Sound of Music LIVE! And the verdict is...

          For the The Sound of Music LIVE! performance last night, much like when I saw Les Miserables in the movie theater, I gave myself a pep talk about turning off my critical singer ears and tried to just go in with an attitude of enjoying it. I succeeded mostly! I thought the set was lovely, and the use of the cameras in what had to be an enormous soundstage was inventive and interesting. I felt uncomfortable when someone had a comic beat and there was no audience laughter, but that’s just a byproduct of this sort of mix of theater and television I suppose. What was more palpable was a sense that a lot of viewers were hoping everything would go smoothly, which is part of the fun of live television.

          First off, as I said in my first post on the subject, I am familiar with the stage version so I came to this with perhaps fewer expectations directing relating to the film than the general public might have. In the movie version, songs were omitted and added and rearranged so if you were hoping for a remake of the film, this was not that. I thought Carrie Underwood’s singing was good. Some of my more purist friends thought it was too belty, but it honestly didn't offend me. It was really her acting that was distracting. It fell flat and monotone and made me actually feel sorry and worried for her. That alone at least points to the fact that she seemed to be trying harder than say, Russell Crowe in Les Mis. One of her more solid moments—that reached anywhere near the emotional height the role of Maria demands— was her confrontation scene with Captain von Trapp, but even that toward the end began to come off as a list of lines about each child that she had to get through. The part that really irritated me was that their sexual tension and ultimate romance wasn’t earned and seemed too random. Even worse, her realization that the Captain returned her love later was totally without any readable signs of real surprise, relief, or joy.

          Underwood’s best scene may have been the emotion she showed when Audra McDonald was, of course, killing it in “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”. And who wouldn't tear up during that? Thank goodness they didn't write dialogue for Maria after that number. Let me tell you, Audra sang that shit, but she also had a very clear intention of making Maria understand what she had to do throughout that part of the scene. Without that, the second time through the song is just another verse. Making the words of these songs that we’ve all heard a hundred times fresh and spontaneous is what distinguished her and the other wonderful supporting actors in the cast. And take it from me, not every singer is a natural-born actor. I can tell you from experience just how many hours singers spend in a Conservatory setting working on conveying clear intentions from the beginning to the end of the song or aria. And Audra articulated as much in an interview beforehand:

          "Just focus on what Mother Abbess is really trying to do. And what she's trying to do is give Maria some serious tough love and kicking her out. She's saying no, you can't run from your problems. This is opportunity in your life knocking on the door saying here we are. Here is your life. This is your destiny. And I'm not going to let you run away from it because it seems scary. So if I focus on that I will be okay. If I focus on; 'oh this is a hard song, I hope I don't screw it up,' then I'll screw up."

          This kind of dramatic commitment is not spontaneously manufactured. Just as Audra says, it takes thought and work in advance to make it seem spontaneous.

          Laura Benanti and Christian Borle were both great as Elsa and Uncle Max respectively. I've always found the stage version to be more foreboding in its political implications than the movie, and they both contributed well to this sensibility. Bernanti, (surprise, surprise!) has actually played Maria in a Broadway revival and really outshone the leads vocally and dramatically. Lisel and Rolf proved to be good triple threats, negotiating well through the acting, singing, and dancing. As with any good production of this show, the kids were cute but I didn't get the sense that it was all about them either, which I prefer. Stephen Moyer was a decent Captain. I’m not familiar with his character on True Blood, but I thought his singing was good enough and he at least brought a decent amount of conviction to the character. Even if he wasn’t the most dashing man in the role, he was still acting circles around his romantic counterpart. It seems unfair to compare to Christopher Plummer but maybe if we could sense that Moyer secretly hated the family fun of it all too, earning his love would have seemed more worthwhile somehow.

          Overall, would I have cast someone else as Maria? Sure. But then, this particular production was viewed by millions of Americans last night. You can’t say the same for other modern adaptations of musical theater pieces. Lincoln Center’s performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel aired on PBS fairly recently and starred amazing singing actors Kelli O’Hara, Nathan Gunn, Stephanie Blythe and others. And I seem to be the only person I know who watched it— and loved it! Seriously, there isn’t too much footage of it online, but if you order the whole show, I will guarantee a more satisfying experience than last night’s muddled one, (Carousel's confusing anti-hero Billy Bigelow aside). Still, it’s no mistake that the network chose a Carrie Underwood and combined it with this ever-popular, multi-generational piece*. Last evening's performance ran on anticipation and controversy as much as it did on the multi-million dollar budget and I for one, have enjoyed the public discussion of the arts it brought about thoroughly. Hopefully, the hype it received can pave the way for more exciting projects like it. The public is abuzz and the networks should take advantage.

