Viel Spaβ!

Just a note...I wrote this last night (27.6.2011), but our internet was down. But that's the actual date for this entry. 

Viel Spaβ means “have fun.” It is used here in Germany before a performance instead of “good luck.” And that is about all I can say about last night’s final performance of Suor Angelica for the Freiberg Bergstadfest. I didn’t sing Suor Genevieve last night, but instead I got to sing my aria (Quando m’en vo) with the orchestra before we performed the opera. Now, this aria was not my first choice of what I would sing for this event, but it fit with the program and what they wanted to do, so I did it. However, although I’ve gotten consistently good feedback about it (especially here), it has always made me nervous. I sang it years ago, in undergrad, and I never feel that I sing my best on it, and I don’t feel completely comfortable with it.

Actually, I should put all of that in the past tense. Because this changed last night.

Just this week, as we have been working towards our orchestra performances of Suor Angelica, we had our first rehearsal with the Mittlesächisches Theater orchestra and with the conductor here, Maestro Herr Horstmann. I had met Herr Horstmann several times before, when he came to JMU when I was a student there to audition singers for this program. I’ve auditioned for him and sung in several masterclassses with him. But this week was the first time I sang with his orchestra and under his conducting…and what an experience that has been. I have only sung with orchestra a few times in my life, but this was by far the best I have ever worked with.  I don’t think I can say enough good things about Herr Horstmann…singing with him conducting feels like being a trapeze artist, “flying through the air with the greatest of ease”—but with a net.  He guides the orchestra to take care of you, the singer, and he is so musical and seems to instinctively know what will work best for each singer’s voice. When I worked with him on my aria and on Suor Genevieve, he gave me permission to do everything musically that I had wanted to do but didn’t think I could, and he gave me more wonderful things to do musically that I hadn’t thought of—and made it easy for me to do them.

If you’re not a singer, and you’ve never sung with a really good conductor, I don’t know how else to describe the experience.

Anyway, all summer I’ve been working on letting go of fear, especially in performance, and being real and open and in the moment. Last night I was nervous. It was the Bergstadfest, the big town festival. It was the biggest audience we’d had. The orchestra performed a symphonic piece, Leah and I each sang an aria, and then we did Suor Angelica (Melissa sang Angelica, and Vanessa sang Genevieve). This performance was built up as a big deal—we were told agents might be invited, and important people from the town of Freiberg were there. And there I was, all dressed up in my gown, feeling like a diva and also like an imposter, wondering if I really have the skill and talent to fill my own shoes.

Then I remembered something my friend Kathryn Green (who sang the Principessa) said to me when I was talking about nerves: “Take a deep breath and thank God for your life. Then open your mouth and SING!” I stood backstage and thought: Rachel, this is the fun part. If this isn’t among the most fun things you’ll ever do in your life—I don’t know what is. You are in Germany, singing a wonderful aria with an incredible orchestra for hundreds of people. This is what you want to do, what you are here to do—not just in Germany but maybe on this planet. VIEL SPAβ!

And so I walked out there, took a breath, thanked God for the opportunity to stand in my shoes that night, and sang. Halfway through my aria, I suddenly realized that I felt completely relaxed. I have never felt that comfortable and relaxed singing in front of an audience. I just stood there, enjoying the moment and the feel of the full, warm, beautiful sound of the orchestra filling my ears and my body, and then realized—oh, this is the part where I sing again! So I did.

Afterwards Leah told me it was the best she’d ever heard me sing. But for once, I wasn’t listening to myself or judging myself.

I was flying through the air.