Saturday at the Opera: In an Old Studio

I wrote this poem in 2009 as an homage to my coaching studio at Houston Grand Opera. The wonderful Joyce DiDonato (who knew my studio very well!) kindly published it a couple of years ago on her blog (I've since changed a couple of punctuations and added a break in the middle of the poem), so that is its credited "first appearance"—very appropriate, don't you think?

In an Old Studio

There used to be a piano in this room,
a mid-size grand, whose lid was always strewn
with scores of Verdi and Rossini. 
On the walls hung photos of the Tuscan hills,
a poster of a street in old Milan—
they've left their imprint, ghostly squares against
the graying of the years—and on this spot,
a music stand held up the legacy
of genius waiting to be issued forth
through chosen throats.
                                             Be still a minute. Listen.
Distant phrases of a long-lost life
will breathe across your brow and tell the tale
of striving for sublime exactitude,
of discipline and repetition, of
the just dissatisfaction with an end
that's less than art. Then close your eyes to touch
the keys that are no longer there, and you
will hear the splendor that was crafted in
this room, and leave it with the cadences
of ancient passions sighing in your soul.

© Leticia Austria 2009

Saturday, and I'm No Longer at the Opera

     For some inexplicable reason, I woke up this morning thinking of Massenet's Manon. Specifically, the Saint-Sulpice scene. No music, I couldn't remember a note of that scene, still can't, just the dramatic situation. I then thought, "How does 'La Rêve' go?" It took a rather long moment, then that plaintive introduction by the strings came into my head and an imaginary tenor voice began, "En ferment les yeux ..."

     I was surprised and a little dismayed that the aria took that long to come back to me. It is one of the most famous arias in the French repertoire. How many gezillion times in my 25-year opera career did I play it in auditions? How many tenors have coached it with me? How many performances of Manon did I see or prompt?

     Then I realized it was nine years ago I did Manon at HGO, and no tenor in the Studio sang it after that production while I was still there. So it's probably been nine years since I last heard "La Rêve." Nine years, it suddenly struck me. That's a long time. In the opera world, nine years is forever.

     I realized, too, that I left that rarefied world eight years ago and the invisible line connecting it to my spirit is growing thinner and more fragile with each passing year. I still keep in touch with many of my former colleagues, singers, orchestra personnel, etc., thanks to social networks, and though I treasure those contacts and intend to preserve them for as long as possible, my mind and spirit are elsewhere, and that the music is no longer a major part of my consciousness is an inevitability I'm learning to accept. Like the letting go of piano repertoire, the letting go of opera repertoire has to be complete before I can let the music return, purified and free of the shackles of my former coach mentality. I still can't listen to opera without coaching in my head, which spoils the joy of listening to it. It may take a while longer before I can listen without criticizing every single phrase, every word. But struggling to remember the tune of a famous aria is a good sign. It means that Leticia the Coach is beginning to fade away, eventually to be replaced by Leticia the Plain Ol' Music Lover.

Jussi Björling (1951)



On What an Opera Coach Does

     Some years ago when I was working for the Houston Grand Opera, I was asked by the editor of the company's official magazine, Opera Cues, to write an article discussing exactly what was involved in my job. My official title was Assistant Conductor/Assistant Chorus Master; the editor was interested primarily in the first part of that title. In all major American opera companies, "Assistant Conductor" doesn't necessarily imply that that person is a conductor per se; he/she may or may not actually conduct performances. Rather, it is an all-embracing term, just as maestro is in Italian. An assistant conductor is a pianist and a coach; someone who has various skills, including basic conducting skills, with which to execute numerous jobs in the opera house. "Assistant Conductor" is the formal title used on paper. Around the theater, that person is usually referred to, simply, as a "coach"; in an opera program, on the page listing the cast, etc., he/she is usually listed under "Musical Preparation."

     Here is the article that I wrote for Opera Cues:

     "I work at the opera."

     "Oh, really? What do you do, exactly?"

     "I'm a coach."

     "Oh." Puzzled look.

