Author: supermaren

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On Being A Diva

For the last few days, I’ve been in Lancaster, PA rehearsing for Verdi’s Requiem with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. It has been quite an exciting experience, performing a such a substantial solo in such a touchstone piece. I’m enjoying every minute of my time here, not just because I get to sing my heart out every single day, but also because I’m not very used to being on the soloist side of the stage; usually in concerts like this, I’m behind the orchestra, singing with the chorus.

Suffice to say, the soloist experience is more heady and exciting. Not to say that I don’t enjoy singing in choruses — I do!! — but it certainly is nice to be put up in a hotel room, given your own dressing room with flowers (and chocolate), and treated with respect. (Choruses are the Rodney Dangerfield of the classical music world, unfortunately).

The conductor, Maestro Francesco La Vecchia, is a fantastic conductor who knows Verdi inside and out, but his English is not very strong. So he speaks in half English, half Italian phrases, which makes me work overtime trying to translate everything. Of course, when I try to speak Italian to him, my brain freezes, and all I can get out is “sì,” or “va bene.” Last night, I stammered out a phrase in Italian that I had carefully crafted in my head before speaking, and he finished my sentence for me and rattled off several rapid-fire questions, which I answered with a blank stare while I inwardly did a face-palm.

I did apologize for my poor Italian, and he apologized for his poor English. One of the difficulties of having an international career, he explained, is that one has to learn many different languages in order to communicate to the orchestras. He has conducted orchestras that speak Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, German, Russian, and English…and he only ever studied French in school. I guess I have it easy!

So tonight is the first performance of the Requiem, and I’m very excited. I have my outfit all picked out, and I’m determined to rest as much as I can today. It should be a good show!

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Working on Mahler

Gustav MahlerSo I had all these grand plans about posting a day-by-day journal of my trials and tribulations learning Mahler’s Ruckert-lieder for my concert with the Delaware County Symphony this Sunday. But then life intervened, and I spent more time actually learning the music rather than writing about the process.

So, suffice it to say: this concert is my first professional solo experience with an orchestra. I’m 35 years old and I’ve performed solos in front of a big band, in opera houses, and with choruses, but never just me and an orchestra, and it’s kind of nerve-wracking. I’ve got the music memorized, but it’s still a little shaky, and I’m worried I’ll forget as soon as I start listening to the orchestra instead of the recordings I’ve been practicing with. Maybe I should hold the music just in case? Would that look bad? I think it would look worse if I completely forgot all the words in front of a full audience!

I’ve got a dress rehearsal tomorrow, and I’ve promised to put my book down for that rehearsal. We’ll see how it goes. I’d love to be able to have it down cold, but my brain hasn’t gotten to that point yet…

Either way, this is good practice, because the next opportunity I will have to sing with a full orchestra will be in November for Verdi’s Requiem with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. Masses and cantatas don’t require soloists to memorize their music, but I certainly would rather have my head out of the music as much as possible.

Keep your fingers crossed.

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Podcasting

Many years ago, when I still lived in New York, I took a voiceover class. I really enjoyed it, and I even made a demo CD at the end of it all. Nothing ever came of it, however; the voiceover market is incredibly competitive, and I was busy (still am!) putting myself out there as a singer.

Until this summer.

That’s when Mike Bolton (no, not that one) from the Opera Company of Philadelphia asked me to co-host In Tune, the podcast for OCP’s upcoming productions.

So I sat down in the studio and recorded podcasts for the operas in the 2010-11 season: Otello, Romeo & Juliet, Tosca, The Cunning Little Vixen, and Phaedra.

What fun I had! Mike and I were very comfortable around each other, and we managed to get everything recorded in two sessions.


Anyway, if you are interested in listening to the podcasts, go to the OCP website and download the sound files. I guarantee you’ll learn some cool things about opera!