* We all know just how popular The Sound of Music is, but to me personally, nothing emphasizes this more than family reaction when I played Maria in a musical review. My grandmother kept the tape of the performance perpetually in her VCR so she could regale visitors with it. Did she ever show them my graduate recital? My performances in La boheme? Nope. Friends and acquaintances were always forced to watch me prancing around in a dirndl with a gaggle of kids singing "Do-Re-Mi".

We, the people of the theatre, call it "The Sound of Mucus"

          When you have an expertise in singing, you find that on days like today, when a remake of the stage version of The Sound of Music goes live for one night on television, people assume you are excited for it. I will not lie. I am excited for it, but maybe not for the reasons that people would think. The fact that the country is anxiously awaiting a musical theater piece, despite its age, is no small thing. Many are even DVR-ing it and having Sound of Music parties, as though it were a suspenseful sporting event. (No you say? Just my friends?) The piece after all is an American classic. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote songs that were so iconic, that Austrians came up to them telling them that they had sung “Edelweiss” as children, 'but in the original German of course'. It's amazing to see people so enthusiastically embrace a live performance of the stage version. What I am less excited about for tonight is the choice of casting.

          I, like many opera singers who started out as musical theater nerds, have a long-held love for The Sound of Music. I am lucky enough to have had a mother who exposed me to many classic American musicals so it was a distinct obsession at an earlier age as well. I can sing every line of course. I still remember being at the Cape with singer friends when we stumbled upon it on cable and stayed up until 2am watching it. And despite the fact that he hated the film, I still have a penchant for men dressed in Austrian garb because of Christopher Plummer’s Captain von Trapp. I was in the The Sound of Music in high school as Sister Margaretta and I still think the opening strains of the abbey music to be some of the most beautiful in all of musical theater. I know that just because I became a singer, I was not the only girl in America who dreamed of singing at the top of her lungs in the Alps someday.

          There are many things I have learned in my years pursuing a stage career though, (not the least of which is that dancing nuns are always hilarious). But one of these granules of knowledge is that it’s usually a mistake to cast a celebrity over an experienced professional in the field. I am not trying to knock Carrie Underwood, of American Idol fame for what she is. She can sing, but she is far from an experienced theatre professional. She is a country singer. She has established herself as a great country singer even, but in my mind, that qualifies her to maybe play Nellie Forbush in South Pacific or someone in Oklahoma. As the classic Austrian character of Maria, full of spunk and insight into the hearts of a struggling family? I’m not buying it… yet. So that decision alone just points to strange casting. Lately I’ve heard people say in her defense that she used to sing musical theatre. So did I, but I certainly would not be comfortable doing a live broadcast of the lead in a three hour musical! The only evidence I can find of her having done live theatre is the "Northeastern State University's Downtown Country show in Tahlequah". Again, not sold that she will live up to her predecessors Mary Martin and Julie Andrews vocally or stylistically, but maybe she will surprise me.

          Unfortunately, Hollywood and other like-minded producers would rather throw in a big name than find someone who actually does live theater for a living, and I think the public is poorer for it. Let’s take the example of my in-laws’ trip to New York a few years ago. They tried to get rush tickets to see A Little Night Music starring Catherine Zeta-Jones on Broadway and were at first disappointed that her understudy was performing instead that night. The box office worker told them; “That’s really for the best. Her understudy is much better.” Catherine Zeta-Jones is a beautiful movie star and all, and she did a bang-up job in the movie Chicago, but the NYTimes ripped her performance of Desiree in A Little Night Music to shreds because she was essentially playing her as Velma in Chicago. She lacked the heart that Desiree should have and her vocal stamina did not impress either.

