorus these past three months, thank you for an incredible time. It's been an extraordinary three months, and I leave a slightly different person thanks to the good times we have shared together.

Turkey and Stuffing

Trolling through Facebook this morning, I chuckled when I saw a Canadian friend's status that read:

"An American tradition: Kill some Indians with small pox, kill a turkey, stuff your gut till you get indigestion, take Pepcid, trap family members together for an extended period of time destroying relationships, and then get up the next day and trample each other to death as you try to be the first to get the discounted flat screen TV at Walmart…"

There have been times that I have appreciated that sentiment, as I have been stuck in insanely long security lines at the airport trying to get home for the weekend or have nearly been trampled in pushy crowds at Whole Foods fighting over whose tofurky is whose. Alas, not this year. Being abroad for the second time on the day of the turkey, I've actually spent the day alone, relaxing, and mentally drifting towards the more grateful intent of the holiday.

Earlier in the year, amidst all of the personal turbulence that I was going through, I was rehearsing the Evening Hymn with Myra for one of our recitals. I found that I couldn't get much past the first couple of pages of the song without starting to cry. It was one of those magical moments of epiphany – one of those moments when a song suddenly becomes personal and makes sense in a new, clearer, and shockingly more specific way. I had been feeling so exhausted and was so overcome with guilt and heartbreak processing the fact that my personal life had exploded so terribly, and as I sang, my thoughts drifted to all that was still amazing in my life despite the turmoil on the surface of things. The knowledge that, even though I was feeling devastated, there were still so many people and things to turn to for comfort overwhelmed me with gratitude.

It's been a tough year, but it's also been extraordinary, filled with astounding revelations and great lessons. Since that moment with the Evening Hymn, I've been a bit preoccupied with thankfulness. It's so easy to focus on the negative for all of us – it's a really great thing to have a holiday that is meant for us to adjust our focus to the blessings in our lives.

I'm grateful to be loved so deeply by a great many people. I'm grateful to love a great many people in return. I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned over the past months about life, love and music. I'm grateful for a loving and extremely supportive family. I'm grateful for the wonderful and generous colleagues I've had over the past year who have taught me so much and provided so much fun. I'm grateful for my laptop and my iphone, which keep me connected to those close to my heart yet far away on the map. I'm grateful for a new apartment to come home to next week. I'm grateful for Glee, which has kept me laughing at my loneliest moments abroad this fall. I'm grateful for friends and loved ones who inspire. I'm grateful for the unexpected surprises that came my way this year. I'm grateful for a life in music.

And that's just to name a few of the things that I'm thankful for.

To everyone back home (and a few abroad): May you have a very Happy Thanksgiving - I hope you have just as much and more to be grateful for.

Community

During my last two weeks in Lewes, while various members of my family were visiting me to see the shows, I took two tours of the Charleston house – the home of the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and the summer home of the Bloomsbury Group. The house and the grounds are stunning – sculpture protrudes seemingly from every plant in the garden, and the walls, furniture, doorways all served as canvases for these artists' creative output throughout the house. Objects as simple as lampshades provided ample opportunity for not only painting and upholstery, but even pottery and sculpture. As I walked from room to room , I was awed at the sheer abundance of color, design, and beauty – it was as if these people were so overflowing with creativity, they could scarcely find enough surfaces to paint.

As our guide took us on a tour through the house, she spent a little time in each room relating anecdotes about the group and their various relationships, friendships, and affairs. Later, in the gift shop, I perused the many books about the various members of the group that they were selling, many of which contained letters they wrote to each other – their fierce commitment to their art and to each other was not only astounding but inspiring. While the Bloomsbury group were not a formal society of any sort and their association, it seems, was purely social for the most part, I couldn't help but think that the huge creative output by each member of the group (which included incredibly accomplished artists and intellectuals like Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes) must have been spurred on by the great sense of community they obviously had. I imagined their lazy summers spent lounging together, idly discussing literature, politics, and their love affairs, and I felt a twinge of envy.

