recorded history

I knew there was a reason to tote around that bulky minidisc player for the past 4 or 5 years...the reason was, that one day (this past weekend), I'd be rummaging through the myriad boxes in my basement containing everything from high school, college, gradschool, summeryaps, yearroundyap, and all of the packing and unpacking in between--that I'd find three minidiscs. And of course, wanting to re-use said discs, I popped them in the machine, and started to listen.

Blast from the past- the Mad Scene staging rehearsal, circa September 2005. I remember this day clearly. I came in wanting to record the rehearsal so that I could review the blocking later on. What I didn't realize was just how much it would all make sense to me--every nuance, every move, the director didn't even say anything about move here move there--he let me feel it out, the cadenza, the space in between, the bloody sheets, the strewn flowers left over from the wedding.
There's ONE interjection about moving a whole section stage right, but otherwise, it was a go with the flow type of situation. I can hear now how the room was silenced by some of the things that I was doing--usually there is the usual din in the background, or at the table--directors giving asst. directors notes, conductors fixing things, mouthing things, stressing more open vowels, other cast members doing their thing around the table where I had placed the recorder.
But what I noticed most was the quiet.

And so, even at that age, singing a role that I would LOVE to sing again at some point in my career, knowing that I was very young and very green but still giving it my all (AND knowing that if I sang it again tomorrow it would sound completely different)- I sounded, in all honesty, on.
Yes, it's young. Too young to be considered seriously on the large operatic stages. But not too young to be singing it correctly, with pathos, with a certain rawness and sweetness of an untested, fresh, and completely optimistic vocalism.

It was a nice refresher to what I'm trying to do these days--learning a new role that is in some ways also not vocally 'perfect' for my rep- after all, it was written for a mezzo!, but seeing that I handled it with grace and ease, and knowing I can do it again. Never pushed. Never darkened. Never did anything but open my mouth and say the words on the pitches that were written for it.

I'm unnerved by it, and also comforted by it.
A recorded history that I'm proud of and that I also can reflect back on, to see just how far I've come since then. And hope that I always keep a bit of that young bright-eyed optimism and purity of voice, while learning to maneuver in the larger and more supported instrument that I've tuned since that time.