Back in the Big Apple
Almost everyday I get asked the question, “So where are you based?” I always laugh uncomfortably and respond something like, “Well, here now!” Then again, this has been my refrain for the last few months. Though my aim this year is to be based in NYC, there is a certain freedom of not being pinned down by a location. There is also the continued anxiety of not having a spot. Sometimes I answer that I am based in my sister’s basement in Pennsylvania, because indeed, that is where half of my earthly belongings are. But I am continuing the adventure of living out of a couple suitcases for at least the next couple of months as I am subletting a studio in the Upper West Side from a friend (it seriously feels like I am on vacation everyday) until the holidays.
Music is incredibly sustaining. Our final week of Così rehearsals in the theater was wild, then we performed our two shows and now it is over. I cannot express how much fun and love was shared with the cast. We were a proper little family. I also felt very supported by some real blood relations and a couple friends who came out to see performances on both nights: family from VA, WVA, PA and KS, my roomie from Vienna, Liz and my sister-in-spirit, Lydia, who came from NYC! 15 people in total, including many first-time opera-goers, and a couple who have only seen me performing Mozart operas :-) I was delighted to find out how much everyone seemed to enjoy the show. It certainly was not a sleepy production and we had great laughing audiences both performances. When we got to the Sunday matinée, where usually one really lets loose, I discovered that there was hardly further that I could go with the physical comedy and facial ridiculousness. Thankfully, we found other ways to amuse ourselves for the final show. There may or may not have been a few dares performed (offstage) based on something’s happening onstage. I will just reiterate how wonderful Opera Delaware is as a company and how much love I have for the cast. You don’t always get such good personal and professional chemistry!
I sent my faithful Honda back to PA with Dad and Kendra after the cast party and my lovely Delaware host, Bernadette, drove me to the opera studio the next morning so I could run a few errands, rehearse with Aurelien for our recital later this month (Nov 20th!!) and then take the Amtrak back to NYC. Yes, we did have a rehearsal the day after the opera closed. C’est la vie! It was an easy train ride from Wilmington to NYC: two hours on the regional train and I traveled with enough stuff that I gladly grabbed an Uber to deposit me at my current sublet.
I feel settled into my friend’s sweet little studio and am enjoying exploring the area- some of which is very familiar from years at Lincoln Center and babysitting in the area thereafter. But as is always the case in NYC, wait a few years and quite a bit will change. The UWS (Upper West Side) is really growing up and becoming quite trendy- more than it had been already. It is nice to be there temporarily, though I think it would be a little much long term.
Day 2 in the city, I rehearsed for a gig the following night, a fancy soirée a block away from my sublet, but on Central Park and well-attended by the wealthy opera patrons. These events are always strange. You are there as the entertainment, with a small amount of mystique as an artist and a small amount of vulnerability to manipulation from those wielding the power. That is the state of the arts in the USA, folks! I enjoyed meeting the other singers performing that evening and getting to sing some glorious and never performed Nadia Boulanger music. Added bonus was reconnecting with one of my favorite directors from Juilliard who is on the board of the small opera company producing this opera (I am not singing in the opera, by the way, just donor events). And being told by a friendly 88-year-old man that it was too bad I wasn’t good-looking (he was making a joke, and honestly, it was cute). Lipstick goes a long way, my friends.
The next day, I took the Acela train back to Wilmington for another recital rehearsal with Aurelien. I left New York at 2pm and was in the Opera Delaware Studio at 3:35pm. That is bizarre! We had a really, really wonderful rehearsal (this is going to be a fantastic recital, folks, with lots of feels and really, really good music!) and then I was back on the train and home by 9:30pm (and I walked from Penn Station!).
Then yesterday I rehearsed for an audition, sang the audition, rehearsed for an audition next week and attended one of the most spectacular musical events I have been to in NYC: Musicians of Marlboro at Carnegie. I was in a great mood for the concert because the rehearsal preceding it was, once again, really great musical collaboration and so life-giving thus. I was disappointed about the audition that afternoon because it was for something I really want to be a part of, but I didn’t feel like the pianist (who was also auditioning) and I were able to collaborate well and make music- until maybe the last piece they asked to hear. Maybe if we had rehearsed more… But I am getting to a point with my music-making where I feel like it is a waste of time to just go through the motions, making sound, even in the way that people “want” to hear it, if there is no heart connection. It’s a waste! This certainly is helping me feel more agency in my own artistry, something that is important for young musicians to figure out for themselves and something that has taken me several years to claim.
This concert though- folks, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of where this tour is going, go! The ensemble work of these musicians is world-class, some of the best music-making you may hear in your life. Yes, I am partial to Marlboro musicians, but for good reason. Each musician was so invested in the pieces and in listening and connecting with their fellow musicians. It also felt like a little bit of a family reunion, seeing staff and other musicians whom I had otherwise only seen in our shorts and t-shirts in the mountains of Vermont (adult summer camp as my cousin Graceanne likes to say). I was in awe and so inspired.
Today is a day off- no singing! Yay! I love singing and I love music very deeply, but days off are important for vocal and mental health. So I walked across Central Park, which is gorgeous in its autumn splendor the day before the NYC marathon and am enjoying sitting outside of a cafe without a jacket in early November. The world is burning, but I will choose to enjoy the simple pleasure of a warm, sunny autumn day rather than be glum that the climate is in crisis.
Next week, I will sing for the Young Concert Artists Competition Semifinals and the week after will be super-focus mode for my DE recital! SO many good things to come!
Marie on the Road (thinking of changing the name to the singing pilgrim? What do we think?)
Production photos by Justin Heyes with Moonloop Photography