I've been working at a snail's pace through Finding Water, Julia Cameron's latest Artist's Way book, and a lot of the exercises pose the question: who defines one's own artistic community. I always find that when I think about those people who are closest to me, I am lucky – I find that I repeatedly count the same 10 or 15 people among those people that I trust. It's a rather large number of people who have been and continue to be there through thick and thin. But when I consider where each of these people live – I am saddened by how spread out across the map they are. They live in Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago, Cologne, Atlanta, Portland, Ann Arbor, Concord, Lexington, and New York – not to count the couple who are musicians and live out of their suitcases, like me. Compound on this my transitory life and a move across country not too long ago, and I realize that I've been feeling a bit groundless for the past couple of years. On the one hand, I am grateful for the travel, as it allows me to get face time with everyone. But it's the regular contact and the sense of home that one finds in loved ones that I long for. It makes me anxious to get home so I can start getting settled into my brand new place that I moved into at the end of the summer (and haven't seen since then) and throw a housewarming party.

Scene Stealers

Here are two shots from one of our balance calls on the road. The first is of Nanetta - Elena Tsallagova - sitting at the bar that is the set for Act I, scene i - a part of the set we only get to enjoy at balance calls. She is not only intensely fun to perform with, but she inspires me with her singing at every performance.

And here is one of the real scene-stealers of the show - he and his feline friends make appearances in each scene, disinterestedly observing all of our antics throughout the opera, seeming quite bored in that manner which only cats are capable of. This one watches as Dr. Caius unsuccessfully confront Falstaff, Bardolfo, and Pistola at the top of the show.

The Most Striking Image I Saw Today

At the Tate Britain as part of the Turner and Masters exhibit.An adventure with my good friend and flatmate-for-the-month, Susie. In the midst of a plethora of stunning landscapes, this one stopped us in our tracks.

Visitors

After the shows opened, I was lucky enough to have some family visitors come visit to see a couple of the performances. One who has come many places to see me in the states made her first journey overseas to see a performance in Glyndebourne - my aunt. Recently retired, she has been able to take advantage of her new-found freedom to do what she loves best - explore the world. She's been all over the world, but has never been able to work it out before to come see me sing when I am abroad. It was nice to be able to be an excuse for her to be able to visit somewhere new. An added bonus of having her as a visitor was that it allowed me to do what I never seem to get to do on the road. Be at tourist.

Here's a picture of her engaging in her other favorite pastime.

Stir Crazy

The other day, one of my colleagues called, begging me to go out with him to Brighton, which is not far from Glyndebourne. He said, "I have to get out of here – I going out of my mind. I mean, I love it here, but I'm just not used to having this much free time. It's driving me crazy – I need to be doing something!" He explained that, accustomed to normally working on a concert schedule, he wasn't used to having to waiting around for so long in between performances and devoting such an long time to just one thing. Instead of having an intense week of rehearsal and then a series of back-to-back concerts, stir craziness was setting in during these multiple days off between shows.

When I first arrived here, I was anything but restless – I felt stimulated and energized by our intense rehearsal schedule that provided a consistent regularity for our first month here. It was nice to be in the same place for an extended period after running around all summer, with a regular regimen to my days and weeks. But by the time my colleague called the other day, as the rehearsal schedule was winding down and our opening approached – I felt very much the same way, and I acquiesced. After a year of only concerts and recitals in which I was constantly on the move, learning new music, and either constantly rehearsing or performing, I could relate to his unease with so much free time and such a long period on just one project. We had a lovely night out filled with martinis, red wine, stimulating discussions about life and music, and a really lovely Italian meal.

A day or two after our opening, the cast's hive-mindedness that I wrote about a while back took an inconvenient turn – we all came down with the same cold. For the second show, six of us showed up complaining of being sick, and while it hasn't (thankfully and touch wood) descended into any of our throats, it has forced me to take it easy most of the last week. With the exception of one mini-excursion that I took with my aunt who was visiting last week, I've pretty much been confined to resting at home in an effort to get better, and unable to really practice on my days off.

