All the news that is news.

For all the virtual whining and general angst that I wrote concerning my career in this blog over the past years, you would think that now that things are going well, I should at least inform those 2 people who read this blog but don’t have daily contact with me of the news of late… (Yes, I mean you Dennis. I am excited about the package you sent and, because of the instructions, I can only guess it has something to do with our hero…)

Well, here’s “since Christmas” in a nutshell. My agents (I have 4) managed to send me out on about 8 auditions at different opera houses throughout the country in January, February and March.

The first audition was all the way across the country, a plane, train and bus ride away. I remember walking out on stage and being so nervous that I couldn’t think of anything except two words, repeating in a quick loop in my head: “I’m nervous.” I was so nervous that I could practically hear my knees knocking, and I could not, for the life of me, remember what words came next. Thank goodness I had practiced my rep like a madman, so my body took over and preformed rote.

But, things got better with experience, and with therapy and some Homeopathy, I was able to get a hold of myself and sing well by the last few. I did a lot of singing, a lot of traveling. I sang for great big houses and tine, little ones. The big houses all had the same response: 1. Great material, 2. He’s too young to sing Heldentenor repertoire, and 3. He is too inexperienced. One of the big houses (actually my favorite by far) was very interested in me, and asked my agent to inform them of all of my upcoming engagements, as they want to follow my career. That’s cool. At the time, I was thinking ‘Good feedback, but what I really need is a job.’ Silly boy.

One of the last auditions that I went on was for a very small house in the former DDR, in Nordhausen. It was a cute little place, with a sweet, albeit very small, theatre. The people were very friendly at the audition, and I had a nice conversation with the people in my audition. To make a long story short, I ended up getting that job. It is a Festcontract (a salaried position) for 2 years. The thinking is, if I am to be taken seriously by the bigger houses, which are doing the rep that I really would love to do, then I must first address two of the points of criticism that they consistently gave. With this job, I will get a lot of experience, and 2 years will pass before I am available again, making my age less of a factor, hopefully.

I am a religious man, and I, during this entire process, opened myself up to God’s influence upon my life. I was working under the principle that, since I did not know where I should be and how it would work out, that I would just do my best, accept all auditions, and make my job a simple one: to sing well. I believe that the outcome is what is best for me right now. I have much to learn in Nordhausen, obviously, and especially because of the circumstances leading up to this jobs materialization, will be very open to these lessons.

The rep for the first year is set. It was a bit of an issue at first, as the rep is not exactly perfectly suited for my voice. But, the experts at hand are telling me that this rep will help me to keep my voice very lyric and less “shouty”--a tendency of many Heldentenors (see “The Bayreuth Bark”.) The first year, I will sing the roles of Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni—Mozart), Baron Kronthal (Wildschütz—Lortzing), Jack (Mein Freund Bunbury—Wildhorn) and Tamino (Zauberflöte—Mozart). The Bunbury thing is actually a DDR musical based on “The Importance of Being Earnest”, so that’s cool. Should be fun. Maybe I’ll have to dance, so I’ll enjoy that.

How things come full circle. My understanding of the circumstances has really progressed. It took me a while to realize that I had finally accomplished what I had set out to do 18 years ago when I first studied voice at university. Yes, in reality, I had already been a successful singer in that I had spent much of my life now being able to support myself through music, either teaching or singing. But the coveted Festcontract is practically something of lore in the singing world; every young singer wants one, and it is practically seen as obligatory for anyone starting out in order to be taken seriously. That is the way, I have come to realize, that I thought of it, either having been programmed to do so or having hyped it enough in my mind. But, there was something that came over me when it began to sink in that I had finally “made it” by my own standards. In some ways, being married to Chris, living abroad, having money, and now a career, I have achieved in my life what I have set out to achieve and that gives me a very deep satisfaction.

Now the current reality of learning my first role, and the one perhaps least appropriate for my voice, is upon me. It has been pretty hard going, as singing this light Mozart with my actual voice goes against every musical instinct within me. But, I have to use what I have been given. I can’t just wake up and change the instrument I use in order to suit the music the way a flutist would change flutes or an organist would change registration. Somehow, I will have to make this role mine. The head of the opera house knows he was getting a young Heldentenor. I just hope that he realizes what that will sound like singing Mozart. ☺

Windows

I love this time of year in Germany. The weather is starting to warm up enough that people are beginning to leave their windows open for much of the day. In my Berlin neighborhood, where many of the houses date back to the earlier part of the century, the houses are all made of stone, with walls a couple of feet thick. Old apartments like ours (built in 1911) have double windows, both open up into the apartment like French doors, and there is about 5 inches between the first and the second window. This means that, although the construction is quite old, it is not as inefficient to heat as one may think. It also means that you hear almost nothing from the outside. But now, the illusion that we are isolated from other people, even though we live in a big city, has been completely debunked. As we leave the apartment and walk through the courtyard, you can hear other people’s conversations, occasional laughter, or even, if we’re lucky, lovers’ quarrels. Sometimes I have to giggle to myself as I walk into the previously-silent Hof, now hearing occasional, enormous farts from where I know a little old lady lives or a guttural belch from little-miss-prim-and-proper’s apartment. I makes me fantasize about meeting these people near the trash bins as we empty our refuse, making polite conversation together, me gently, unobtrusively inserting comments like “So, did you learn to cuss like that in the service?” or “I hope those gastro-intestinal problems have begun to clear up.” Suddenly the once private has been horribly exposed. Surely by the end of the Summer, I will have seen just about everyone in the building naked at one time or another, or at bare minimum in some kind of unflattering light, perhaps the Herr-Doktor-so-and-so picking his nose or some obese woman undulating to an aerobics DVD.

Speaking of the obese, I have been jogging which makes my time outside, within earshot of said events more frequent. I actually find it a bit odd that it has taken the Germans this long to leave their windows open as we have had temperatures in the 70s for some time. Today was 72 degrees Fahrenheit, and I saw a neighbor out on a walk, pushing her newborn in a baby buggy. She seemed surprised that I had been jogging. “In this heat?” she said. This is heat? Wow, I barely broke a sweat and she seemed to think I should be worried about over-exposure. How could such a sensitive race have practically taken over the continent not that long ago? I still find it hard to believe sometimes. They seem so gentile and refined nowadays…so genuinely nice most of the time.