     And that's where I usually leave it, unless I'm pressed for further information—in which case I feel compelled to ask, "Are you sure you want to know? Have you got an hour?"

     Don't get me wrong—it's not that I don't like talking about my work; it's just that it's hard to describe in twenty words or less. Being a coach, especially one employed at a major opera company, is a multi-faceted, highly specialized job, the qualifications for which are daunting enough to send some pianists fleeing to other lines of work; nor are all of them willing to remain behind the scenes, or to expend their skills playing music that wasn't written for the piano. Still others start out believing that opera is their calling, only to discover that it's more demanding and time-consuming than they had bargained for, so they leave the business in favor of another career. I myself have had fleeting visions of donning a MacDonald's cap. But only very fleeting. Despite the suffering we may undergo learning a Strauss score, or sitting through a three-hour supernumerary rehearsal and playing maybe ten notes, those of us who do stick with it take great pride in "playing" our part in this amazing art form.

     After a few dogged years of freelancing (which means spending more time driving from job to job than actually playing the piano), I was very fortunate in 1989 to be accepted by the Houston Grand Opera Studio, one of the best apprenticeships in the country, not only for singers, but also for young coaches. In addition to taking language classes and conducting lessons and being coached by more experienced colleagues, it is very much on-the-job-training, doing all the things regular music staff members do, only in lesser amounts and always under the supervision of the Head of Music Staff. Those who rise to the challenges and successfully make it through their apprenticeships are ready to be full-fledged music staff members at any opera house.

     So what exactly does a coach do? One of my favorite duties is working one-on-one with singers, helping them to learn new roles, rework old ones, and sometimes to prepare oratorio solos or recital programs. This of course means that we coaches must be familiar with the "standard repertory" (a mere five hundred years' worth) and all the different vocal styles and musical traditions associated with the various eras and composers, e. g., the vast differences between Monteverdi and Verdi or Piccini and Puccini. We are not voice teachers, whose main concern is vocal technique; however, we have to know enough about technique so that we can offer a singer well-informed criticisms, such as, "Your open e vowel loses focus in the middle register"—which, by the way, is a common problem particularly in female voices; but let's not go into that.

     Speaking of open e vowels brings us to language. Knowing the correct pronunciation of Italian, French, and German is absolutely essential, as well as having a healthy knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Proficiency in Russian, and nowadays Czech, is helpful but not obligatory—a good thing, since my Russian is limited to da and nyet and my Czech is zilch. Fluency is a nice bonus, but, life being short, one is better off just knowing one or two languages as intimately as possible, definitely Italian since it is the most extensively used. Singers should do their own translating, although they sometimes need our help with more obscure words or cross-eyed syntax. Diction, however, is beaten into them (er, that is, fine-tuned) by the coach. Also fine-tuned are notes and rhythms, interpretation, intonation, phrasing, musicality, and—well, everything. Furthermore, in helping a singer learn a role, the coach must sing all the other roles (while playing) so that the singer can learn his cues. (Did I mention this was a tough job?) Hopefully, this whole process will enable the singer to go to his first rehearsal with confidence and aplomb and ultimately deliver a fine performance.

     The first rehearsal of a production can be a bit unnerving for the coaches. Another of our duties is to play for all stagings in the rehearsal room, as well as technical rehearsals in the theater. If the conductor is an unknown quantity to us, we pray to the powers above that his or her beat pattern is clear and that we won't get dirty looks if we stray slightly from the tempo; otherwise, we're in for three or four weeks of Rehearsal Pianist Hell. Fortunately, in my own experience at least, that has rarely been the case.

     Before all those rehearsals and coachings even begin, there is our own preparation to worry about. Depending on the difficulty of the score and whether or not we've played it before, we can spend weeks or even months translating, studying, and practicing. I spent four months learning Elektra, for example, admittedly only a one-act opera, but chock-full-o' notes that don't lie easily under the hands. Operas, after all, were not written for the piano; we cease to be pianists and in effect become orchestras with only ten fingers. Needless to say, above-average technique and musicianship are definite assets. And because we are the "orchestra" in rehearsals, we must spend long hours studying the orchestral score, comparing it with the piano reduction in the vocal score so that we know what instrumentation we're trying to simulate at any given moment; also to correct errors and add important things from the orchestral score which have been left out of the piano reduction.