The thing that has been most unnerving about all this free, idle time, beyond feeling restless – or perhaps a symptom of my restlessness – is that it allows my focus to drift from healthy pursuits that keep me locked in the moment and enjoying all that I have in my life now towards thoughts of what I don't have. I can slowly feel the goals and dreams that I am aiming for turn into resentments and jealousy of things that I don't have – a general sense of impatience has started to pervade. Once I say these things out loud to one of my closest confidants, I immediately realize how ridiculous I sound complaining when I have so much to be grateful for and proud of. Immediately, everything is put in perspective. Still, it scares me how easily my hopes and aspirations can be pushed across the line to obsessions and expectations.

It's so easy to slip off track, but I'm so thankful that I have such a good network of colleagues and friends to point out when I am going astray and guide me back to where I want to be.

Gay Icons

Last weekend, I traipsed into London to catch the very last day of the Gay Icons exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. The Gallery had asked ten gay, public figures to choose six of their own icons – heroes or people, either straight or gay, who influenced or somehow had an impact on forming who they are in the present day. The selectors' choices were widely diverse, ranging from life-partners and family members to Virginia Woolf to The Village People. I gazed at portraits of people with life stories both familiar and completely unknown to me, moved by their tales of courage, strength, intellect, innovation, integrity, pride, and, at times, tragedy. About halfway through I noticed that in the middle of it all was a table stocked with silver and white cards asking us to write about someone we considered to be an iconic figure. It got me thinking about who I would have chosen as icons. I found it difficult to choose just six, and I found myself wondering exactly what an icon was to me. Was it a famous person or group whose image was ubiquitous who I looked up to? Was it a personal hero who inspired me? I began to wonder if there was a difference.

At times, some people debate with me the purpose of being on Facebook, Tweeting, and having a blog, and question my decision to open myself up to a seeming lack of privacy. I always reply to those people that I only share what it is that I wish to – I, like any blogger or person on Facebook, is as open as I choose to be. Funnily enough, I almost hit one of those boundaries when thinking about this post. While ruminating about the Gay Icons exhibit and thinking about blogging about it, I found myself incredibly shy and self-conscious about revealing who I consider to be important and influential to me, and it has, as a result, taken me a long time to draft this. I thought it was a strange time for my sense of privacy to kick in. Regardless, here are few of the people, a sampling of my own personal heroes that I look up to, that I would have chosen.

Rosemary Russell – Rosie was the first voice teacher that I worked with for an extended period of time – from the ages of 16-22. Over those six years, she not only taught me the basics of singing, but also fostered the love of music that she saw in me. During my study with her, I hungrily chewed through a vast amount of repertoire, from songs to oratorio arias to opera. From her, I learned what it is to be a musician – not just a singer, and how technique and expression serve each other. One of the most valuable lessons she ever taught me was that there are many ways to make a career in music, and that not any one of them is less honorable or less successful than the other. She inspired in me the courage to pursue this passion of mine full-throttle. The lessons she gave me continue to teach me to this day, and I suspect for many years to come. Many times over have I had a moment in which I think to myself, "oh yeah…that's what she was talking about…" She passed away in the fall of 2005, and I have missed her greatly ever since.

Dan Savage – Not only have I been entertained by his column Savage Love as well as many of his books for many years, but I've found inspiration in both the advice he gives and in those varied people who seek it. Listening to his podcast and reading his column, I've learned that both diversity and acceptance are beautiful things to be celebrated enjoyed, and in doing so, our lives will be richer. Also, I greatly admire his political activism and very vocal criticism of the government's denial of our civil rights as gay people. There is great strength and pragmatism in his message to his audience, whether it be listeners seeking sex and relationship advice or viewers of CNN hoping to catch the latest debate on gay politics.

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears – Britten's biography was the very first biography of a composer that I had ever read . I found myself fascinated by the story of his and Pears' lifelong relationship – a partnership that was not only a personal one but also artistic and creative one. Such total synthesis of two lives is a goal I think that most couples aspire to, and to see it achieved in a gay couple makes it doubly moving. Their story, coupled with their incredible artistic output have inspired in me not only a great love for Britten's music, but also the drive to always keep pushing ahead musically and artistically.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson – During my first year in the HGO studio, I was quite busy with many small assignments on stage. On one of the few nights I had off and to myself that first season, I sat down on my couch and put in a tape of the Glyndebourne production of Theodora and found myself transfixed as I watched Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's Irene. I couldn't tear my eyes away as I was hypnotized by her total commitment and her earthy musicality – every note poised with energy and direction. She quickly became one of my favorite singers to listen to. I've striven for that kind of commitment in my own music-making ever since.

