Good things come to those…..
Who wait…….
So, Medea, difficult, mercurial, angry and sublime, in Brazil will have to wait until April. Frustrating, but I will make this all important role debut as Cherubini’s Medea on April 8 in Rio at the Theatro Municipal and a truly classy amazing concert of Handel historically reproduced by Randy Mickelson and with the legendary Richard Bonygne on the podium on April 15
.
I am not good with waiting, but I think God forces your hand sometimes, and with patience I will complete the total return to health, and then make a bounding leap back on to the world stage to give everything I have…… it will be very interesting and ultimately rewarding.
Serving this great music means so much to me, always has.
I am frequently my own worst enemy, because I defend it so much, I talked about loving it and listening to old singers records, taking my nod from the old school. Never understood why this set so many critics on edge.
Didn’t Mickey Mantle know all about Babe Ruth and Joe Dimaggio? Tiger Woods knows and is inspired to top and be the best by the example of San Snead and Hogan, and Jack Nicklause. They were galvanized by what glories came before them. Ponselle came to Muzio performances, and Corelli would hear from Lauri Volpi. This was considered the norm. Dancers went to study with Ballenchine and Martha Graham and Agnes De Mille….no one copied. They just absorbed traditions…..
I was influenced by the greats, sought them out, because they did music the way I WANTED to. No one GOT me like the older singers did. They understood. Birgit, Leonie, Joan Sutherland and Zinka, Renata and Montserrat, Rise and Marilyn Horne and Carlo Bergonzi and …..they graciously sought me out or came backstage to congratulate me and it was always with a look of relief on their faces that someone was continuing on doing some of the traditions they represented. All the maestri who actually understood how to get the best from the singers, realizing each one brings a strength and a weakness with them in service to a piece of music. Nothing has ONLY ONE WAY of doing it. They knew this.
Today everyone is encouraged to show behind the scenes, go backstage in someone’s life….. be normal. Why?
I have not been blessed with children, no married life, nothing remotely speaks girl next door about me, don’t want to be ordinary, don’t want to fit in…. I love where I go for those hours on stage…. another world, and in it I have a power I do not in this world. I can touch beauty, intangible, I am beautiful and transcendant…. often out of reach except in the embrace of the music.
I become more beautiful than I would ever hope to be…. words are poetry, music is divine, life is honor and tragedy and full of passion…..and joy. Then the curtain comes down.
So, to have the chance to do this right, and with the right people, in my best way, I must wait.
and prepare……
Stay tuned….. thirty years on the stage – a desire and a fire. This is going to be so much fun….
To be onstage, in the spotlight, the “open eye of God”…doing what I have done since I was 9…..
I have missed it.