     Basic conducting skills are necessary, since we are often called upon in performances to conduct off-stage instruments (called "banda") or chorus. This involves gluing your eyes to a television monitor, which displays the (hopefully) friendly image of the maestro, and relaying his (hopefully) clear beat to your banda or chorus. Personal note: I defy any of my colleagues to tell me that this is a gratifying task. To quote one of them: "It's either completely wrong, or nobody notices it." At its worst, off-stage conducting can be stressful and thankless; at its best ... nothing comes to mind.

     Sometimes we do come out from behind the scenes to play a keyboard part in the orchestra, or to play recitatives. (Another personal note: I love playing recitatives!) Then there are various kinds of auditions for which we function as accompanist: those for the company itself (called "house auditions"), those for the Studio, and also those for chorus. The latter two fall into the category of "cattle call" auditions and require the pianist to play up to five or six hours' worth of arias in one day. I'm frequently asked by people not in the business, "Do you practice these pieces or rehearse with the singers beforehand?" Ninety-nine percent of the time, no. As I mentioned before, standard repertory should be as familiar to us as the Pledge of Allegiance, so no matter what piece of music the singer puts in front of us, we can probably play it in our sleep (and I'm sure all of us have, at one time or another). Every once in a while, though, someone will sing something totally obscure, usually with about two-hundred notes per square inch for the pianist, in which case we mentally utter a string of swear words and call upon our sight-reading ability.

     In many cases, all of the aforementioned skills and qualifications constitute only a starting point for those coaches who decide to branch out into prompting, chorus preparation, or conducting. Some people consider such a decision to be a definite move upward, implying, perhaps unintentionally, that being a pianist/coach is something that should eventually be risen above. I beg to differ. Although I myself have "branched out" into chorus preparation, then prompting, and most recently conducting, and have enjoyed all three, I always return to the job I love best. Coaches, after all, play a major part in providing the very foundation upon which a performance's musical and linguistic values are built, and without the rehearsal pianist there can be no rehearsing. Nuts and bolts. We are essential.

     So the next time you're at the opera, and you open your program and see those names listed under "Musical Preparation," give a silent round of applause. We'd appreciate it.