Martin Katz – I first met Martin at the University of Michigan as a freshman at the School of Music when working with one of his Master's students. During my time at Michigan, I worked with him through many of his students, sang under his baton in my first performances of Fenton, and studied with him in two of his song classes. The most important lesson I learned from Martin was the relationship between text and music, and how both feed each other - and how powerful the combination of the two really can be when we dig deep as performers. He, along with Rosie, nurtured my love of songs and recital repertoire, and really taught me how to perform them. I have always been grateful to him for it.

Brendon Watson, Jennifer Erb-Downward, Erin Marie Williams, Leah Plunkett, Tory Dicarlo, and Josh Cowen – These six people are the people who have been my closest friends since my days in High School in Ann Arbor. Our friendships were deepened and cemented shortly after I came out of the closet at 15 or 16, and they have supported me at just about every major moment in my life. Each one of them is incredibly successful, accomplished, driven, intellectual, open, thoughtful, loving, caring, insightful, and incredible fun. It is from them that I have learned how to really listen and what the true meaning of friendship is.

Erin Marie Williams and Brendon Watson

Heart

Yesterday, I went to visit Martin Isepp for lunch. Martin is an incredible vocal coach with whom I've spent the past three summers working on various song repertoire at Marlboro. My summers working with him have deepened my love of lieder and reconnected me with my passion for music in general. He's pushed me to demand the best from myself in my work and to constantly dig deeper. The main thing I've taken from him, though, is the importance of conveying the heart of the music. In all of my sessions with him, I am constantly humbled by how great the music we perform is and how much it demands of us, and at the end of our sessions I am always left feeling as if there is always further for me to go in being able to convey all that is there. At one point during our lunch yesterday, I was asking Martin for some feedback about a recital program that I have been thinking about for an upcoming recital tour next fall. After listening to some of my ideas, he considered them for a moment, and then said in his gentle manner, "it sounds like it could be really lovely, but one has to be careful not to get too intellectual about things."

Lately, I've noticed a lot of PR-hype about the booing at the new Tosca at the Met (which I did not see, being in England), and many reviews complaining about how the director's "concept" seemed to get in the way of the emotional impact of the piece and Puccini's vision of the story, leaving audiences, at the very least, dissatisfied. I've also seen many blog posts recently offering young artists as much business advice as possible so that they can groom themselves to be picked up by one of the many apprenticeship programs now that audition season is upon them. It's all had me thinking about being a bit "too intellectual" about things for the past month, so what Martin said resonated with me and struck a chord. It's all reminded me of my young artist days at HGO and at Glimmerglass, when I heard a ton of advice about what to sing in auditions, what to wear in auditions, I reformatted my resume countless times, spent hours in the copy room making sure my audition notebook was just right, fussed over which headshot to pick, and lost many an evening pouring over the internet worrying which manager would be best for me to contact or which program should I apply for. Yesterday at lunch, I recounted to Martin a story about how I used to offer the most difficult and flashy list of arias, trying to market myself as a certain type of singer, of a certain fach. The catch was that I was not really singing the music that I really had a passion for. I over-thought everything in order to fit myself into the box I thought I needed to fit into in order to move ahead. So, rather than have any sort of fun preparing and performing these pieces, I would simply fret and worry. I used to get incredibly nervous every time I auditioned, because rather than focus on my joy in singing, I was trying to sell myself as something. In the end, I realized that I was only selling myself short.

Hearing Martin's counsel, I also thought about a video celebrating Leontyne Price's NEA Opera Award last year (via Yankeediva) that I've watched a couple of times over the past few weeks. In it, Ms. Price said two things that really struck me. The first was: "To sing, I think, is the most human. You are the vessel, everything depends on how YOU feel as a person…you must have JOY to deliver this sound," and the other was: "…it needs ALL of you to be delivered, it needs EVERYTHING you have, but you must ENJOY giving everything you have."