[audio: http://www.operaphila.org/community/otello-podcast.mp3]
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Maren’s Guide to San Francisco (Part 2)

CA Thayer
C.A. Thayer

From Ghirardelli Square, I walked down to the waterfront, and took in the view of the C.A. Thayer, a three-masted schooner that is a part of the Maritime Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. I spent the night on the C.A. Thayer with my class when I was in third grade. We all pretended that we were whalers on the way to Washington, and we learned sea shanties and how to tie knots. She sat there in the harbor, calm and proud, as I viewed her from the hill. I hope elementary classes still spend the night on board; it was a wonderful experience that made me appreciate ships greatly.

War Memorial Opera House
War Memorial Opera House

I had some appointments downtown, so I drove towards the Civic Center and parked in another lot (street parking in San Francisco is about as scarce as it is in Philadelphia). I walked to Davies Symphony Hall and the War Memorial Opera House, where I spent so much of my time singing in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Circumnavigating these structures, I realized that in my childhood memories, everything was so much taller! Not that any of these buildings are small, mind you…but they certainly looked much less intimidating as an adult.

Stage Door of Opera House
View from the opera house stage door

I remember everything about that opera house. While I was in the SF Girls Chorus, I got to be in the children’s chorus for Carmen, La Boheme, I Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Werther (where I made my SF Opera debut and performed with Alfredo Kraus and Renata Scotto) before I grew taller than the five-foot maximum height. I also remember exiting the stage door by the courtyard and seeing my mom’s car waiting for me, all prepped with pillows and blankets so I could sleep on the way home.

After my trip down memory lane, I met with a friend from Philadelphia who had just moved to the Bay Area, and then I went to sing at a performance class at the San Francisco Conservatory. The class was run by Marcie Stapp, a renowned vocal coach (and the wife of a colleague of mine), and it was an opportunity for students and professionals alike to work on their audition skills.

If you are in the San Francisco area and are interested in working on your operatic rep, you should come to this class. It’s very informal, informative, and the group is supportive. Because it was summertime, the class was pretty empty (only 6 people), but it apparently gets very full once the regular season begins.

Golden Gate hidden in fog
Somewhere, hidden in the fog, is the Golden Gate Bridge.

Now that I’m back home, I feel like it’s apropos that I am ending my SF tour with a story about singing…after all, I left San Francisco to sing in college, and this time I left to come back to Philadelphia and my singing career here. But I’ll always love San Francisco, and I will miss the smell of eucalyptus and salt air. As I swelter in this humidity back on the East Coast, I will miss the cool, cool fog most of all.

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Maren’s Guide to San Francisco (Part 1)

Coit Tower & TransamericaMost people who grow up in a particular city have their own favorite spots that may not be a part of a tourist’s itinerary, but which nevertheless are places to which they return when they are no longer residents, but visitors.

When I was growing up in San Francisco, it was hammered into my head every day that if you wanted to get some San Francisco memorabilia, you should go anywhere except Fisherman’s Wharf, because everything sold in that area was overpriced to rip off the tourists. However, there are some things that are sold at Fisherman’s Wharf that aren’t sold anywhere else, like Alcatraz shirts…so when my husband told me that he wanted me to bring back an Alcatraz shirt for him (to replace the “Alcatraz: Psycho Ward Outpatient” shirt that he got last time we were here together), I realized that I had no choice but to visit the tourist trap that was Fisherman’s Wharf.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I’d never been to the Fisherman’s Wharf area before. It’s a great place to go on dates as a high school student, and even when I was younger, my mom dated a puppeteer who did shows at the Cannery every weekend, so I did a great deal of wandering around that area in my youth. But I always knew that anything that I bought there would cost at least a dollar more than it should.

Pier 39Pier 39 was the first stop on my “tour,” since I knew I’d have to buy an Alcatraz shirt (the ferries to Alcatraz leave from Pier 39). I parked in the big parking lot next to the pier and wandered around taking pictures. It was still cold and foggy (I had forgotten that summer in San Francisco usually means highs in the 50s), so I was on the search for a jacket over my poorly-chosen summer dress. Turns out that I was doomed to spend too much money at the tourist trap, and I ought to just get used to the idea.

