On February 15, 2004, a man whom I refer to only as “The Mentor” (who a few months earlier had gotten me to sing for the first time in over 20 years, telling me I had a gift that I could not run away from) sang Samson to my Dalila in the aria/duet "Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a ta Voix" at a church service on Valentine’s Day, ending with his spinning me around in his arms, bending me over backwards, staring into my eyes like Svengali, and changing me forever. Since then it has been a long and painful journey, but I would never want to go back.

Not shortly thereafter, I sank into despondency that the feelings The Mentor had stirred up in me were misplaced; he was gay. (Although I thought to myself if I, who had never been attracted to anyone male, could be attracted to him, couldn’t the reverse also be true, that he, who had never been attracted to anyone female, might be attracted to me? He certainly behaved as if he was.)

But there was worse to come. Because I could sing an aria in a pretty dress and garner a few “bravas”, I assumed that I could readily gain a toehold in the universe of amateur opera.  I wasn’t expecting a big career.  It was too late for that.  I was 54.  But I did think I could sort of pick up where I had left off in 1980; singing a leading role occasionally with an opera company that did not pay people.  I had done that then, when my voice was much smaller and my stamina minimal. Returning to singing in my 50s, now 30 years away from my last alcoholic drink and almost as far away from my last cigarette, my voice was bigger, more beautiful, and more easily managed than it had been in my 20s. When I was in my 20s, many of the people singing leading roles in those amateur companies had been as old as I was now and many had had a variety of vocal flaws.  Most did not have a music degree, had minimal sight reading skills, and occasionally mispronounced the odd foreign word. They stuck to the standard repertoire and had mostly learned roles from coaches. So the path forward seemed clear.

Sadly, I couldn’t have been more wrong. To my bitter disappointment, I found that no matter how well I sang, I simply had no place in the twenty-first century “world” of singing, particularly in New York, where I lived not because I sang, but because the maternal half of my family had been here for three generations.  The opera companies I had sung with (now defunct) had become the punchlines of jokes.  Now you were nobody if you hadn’t been a vocal performance major (or at least a music major of some kind), preferably at a “name” college or conservatory.  Everybody knew everybody and behaved in that “clubby with each other and dismissive of outsiders” way that people do who bond over shared experiences in a rarefied environment.

Over the course of 7 or 8 years, I applied to sing at (and was rejected by) every non-paying opera company in Manhattan and some beyond.  One outfit called me up and screamed at me for “wasting their time” sending them a resume.  What on earth would have made me think they would have been interested in me? Another outfit complimented me on my singing but told me tactfully that they could not use me; I was not a “future investment”. (I was 58; 10 years later I sing 20 or 30 times better.) Everyone who came to those auditions knew each other.  Most of the people auditioning were in their 20s and 30s.  The oldest people were in their 40s and these had had years of experience on these audition rounds. In all honesty, most of these people were not going to have major careers. Most would sing the occasional paid gig, a number of unpaid gigs, maybe teach a little, and have a day job. But there was nobody there like me.  And no, I wasn’t going to sing in the chorus (or what a singing blogger calls a “che avvenne”* role) for free.  Time was running out.

I went to my last audition about 5 years ago, for a woman who has people sing through an opera from a score in her living room for a fee.  Surely (I thought) that would be just about my speed. But no. She decided to give the opportunity to a woman who was going to sing that role in a real performance. I learned then, unequivocally, that even the humblest of venues are really just test drives or rehearsals for the pros. Not for amateurs. Not for me.

Somewhere along the way someone suggested “Meeups”.  So I joined two, thinking, again, that a get-together for people to sing arias for an entry fee of $25 to pay for an accompanist would not exactly be catering to the stars of tomorrow.  I thought it might be a place to get my feet wet. Um, no. These meetups were places for “emergings” (an industry name for singers in their 20s and 30s who hope to have a career) and the odd 40something wanting to test new repertoire to practice for auditions. So the older people extended mentorly advice to the younger people and the younger people were all over the older people with questions and I just, well, hung out on the periphery.  Occasionally someone said I sounded nice, but the one time there was a sort of agent there (he was the husband of one of the other singers) he walked out of the room when I was singing, presumably for a bathroom break.