          We have this American obsession with not only Hollywood celebrities, but also quick rises to fame. There’s no wonder a host of people through the years have asked me if I will ever audition for American Idol or The Voice. There are just so many ways to answer these questions. For one thing, that’s not the kind of singing I’m focused on. I didn’t attend New England Conservatory to sing pop music with a microphone. If I had wanted that, I would have gone to Berklee, which most people assume I went to anyway when they hear I studied music in Boston. (Newsflash: Berklee is a great school for pop and jazz, but not classical music. Newsflash: I sing classical music.) I sing recitals and opera, meaning a specific type of training that does not use a microphone, and therefore takes years of vocal and language study. If the cable networks created a reality show where at the end of a competition, a talented, studied, classical singer had an opportunity to sing in one of the best opera houses in America, then we could talk. In the meantime, the Metropolitan Opera Guild has been holding regional auditions for their annual competition for decades to the same purpose, just without the same size national audience. There certainly is no dearth of talented and dedicated classical singers struggling to make it in the professional world in this economy though, so any networks reading: feel free to create a reality series on the subject.

          But there are also inherent problems with this model of competition, particularly when the judges' panel is often made up of producers or one-hit wonders. Do I enjoy watching American Idol or The Voice on occasion? Sure. But for further discussion on how these shows are contributing to the idea that talent simply springs forth to impress us and doesn’t need work or even basic knowledge of the song lyrics or composer, see what Harry Connick Jr. had to say about the singers when he was on the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QKZ_xp4va0

          I have always loved Harry Connick Jr. but now I love him even more for challenging these singers to be artists creating an emotional experience instead of just vocal fireworks. There’s a reason there was talk shortly thereafter about the network hiring him as a judge for the show. We have this knee jerk reaction to elitism these days, but a connection to text and working knowledge of their genre are what earn Connick and artists with decades-long careers when others are just a flash in the pan. A musicology teacher of mine said that she met Bruce Springsteen and he had a jaw-dropping music library as well as a staggering working knowledge of American folk, bluegrass, and rock traditions. There’s a reason they call him the Boss…

          The show tonight will have some saving graces— the fabulously talented, Juilliard trained, and stage-experienced Audra MacDonald will be playing the role of the Mother Abbess, even if she is arguably a bit young for it. I saw her live in Porgy and Bess in Cambridge before it went to Broadway and it was honestly one of the greatest performances I have seen in the last few years.

          Now all this being said, as my one friend points out, at least Carrie Underwood will be doing all of her own singing, unlike the old Hollywood model. So again, I will give her a fair shot. When I was young, I discovered that Marni Nixon did all the singing voices for movie versions of The King and I, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and An Affair to Remember. And she imitated each actress’s speaking habits surprisingly well. She must have been some sort of troll to not have been put on the silver screen right? Not so. She also played one of the featured nuns in the movie version of, you guessed it, The Sound of Music. Dubbing her angelic voice for musicals was simply something Nixon did, with no credit at the time, while she pursued her opera and concert career, (a fairly successful one I might add). So maybe she lacked “star quality” or a name, but she sure had the know-how. But then, sometimes the only thing separating an experienced, well-versed, non-celebrity from a star is a spotlight. Now that’s the kind of quick rise to fame I could get behind.

Just Another Gym Lemming

          I joined a gym today. This is no small accomplishment, let me tell you. Some of my favorite romanticized images of myself include frolicking in the ocean waves, performing in 19th century costume onstage, and riding on horseback with my hair whipping about. These perhaps ridiculous fantasies very much do not include one of me lined up inside some humid city space with a bunch of other drones sweatin’ to the oldies. I in no way identify myself as the kind of person who feels a need to “hit the gym” after work… and before work? HA! I think they have officially statistically disproven that “early to bed, early to rise” theory, right?

          I told the woman from the gym who responded to my email inquiry that I would be a hard sell. I told her that she could skip the “We have a new deal this fall!” speech. I said quite frankly, that without my company discount, selling me a membership would be virtually impossible. She was going to have to sell me on the facility though. Last winter my sole form of exercise was “mall walking”* on my lunch break and while I still consider it a worthy form of not being a lazy sack, I think I need to step it up a notch, but only in an environment in which I feel comfortable.

          So today, I had a “meet and greet” and tour of the gym with Emilie, whom I am very glad to have prepped with my candid emails, because she met me with no false enthusiasm for working out, which would have really turned me off. Let’s not pretend that the elliptical machine isn’t the human equivalent of a hamster wheel going nowhere people. Let’s call a spade a spade.

