Not everyone can move to New York, or wants to! Is there life for a singer who chooses to live outside the big cities? Well, many, many top singers choose to do so and do so quite sucessfully. Here’s a singer who is making a wonderful life in her local community. Let’s hear from you!
When I moved from Boston, Massachusetts to Bend, Oregon four years ago, I was woefully certain that I was moving to an artistic wasteland and that my days as an opera singer were over.
I am pleased to report that the unexpected happened: I found more joy, freedom, and artistic challenge in this small desert town than I could have imagined. Contentment-with myself and with my gift-finally came to me after years of often agonized searching.
As with many young and gifted singers, I spent most of my life absolutely certain that I was going to have a huge career. I just needed to work hard, meet the right people, and be lucky. One thing was clear to me: I was going to be a vast success on the stage. This internal weathercock pointed in only one direction for me: This Way To A-Level Houses . It never occurred to me that there are many ways to find artistic joy, and only a very few of them include the fabled Big Houses of opera lore.
In recalling the sixteen-odd years that I dedicated to both singing and acting, I am caught by the sharp recollection of a great deal of emotional pain. I am by nature an easygoing yet passionate person. As with most artists, I feel things very deeply, and as a younger woman I struggled to learn to balance sensitivity with the detachment necessary to stay sane in regard to my work. Fervor for my art, the desire to plumb the depths of my soul in order to produce the best music I could at the moment-these longings, while commendable, got in my way. I felt that I had so much to offer, and if I could only get the right opportunity I would succeed.
This overwhelming passion for singing was both a blessing and a burden. I had a great deal of energy to give to my art. As with most singers, there was very little I would not do to progress along my musical path. I moved across the country to study with a great teacher. I rode busses and trains for hours to work with coaches, conductors, anyone who might help me get better. I spent money on concerts, operas, CDs. I sang in churches, weddings, funerals, and worked cleaning houses to pay for my life. I sang in a multitude of productions. I ripped myself open and bled myself dry in the search for fulfillment.
I had, in retrospect, an abundance of talent, a very fine instrument, an ability to work in a hard and focused fashion, and very little in the way of luck. Doors didn’t open for me as I saw them opening for my peers. I knew that it wasn’t due to a lack of any particular ability on my part. I just couldn’t find a way to get where I wanted to go, and the only place I wanted to go was to a big career.
In many ways, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
In moving to Central Oregon, I chose a relationship with a great guy over a career. I still planned on singing professionally, if I could, but I told myself that I was done schlepping hither and yon. I told myself that I had dedicated enough of my life to my damned voice, and I was going to follow my heart and be happy for a change. No more sitting alone in a room, singing and singing and singing. No more agony over my perceived failures. No more beating myself against doors that refused to open. I moved with the great guy, and six months later I was still grieving for my voice.
I finally pulled myself out of my self-imposed lethargy and looked around to see what my small town had to offer to a classical singer. Much to my shock, I found out there was actually a small local opera company, Obsidian Opera. I called and left an uncharacteristically passive message, and a few days later Sharon Goodmonson strode briskly into my life.
As artistic director of Obsidian Opera, Goodmonson knows how to ferret out local talent. Having a well-trained mezzo show up was a blessing for her and her company, and she made no bones about the fact that she wanted to use me. She was businesslike and professional, and very direct about her company’s needs. There was no footing around, no coyness, no sense of manipulation. She needed another mezzo, I needed work, and that was that.
Goodmonson also immediately showed a deeply human quality that I had rarely seen in all my years of working at a “higher level.” She asked questions about me, inquired about my history, and listened intently to my answers. She let me be angry, be confused, be hurt, and then she let me sing.
Such a simple thing, really, to let a singer sing. And pay them to do it.
I could have scorned this little opera company, and if I had I would have missed out on a huge opportunity. Somewhere along the way, I gave up expecting myself to be a huge success and I found out that I was a pretty good small success.
Obsidian Opera Company has an outreach program that goes into local schools and teaches about opera. I found that my training in theatre, especially children’s theatre, helped to teach kids about what opera is. I got a chance to work with a really amazing young man in Amahl and the Night Visitors and developed a relationship with him that stands to this day. I got to play around with roles that I would never have gotten the opportunity to do in The Big World, my favorite being singing Hansel in Hansel and Gretel . I am almost six feet tall with broad shoulders. I am typically cast as a Carmen or other big dramatic roles. I cannot tell you the delight I got in playing an adolescent boy! Granted, my Hansel was no eight year-old waif, but rather a great gawk on the edge of puberty, but he was all mine, and I loved him dearly.
As the years went by, I found that my artistic horizons were broadening in a completely unexpected fashion. In a wonderful way, once I started to get recognition and remuneration for my singing talent, the sharp ache I had carried around inside eased enough for me to notice another talent lurking within.
Writing slowly became the means by which I wanted to express myself. The years of keeping a journal grew into writing for the Bend newspaper, then for magazines, and finally into a book for children.
People say, “Why aren’t you singing anymore?” I have to laugh. Not sing? Might as well ask me to not breathe. I am singing in a wedding in a week. I am working on a recital to benefit my church. I sing all the time. I carry music around inside of me like a torch.
But here is the difference: These days, I don’t sing to gain anything for myself. I don’t open my mouth hoping to impress someone, or get the job, or win the competition. I sing because I love to sing, because I have this great blessing of a voice, and because I have something to give.
In finally letting go of the expectations and hopes that drove me before them like dogs chasing sheep, I was finally able to open up to the real gift of my voice. The simple fact is that when I open my mouth I become music. This is the greatest joy of my life.
Would I have liked having a huge, successful career? You bet. But that wasn’t where I was led, this time around. Instead, music paved the way for another unexpected career.
I smile to myself when I think about what my training as an opera singer taught me in regard to my writing. Patience. Discipline. Those thousands of hours alone in a room taught me to stare down a computer screen, no problem. And my absolute favorite thing that crossed from one artistic discipline to another is the rejection letter. As a singer, I would die a little death each time I didn’t get the part or didn’t win the competition. As a writer, I gleefully collect my reject letters and laugh about how easy it is to sit down and write something else. I LIKE getting rejection letters: it reminds me that there are more and more hurdles for me to bound across in a variety of ways.
The doors fly open for me now. I am content, deeply satisfied, in a way I never even dreamed of before. Music led me to this place, to this story. This little town in the high desert of Central Oregon provided me with the opportunity to grow, and the space and freedom to change. I can see my forest now.
