Blog from a pretty concert hall
9 February 2010, 10:56 pm
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yearsKulas Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music
02/09/10 8:37 AM
I almost feel like I should put my shoes on. My spiffy shiny black $20 Payless heels would polish me right up; I have a niggling little feeling that the vivid aquamarine music note socks under plain grey flat-soled boots aren’t really doing the trick.
Oh dear. My mother’s next to me, seat on my left. Periodically she chuckles quietly to herself. Why? She’s “trying to pick out the gay ones.” Oh sweet dear Jesus God.
I’m not as nervous as I was for Syracuse, I’ve found. The quaking trembles I’d endured pre-arrival at SU aren’t poking at me here. But I am rigid. I can feel that much. Lack of hydration, lack of solid breakfast, and just the appropriate dash of nerves churn with the presence of propriety. my stomach’s sour from wrongfully mingling with all this gleaming high society. These are the serious kids. I can pretend I’m supposed to be here, and deep down I know that the education is right. I’d love the fine sheen of purpose that money and experience gives these prospective students.
I could act it. I’m a fine enough actress.
But my deepy-seated country roots are urging me, don’t. Stay you. For Gowanda.
Emma never auditioned here. She settled, after considering Ithaca. She settled for Fredonia, because it was what she wanted.
But if I settle, I want to settle because I’ve seen, experienced, felt the higher-up, the top notch, and chosen another route.
I don’t want to go to school here if it means no one’s friendly, or down to earth. Granted my mind with travel off in a tizzy over a beautiful French selection. I’ll drool over La Boheme, and swoon at the thought of learning from some of the best.
But I need to stay true to my home. I didn’t realize that was so crucial to me until I got here, and they weren’t even as marginally cheerful as they’d been at Syracuse. Forget that Sam the Accompanist said that I should be aiming higher. I’d rather be somewhere I’ll be happy than somewhere I’ll waste my best years learning, miserably.
So forget it. My boots are warm, fairly ugly and salt-stained. My socks are bright and wild.
They’re staying on, and so’s my personality. I’d like to be accepted here, maybe to entice a bidding war (as Karen would say, and also let me add a “yeah, right,” but I can hope). But if I’m not, I won’t cry. I felt immediately at ease at Syracuse. Everyone was pleasant from the get-go.
And maybe it’s my mood of the moment, but right now I’d rather make music with a bunch of incompetents than with a bunch of expensive stiffs.
For Aida and Amneris
29 January 2009, 7:54 pm
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zoserI was just listening to “Written in the Stars,” from “AIDA.”
I got chills and felt like crying. The music. The characters. The loss of the part I thought I was perfect for, the discovery of my true talents, plus actually performing the show. All of these made it a life-changing experience for me.
It’s funny that it all hits me now, months and months afterward.
I originally received a copy of the Broadway cast recording in February 2008. I was just recovering from my first “real” breakup from a “serious” relationship, and the music helped me regain some sense of power, control, individuality and self-possession. It also allowed me to regain my dignity.
Later that year, I “hung out” with the same guy, and when he acted like a dickhead, I put up with it, then went home and listened to Heather Headley pour Aida’s soul into my ears, and into my heart. The character is so powerful– a strong woman, a queen. Very headstrong and opinionated, but she fell in love. As star-crossed as they were, they found happiness together.
It really sucks being a headstrong, opinionated, hopeless romantic. Despite the bullshit I had waded thigh-high into in my actual life, I could listen to “Elaborate Lives” and feel Radames’ and Aida’s love wash over me. Sometimes those songs made me think that my own relationships could be so sweet. Ha, at that point in time, I was really, really naive. But that’s not the point.
When auditions rolled around, I was dead-set on getting Aida. I felt like I KNEW her, I wanted to be her. I knew I could convey the passion I felt for her situation on stage. In my mind I saw Observer headlines, envisioned Heather Headley and Elton John sojourning to Gowanda. I vividly pictured a stage decked out in Egyptian finery, with myself in the center, belting out the injustice of slavery and the guilt I felt for endangering my people.
One of my best friends got the part.
I was shunted (in my mind) to the role of Amneris, the Egyptian princess head-over-heels for fashion and for her fiance Radames. Amneris is really shunted in the musical– Radames would rather be with Aida. Amneris undergoes a one-eighty degree turnaround from light-hearted and air-headed diva to heartbroken, powerful ruler.
I fell in love with Amneris’ character, too. It was unexpected, and it was a smaller role. But I had a million and one costume changes, some phenomenal singing and acting coaching…
And when I sang, when I stood in the middle of the stage with tears wet on my face and sang about love and loss, worthlessness, waste and a shattered heart, I felt Amneris. Her story became a part of me, as much as my eyes or my fingernails. It’s generally observed that Aida was the strong one. And she was strong.
But Amneris was strong, too. Immeasurably so. She withstood her pain, overcame it, survived. And made her life a success. Maybe she knew love later, maybe she never did. But she made her country a better place and she held a life lesson in her heart for the rest of her life.
“Aida,” and the life lessons that accompanied the show (from February to November to now) will stay with me for the rest of my life. When I’m eighteen or eighty with my own lover or sixteen cats, I will remember “Aida” as the most moving show I have ever performed in high school; I will remember it for its powerful and inspirational leads. I will remember it because Aida and Amneris represent both sides of love, and of life. And since I intend to love, and live, they represent me.
Kick Drum Heart 