          This being said, this gym around the corner from my work resembles a spa-like retreat just enough to keep me from recoiling in disgust. And since it’s for women only, I can avoid that whole symphony of barbell-dropping and hernia-induced grunting reserved for certain circles of hell.

          I definitely need some sort of translator for the class schedule though. With names like Tabata TBX and Rebound Express, I am mystified. Rhythm Ride? Sounds like some kind of masochistic attraction at Disney. Body pump? Not going to touch that one. Body Attack?? Uh, no thank you. This is not even to mention all the different Sanskrit terms in front of the word yoga. This means you can’t know if you like that form of yoga until your legs are stuck wedged behind your head. (And sadly, the answer for me is that I don’t like most forms of yoga.) At this point all I can safely say is that I will avoid most classes that end in an exclamation point. I’m certain those are for sick people. Aside from that, I am willing to try to keep my mind open and give some new things a shot. Emilie had some recommendations for “fun” classes. I told her we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves with that word here.

          I get two complimentary sessions with a personal trainer. That’s cute and all, but I doubt I will follow up beyond that. I will go ahead and guess that said personal trainer will not be terribly complimentary. And don’t you dare come at me with those fat pinchers so you can point at some dangerous red zone on a body mass index chart. Ever notice that what peoples’ trainers say is a healthy weight range seems disproportionate to what their doctors say? Oh, but I’m sure the people selling you shit have a more accurate system…

          When Emilie asked what my personal goals were for joining the gym, this was more nebulous territory. I felt like saying: “I don’t know, I thought I’d try something other than sitting on the couch with my fingers in a jar of Nutella for a change.” ** Instead, I started with the fact that I have a pretty busy schedule with fulltime work and gigs, but that I’d like to trim down, (ahem, honeymoon-in-Napa-weight for which I cannot say I am sorry). I also would like to keep up my health in general. Isn't that kind of the point here? In trying to translate some of the classes for me, she asked if I were interested in achieving a “cut” look. I looked at her and said; “Honestly, no.” First of all, I'm not convinced that my trying to achieve such a look wouldn't be about as realistic as chasing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This delusion of a rock hard body with no flaws is just what sells in this culture currently. More importantly though, I personally like my womanly look, and I’m fairly certain the husband does too. Enhancing my cardiovascular health along with some toning? Sure. But even the good salespeople of the gym can’t convince me that having some kind of 6-pack goes along with my favorite images of myself.

* “Mall walking” may be for eighty year olds in white sneakers, but I’m somehow strangely ok with this image of myself as introspective mysterious stranger over gym lemming.

** It should be about here in our reading that my fitness enthusiast parents are silently wondering where they went wrong.

Falling in love with fall... it doesn't have to suck

          It’s that time of year again: fall, or as I like to call it: “the time for drinking a half bottle of wine and singing along to Joni Mitchell for hours”. It’s true that I do not accept the end of my precious summer season with as much grace as I should. Since I am one of those people who perpetually runs cold, in my mind, fall is the beginning of cold toes and fingers, dry skin, increased allergies, and shorter days; a time for another oppressive New England winter glaring at us over the horizon. And as I have said before, it’s not that fall is the worst season. It’s just that it’s like the track that comes on after your favorite track of the album. The sound of even the intro of the next song, though a perfectly decent song, can be grating because it means your favorite song is over.

          Sure, I try very hard to let myself be seduced by foliage, by all things pumpkin flavored, apple cider donuts, new scarves and sweaters, Oktoberfest parties, and excuses to drink more hot tea, but when it comes down to it, I am not an autumn person. I am convinced that while Thanksgiving is probably the greatest holiday of the calendar year (because it revolves entirely around eating and family), it was probably invented to keep us all from killing ourselves once the remaining leaves have fallen off the trees and it’s dark at 5:30 pm. I alarmed a co-worker the other day when I referred to fall as that “symbolic death just before winter hibernation.” She agreed with me that it’s not her favorite season, but she just hadn’t heard it put quite that way before.

