Author: Alexandria Strother

It is a little obscene how much I love performing. The thrill of the applause, the fear of missing an entrance and the chance to share a little bit of truth hidden behind a plot of twists and turns that demands a dutiful suspension of disbelief is addicting. Something about it consistently causes me to agree to one too many things just so I can have 1 more minute under those hot stage lights.

Two weekends ago I gave my senior recital. Wednesday I performed in the Chamber Choir Concert. Thursday I performed in the Green Opera Performances and tonight I will perform in those Green Operas again (8 pm Stamps Auditorium in the Walgreen Drama Center if anyone is interested). While being in all of these shows is amazing and I have never regretted taking all of this on, it gets tiring. Beyond the physical exhaustion of all the rehearsals and performances augmented by late nights to finish homework, the act of performing is emotionally and mentally exhausting.

After the run of a show ends I typically send out apologies to everyone who came to it. Not for my performance or the way that the set looked or for any other reason you are probably thinking of, but because after a show when I walk out of the green room to talk to my friends and family I am out of it. After having spent 2 hours being someone else, I am not able to so quickly transition back into Alexandria – which always feels awkward. Here are people congratulating me, supporting me, and often paying money to see me perform, and all I want to do is go to bed!

Yet, this exhaustion is part of the experience of performing. I know that if I am not mentally, emotionally and physically drained by the end of the performance I was not “in it”. If I am perky and immediately transition back to Alexandria after the final curtain I know it was Alexandria up on stage – not Brooke, not Phyllis, not Grace, certainly not anyone that the audience had paid to come and see. This exhaustion is cathartic and means that on stage I was not thinking but that I was living life through the eyes of another. This is the beauty of performing, because once it stops being a “performance” it is not longer contrived but a theatrical presentation of truth.

Sunday I will present my Senior Recital and I’m scared.

I have never been one to get nervous before a performance: shaking and breathing heavily as I struggle to get the nerve to walk out on stage. Or to panic the night before, jumping out of bed to check my score unsure of whether it was an eighth or a quarter note rest.

No, I have never had these concerns. Of course I’ve gotten the usual butterflies but I have always refused to acknowledge them as nerves. No, I never get nervous – only anticipatory.

Yesterday, nerves and that little voice in your head that says “I can’t” got the better of me and I struggled to get my head in “the right place”. I wasn’t able to function as a person, let alone as a singer, and for the first time in a long time I was scared: scared of the future, of jaw tension, and tuning, scared that I would forget the words to pieces memorized weeks and months before, and scared that I wouldn’t be enough. Enough of a singer, enough of a performer – simply that I wouldn’t be good enough to met the expectations of family that has financed my education, friends who have heard incessant chatter about Anna Netrebko for the past four years and my own lofty expectations.

For me, the difference between this recital and every other performance that I’ve done is simple and boils down to two main points: the sheer quantity of music and the fact that on Sunday it will be just me on stage. On Sunday there will be no costumes or sets to hide behind, no co-star to steal the lime light and no blocking to distract from the fact that it is Alexandria up on stage – not Phyllis or Brooke or Servillia. This vulnerability is what frightens me. If the audience doesn’t approve, there is no character or director to blame – just me.

I know that things will be fine on Sunday – better than fine. I am well prepared and love the music which I am presenting. Now all that remains is to turn the lingering butterflies into anticipation for what is sure to be an amazing day.

At this moment, I am sitting in a nearly empty Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Banished to the back row by my computer’s required proximity to an outlet, I have the perfect vantage point to observe those actively participating in tonight’s Giulio Cesere rehearsal and those passively waiting their turn.

On stage: Sarah Coit in the title role of Giulio Cesere, Glenn Healy as Curio, Janel Speelman as Sesto, Rehanna Thelwell as Cornelia and Luke Randall as Achilla. Here presents one unique aspect of opera that people who are unfamiliar with the art form are often confused by: why are women running around pretending to be men?

Roles in which women take on a male gender identity are commonly referred to as pants roles. Historically, there are two types of pants roles: those that were written for castrati and those that were written specifically for women who could better impersonate the vocal and physical qualities of a young boy.

In Handel’s Giulio Cesere the title role, Sesto and Tolomeo were all originally written for castrati. Since castration occurred before puberty the boy’s larynx was prevented from being transformed by the physiological events of puberty resulting in the high voice of a young boy being maintained into adulthood. In the late 18th century castration for the purpose of creating a specific voice type fell out of fashion and in 1870 Italy made the practice illegal.

Without castrati to sing the roles, mezzo-sopranos began to fill the void so that great works by Mozart, Handel and countless of other composers could still be performed.
It is with small changes like these, where the integrity of the music is not affected, that opera maintains its relevance and interest to the modern viewer.

Another example of such a change is the update which Director Robert Swedberg has presented with this work. In this production, the chorus is attending a museum gallery opening and the action of the principle characters takes place as the statues and paintings come to life.

As I sit in the back of the theater, I can see the computer screens of the chorus members as they check facebook, the screen of the lighting designer modifying, changing and fixing, and the director taking notes for the performers. This melding of the old and the new is what makes opera exciting for me – that what Handel wrote hundreds of years ago can still be relevant to teenagers on their iPhones.

For those interested Giulio Cesere will be performed at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre March 26 – 29. Tickets are $10 for students but free with a Passport to the Arts.

Today it was finally spring and after a long winter, the sun finally peaked out from behind the clouds. With open jackets and scarves stuffed into pockets, people lingered in the diag rather than rushing between heated buildings.