Opera Cues, Vol. 40, No. 4, Summer 2000

The Freelance Musician

     After five years at Trinity University, studying piano and voice, I spent the next several years freelancing in San Antonio and Austin, as coach, rehearsal pianist, and singer. I also went back to the Round Top Festival for four more summers, once as a piano student and three times as a voice student. (Their vocal program existed only a few years, unfortunately.) Because I wasn't allowed to matriculate at Trinity (due to my lack of a high school diploma), I had no undergraduate degree; so graduate school was not an option. I had to become a professional straight away.
     Freelancing is no bed of roses, let me tell you. In order to earn any decent money at all, you have to have as many jobs as possible, which means you have to drive to all these jobs, which takes both time and gas. I was lucky to land some of the best jobs a freelance pianist could have in the San Antonio area: rehearsal pianist for the Symphony Mastersingers (I also sang with them), vocal coach at UTSA and St. Mary's University, répétiteur for the San Antonio Festival (now defunct), Austin Lyric Opera, and the Opera Theater of San Antonio (also now defunct). ("Répétiteur" is a fancy name for operatic rehearsal pianist.) As a singer I was soprano soloist at a couple of the bigger churches, and also sang solos with the Texas Bach Society, the Mastersingers, and the San Antonio Choral Society.
     During these years, I was equally interested in being a coach and a singer. My youthful aspiration to be a concert pianist had fizzled out by this time, as I discovered I lacked the wherewithal (or discipline) to put in the necessary hours per day practicing. My laziness again reared its droopy head. At any rate, I really didn't think I had the technique to cover a wide enough repertoire. Playing opera meant playing piano reductions of the orchestration; as they are not true piano works, this means you don't have to play every single note on the page. However, this does not necessarily mean that reductions are easier to play; in fact, there are many, many operatic scores that would challenge the most gifted pianists, for the very reason that they are unpianistic. I grew to love playing opera, being a one-woman orchestra and seeing how the orchestral score supports and enhances the drama. I loved being part of a multi-faceted art form and watching it come together, facet by facet, in the rehearsal room, then seeing the final product of weeks of hard work come to glorious life on the stage. But I also wanted to be part of that art form as a singer; so I continued studying voice and doing auditions and competitions.
     One summer, I decided to audition as a singer for the San Antonio Festival. They were mounting a production of Handel's Saul, and they were looking for a Merab. I was already known to the General Director as one of their regular repetiteurs, and he was rather surprised when I showed up to audition for Merab. After the morning round of auditions was over, he took me into his office and asked, "So are you a pianist or a singer?"
     "I'd like to be both," I answered.
     "You can't do both. Either one would -- should -- take up all your time, concentration, and effort. You cannot do both and expect to succeed at either one of them. Frankly, it's a lot harder for us to find competent répétiteurs than it is to find good singers, so I'd rather you play for Saul."
     Maybe he was trying to find a gentle way of saying he didn't think much of me as a singer; but I knew he was dead right about it being hard to find competent répétiteurs, especially in the San Antonio area. So I chose to play rehearsals for Saul, which meant I would also play continuo in performances under the baton of Baroque specialist Nicholas McGegan. (More on that later.) 
     That decision pretty much squelched any real ambition I had to be a singer, and sealed my fate as an operatic répétiteur and coach.
    
    
   

The Tunnel-Visioned Flunkie

     High school was almost a complete bust for me. If it weren't for choir, I think I would have gone mad. Fortunately our high school choir was one of the best in the state, certainly the best in the city, and our sense of competitive pride was extremely high and nurtured an already robust (perhaps too robust) musical competitiveness in me. I made it to All-State Choir three years in a row (I missed my freshman year, as I spent that year in a Catholic girls school), winning first in my voice division every year at every level (region, area, and state) except once, when I foolishly had pizza right before my audition and had to fight through major cheese phlegm while singing.

     Between choir and the increasing demands my piano study made on me, I grew lazier than ever scholastically, neglecting homework and skipping class to practice in the choir room. I even managed to skip nearly an entire semester of Latin. Every summer, I'd have to make up at least one class that I flunked due to my laziness and lack of interest. I believe it was my junior English teacher who told me I had tunnel vision -- that I could only see one thing, music, and that one thing would never carry me through life and would prevent me from ever being a well-rounded person.. Then it was that my counselor, frustrated at having to summon me to her office at least twice a month for one thing or another, told me point blank that I'd never amount to anything. When it came time for graduation and I wound up being one of only a handful of kids in my class that didn't receive a diploma, it looked as if my counselor was right. I never did graduate high school.

     My mother came to my rescue -- the first of two crucial rescues she made in my life, the second being her praying me back to the Church. The summer after my non-graduation, I won a Ewing-Halsell Foundation scholarship to the International Round Top Festival, a summer program for young pianists and string players. There I studied for six weeks with the renowned pianist James Dick and performed in several concerts. While I was there, my mother, without telling me, went to Trinity University to speak with one of the piano faculty, Andrew Mihalso; he had known me since judging me in a competition when I was small, and had wanted me to study with him ever since. He and my mother appealed to the dean, who examined my SAT scores (before I found out I would not be graduating, I had taken my SAT and applied to three colleges, including Trinity). He found my scores to be very high, high enough to justify admitting me -- provided I didn't actually matriculate for a degree.

