Down the Stairs in Heels

I know, I know, I owe you a long overdue post about the Opera Project recital. I'm sorry! Things have been hectic!! I'll explain that too.

So the recital... Got there about an hour early. The venue was the atrium of a store/mall sort of place. It was open, with a wide stairway on the side leading up to a balcony-ish sort of area. Behind that was a glassed-in room. That room was the green room. There were cookies!!! Shaped like martini glasses! Yum! Of course no one ate until AFTER they sang!

So they way they set it up was, the singer on deck would wait on the landing of the stairs, then when the previous singer was walking toward the stairs, the next singer would come down and they'd pass each other on the floor near the bottom of the stairs. It's like the act of walking out on stage isn't nerve-wracking enough... they had to add the negotiation of a long flight of stairs... which of course the women had to do in heels. So dumb as it sounds, I actually walked up and down those steps a few times, to practice. I think having that to focus on took away my nervousness.

I was in the 2nd half of the recital. It was fun! I had no problem on the steps at all. I was a little nervous just to start and you can hear that in the opening note, and I cracked (OUCH!) at one point on a lower note, but corrected it pretty quickly. I still hear all the spots where I need to improve, but I thought I sounded pretty good, for me!! I can't believe how much better I've gotten since changing teachers. It's amazing. I'm like a whole new singer. And it's not like the other teacher didn't teach me how to sing - she taught me quite a lot, but I guess I just needed to hear the same stuff told to me in a different way and POW all of a sudden I can get my voice on top of the air, control the breath more and so on. Of course that also makes me realize how much more I have to learn, but that's ok. It's exciting to know that this singing journey will last for the rest of my life. But I was relaxed, I remembered to open wider for the higher notes, use my breath and so on. Still need tons of practice getting it all together of course. But as you can see from my smile at the end of the song, I wasn't unhappy!

After the recital we hung around eating cheese and cookies. I had so much fun the entire night, really, hanging out with the other singers as we all cheered each other on. The next recital that I hope to participate in is in mid-November.