Sea LionsSince I used to love going to Pier 39 to watch the sea lions when I was young, so I made my way through the crowds to the end of the pier to see them again. I don’t remember there being a ranger/interpreter by the sea lions when I was younger, but someone was there this time, armed with a microphone and portable speaker, to talk about sea lions, other sea mammals, and marine conservation in general. I was happy that they provided this valuable information to tourists for free, so I wandered up to the Marine Mammal Center store directly upstairs to give them some of my money and buy a jacket (hey, if I’m going to overpay for something at Pier 39, I’d rather the profits go to benefit an organization committed to the environment than some random store).

I realized while I was down there that from Fisherman’s Wharf, you can see quite a few landmarks from that area. From the pedestrian bridge running between the parking lot and Pier 39, you can see the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge (when it’s not hidden in the fog), Coit Tower, the Transamerica Building, and Alcatraz. Walk a few blocks, and you’re at Ghirardelli Square or the Cannery. No wonder it’s such a tourist hotspot!

Ghirardelli SquareGhirardelli Square holds many good memories for me, because my grandfather used to take me there when I was a kid. I believe that’s where my love for chocolate really started, and even though I know it’s all pretty much the same, I believe in my heart of hearts that Ghirardelli chocolate is the best chocolate in the world. I apologize to the Hershey’s fanatics out there or those that believe the only good chocolate is Swiss chocolate…the fact of the matter is, if I ever leave my heart in San Francisco, it’ll be swimming in a vat of Ghirardelli chocolate.

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BBQ in the Sun

I grew up in San Francisco, and many of my high school friends still live in the area. Nowadays, they are scattered far and wide around the Bay Area, so they don’t get together very frequently…but when one of us “out-of-towners” comes for a visit, they all make a concerted effort to get together.

This time I wasn’t so sure we were going to have a very big group. Not very many people responded initially to my Evite, and I already knew that some people were going to be out of town. Nevertheless, we went ahead with our plans, figuring it would be a smaller party. Surprisingly, though, a few people responded at the last minute, and one of my friends even managed to get her husband to drive her from the South Bay to Marin after a late-night shift.

We met at Paradise Beach Park, which is a park that we have been going to hang out since high school. It was a beautiful day, but there were not that many people there. I shouldn’t have been surprised; for as long as we’ve been going there, it has always been pretty empty. I feel like it’s Marin County’s best-kept secret, because it’s not very far from the highway, and yet it’s pretty secluded, and right up against the water. There are picnic tables with barbecues set up all over the park, and people can fish from the dock or go swimming at the beach. And, most importantly, there is lots of lawn area, which was great for one of my friends who has two kids.

It’s great to catch up with old friends. I haven’t seen some of these people since before my wedding, so we had a lot to catch up on! I got there at 1:00 pm, and I wasn’t ready to go until we had left the park, had dinner, and the kids were ready for bed, around 9:00! What a great day.
Lizard People

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Don’t Call It ‘Frisco

I’ll make this brief, folks. While writing my last post, I realized that I’m a day behind, and if I don’t write something about yesterday now, I’ll be two days behind!

Saturday morning, my dad and I said goodbye to our cousin and left Chico for the Bay Area once again. The trip itself was fairly uneventful, although my dad’s 20-year-old Honda Accord (which has been broken into about 7 times and been stolen at least twice) was giving my dad some grief because he couldn’t turn the key properly every time he started the vehicle. I would tell him to sell the POS, but he has so much emotional and financial investment in the old girl that the only way he’ll get rid of her is if it gets smashed beyond recognition.