          To add to this, living in Boston in the fall means everyone watches football every weekend. I did not grow up doing this. My family watches tennis and college basketball exclusively. (Let's be real though: I also have never watched a spectator sport of my own volition.) Football games in particular though, are mind-numbing to me, not to mention long-winded. I feel like every time I make a concerted effort to look at the screen during a game, someone is being evaluated for an injury. (If this isn’t a deterrent enough from playing such a game, I don’t know what is.) Even Tom Brady, while nice to look at, just becomes one of the many imperceptible dots running back and forth in seeming anarchy on TV. I must admit that the very sound of a football game in the background automatically makes me want to retreat and slink into another room.

          Football is certainly not the cause of my dread at the return of fall. It only exacerbated a sentiment that always existed. As a kid, I can't say I remember absolutely loving fall, but I did look forward to Halloween and I did like jumping into a pile of leaves. I didn't have the allergies I have now though. After Halloween was over, in the midst of shorter days, I usually consoled myself with the fact that I had my birthday to look forward to in November, and while I still look forward to birthdays, in a few years/decades, that may not still be the case. Yes, I am a disgrace to people born in the fall. I desperately need an attitude adjustment when it comes to this annual season change.

          So, the husband tries to watch every Sunday game possible during this season, but with our busy schedules, that's not terribly many. This year, I have discovered that if I choose not to shut myself in the office/music room and weep while listening to Joni Mitchell during football, (although the ritual can be quite cathartic at least once a year), I can actually be extremely productive during said hours of the week! I can practice, read, cook, or write all while basking in the glow of pumpkin-scented candlelight. And if we go somewhere to watch football with friends, there is usually at least one delicious dip to be had and good company to enjoy. My autumnal mind frame is a work in progress, but the prospect of buffalo chicken dip with friends is comforting.

Another type of Top 5

My immediate family has sort have been “adopted” as extended relations by a group of three wonderful sisters who all used to babysit for me.  Two of the sisters even live next door to each other in a bustling “Compound”, full of kids who are more like siblings than cousins, running back and forth from one yard to the next.  It is sort of a crazy place, also often referred to as “the vortex”, because I spend a few hours there and the next thing I know, I’ve had no less than three meals and several glasses of wine and my “aunt” is trying to throw an old nightgown at me and convince me that I should sleep on the pullout couch, as though I were still 10 years old and still inclined toward sleepovers.  “I’ll make a big brunch before we all head to the festival on the green tomorrow!”  Recently, my mother was leaving the Compound, (a rare and difficult feat), saying how nice it is to be honorary members of their family.  The response: “I’m sorry Jo-Anna, but you’ve been demoted.  You are family.”

These honorary cousins have this great game.  It’s an ongoing thing called “Top 5”.  Everyone is constantly compiling and revising their list of Top 5 things that they hate.  The only rule is that you can’t include anything obvious in your personal list.  For example, you can’t use “mean people” as a top 5, because everyone hates mean people.  Also, vindictiveness is not the point of this game.  Something on a Top 5 list has to have a charming level of obscurity.  The lists have been evolving with revisions for years. 

My own personal Top 5 include:

1. Oranges: see also,the smell/flavor thereof

2. Those plastic straw wrappers that are found on juice boxes (They stick to everything!)

3. Rapid channel-changing

4. The word “chutney”

5. This one seems to be ever-changing for everyone, but for right now, we’ll go with “Sweet jello dishes on savory plates of food”

Here, for your entertainment, a random sampling of some great all-time Top 5’s from the family:

1. Turkeys

2. Men in jean shorts

3. Birds in general

4. De-greasing pizza with napkins (greasiness being part of the inherent essence of pizza)

5. Hot fruit

6. “Murses” (man purses)

7. Weathermen

8. Obligatory group clapping

9. Automatic toilet flushers in public restrooms followed by non-automatic sinks

10. Kites (“What’s the point?”)

Feel free to share your Top 5!

Top 5 Things I learned weddin' plannin'

@ Leah LaRiccia Photography 2013

          You learn a lot of things planning a wedding, not the least of which is that weddings are expensive and stressful. That little sticker detail the bride and groom put on the hotel favor bags? Those stickers alone probably cost 50 bucks, not to mention the time and thought that went into choosing such an incredibly forgettable detail.