While all of the business ends of this vocation are crucial to know and our intellects are vital, I was reminded yesterday that what is most important is that we not lose our passion in what we put forth as singers and musicians. Every time we open our mouths to sing, it's our responsibility to say what is in our hearts. Otherwise, it's just noise.

Fenton

Inside the front cover of my Falstaff score is a little sticker that states that the score was a gift from the University of Michigan Friends of Opera, an organization that sponsored voice scholarships and opera productions at the University. In the fall semester of my senior year at the University, I learned the very first role I ever performed in Italian out of that Falstaff score - Fenton. The year before, we had staged the act I, scene ii Fenton/Nannetta duets for my scenes in opera workshop, and I was so excited to have a chance to get to perform the role in its entirety. I spent the end of my second summer at the Aspen Music Festival dutifully working Fenton's words into my mouth and emblazoning the notes he has to sing into my brain as I looked forward with anticipation to my first foray into the land of Verdi that autumn. Each time I look into the score, I see all of the notes I made translating each and every word and jotting down the directions our conductor, Martin Katz, gave us in rehearsal.

The wonderful thing about the diligence with which I studied this score the first time is that all of that hard work stuck. I've revisited Fenton couple times since then, in excerpts (in a scenes program at Manhattan School) and as a cover (while at HGO), and every time, coming back to him is like revisiting an old friend. No other role has felt so comfortable and so easy to remember when it comes time to revisit him.

Here in Glyndebourne, one challenge has been to remain open about my ideas about Fenton. Having lived with him so long, I've developed some pretty specific ideas about who he is dramatically and musically over the years, and as I've been presented with some new ones, I've noticed that it has been a bit difficult for me to be open and consider them, thinking instead, "But no! It's this way!" It's sort of been a spin on that age-old adage of it being hard to teach an old dog new tricks. It's incredibly easy to simply fall back on what one knows and just ride the wave, skimming the surface.

Thankfully, mostly due to the wonderful team of colleagues that have been working on this production, I've been able to realize that my knee-jerk reaction has been far from optimal, and been able to give things a good, college try, seeing where they take me. And lo, and behold, they have taken me to so many new places and deeper levels than I thought were possible before. I've had dramatic questions answered that confused me before, musical phrases are taking on a new life, and my perception of Fenton's relationships to those around him has come to a clearer focus – most especially with Nannetta. My experience here so far has left me feeling that I am somehow able to be inside Fenton's shoes with a bit more specificity and richness.

On the day of our opening performance, I cannot express enough gratitude to the Falstaff team and cast for such a great rehearsal process and to wish them all the best for a great run of shows. We have 16 of them (15 + 1 student matinee), so I cannot wait to see just how much more this will take flight and grow with each show.

Pictured above from top to bottom: Harry Nicoll (Bardolfo) and Colin Judson (Dr. Caius); Kathleen Wilkinson (Mistress Quickly); Thomas Blunt (Assistant Conductor), James Gaffigan (Conductor), and Elena Tsallagova (Nannetta)

John Smith Made Me Cry

Being abroad for so long involves a lot of alone time, which, in turn, allows for a lot of time to catch up on TV. As I haven't had cable for the past 4 years, I've mostly relied on watching TV shows on DVD anyway. The day before I left for England, I took a couple of hours to run around San Francisco (where I was vacationing before I came here) to buy some essentials for my three-month tour survival kit. Along with stops at Walgreen's and Kiehl's for things like my facial scrub and contact lens solution, I also knew that I had to stop somewhere to pick up some seasons of television on DVD. I have learned these past few years that TV can be dicey abroad (although I have since discovered that it is not so bad here in the UK, despite having only 4 channels...). As I traipsed around the city, I yearned for the days when Tower Records and Virgin still existed, and then it occurred to me to duck into Border's. I ran around the store picking up some reading material and then browsed the picked-over, messy, small DVD section for things to keep me entertained. Thankfully, I did find one of the TV shows I was looking for - This American Life, Season 2.