If I felt isolated and without a role (no pun intended) at auditions and meetups, I felt even worse once I stumbled upon online forums.  I had (again stupidly) thought that the kind of people who had the time and lack of confidence to frequent these places would be people like me: amateurs who were obsessed. Wrong. These forums were mostly ruled by disgruntled semi-professional singers (or professionals who didn’t think they were getting the gigs they deserved) and a handful of voice teachers. Snark ruled. If someone asked a “stupid” question s/he was laughed at. I was mostly ignored. I felt like I was back in junior high school, with the popular girls talking around me and giving me looks (yes, talking “around” someone in a thread in an online forum is giving someone a “look”) or telling me if not directly then by implication that I was too big for my britches. 

The low point came when I sang in a bookstore for free.  The (very low budget) publisher, who had posted an initial invitation on this forum, hadn’t intended to pay anyone, which was hardly surprising as this gig involved singing for less than 10 minutes as a publicity stunt. I jumped at the chance, had a ball, and got a free video out of it. No, it wasn’t the most professional of videos; if I had had a “screen test” for example, I would have worn a different top and remembered to put makeup on my arms (I was singing the “Habanera” from Carmen), but at that point I didn’t have any videos so I was thrilled to have this one. (To date, it has 12 “likes” and 4 “dislikes” on Youtube.  Which is fine.  I would rather have a video with “dislikes” than none at all.  I would rather have sung this gig, despite all the vitriol, than have spent another afternoon singing in front of my mirror.)

Quite shockingly, my singing this bookstore gig for free, which I had enjoyed more than I had enjoyed anything in a long time, and the video, triggered weeks and months of online snark (including a damning with faint praise magazine article) against people who ask singers to sing for free (from the same singers who take all the non-paying opportunities away from amateurs because they want to use them as rehearsals), against amateurs who have the hubris to call themselves “opera singers” (actually it was the publisher who called me that, not me), and by implication against every slightly unpolished performer who enjoys the opportunity of getting up and singing “well enough” to make an audience and themselves happy. So basically, the message I got from this whole thing was “How dare you be happy – you’re nobody;”  an example being that when I used the word “fun” to defend my experience, someone snapped back with obvious contempt “Fun is for amateurs!”

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That was in 2013.  I sing much better now.  One day in 2015 or thereabouts (possibly because I began keeping my sinuses cleared out) I noticed that singing seemed so much easier than it had been. Not long after, sometime around my 65^th birthday, I found that I had magically added two or three notes to my upper register.

So even though no opera company wants me, I will not give up.  I will not give up studying, I will not give up singing as a soloist in front of audiences where I can find them, and I will not give up singing the “big girl” operatic music that my voice loves, even if now I alternate it with art songs and Broadway show tunes.  I believe that God wants me to sing, otherwise S/he would not have introduced me to The Mentor. I would not have found my voice in a church.

And there are tiny moments of optimism. I have mastered vocal skills that I never had before. Despite my body aging, I have more stamina to sing than I ever did. And more importantly, I have found places “on the periphery” where I can sing. I can sing in a church (as the daughter of two atheists, this is rather ironic). I am currently an unpaid choir member and soloist at a Lutheran church where I have made a lot of friends. And I can sing in nursing homes and senior centers. My voice teacher and I have put together a program of arias, songs, and duets, which is ever evolving.  I have contacts at several of these places and I look for new ones all the time. I now have a mission and a brand. A room full of seniors, even on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which is thick with music lovers, would be hard put to tell the difference between me and the women I used to meet at auditions.  They don’t care whether I do or don’t have a vocal performance degree.

And most importantly, I now have a long-range plan, something that will be manageable and give my life joy and meaning. One day when my angel** gets her wings, I am going to work with seniors, singing with them at their bedsides, the way I now sometimes sing to my angel.

And I remind myself every day that a life of bringing music and love to people who are lonely and in need, a life of service through music, will never be a life on the periphery.

[*”Che avvenne” means “what happened” in Italian.  A “che avvenne” role is a sarcastic nickname for a comprimaria role that only consists of a few sung lines, usually in response to a lead singer’s aria.]

[**When I speak of “my angel” I am referring to Betty, whom I have written about in previous Idol entries.]

[Videos available on request.]