          If you are like me, planning something as grand as a 200 plus person wedding is more proof that despite everyone’s impression of you as a “laid-back” personality, you are actually the sort of person who lies awake at night thinking about the grammar of the menu card or whether you should cite poets on the translation page of the cocktail hour opera concert, (yes, that is a thing that happened at our wedding). I also would sometimes lie awake at night in anticipation, wondering how our wedding became a thing so closely resembling a variety show/three-ring circus. When I went looking at wedding venues with my dad and one coordinator showed me some photo albums, I couldn’t help but analyze (aloud) how the one photographer’s photos were too precious, while another’s were too perfunctory. My dad was, needless to say, embarrassed, and had to explain to the woman helping us that I am an “artist”, and therefore very picky. The picky thing— this is true. On more than one occasion, I have said “I wish I didn’t care about thus and so…”, because yes, that would have certainly made my life easier…

          So here I am, several months after saying our “I-do’s” and here are, in no particular order, some things I have learned about the wedding planning process. I am no expert on the whole marriage thing yet, but here are some reflections on the journey that made me a "Sadie, Sadie, married lady". (~my girl Babs in Funny Girl, of course.)

          1. It’s not cool to bore your friends with mundane details about the wedding all the time. With this statement, do not misunderstand me. It's not cool, but I did it anyway. B and I had a particularly long engagement for several reasons and I’m sure this contributed a lot to that special brand of stupidity I will call “wedding brain”. Your mind is on hyper-drive and all: Should we hire a jazz trio? Will the hydrangeas wilt too quickly? Should "Love like this remix" by Crooklyn Clan make the 'must play list'? (The answer to that one is yes.) Often times before social events, I set out specifically to “not-talk” about wedding stuff, only to find that I would end up being asked about it by some unsuspecting acquaintance who had no idea the wedding rabbit-hole we were all about to fall into. If I could do this over, I would have had a stock line, like one of my good friends who would say during her own wedding planning time: “If it’s okay, I’d love to talk about something else.”

          2. In a related vein, have sympathy for brides. That bride is getting a lot of opinions thrown at her and when she may seem super-opinionated at times, it could just be in that way that she is trying to assert what she wants when the whole thing has spiraled far beyond her vision the day. Have I mentioned the three-ring circus thing yet? This also goes for the groom of course. Have patience for his wedding brain too. My own groom frankly deserves a medal for the stress of the two weeks surrounding the wedding alone.

          3. Of all the details to obsess over, a good photographer is actually important. Since photos are one of the few things you get to keep, a good photographer, whose style you like and who makes you feel comfortable, will make the imperfections look beautiful too. When looking back at our wedding photos , they really do tell the story of our day because of the talented Leah LaRiccia and her second shooter, Shawn. Let me first describe the day. It was the record coldest Memorial Day weekend in Connecticut in years. It rained all day, and I mean poured, with the exception of five minutes. When the sun came out briefly during the salad course, one of my bridesmaids grabbed the photographers and B and I went outside for an impromptu shoot in the gorgeous, post-rain early evening light.

@ Leah LaRiccia Photography 2013

          After the wedding day, so many guests saw the outside photos and asked “When did you guys sneak off together?” I had the same reaction when I saw the candid shots Leah had taken of us during cocktail hour. I only realized after the proofs came in that she had surreptitiously captured B and I from the balcony above as we listened to our friend Sam sing “Heimliche Aufforderung” by Richard Strauss.

@ Leah LaRiccia Photography 2013

          This photo is a wonderful portrayal of a moment I remember quite vividly, when B and I drew closer together amidst all the bustle of cocktail hour. It says so much, not just about the beauty of the song and the poetry, but about how moved we were by all of our friends who put in the work to sing so beautifully throughout the entire day. The amazing part about this is that “Heimliche Aufforderung” or "Secret Invitation" is about a couple who sneak off to the garden together during a busy party, which we got to do later. We weren’t asked to promote Leah La Riccia’s work here, but she and Shawn were just our favorite vendors with whom we worked that day.

          4. Take some time on the day of to just look around the room at all the people who are there to celebrate with you. You may not see some of these people again for years. I’ll always be glad I took several moments to take in the way all those special people came together that day of that year. In the same vein, take some time to just look at your spouse. B and I were lucky enough to have the car ride over from the church to the country club, (an unforgettable moment in which he detailed exactly how many beers his friends had plied him with at the hotel bar the night before), but we also had five minutes to ourselves by the dessert table while everyone was on the dance floor, no photographer, no videographer. I’ll always remember that happily.