Watching the final episode last night with my friend Susie, I found myself holding back tears as they told the story of John Smith - or of many different John Smith's. I was caught off guard at this portrait of the fact that regardless how different each person's life seemed to be, the journey of life is something that each one of them had in common. I'm not really sure how to put it into words, but I found myself relating to these vastly different people in different stages of their lives, feeling some sort of primal connectedness. Somehow, the stories of these vastly different men and boys became the story of everyman. As humans, our life journeys are so different, and yet so the same. It was This American Life truly at their best. Do yourself a favor in case you missed it and rent it. If you are a Netflix member, you can stream it instantly here.

Revelations in the Dreamscape

I dreamt the other night that I was standing on a hill, watching many of the people in my life. I noticed that, one by one, they would get bigger in size, kind of like in that horrible sequel to "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids". At first, I panicked, thinking that they were succumbing to some sort of virus, and the dream suddenly took on a strange, Sci-Fi, zombie-thriller turn. I ran from person to person, trying to pull those people closest to me away from the infected. What confused me was that they didn't seem to be scared of getting infected, and I would watch in horror as they would expose themselves to the infected and then become giants. I ran, confused as to where to go, horribly upset to watch those I love succumb to what I perceived as a horrific disease, guilty that I couldn't save them, and terrified to my core that I, too, would catch it, and that my life as I knew it would be over. Then suddenly, it dawned on me that every single one of these people had clear ideas of what their goals were and it was for that reason they were all getting bigger. Right before I awoke, at what turned out to be the end of the dream, I realized that I didn't need to be afraid anymore, and that getting bigger was a good thing – not a thing to be scared of.

Teamwork

The post I labeled as "Random" the other day was actually more a bit of synchronicity than I let on earlier. In rehearsal here at Glyndebourne, the recurrent theme has been teamwork, and for a show as ensemble-oriented as Falstaff, nothing could be more important to get this show on its witty, sharp feet. My colleagues here have created a sense of camaraderie that I have found rarely paralleled in other operatic experiences that I have had. It's not that I have worked with a plethora of prima donnas or that most of my past colleagues have been a string of difficult personalities – it's more that this particular cast has gelled in a way that I have only experienced a few times before, and I know enough to recognize just how special this experience is proving to be as it unfolds.

One of the odd symptoms of our hive-mindedness has been to show up for rehearsal color-coordinated. Tuesday we all came to work wearing some matching shade of pink, purple (as you can see from the slightly blurry picture above). Wednesday and Monday, we all wore black. It's been happening since the first week of rehearsal – the joke about getting the memo to wear a certain color to work grew old by the beginning of the second week. I've never seen anything like it.

Random, but Cool

I can only imagine the kind of teamwork it took to pull this off...

Oh We, Like Sheep

The view from my "office" these past few weeks:


It's kind of surreal and idyllic all at the same time.

Going to work everyday is...well...unbelievably easy.

Hiatus, Interrupted

It's been a bit over two months since my last confession.

I never intended to take a break from the blog. It just sort of happened. I felt guilty about it. Occasionally, I would sit down to write something, but, inevitably, I'd stare at a blank screen, the cursor blinking back at me, and I would realize that I had nothing to say.

A good friend of mine and I were talking the other day over lunch, while watching at the sheep that graze here in the lawns surrounding Glyndebourne, and she related a story to me about a friend who had just been through a rough time personally and had simply dropped off the face of the earth. "I really hate that – when someone you consider a good friend just disappears, you know?" she said. I replied that I actually sort of understood. Sometimes, after some rocky transitions, one needs to take some time alone, to isolate. It gets exhausting having to explain things over and over, to relate the same stories again and again. It's like a crab retreating into its shell to protect itself and to recover.

This summer, I got tired of thinking about heavy things over and over. I grew tired of thinking in general, frankly. I just wanted to have some fun and to simply live my life for a bit. I wanted to be accountable to no one and just enjoy being in the moment. I dragged my feet responding to emails. I took forever to return phone calls. My blog posts dwindled to nothing. And instead, I immersed myself in the people immediately around me and the music at hand. The most time I spent in any one place was no more than 3 weeks. I hopped around the world, from Oregon to Vermont to Germany to Scotland to California to England. I swam in ponds and kayaked in rivers, I hiked up a mountain, and I sang my heart out. It was liberating, exhilarating, and fun.

