physical manifestation

I have been really preoccupied with "A Christmas Carol" recently, which opened last weekend with moderate success. I have been really physically and financially exhausted since then. Right now I have a sinus infection that is seriously holding me back.

It takes so much energy...we do these exercises to emphasize the gesture and the line of the phrase. It feels like swimming, I'm moving my body and arms around so much. She calls it physical manifestation...and apparently does it a lot in her own repertoire training. I used to do stuff like that when I was in high school. I haven't really done it since then. I guess it helps keep everything legato. But it does help perpetuate the energy.

Keeping mental placement has been especially difficult recently. In this show, I am singing in a legit music theatre style and belting in the second act, considering I am playing two different characters. And I haven't really been listening to any opera repertoire recently. I think there really is a mindset that you have to be in, where to place the voice and all that. Listen to opera, think opera.

But anyways...a good voice lesson, sickness aside.

I need to find a French aria and English one too.

Fach me? Fach you!

In operatic repertoire, there isn't just one kind of soprano. There are many different kinds, depending on range, agility, color. Not every opera singer is the big booming Valkyrie kind. It usually takes a while for a voice to settle into a fach that they specialize in...for me I'm settling into "soubrette". It's a light, bright, and sweet and according to Wikipedia, "largely flirtatious and somewhat tweety". Soubrettes are almost always maids or flirty best friends of the main dramatic or lyric soprano.

Which really shouldn't be all that surprising considered I'm spent most of my acting career playing best friends and chambermaids (exhibit A: A Christmas Carol.)

My new voice lessons are more challenging than my high school ones...it's not just that Rebecca constantly throws new exercises and techniques at me. One of my weaknesses is that when I focus, I get tense in my face. Brow, jaw...all of these very bad habits for a singer. But how do you juggle all the things you are supposed to think about...spine on top of the pelvis, not jetting the chin out, lift the sternum up, relax the face. So much to think about, and yet you can't think about any of it. I am noticing changes though...and I've only been with Rebecca for about 3 months. The music comes easier and faster then it did 3 months ago...

Right now I am working on "Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen" from Der Freischütz by Carl Maria Von Weber. It is the character of Annchen. It's about a marksman match in the mythic German woods. Very Robin Hood. And it has a lot of German words. I don't understand how Germans talk...it's like filling your mouth with marshmellows. So many consonents, glottal ones too...I am thinking about investing in Rosetta Stone for German.

Here is a video from a production. Couldn't find any outstandingly famous sopranos singing it...mostly because not a lot of soubrettes are acclaimed and Der Freischütz isn't done very often...

and this because it is soooo incredibly odd. Gotta love the Germans. (but I don't particularly like her diction and she's not very legato...)

Incontra la donna

Welcome to my new blog, "la donna e la voce". Italian for "the woman and the voice". The woman, being me, Virginia Lee Buckner and the voice being, well...a work in progress. This blog is dedicated to my process in becoming an established classical vocalist. What established means, I'm not sure yet. I'm not aiming for the Met or Munich or...who knows. I could very well live in Carrboro, NC until I'm 30. But maybe not.

I've always loved to sing and sing high and beautifully. Even though that often contrasted with my personality which is funny, silly, brash, abrasive, clumsy. This lead to many hilarious character roles in musicals and plays, but not so much in recitals. At age 24 (YIKES!) I've found enough poise to keep me going.

I've keep/kept a livejournal before...since high school, mostly to whine about how I'll never be good enough, I never get this role my voice won't do what I tell it. This that and the other. But I'm done trying to beat the world. I finished college. I have a BFA in acting, because frankly almost no one believed in me as a vocalist in college and I have always been bored by choir singing, and I have had massive amounts of stage fright in the past.

But then there was Florence. A whole city who didn't know my insecurities and I could sing in the classroom in the evening with the windows open and it didn't matter. I'm not sure if my arias ("Batti, batti O bel Masetto" by Mozart and "O Mio Babbino Caro" by Puccini) were anything that impressive. But on that day nearly a year ago...I finally conquered my soprano performance anxiety.

And I realized...I can really do this. I can really sing exquisitely and be a woman with a voice. Not just a little girl pretending to be a star. So I am. No more school (for now...), just me and the world and my music and the journey.

This is really for me...to learn about opera. It fascinates me, this art of beautiful voices, and how people achieve success. How do I learn all the notes, the colors, the rhythms, the meaning, the diction, the acting. It's like climbing Mt. Everest. But it's stimulating! Through each rehearsal I learn something more.

I would like to elaborate all this further, but I have rehearsal. A Christmas Carol in Sanford. New musical...I am one of the society women, and also, a Cockney chambermaid in Scrooge's future. It's all very comedic and great fun and I think I will steal the show.

Tomorrow: more on the arias I am working on in my voice lessons. With the fabulous though somewhat intimidating Rebecca Myers.