          5. That whole “my husband” thing will feel strange and wonderful. To me, I guess I didn’t realize it until I used the expression, but it always seemed like “husband” was a term that was earned over several years of marriage, not the instant you say those vows. I still remember the ring exchange, when the priest said to B in an instructional whisper; “Now, take your wife’s hand”. It had happened! It had happened just in that few minute span!

@ Leah LaRiccia Photography 2013

          Our first dance on that rainy day in May was “Come rain or come shine” for a particularly poetic punch line. The year and a half long engagement also served to contribute to my sense of relief more than my sense of sadness at the wedding's ending. In the end, it was all just as magical and beautiful as we had hoped and it had most to do with our friends and family— the work of our wonderful bridal party, the gorgeous musical contributions of our friends, the heart felt readings and speeches, the travel efforts of so many guests, and all our new firsts as a couple. Also, it was a wicked good pahty.

Photos @ Leah LaRiccia Photography 2013

“I sure hate bacon”… said no one ever.

    (April 3, 2013)

          We hosted our first major family holiday this weekend. The fiancé and I had opera rehearsal the day before and after Easter, so somehow I thought hosting 12 people for the day would be easier than driving back and forth to Connecticut. My parents, future in-laws and cousins all went for the idea and in fact, seemed excited. For one thing, my cousins are local and have a one year old who hates being in the car, so they thought forty minutes of screaming preferable to two and a half hours to Connecticut. There was a big part of me that felt the whole thing was sort of silly; like B and I were just playing house and that it was sort of laughable; the formality of such a holiday, not to mention the fact that we are actually adults.

          I had this desire to do something different for an entrée over our usual ham, so I took a note from the Jews and made brisket… only I wrapped it in bacon. I woke up at 8am on a Sunday. If you know me, you know that the only thing that usually wakes me before 11am on a weekend morning is the occasional church singing gig, so to have woken up to prep and slow cook a piece of meat was a feat unto itself. I was moving at a pretty good clip, inspired by the smells of the red wine and bay leaf marinade roasting in the oven. It was only at about 10am that the tearing of the ends of green beans became zombie-like. A friend texted to wish me a happy Easter and I told her: “Wish me luck that I don’t burn myself, burn dinner, or give everyone food poisoning.” Two out of three ain’t bad.

          I should preface this by saying that I had already burned myself the morning before. I have a new and magical curling iron that makes me feel super glamorous and I had been periodically just slightly burning the tip of my forehead which was mostly covered by my hair. Saturday morning, however, while absentmindedly reaching for something mid-curl, I burned my neck something awful. And it probably wouldn’t even be that bad if I didn’t have the kind of neck skin that turns bright red when touched. (I have a special kind of paleness ancient aristocrats would have coveted.) So I was not only in pain, but it was the first real day of a long-awaited spring and I was off to a rehearsal where my fiancé had already been for an hour, with a giant red mark strongly resembling a hickey. But don’t worry, I’m not the kind of classy person who can be discreet about such a thing. If anyone got close to my right side I had to loudly exclaim that that mark on my neck was a burn and NOT A HICKEY. My hair looked fabulous though.

          So Sunday progressed and I managed to not burn the brisket. Everyone contributed something from beautiful flowers to delicious food, (Pysansky eggs, pierogies, kielbasa, and sauerkraut included, what kind of Ukrainians do you think we are?) To the best of my knowledge, no one suffered any food poisoning. I managed to only burn myself once out of the many times I pulled the brisket from the oven, (which would have been fine if my dad hadn’t absentmindedly grabbed my arm for story-telling emphasis more than once.) All in all, it was a good day. The baby, (and her family) recovered from a harrowing scream-fest of a drive across town, we improvised with seating, took a walk, and as with most Easter holidays before it, my five year old cousin and I ate our weight in candy.

          With the exception of not having a meat platter yet, we found that we are more like real adults than we thought.

Dirty Thirty

(April 1st, 2013)

          So I turned the big dirty thirty in November. Was I ready for it? I can’t be sure. The damn thing crept up on me so gradually that I only seem to be able to reflect on it now. I have read that research shows that this birthday can be a much more traumatizing event for men than for women and the reasoning seems fairly logical to me.