     So the flunkie lucked out. With the help of my mother and a teacher who believed in my talent, I spent five years studying piano and voice at Trinity, earning no degree, but coming away with several competition prizes and many performances under my belt. It was also during college that I began coaching singers, mostly my fellow students; but then one weekend a Wagnerian bass named Simon Estes came to sing with the San Antonio Symphony and wanted to coach his next role while he was in town. Someone gave him my name, and I spent two hours one afternoon working with him on Handel's Saul. That was my first real professional coaching, and the start of a 25-year career.

A Taste of Monastic Life

Just to refresh your memory: before a woman officially enters a monastery, she usually makes a visit called an "aspirancy," which lasts anywhere from a few days to a few weeks or even months. This visit, during which she stays inside the monastery's enclosure walls as a temporary member of the community, enables her to experience firsthand the monastic life, the customs and horarium (schedule) of that particular community; more importantly, it gives both her and the community a chance to determine whether or not she has a true monastic vocation, and whether she is a right fit for that community and vice-versa.

The following passages are taken from my journal.


25 February 2004

     Tomorrow I leave for Lufkin. I can't seem to sleep. Guess I'm too excited. Such a completely different life, a completely different world from the one I live in now! Most of my life has been spent working in a business in which everything depends on talent, praise, and criticism. You are either being judged, or you're judging someone else. Your job hangs on questions like, "How well does she play? Is she a 'conductor's pianist'; does she play 'orchestrally'? Does she know how to coach? Do the singers like her?" I suppose success in any profession depends on ability, talent -- in fact, that's one of the world's biggest truisms -- but that can get all confused with the person, and sometimes in dangerous ways. It seems to me that the focus on one's talents vs. shortcomings can become so intense as to cause that person to believe that those are the only criteria by which he/she is deemed valuable. Especially in today's society, where too often a person's job is his life.
     No, life can be better than that. Now that I know I am valuable in God's eyes, regardless of the gifts he's given me, I never want to settle for, or rely on, the opinions and judgment of men. If tomorrow I lose the use of my hands, I am still precious in his eyes. I no longer want to care about praise and admiration and applause. But I know, because I've cared about those things all my life, learning not to care will be the most difficult thing I'll ever try to do.
     I'm beginning to understand that this is part of what St. Catherine of Siena calls "true discernment" -- a knowledge of self, and how God works in you and through you; the honest appraisal of one's faults, the things that hinder one's quest for perfection and union with God.