As I lingered, my mind wandered. These past few months have been hard – crutches in winter is never ideal – and the sunlight began to melt away the cabin fever which had encroached on my normally positive outlook.

My wandering mind began to focus on what I want and what I wish for. Since December, all I’ve wanted is to be able to walk: to regain the freedom which crutches stole from me and become Alexandria again – not the gimpy girl on crutches. Now that I can walk again all I want is to dance.

I began studying ballet when I was four years old. Maybe it was all the attention I got because I was slightly better than the rest of the girls, or maybe at age 4 I somehow realized a fraction of the power that the arts can have on the world – but whatever the reason I fell in love with ballet.

For 14 years ballet defined me. My ballet friends became my second family and I spent every waking moment at school or the studio. Yet the advantage which I had at age 4 had faded and by 18 I was a good, solid dancer but nothing exceptional. My quadruple pirouettes were inconsistent. My extension to the side never quite made it to my ear and because of this I would never be a Prima Ballerina with a professional company.

Giving up dance was one of the hardest decisions which I have ever made. While ballet defined me for years, endings are inevitable. Yet now, 2 years after giving up ballet and 2 months after crutches infected my life all I want is to dance: to feel the freedom and release of an arabesque turn or the power of a jeté. I have a few more months until that will be possible but I am looking forward to day.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors which contribute to high levels of success. Gladwell repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule” claiming that the key to success within any field is simply a matter of practicing that specific task for a total of 10,000 hours.

As a quantitative thinker, I like the idea of a certain number of hours of work holding the key to success better than the qualitative idea of working hard and when you are ready, you’ll be ready. So naturally, I began to think about singing and performing in terms of 10,000 hours.

As a singer, you are not simply being judged based on the quality of your voice. Your diction, musicality and technique are constantly being evaluated. Beyond singing, your acting and dancing ability, as well as physical appearance are subject to harsh criticism.

So as I pursue a career as a performer, all of these requirements weigh heavily on my mind. Do I need 10,000 hours of practice in each subfield required of me as a performer or 10,000 hours total? 10,000 hours of Italian, French & German diction, 10,000 hours of vocal technique practice, on top of 10,000 hours of acting and dance training begins to feel overwhelming and near impossible. So which subfields require mastery and which can be strategically faked?

Mastery of vocal technique in an operatic setting cannot be faked or negotiated. While the rest of the subfields can sometimes be successfully fudged (just listen to some of the horrendous diction of operatic superstars) vocal prowess is a non-negotiable requirement. As for acting and dancing, we have all been subjected to the “park and bark” tendencies of opera singers.

As a performer, I will always strive for perfection – knowing full well that this is impossible. Having accumulated 60,000 hours of total practice in the various dictions, technique, acting and dancing by this point in my life would have been impossible. Yet, while I am not a master in any one of those fields I’ll keep attempting to be the total package and one day, I’ll hit 60,000 hours.

Technically, Professor Martha Sheil is just my voice teacher. Technically, her job is simply to teach me how to turn notes on the page into music that one day (hopefully) will earn me a paycheck. Yet, over the past four years Martha has served as cheerleader, makeshift therapist, and second mom – all while teaching me how to sing and constantly reminding me why I do.

Last year, Martha announced that in May 2015 she would retire. For a studio with a cult like reverence for their teacher, this news was devastating.

Last semester I strategically avoided thinking about her impending retirement or that in a few short months I would have to begin the search for a new voice teacher but Saturday night the department, the studio and I had face that the end was near, and that her departure was a few voice lessons away.

Saturday night was her final recital as a professor, entitled Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Besides demonstrating her technical prowess, musicality and stage presence that immediately drew every eye to her, Martha touched every person in the audience. One student started crying the moment Martha began to sing because she knew how nervous Martha gets backstage. Another lost it when she sang their song – a piece which they learned at the same time and grew to love together. Others lost it during “surprise Tosca” when Vissi d’arte, Vissi d’amore (I live for art, I live for love) was performed although it did not appear on the program. Before the final piece I numbered among the few audience members who were not yet reaching for a tissue, but as she sang Final Monologue from Jake Heggie’s Maria Callas, all hope was lost and the entire auditorium was in tears.

I’ve know since that night that I wanted to talk about Professor Sheil in this week’s blog post yet every time I start to type I stop. Saturday reminded me that she was leaving but writing about it makes it real. More than that, how do I put into words someone who has changed my entire life? How do I convey that, other than my parents, she has been the one person who believed in me when the music school said I wasn’t good enough, who ordered me to ignore everyone that told me that double majoring was stupid, and who has dealt with a dejected, disappointed and defeated Alexandria more times than I care to admit?

For the past four years Martha has been a constant in my life. Every week she has returned me to sanity and every week I have grown as a musician and as a person. She has seen me through audition disappointment, performance success, break ups and musical breakthroughs. She has given herself to her students selflessly and has taught me more about music and about life than I had ever thought possible.

As I write this, I feel an immense desire to try and explain who she is and what she means to me but anything I can say will fall short. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for giving me more than I can ever repay and for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Thank you for turning me into the musician and person that I am today. Thank you for every moment we have shared and for the ones which we will share in the future.

In May everything will change. While I do not graduate, the people I have grown up with and grown to love will scatter across the country. Martha will retire and I will focus on finishing my engineering degree leaving behind a world which has defined me my entire college career. Endings are always hard – even when you know it is all for the best – and I’m sure more tears will be shed before my final lesson. While I know I will no longer have my weekly sanity checks with Professor Sheil I will continue to learn and grow, knowing she is only a phone call away.