Bravissima

I figure we go back to my "Viva la Not-So-Diva" roots. It's been a strange, emotionally exhausting weekend.

Friday 2pm I had a blowout with my boss at Hallmark about how I've been apathetic and vacant. Which is true. I've been completely depressed this month and kind of hating everything in my life. And then she suggested I should be fired and should only work seasonly so I left.

6pm - I get a phone call being offered a job at a marketing firm that I am slightly apprehensive about because it mostly based on commissions and I have to get up at 6:30am every day and drive to Raleigh. But it is full time and there is a chance I can make a decent amount of cash.

8pm - Recital. We can't figure how to get the camera to work...I'm a mess with the accompianiment. But vocally I sound fine (if a little too bright) And I never freaking know what do with my hands when I'm not moving them. I make wings. It looks strange. But my parents and the old people love it. I get the most applause out of everyone. This one old lady of Eastern European descent says "I sing beautiful and look sexy." Nice. Braden has to work at the last minute and can't make it, which is probably for the best because he watches it later uncomfortably and makes fun of my expressions.

Which I wasn't really expecting him to LAUGH. Smile maybe, but not smirk. Maybe a "wow, you sound really good." or "you look beautiful." But he just kind of laughs through the whole thing and I don't know what to do so I just laugh along, kind of like at Christmas when my cousins started making fun of me at the dinner table about Sean and our engagement and all the horrible things that happened. As if that was the appropriate dinner conversation. How steamingly uncomfortable I was, but I played along and shared the same goofy embarrassing, revolting anecdotes.

Saturday 12am - We go to The Station and they are playing Soul & old school Beach music which I love. I convince Braden to dance with me and have massive amounts of fun. I was on a high from the recital, so I even got up the urge to talk to people. STRANGERS! I KNOW, RIGHT? I may have made a friend. I must say, having Bax with us is wonderful ice breaker because everybody likes a puppy. It's like that commercial where single men rent puppies to meet women. Guess what? It works! We dance some more (I request Sam Cooke's "You Send Me", but no dice. Those DJs never play requests...probably because they have a premade Ipod shuffle playlist. The art of the DJ has clearly been simplified over the past decade.) We both get very drunk. Blue moons for everyone!

2:00am - He gets sick of dancing like he alway does so I ask if he minds if I dance with other people. He doesn't mind and hey I'm feeling very pretty and social for once. So a lot of men want to dance with me. Braden disappears so I guess most of them assume I'm single. And this guy starts following me around, getting the wrong idea...following to my car...to go hang out at our apartment. He's confused and I'm not sober enough to explain my boyfriend is IN THE CAR RIGHT NOW. PISSED OFF. So we have a stupid drunk fight where he ignores me and I keep yelling and then at some point we embrace and have sex and then just pass out.

10am - We wake up hungover and have breakfast together. It's uncomfortable.

All of these rollercoaster emotions over the past 24 hours...too much. I know it's gonna get better and level out eventually...but it's really been too much drama for me to handle. I am so ready to put January 2010 past me.

But you just came here for the recital video. Okay, here you go!

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.