1 March 2004, Lufkin

     I arrived at the monastery last Thursday around 12.30 -- a beautiful day, crisp and sunny. I was immediately taken by St. Mary Veronica to be fed in the guest dining room, but only after a few minutes I was summoned to the Peace Parlor to be greeted by Sr. Mary Annunciata (Prioress), Sr. Mary William, and Sr. Mary Jeremiah.
     The meeting in the parlor was brief. I was then escorted by Sr. Mary Veronica to the enclosure door. This was the moment I’d read about in so many nuns’ autobiographies! There, in a narrow hallway just beyond a small vestibule, was the majority of the community, lined up in 2 rows, faces smiling in welcome. I made my way through them, alternating from one side to the other, embracing each sister. Some, of course, I’d already met on my previous visits. I came to the only blue-clad figure among them, their postulant Adrienne. She just entered at the start of the year. She kept saying, “Oh, I’m so happy you’re here!” It must be very lonely, the first months as a postulant.
     After greeting everyone, I was shown into the oratory where I knelt before a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, and Sr. Mary Annunciata said a blessing. Then the novices, Adrienne, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, Sr. Mary William, and Sr. Maria Cabrini took me through the main building, out along the cloister walk, and to the novitiate building for a “get-to-know-you” recreation, just the 8 of us. I was happy to see a grand piano in the novitiate’s community room. It’s a brown Aeolian in fair shape, but needs tuning and voicing badly. There was class in the afternoon (they have class every weekday except Wednesday, at 4). Right now we're studying the Gospel of John -- my favorite Gospel; I’m so glad!
     After supper, I went with the novices to work in the kitchen. My job was to help dry pots and pans and large utensils at the “pot sink.” Dishes, cafeteria trays, glasses, and silverware are washed in the “dish room,” which has one of those super-fast, restaurant-style dishwashers -- you fill up a big rack with dirty dishes, push them through a sort of mini-garage door; just a short couple of minutes later, ed ecco! Clean dishes, piping hot!
     Then evening recreation, this time with the whole community in the main building’s community room. That first evening, they had a “circle” recreation in my honor: all the sisters sat in a big circle with me and the Prioress, Sub-Prioress, and Novice Directress sitting at the top of it; I told them what I could about myself, and they asked lots of questions. Of course, they were extremely interested in my work and the world of opera.
     Friday I helped peel and core mounds of Granny Smith apples. Saturday mornings are devoted to housecleaning. My assignment was the novitiate's community room and computer room -- dust, vacuum, and mop. They of course use old-fashioned hand-wrung mops, Swiffers with their disposable mopcloths not being ecnomical and therefore not in accordance with the vow of poverty. Never mind the fact that hand-wrung mops can be very unsanitary!
     Monday morning, kitchen duty. I prepared toast points for dinner (their big midday meal), buttering the bread, topping each triangle with two kinds of cheese and a tomato slice, then Sr. Mary Thomas grilled them. I'm very good with assembly line work.
     After kitchen duty, I was taken to the laundry where I was shown by Sr. Mary Rose how to clean and vacuum the giant lint trap from their enormous dryer. The amount of lint that came out of that thing was enough to weave a whole set of sheets! Then I had to vacuum the very large laundry room. Someone needs to donate new vacuum cleaners to these sisters. The one in the novitiate looks to be circa the Viet Nam war. The one in the laundry ain’t much younger. Adrienne mopped the concrete floor after I vacuumed, then I helped fold and bring clean stuff back to the kitchen and novitiate. We finished with about 3 minutes to spare before Midday Prayer. I was famished! When we went in to dinner, I looked proudly at my beautiful toast points. . . .
     Meals are eaten in silence (except on special feast days and “picnic days”); as you eat, you listen to the reader who reads a biography of a saint, or a book or article on Church History, or something on the spiritual life, etc. In this way, you are feeding both mind and body. The refectory in a monastery is regarded as a holy place, because every meal taken there commemorates the Last Supper. Therefore, it is also one of the places where silence is generally kept, aside from the reading at meals.


4 March 2004

     I had a long talk with Sr. Mary Jeremiah about this and that -- what one does with one’s bank account, property, etc. before entering, and about visits and correspondence.
     You usually keep your bank account(s) open until you take vows, just in case things don’t work out and you leave the monastery. Upon entering, you bring a dowry (money) which is also kept aside until you take your final vows, again for security in the event you should leave. One doesn’t want to go back to the outside world without money! If you do take final vows, making you a cloistered nun for the rest of your earthly life, then you can close your accounts.
     The correspondence part I’m sort of disappointed about, being an avid letter writer. But postulants and novices can only write to friends a few times a year; to family, twice a month. Visitors (family and friends) can be received, except during Advent and Lent. If one’s family lives far away and can only come once or twice a year, they may stay (at a local hotel at the monastery’s expense) for two days, and a sister may spend the whole time (except for Mass and the Divine Office) visiting with them in one of the parlors; she may even take her meals there.
     We also talked about how much more difficult it is for someone my age to give up the world and enter into a hidden life. She was very reassuring and comforting: “God knows how much you’re giving up. And he wouldn’t ask you to make such a sacrifice if he didn’t think you’d be happy. We sometimes forget that he wants our happiness.”
     But this morning I couldn’t help thinking of all the things I’m giving up. As I took my morning stroll, pacing up and down the path to the cemetery, I thought of my life -- all I’ve accomplished, how much I have to give as an opera coach, how I’d never see the English countryside that I’ve wanted to see ever since I can remember; or Venice and Verona, which are more recent dreams. And so, after Mass, I prayed very hard to Jesus and Mary to help me fight these temptations and to remember always that the Spirit put this desire to be a nun in my heart for a reason -- his reason, not mine.


Part Two of my aspirancy coming soon. . . .