          For men in our culture, not unlike for women, it can represent a proverbial notch in their timeline which is supposed to point to their accomplishments— like they should have a good job and should be thinking about settling down. But I think for men, in our increasingly youth-obsessed, commitment-phobic culture, (and if you haven’t noticed it, you haven’t seen a comedy with Vince Vaughn made in the past ten years) it can be seen as an expected end to all their wild times with the drudgery of suburbia soon to follow. And so, even though it is more acceptable to push the settling-down piece of life further back with the generations, the anxiety on the subject seems to increase in the wake of the transition.

          For women of our generation I think it’s a little different. From a completely shallow point of view, I think thirty is a good milestone for a woman’s confidence. I think my mother was at her most beautiful around her third decade, and that thirty looks good on most women. Certainly, I feel more comfortable and confident with my appearance than I ever did in high school. I’m not saying I was some deformed freak then (although close). It’s just that we all seem to have just met our adult selves in our late teens and early twenties and I, like many, am much more accustomed with my looks at this age, accepting of my flaws, and comfortable with my style. So in this way, I feel being a late bloomer has served me well. I’m also very lucky to have descended from a long line of late bloomers. I suspect and hope that this correlates in some way to this longevity gene I seem to have coming at me from both sides. My grandmother’s grandfather in the Ukraine lived to 101, and I had grandparents, and great aunts and uncles on both sides who lived to their late 90’s. Having grown up surrounded by many who considered eighty to be young, thirty is like an embryo still.

          I’d say the big change for me is professional I suppose. I can completely relate to one sentiment of a teacher of mine in junior high. She said she couldn’t wait to turn thirty— that she felt she would finally get the respect she deserved and she would stop being treated like a child and referred to as a “girl”. I can completely relate to this sentiment. Professionally, I feel like I can sing more of the repertoire I want to because I’m not a baby in the singing world any longer. I have felt some of the expected changes to the timbre of my voice in the past few years and more importantly, have the confidence finally to try some different repertoire choices. Having a slightly more varied aria package, for auditions, for example, shows some confidence at age thirty. If I had presented the same set of arias for an audition at twenty-two, it was more likely to show willful ignorance. Ironically, at this age my zest for having an international travelling opera career has greatly diminished— actually it’s pretty much disintegrated.

          There are several reasons behind this. For one, I’m pretty happy with my current life. I live in a great city, surrounded by great friends, have a wonderful fiancé, and I’m not too far from home and family. I work during the day and have a good salary without always having to constantly hustle for the rest of my life to make ends meet. I have gained a lot of entrepreneurial skills as a freelance singer, but at my core, I am not a hustler. I think very few people actually are. So even if all the hard work and sacrifice paid off, which is statistically no guarantee at all, I still don’t want to give up so much of what I already have. I don’t have a desire to sacrifice an active social life to sit in hotel rooms ten months out of the year in various cities performing opera. This is this side of opera they tell you about, but I, like many I suspect, was too blinded by the stars in my eyes to realize the reality of it. It’s not uncommon for me to run into classical singers who re-evaluate career paths as we start to fall out of the “young artist” category. I asked a friend recently if she thought I had become complacent about my singing career because I am getting married. She said: “Nah, you’ve been talking like this for a long time.”

          To a certain extent, I wonder why I didn’t accept that I wouldn’t have a different kind of career earlier— one that didn’t involve a lot of travel for auditions and gigs and where I sang a lot more in local opera and in more oratorio and concert work. Truth be told, if I could make a living singing recitals, I would. Not every Classical singer feels that way. I just love art song that much. But a travelling art song career is even harder to obtain than an opera career, and the latter is usually a prerequisite for the former. In some ways, I just did the thing that everyone who loves opera and singing around me was doing. It isn’t that I couldn’t accept that I didn’t want/couldn’t have a successful travelling career. I realized years ago that in many ways, I am not built for a traveling opera career and it alone is not enough for me, but I was having fun doing it. I still am having fun singing opera. I get to sing some of the world's most beautiful music with wonderful colleagues. I think and hope that for me, age thirty is going to mark a time in my life when I become more creative with my passions. I have dreams of traveling more, (for pleasure, not work), and of being a champion of the arts in my city in ways I didn’t think of before. Perhaps that means finding more writing venues. Maybe it means starting an art song salon. Right now, I’m working fulltime, performing in an opera, and finishing wedding planning. If I can find time to do my taxes in the next 2 weeks, I will be convinced of my ability to do anything.