Songbird

However tempting it might be to write a blog about 'Songbird', the less well known, and underrated, Oasis single from 2002, I'm not sure I am quite ready to go so far off track. In fact 'Songbird' refers to a recurring theme in this, my 14th week in Stuttgart.

Still here

In a week that only featured two performances and no official coaching sessions at all, I was glad for an informative audition, on Friday morning, and a weekend of masterclasses. I was also delighted to have my parents here, to be able to show them a bit of Stuttgart and my life in Germany and be able to spend some time with non-opera folk.

I guess the nature of moving to a new country to work is that one tends to immerse yourself in your work and also to socialise almost exclusively with colleagues. Many of my good friends in the UK are also singers or other sorts of musicians, so I am used to socialising with Music folk. The difference is that in the UK I also have non-music friends and non-opera friends. With absolutely no slight on my friends here, I really appreciated talking about life outside of Stuttgart and Opera with my parents. 

God has ---- in your throat

The audition last Friday morning, not long after I published last weeks masterpiece (!?), was to Georg Fritzsch, the conductor of our production of Ariadne auf Naxos. Due in part to the fact that I only sing NINE words in Ariadne, I was aware that Georg didn't really know my voice before hand. Also listening was Bettina Giese, the head of the Opera Studio here. 

As ever, there were positives and negatives. The never ending journey of trying to be the best I can continues and so inevitably there are aspects of the audition that I am frustrated by. It annoys me that I never sing my best in these situations and it upsets me that my breathing apparatus seems to disappear almost immediately as soon as I walk in the room. My breathing/support in auditions has improved over time but on Friday it wasn't where it is normally in non-audition situations. It is almost as if the work I do in a practise room on such things is irrelevant. Of course, it isn't irrelevant, it can just feel like that.

To Georg I sang a long Mozart aria from Die Entfuhrung, this is an aria I have auditioned with about 20 times, a stunning Gluck aria called 'unis des la plus tendre' which I have never auditioned with, and the Duke's first aria from Rigoletto. I won't turn you all off with the minute details of the performance, it already bores me in my head most of the time. What made this a great audition, though, was the time immediately after I sang. Georg took the time and care to work with me, briefly, on one of two specifics and then he invited me to have a chat.

The chat I had with Herr Fritzsch was extremely useful. In the same way as in January when Bettina Giese rang me to discuss my Opera Studio audition, I was extremely grateful for his honest feedback and to have the chance to discuss things with him. 

He was pretty brutal about my Mozart, it being an aria in German that has only three sentences that repeat for 6 minutes, Georg felt I was lacking in German nuance. He suggested I sang Tamino's aria, from Magic Flute, instead at future auditions as I am 'a great Tamino'. He was very complementary about the singing of the Gluck, though wanted me to fight for the character more and to enjoy the beauty of the music. The Rigoletto aria he felt was very interesting, a future role for me but not to audition with it yet and that it didn't sound grounded enough (that wretched support failing me!)

After rushing through the assessment of each aria he then spoke to me quite seriously. He said it all sounded too easy, as if I could always do it and have never had to fight for it. It didn't feel like that as the singer and for me, someone who had spent 4 long months in 2013 with almost no voice, who has spent the last year working hard to rebuild my voice and confidence as well as trying to make ends meet, it was a funny thing to hear. It almost made me laugh, and I explained why to Georg. Happily he said that he could hear nothing that might remind a listener of my past vocal problems. He said that I needn't worry about the voice anymore, those things are in the past and now I can engage and invest more in the performance. Useful feedback.

One odd thing he said to me was that 'God has shit in your throat' (excuse the language). An odd expression that I initially thought was an insult but is actually a German expression used as a compliment, suggesting that someone has a very beautiful voice. I now know that for the future....

Masterclass

I was very happy to follow up this informative audition experience with, on saturday and sunday, a Masterclass with Jane Thorner, who we had worked with back in September. 

Having previously worked with Jane, I felt at ease immediately and able to ask for help in specific areas. In particular I asked to work on trying to irradicate the negative affect auditions have on my support and therefore voice. The work we did was very useful, Jane is very positive and had really noticed an improvement in the 10 weeks since our last sessions. She is quite a good people reader and I feel like I was definitely singing better at the end of our sessions compared to the beginning.

One simple thing Jane did with me was to get me to perform each aria as a lively childrens story, to read the text in different ways and then to maintain the energy into the singing of it. I sometimes find that when I sing an aria, when I am wanting to impress people, to show how good I am and trying to convince people to give me the gig, I actually stop expressing. It can become unattractive to be told to like something, whereas when one relaxes, frees up and communicates positively everything is easy and more attractive to the listener. Obviously you need to have the voice there to be able to sing this music, that is a given, but as soon as the decisions you are making are positive ones the voice follows suite. This is what Jane suggested, and it worked for me then, and has done all week. 

I found this particularly difficult when I was singing an aria from Lucia di Lammermoor, when Edgardo has lost Lucia and is feeling sorry for himself. The part of my brain that was telling me to stay to true to the sad and angry aspect of the story telling was in fact acting as a block to the expression. As apposed to being like Eeyore in such situations, what everyone really wants to listen to, really is effected by emotionally and physically, is a songbird. A voice full of sparkle and life, positive in its expression, whether that be positively sad, positively angry, positively joyful, positively questioning. Positive decision making. 

Such a small change and realisation, or re-realisation, will have hugely positive results on my future auditions and performances I think. I am sure I have been told to do it in the past, in someway, but, partly because I had quite a long time one to one with Jane, this time I really feel it has made a mark. Maybe I just need to quote the Joker from Batman: The Dark Knight before each performance: 'Why So Serious?'

We'll see if that works....

Busy busy Stuttgart

As with previous weeks, Stuttgart is very busy with the Christmas market. If anything, it is much busier than before, I don't know where all these people have come from and I am looking forward to January when Stuttgart returns to feeling like a small, friendly city again. 

The cold weather, and prospect of it being such for a few months to come, persuaded me to buy a few new sporting clothes. As I have mentioned before, I am a bit of a sporting garment geek, specifically football boots, so I enjoyed exploring the winter running gear options. I ended up with some quite revealing Adidas ClimaHeat running tights and an Adidas hoodie, with those thumb holes in the sleeve. And oddly enough I have been on three runs already in the gear, and feeling much better for it. The health drive continues....

This coming week I have a few more performances of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, two concerts of Bach in the middle of Stuttgart and plenty of time to continue learning music for January's productions and concerts. Then it'll almost be Christmas, I can't wait.

#Carols4Cancer

With Christmas in mind, and in particular carol singing, I am keen to share with you the Tenor, David Webb's. charitable initiative #Carols4Cancer. https://www.justgiving.com/carols4cancer/ If you search YouTube or Twitter you will find videos, mostly of David, singing a different carol each day leading up to Christmas and in turn trying to raise money for Cancer research.

David is a young British Tenor who I have met a few times in London. He was a couple of years ahead of me in the London music college scene and this year has been performing with, among others, Glyndebourne Festival and Touring Opera. This fun and thoughtful charitable initiative is a great idea and maybe some of you will post videos and/or consider donating to the cause.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a lovely week.

Tom 

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