Dad dropped me off at the rental car place at the airport, and we said our goodbyes because tomorrow he is off to hike the John Muir Trail for a month. He tried to hike it by himself a few years ago but a series of unfortunate events kept him from finishing the journey, so he’s back this year, this time with friends, and he’s very excited about fulfilling this life-long dream.

I got my rental car and made my way through traffic to my best friend Terry’s house, who graciously agreed to host me during the rest of my time in San Francisco (actually, I think it’s a requirement that I stay at her place whenever I visit, but that’s neither here nor there, because I always love staying with her). Her daughter, Camille (who was one of my flower girls in my wedding), just turned 7 years old, and they were all at a bowling alley with the kids when I got to her house.

Three Killing MachinesI was greeted at the door by three noisy mini pinschers, all of whom thought I was a terrible threat, and all of whom also thought they were six-foot tall deadly killing machines. The only way they could have really harmed me, though, is by blowing out my eardrums with their high-pitched barking, especially when the barks bounced off the hardwood floors and cabinets in the kitchen. I sat down in the living room to muffle the sound, and they finally decided I was OK after they were able to sniff me and jump onto my lap.

Camille's Birthday DressThe family arrived shortly afterward, and we went out to dinner at Camille’s favorite restaurant, Olive Garden. She insisted on changing into her birthday dress (which she had just received a few hours before), and she made the rest of us feel like we were the underdressed entourage, which I suppose we were.

After dinner, I was so tired that I went to bed almost immediately after we got back. I’m still a little jetlagged, I think.

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Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Friday in Chico turned out to be all about the performing arts for me. My cousin is pretty active in the local drama groups, and he acts and directs a number of shows each year. He invited a few actors over to his house to read through the first act of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which one of the community theaters was going to perform for a fundraiser. He hadn’t been able to find anyone to read the part of Honey, so he asked me if I’d like to do it. “Sure,” I replied.

The actors came over, and we all sat around the dining room table with our scripts, munching on some fruit and reading through the play. When we were done, my cousin (who will be directing the show) joked that the first rehearsal will be in New Jersey, because they need to cast me in the role. All the other actors agreed, which was very flattering, since I haven’t been in a play in a very, very long time! As they left, they all promised to come to the bar that night for the show my cousin was putting together.

Duffy's TavernAs I mentioned in my previous post, my cousin owns a bar in downtown Chico. It’s a small town, so pretty much everyone knows who he is, and anyone who doesn’t know him personally definitely knows Duffy’s Tavern.

Since he owns the place, he was able to bump the Irish band that usually plays there on Friday nights in favor of putting his two cousins (and himself) on the stage. He made a few phone calls to put together an impromptu band, then invited the cast of a show he is in (Go-Go, a British Invasion musical) to perform some of the songs from the show. He sent out a huge email blast, and we were all set to perform during happy hour.

My dad and I leafed through his Fake Book to find some appropriate songs to perform. I decided on “I Get A Kick Out Of You,” my dad picked some songs too, and we sent the lead sheets to the band leader so he could take a look at it before the gig.

When we got to the bar at 4:00, the place was pretty empty. The band leader was setting up the stage, and a long-haired blond kid named Loki (I kid you not, that is his name) was tuning his guitar as well. Loki hugged my cousin and stared at me like he was seeing an angel. I felt slightly creeped out, but decided not to mention anything because he seemed pretty harmless (I found out later that he had dropped acid that afternoon and was tripping the entire night, which explains a lot).

I looked around asked where the drums and keyboards were, and I was told that my cousin couldn’t get anyone on drums or keyboards at such short notice, so we were stuck with three guitars (another guitarist showed up a few minutes later) and no microphones. I wasn’t too concerned about the lack of mics for me in such a small room — I can make a big sound when I want to — but acoustic guitars are quiet instruments by nature, and I was worried no one would really be able to hear the chords under the melody.

