At one point in his interview for this month’s cover story, Roberto Alagna said, “I just sang Les pêcheurs de perles [which] I had to learn in three days. . . . Le jongleur de Notre-Dame was done in one week. . . . I learned Aida in five hours. . . . Today our life is difficult because you are so busy, you never have time to study.”
Whether it’s the constant cramming of scores, living in airports and audition rooms, or longing for a day off as you supplement your income with a host of other gigs, burnout is an all-too-common ailment in a singer’s life.
Widely regarded as the leading expert on burnout, Christina Maslach (professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley) defines the term as the combination of three main symptoms: exhaustion, cynicism, and a drop in professional efficacy. If you find yourself experiencing these symptoms in any capacity, take a step back. Breathe. And take action before the condition becomes expensive both monetarily and emotionally.
Talk It Out
Carving out 45 minutes a week may seem like the last thing you can handle if you’re burning out, but it remains one of the best ways to nip the problem in the bud. One of the easiest ways to find affordable therapy is to ask.
“Ask the therapist if they’ll lower their fee based on your income (sliding scale),” writes Dr. Jonathan Fader, team psychologist to the New York Mets, on Brokelyn.com. “They might even have scaled-down rates for the traditionally cash strapped (students, artists, single moms, etc).” In cities like New York, there are even full practices built on the sliding-scale principle with therapists who will even offer free sessions if you are especially strapped for cash one month.
If your insurance covers therapy, your provider’s website will offer a directory of doctors they cover.
PsychologyToday.com also offers a directory for the uninsured in every price range. Perhaps the highest benefit of therapy is that you can talk, vent, scream, complain, whine, or express any other form of emotion regarding your career and it will a) never leave the room, b) not reflect on your performance with your peers, and c) offer an unbiased sounding board that will help you stay on target with your goals.
Sing It Out
One of Maslach’s six areas of burnout is categorized under “reward and recognition.” “Basically this is the feedback function of the work you do,” she explains. “And what you do provides opportunities for you to get feedback as to [whether] things are going well [or] things are not going so well.” It’s hard to ask for praise from a performance, but asking for feedback isn’t uncalled for.
Should you find asking for feedback difficult, start off in the safest of atmospheres: your coachings and lessons. As it is, your instructor should be giving you plenty of notes—but if you want more, say so. Ask specific questions to get straight answers beyond praise. “How was my diction on this aria?” “Am I going sharp in this bar?” “What do you think of this phrasing?” And offer kudos and feedback to your colleagues. The best way to get praise is to give praise.
Work It Out
“If your job is your only thing in life and you feel like you’re messing that up,” says Maslach, “you really run the risk . . . of your whole life feeling like it’s going down the tubes.” Unsurprisingly, having hobbies outside of work—and this doesn’t mean having a secondary job that pays the bills—keeps your mind in an even balance. “I used to get in trouble with burnout when I was doing only the singing career, because I identified too closely with the singer persona,” says soprano Martha Sullivan.
Having a rotation of projects or hobbies puts you in control of your time and schedule, at least in a small way. In addition to singing, Sullivan composes and teaches. When papers to grade pile up, she’ll break to work on an aria. Or she’ll step out of the classical world entirely and indulge in her hobby of folk dancing (she has practiced contradancing and Balkan dancing in both New York and Boston in weekly classes that run between $10 and $15). Soprano Courtney Crouse teaches Jazzercise, a far cry from Bach or Britten. It allows her to interact with a group of people outside of the opera house and make some extra cash. Yoga has also experienced a recent boon with free and free-will donation classes at organizations like Yoga to the People (YogaToThePeople.com) and lululemon athletica (Lululemon.com).
Apart from physical activity, carve out some leisure time to be creative outside of the music world. “The fun part about jewelry making is that I get to wear my creations when I perform,” says mezzo-soprano Kit Emory, who also cooks, plays Scrabble, and volunteers in her community.
“I can’t tell you how many police officers moonlight, not because they need to earn money but because they want to do something totally different from what they do,” Maslach adds, citing the example of one officer who doubles as a photographer—the dichotomy of being a person most people don’t want to see in his day job and being a person people are happy to see when he’s at weddings or bar mitzvahs keeps him balanced and attuned to his ideals and values that originally led to his joining the force.
Knock It Out
Running around 24 hours a day leaves little time for a lot of small practicalities. It’s okay to spend a couple of extra dollars a week if the value outweighs the cost. The last thing you may have time for is doing laundry, but if fluff-and-fold service is $7 and you already use $5.50 in quarters to do your wash in-person, the couple of hours you save add up like a savings account for time and sanity.
Treat yourself to a glass of wine with friends on the weekend—but cap it off at just the one glass. If you have a free Tuesday, take advantage of the bargain matinée ticket prices to see a movie for $6.
The $50 Week is about living within your means and living richly in lean times. With the money you’re saving, however, don’t be afraid to take $10 every now and then to put toward yourself and your well-being. It’ll save you big in the long run.
