Up and Running

 Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome...

    Well, this is it! My very first website is up and running. Now I officially exist. What’s more, I exist in a world that I create. In mywide web world, I am neither too soft nor too loud. Too short nor too tall. Too classic nor too rock. I am exactly the way I imagine me to be. What a wonderful world!

    The purpose of this website is not only to give me presence and exposure in my profession, but also to give me a forum to express myself in my own way -- a way which usually clashes with the more traditional ways of typical opera singers.

    Of course, no opera singer thinks they’re “typical”. Practically every one of them I know (and I know a lot) says that at one time or another about themselves. 

    Guilty as charged! 

    It’s true, though. Despite the many traits which identify us as a group, there are seldom any two of us alike. We make up a microcosm of the world at large.

    There are fat opera singers, yes indeed. But there are also skinny ones (and the skinny ones sing just as loudly, if not louder. Just busting a myth, there). There are even opera singers who don’t sing particularly well. Seriously.

    There are opera singers who won’t even enter a smoky bar (then again, hardly any bar is smoky nowadays), and others who smoke, who drink, who don’t spend all day taking care of their voice.             

    While every opera singer is exposed to classical music, some do not listen to it in their free time. Others do not listen to any music at all. Some opera singers are shy. In fact, I’d venture to say that most opera singers don’t like to sing at birthday parties, or in the middle of dinner at an Italian restaurant if you ask them to. Would you?         

    Give us a stage, an orchestra, a costume and some lights, however, and you’re in for a treat.

    This is where opera singers seem to agree with one another without exception. If only the rest of the world -- the macrocosm, so to speak -- could be just as acquiescent. If only there were an Earth-sized “stage” where everyone could agree on something. Then, perhaps, there would not be so much strife in the world.

    In light of current events (elections, et al) it is plain to see how desperate humans are to take one side or another -- how we love to see things as black or white, straight or gay, classic or jazz, sun or moon, and nothing in between. 

    Nevertheless, I notice more and more that people are having a harder time conforming to the norm, or what used to be the norm anyway. On the other hand, I suspect there never has been much of a norm. Take for example majorities winning elections, passing laws, selling products, what have you.... In reality it’s just a diverse bunch of individuals who happen to agree on one thing at any given time. Totally random. Like a winning lottery ticket. Still, I have admired the tenacity of those groups who have held on to their convictions so tightly, who have clung to their side of the story through fire and brimstone, protests and name-calling, victory and defeat -- of those who don’t think it’s over until the fat lady sings. 

    Imagine their disappointment when the skinny chick steps up to the mic.