But we had to make do with what we had, so the guitars started playing, and then they invited different people to come up and sing: Samantha, a talented belter in the cast of Go-Go; Kelly, a friendly bass (also in the cast of Go-Go); my dad; me; and my cousin. I only had the one song, whereas everyone else had two or three. I guess I probably could have prepared more songs, but I didn’t know what the scene would be like, and doing jazz (especially with my jazz trumpeter dad) always makes me a little shy and self-conscious.

It’s a good thing that I sang in the first set, because after 5:00, the bar started getting really crowded and loud. My dad sang another song and played his trumpet and flugelhorn while Kelly sang a few numbers. My cousin got up with the cast of Go-Go and started singing songs from the show. As the crowd got louder and louder, the singers couldn’t hear the guitars hardly at all, and everyone was trying to belt really loudly to be heard over the din of the bar. My cousin got the bright idea of getting the audience to sing along, which worked quite well, although the guitars were still inaudible. But everyone was having a great time, and that’s what counts.

Happy Hour was over at 7:00, and my dad and I went back to the house, leaving my cousin to chat with his customers. When my cousin came back home, we all ordered Chinese food and hunkered down with a movie for our final evening in Chico.

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Bicyclepiphany

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I’m not much of an athlete. I am pretty proud of my progress with the Body-for-LIFE program (it’s way past the 12 weeks now, but I’m 20 lbs. lighter, so yay), but I’ve been exercising just at home using videos and our Bowflex. It’s not like I play team sports or participate in any triathlons.

Last month, I housed one of the out-of-town tenors in The Crossing (he was here for the Month of Moderns), and he went running almost every day. I started asking about his running habits, and before I knew it, he had cajoled me into running with him three times a week. I don’t think I did that poorly, but my hip really started hurting every time we went out, and I have decided not to continue with the routine now that he has gone home.

(I also knew that I probably wouldn’t be keeping up with my exercise routine while on vacation, but I think every once in a while we all have to take a break, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself).

I mention all this now because this morning my cousin (who my dad and I are visiting) suggested that we all go bike riding through Chico’s Bidwell Park.

I’ve always had a difficult time with bicycles. My dad taught me how to ride a bike when I was nine or ten, but for some reason I really resisted learning, and while I do know how to ride, I never got very good at it. Biking in traffic freaks me out, and I could never figure out which gears were which on my bike…so anxiety always creeps up whenever even the thought of biking comes up. Nevertheless, I know the best way to counteract anxiety is to meet it head-on, so I agreed to go biking. But I warned my cousin that I wasn’t very good, and I hadn’t done it in a long time.

To which he responded, “That’s not a problem. Chico is very flat, and we won’t go fast.”

Bicycle tireMy cousin loaned me his everyday bike, and he pulled out an old one-speed from his shed (which he had to hose off because of all the cobwebs). My dad had brought his own bike on this trip, so he was all set. I test-drove the bike up and down the street, and once I had assured myself that I still remembered how to ride, we were off to the park.

Chico is a small town in the heart of Northern California, almost halfway between San Francisco and the Oregon border, in the middle of almond country. While we were out biking, people were honking and waving at my cousin, and it really had the feel of a Midwestern town from the ’50s, where everyone knows everyone else…such a difference from Philadelphia or New York or even San Francisco! (Okay, it doesn’t hurt that my cousin owns one of the bars in town).

And I had fun! We biked through parts of Bidwell Park, which, at about 11 miles in length, is one of the largest city parks in the U.S. We didn’t bike the whole way through…we made it about three miles in, and my cousin wanted to turn around and go back. I wasn’t tired at all, but I was hungry, so I was happy enough to stop and eat some Thai food in the middle of town.

But while we were biking, I realized my anxiety was melting away. I could easily shift gears on the bike I was riding, because shifter had all the gears numbered, which was so wonderful and new! On my old bike, I was constantly guessing as to what gear I was in, and which way was higher and lower. And because Chico is such a small town, I didn’t have to worry too much about traffic. We kept to the smaller side roads and crossed the larger roads at the lights, plus the cars always stopped for us (I’ve never seen that happen in Philly!).