Here in Glyndebourne, I'm feeling life taking on a regularity and normalcy. With a pretty consistent rehearsal schedule and an incredibly quaint cottage all to myself, I've found myself starting to slowly come out of my shell of hibernation. I'm finding comfort in being told where to be each day and then coming home and cooking myself dinners after rehearsal. I'm rediscovering the discipline of yoga every morning, and I'm starting to reach out again to those people closest to me. My inbox is slowly being cleared, and I am tending to my responsibilities beyond music after ignoring them for ages (like my 2008 taxes…). And as I ease my way back into the fold, I notice that I am incredibly happy to go to work every day, and I am beginning to enjoy this crazy, nomadic, musical life in a deeper way than before.

And on top of it all, I feel this blog itching inside me, asking to be written again.

Bach

My eyes flared open, I rolled over to look at the time on my phone. 6:34 AM. I groaned inwardly at the light flooding through the translucent curtains in my dorm room and put a pillow over my head, vainly hoping to shut out the light and fall back asleep. Instead of dozing, I calculated exactly how much sleep I had managed to get – about 5 and a half hours. I thought of a Men's Health article I read in an effort to distract myself from realizing that I was running on an elliptical machine at the gym the other day which informed me that in order to lose weight, prolong my life, and maintain my immune system's strength among other things I needed to make sure I get 8 hours of sleep a night. Catastrophic sequences in my frenzied mind fired off from there, and, irate at my inability to quiet my mind, I desperately endeavored to meditate in the hopes that I would drift into dreamland. I eventually gave up, and dragged myself to the gym to get the day started.

On the way to the gym, I chatted with the Marlboro Bookstore shopkeep, and we complained about the chilly, wet weather that has plagued us so much of the summer. She worried that winter would be unbearable. I silently thanked the heavens I wouldn't be here for it and hopped on the elliptical.

The day continued with a rehearsal in the concert hall of the Britten that I will be performing with my friend, Sivan, this weekend, and being in the hall, we recorded our rehearsal. The knowledge that the devilish imps that microphones are were hanging at the front of the stage set off the tiny, yet oh-so-potent critical demons off in my mind. A veritable peanut gallery of bitchiness distracting me from the task at hand – to sing seven minutes of T.S. Eliot poetry.

By the time I got to lunch, I could barely bring myself to enter the table's conversation, my temples throbbing, and my neck and back stiff and whining. I left to try to lie down for a bit before my next rehearsal, but again sleep eluded me.

I arrived just in time for a rehearsal of a Bach aria with Lydia and Yvonne, and we kicked off the rehearsal complaining about a variety of kvetches: the cold weather, the dryness, how tired we were, the fact that everyone is getting sick, the toilet that was plugged for an entire day in my dorm, the acoustic in the rehearsal room in the Presser building, the price of lip balm. About 10 minutes into the rehearsal, there was a moment of silence, and Yvonne began to play. Lydia joined her, gently improvising a flowing continuo line to accompany her, and we were off. Melodies and counter-melodies flowed together and then apart. Yvonne and I handed off phrases to each other, Lydia guiding us harmonically the whole way with the figured bass in her part. We were so exhausted, the music just poured out of us – we didn't have the energy to get in the way. Yvonne and Lydia approached and then played the final cadence, and there was silence. We could hear the wind rustling through the leaves outside, and we looked at each other. It felt as though a peaceful, profound, and deep contentment had taken us over without us even realizing it. Nothing else mattered, and, somehow, we were happy.

Nerves

A few weeks ago, I was standing in front of the Atlanta Symphony at their first rehearsal in their summer home, the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at Encore Park, listening to the winds trade off the opening themes of Ecco ridente in cielo from The Barber of Seville, while sweat dripped down the sides of my face. As I took in my first breath to sing the opening lines, I felt my heart racing in my chest, and I realized that my perspiration was not only due to the sweltering heat.

