Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Apologies to Maestro Porco!

I have never done as poorly on an audition as I did tonight. I was humiliated, mortified, [insert adjective of extreme, abject horror here].

I was prepared. I had been practicing my German and my Italian all day. I knew the songs. I started off strong on the Italian art song. I got throught the first chorus, then midway through the verse my throat suddenly when dry as sand and I couldn't get my breath. I grabbed my water bottle and picked up where I left off and made it through, but barely. By the time I finished, I was shaking. My hands were shaking, my chest was shaking, I was afraid I was going to burst into tears.

I've been auditioning for choruses since I was eight years old. Really. I started singing in my church choir at age eight. This is frigging ridiculous. I have an ear that singers would kill for. I can sight-read right there with the best of them.

The problem is I am not a soloist. I am a chorister. If he had pulled in a soprano, a tenor and a bass for me to audition with and just asked us to sing something from next season's repertoire, I imagine I would have been fine. But to ask me to sing a solo. It was the worst. Really. The absolute WORST.

After the debacle of my two solos, he asked me to sing a scale so he could get an idea of my range. Then he had me open a book of Bach chorales and sing the alto line to the accompanist's soprano line. Of course I nailed it. That's what I do.

But was he impressed enough with my ear and the fact that I studied with Boulanger and my choral history to overlook my horrible, horrible case of nerves?

The good news is I got up the nerve to go sing this audition.

The other good news is he did give me the standard "You will receive the music before the first rehearsal and you are expected to come to the rehearsal with the music learned. There will be no sight-reading in rehearsal." disclaimer. Would he have wasted that breath if he were going to summarily dismiss me?

I spoke with Tyler while I was driving from the audition site to a pamper-myself moment at Nordstrom. He said, "think of all the gas money you'll save."

That's my consolation. I tried. I effed up royally. I won't have to spend that much more time on the road.

Oh well. Another day. Another French sixth.

2 comments:

Jill said...

OK so I had to look at an atlas today to figure out where all these place are - Akron, Cleveland, Youngston. You must LOVE your car. I hope they let you sing as I know how importatn that is to you but can you afford three aparments????

Jan Crews said...

Jill, it's so funny that you made that comment. Lately I've been thinking how much I like my car. I've got so many toys that make the drive go quickly; it's comfortable; I look good in it (important criteria!). And by the way, Tyler agrees with you. He really doesn't want me to get the gig primarily because he thinks the drive will be too hard for me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go hit the road!