And I realized that the reason I never liked going biking was that I didn’t have enough positive experiences like this, where I could go at a nice, leisurely pace and feel confident. Even the few times I have gone biking with my husband, I always felt like a big wuss because I got so nervous around intersections.

The thing is, I know cycling is better exercise for me than running, especially since I have a bad knee. So maybe I should spend some time biking on my own when I get home. I live in a suburban neighborhood, which has a lot more of those smaller, quiet roads, so I can work on my confidence on the bike before I venture out into traffic. And then, just maybe, when I feel like I’m up to it, I’ll join a bike team and train for a triathlon.

First, though, I have to find a bike that has a shifter I can understand. Baby steps.Shifter

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Orange Juice and Aviation

Most of the time I don’t like talking to people on the plane. The last time I sat next to a chatty airplane passenger, I was on my way to Boston to start college. And while that person really wanted to offer advice on starting out in the world, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts and fears.

Since then, I have learned to surround myself with various fortifications to prevent chatty in-flight neighbors (books, magazines, and the ever-important MP3 player with headphones), but today none of them worked.

The girl was one of the last to board the plane, and she sat in the middle seat, dashing my hopes for elbow room throughout the flight. But I kept to myself and she kept to herself (except for when she told the lady on the aisle about 2 minutes in the air that she really had to pee so she might have to leap over her when one of the lavatories opened).

Then the beverages came around. Southwest Airlines doesn’t serve food on its flights, so we got a snack pack and an orange juice, which I promptly spilled on myself before I managed 2 sips! This resulted in me having to call the flight attendant and mop up my tray, my lap, my iPhone…all the while, my neighbor helped by holding things and talking about how she was surprised it hadn’t been her who had spilled something, because she had been up for the last 36 hours.

I couldn’t resist asking, when given such a blatant invitation, “Why were you awake for so long?”

I didn’t have to open my paperback for the rest of the flight, she kept me so entertained.

Turns out she reconnected with an old flame, someone she had always thought of as a soulmate, and for whom she had been carrying a torch for lo these 8 long years (one-third of her life!). They spoke on the phone a few days ago where he revealed that he had been in love with her this whole time too.

No, she was not on her way to visit him, much to my disappointment. Instead, thus trip was to visit her grandfather, who planned to pass his knowledge of traditional Navajo jewelry-making to her. She had just graduated from the Moore College of Art & Design, and although she had just signed a year lease in her Philadelphia apartment, based on what she was telling me, she wouldn’t be staying in Philly for too long.

All in all, she was a sweet, open girl…very green, but talented with the pencil (she showed me some of her sketches, which were really lovely).

She has some aspirations to become a singer-songwriter, but she doesn’t know how to read music. She played some of her songs for me, and I suddenly realized exactly why one of my composer friends hates pop music…not because of its lyrical content, but because the musical make-up is simple and pedantic. This girl, of course, was just imitating what she was familiar with; so the songs were, like her, sweet and honest, but not really engaging or exciting. It seemed to me that she would be much better off concentrating on her visual art.

She asked me about myself, too…she was interested in what married life was like (probably dreaming of Mr. Eight-Year-Crush), and when I told her I was an opera singer, she wanted to know if I had any recordings of myself. I said yes, and played for her some snippets from my recital. She said my voice was “like one of those birds with shimmering plumage that you would love to touch but can never get close to.”

Of course I was flattered, but even more than that, I saw a girl who just wanted to absorb everything like a sponge, and it was nice to talk to someone like that on the first leg of my trip. When we landed in Houston, I gave her my card and told her to find me on Facebook.

The second leg of my trip, from Houston to Oakland, was fairly uneventful. I napped and tried not to spill anything else on myself. After all, I only packed one pair of pants for this journey!