The first time I sang the Count in Barber was in 2003, at the end of a pressure-filled, intense, and mind-blowing summer. I had just finished my first year in the HGO Studio, and earlier that summer had competed in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, sung my very first Carmina Burana with the National Symphony, and was experiencing my first summer as a Wolf Trap Filene Artist. By the time my first rehearsal for Barber came round towards the end of the summer, I was beginning to feel myself crack under the pressure of all of the incredible opportunities that had come my way in those months. The Count was the most difficult role I had ever encountered up until that point, and that summer at Wolf Trap would be the first time I ever performed a leading operatic role in a professional situation. It was also the second time I ever performed any Rossini in public for a paying audience. Warming up for that first rehearsal at Wolf Trap, I started to wonder if my voice was pretty enough. Would I be able to sing as fast as I wanted? Would my high notes come out? What if the conductor hated me? What if I didn't get along with the director? Did my colleagues all think that I sucked? My inner dialogue was creatively catastrophic as my worries and nerves overwhelmed my logical mind. By the time I opened my mouth to sing the first notes of my aria, I was convinced that I was going to be fired for my substandard-ness.

Midway through rehearsal, I realized that I could not live the rest of my life with that kind of neurotic drama going on in my head. It made it almost impossible to sing and sucked any sort of enjoyment I got out of making music. I resolved myself to finding some help when I got back to Houston, and the minute I got home after rehearsal, I bought a copy of The Artist's Way and have done morning pages almost every day since then.

Back in my Atlanta hotel, trying to relax and unwind after our rehearsal, I remarked on the phone to a friend that The Barber of Seville sent me into therapy. While I said that somewhat jokingly, it held a lot of truth. Barber forced me to change the way I approached music. It was, until that point, the first time I felt so much terror of performing that I wasn't sure if I would be able to pull it off. It was the first time I had ever questioned myself so profoundly that I wondered if I was cut out for a career in music. Facing that again for the first time in six years in Atlanta, I was quite vividly reminded from whence I came.

Putting on a brave face, I feigned calmness and nonchalance the day of the concert, but inside, I felt as if I were right back where I had been all those summers ago at Wolf Trap, questioning myself and my ability to negotiate Rossini's virtuosic and naked musical terrain. But this time, as I warmed up for the concert, all the work I had done dealing with my nerves the past six years started to seep in, and I found my nerves and self-doubt turning into adrenaline that was fuel for my focus. Midway through the aria, the first piece I sang on the concert, I realized that everything was going just fine, and that it was, in fact, fun. I felt myself relax, and I began to enjoy the summer night and getting to entertain the people who had braved the heat and humidity to hear this fun, lighthearted music.

Mini Escape

Before the simple intensity of Marlboro began this week, I carved out a couple of days of vacation for myself to visit one of my best friends for a fun and adventurous weekend in Portland.

The weather was phenomenal, so we took every advantage to be outside that we could.

All that being outside made me want to move west…

The Advocate

Yesterday, the Advocate published a profile piece on me in the online edition of their magazine. You can check it out here.

I am really grateful for the opportunity to be profiled in a magazine that I've read since before I came out of the closet. The magazine was one of the first places I saw being gay as a positive and not something that I had to hide or be ashamed of. It was really exciting to read through it yesterday morning, and get to see the final product of the interviews that I gave towards the beginning of the year, when the author was beginning the piece. The only awkward part of all this is that in the time since I gave those interviews, my personal life has changed significantly with the end of my marriage with Jeremy. For those of you who are visiting this blog for the first time because of the article, you can read my brief entry about our break-up here. I just feel that out of respect for Jeremy, it is necessary to direct you there.

While reading the article, I was taken back to last fall when we did get married, and I found it difficult to avoid ruminating over the maze of steps that led to where we are now. One lesson that I have learned is that politics and affairs of the heart do not mix well. Between the pressure of the deadline of Prop 8 and the November election, and my passion for our civil rights it was difficult to discern whether or not I was actually ready to take that step in our relationship. I obviously was not. But, I live, and I – hopefully – continue to learn. I hope that the gay marriage tide keeps moving in the progressive direction it has been since last November's devastating setbacks, and I look forward to a day when it is considered normal for any couple in love to get married.