Pregnant after 35

***Choirgirl***

Hi ya-

The reason I was asking about whether or not you were a singer was because *I'm* one.   Are you doing vocal performance for classical or what?   So cool!

I started out as a chorus geek (professionally) and somehow ended up in opera.   Go figure!    I think it's fab that you're heading back for a degree!

Christine

Re: ***Choirgirl***

  • How funny, yeah, professional choir and vocal performance for classical.

    Early music is more my strength  but I'm one of the opera geeks at school, too.

    What are you doing in opera (and music in general) in NY? I'm really jealous. What's your voice type?  I'm hanging out now in a sort of lyric/coloratura mezzo place, I love the pants roles and Rossini.  I figure at 38 I'm too old to really get into opera besides choruses, but who knows.  I'm told my voice still sounds young and I look pretty young. 

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  • You know, if you're tallish and can manage the pants roles - ESPECIALLY Rossini right now?    I bet you'd do just fine.   Rossini and Puccini - very safe right now, and the economy is hitting hard in the entertainment industry as well.  

    Don't be jealous... I've been at this since I was 24, and I'll be 40 next year.   I've got straight through Mozart & Handel (for.. god, 12 yrs?) and now am finally singing Strauss & Wagner.   Course, given how expensive those things are to put on?  They're the first things to be canceled ... so that's a rough blow to the mortgage payment LOL! 

    I grew up on LI, and trained on LI and in NYC.   I started out as .. I guess, a lyric coloratura (if you believe that whole fach thing).   I sang all the big Mozart stuff, and really florid Handel stuff (Rinaldo, Alcina, Aggripina, etc), and am officially allowed to call myself a dramatic soprano now.   It took a lot of time.. but it's really cool now that I've finally kind of landed here :)

    If you like the florid Rossini stuff- you should look at the florid Handel stuff.   Folks are doing a LOT of that too :)

    I just did Fidelio for the first time.   I tell you what.   I take my hat off to you pants role mezzos.   Breast binding?   especially while PREGNANT? 

    ... not comfortable. :)

    Christine

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  • Thanks for writing back -- OK, makes sense, you've been at this awhile,  Last semester I worked on Non Piu Mesta, thinking I would just work on it but not perform it. It's not ready for the Met auditions (even if I weren't 8 years too old), but it was good enough to perform at school and be the first song picked for my jury. Oh, and I'm pretty short.  Maybe Cherubino and Siebel would still be OK if I got good enough to do the whole roles....

    A question for you -- this semester, my most favorite aria has been Sta nell' Ircana from Alcina (Ruggiero) -- Do you have any great follow-up suggestions for crazy florid Handel arias (off the top of your head)? 

    I'm envious of your landing as a dramatic soprano.  Fidelio, awesome, I loved the performance I saw of that out here in Colo. Strauss and Wagner, even Puccini, not in my vocab in this lifetime, I don't think (I grew up in MO, so Christine Brewer was our local girl done good story, probably part of why I'm so envious of you dramatic sops). A good friend of mine just chews through Puccini, but I'd sound as silly doing those as she would trying to do some of the medieval and renaissance straighter stuff that seems to be what I do better.   My mom was sort of opposite of you, she spent her 30s being told she was a spinto, and ended up a Handel/Mozart sop, could still pull off clean coloratura in her early 60s while in lessons, but nothing public.  My teacher keeps trying to tell me he thinks I should head higher toward sop based on some exercises we do, but I really like the mezzo rep better.  And there's something about the sexual energy of playing a boy (in boots) that absolutely electrifies me (maybe I need therapy).

    We just did scenes this fall, so he made me Marcellina, so no binding needed (the 8 mos pregnant part threw a funny wrench into the Act II Finale, though).  In the spring, with a newborn, I'm just Virtu in Poppea, partly so my rehearsal time can be really compartmentalized (i.e., just in the prologue).  And locally in Feb I'm in Dido and Aeneas, but just chorus plus either second woman or the spirit, he hasn't decided yet (concert style, not staged, so less of a rush).  So just tiny things for me.  But anything is wicked fun right now.

    I'm so happy to know you have a real career in it!

    OK, gotta go to work!

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