Ramble Away

BULLY FOR ME

Down on the highway, Highway 54,
Becky let a big one and she shot me out the door.
Wheels couldn't stand it, engine fell apart
All because of Becky's super-duper sonic fart.

I don't remember where the song came from. I learned it from some other little kid in first grade. And I don't remember what it was about Becky that made her the target of our teasing. I have a vague recollection that she looked something like a Mrs. Beasely doll; or perhaps she just had one, as many little girls at the time did. She may have been "slow", as people said back then, though I don't believe she was mentally retarded. She was a little chubby.

Whatever it was, we were six years old, and we picked on her. I was never the ringleader, but I certainly did my share, and being a smartass and good with composing doggerel, I contributed mean little rhymes.

It was too long ago; I don't remember if I ever felt guilty about teasing Becky. I think I did, but that may just be my adult guilt trying to rewrite the script so I can feel a little better about myself. I do know that I have thought about her over the years, wished I could take back those ugly words and that meanness.

In middle school, the victim of choice was Jackie --- who, ironically, was also a sometime friend. She was an overweight girl who lived in my neighborhood, and she was perfectly nice --- perhaps a little overly enamoured of teen fan magazines and teen stars like Lief Garretson. (Yeah, who)? People mainly made fun of Jackie because of her weight, and while I don't remember making any direct attacks on her myself, I certainly laughed at her behind her back, made jokes, and through my complicity encouraged other people to pick on her.

In high school, it was Gina. Gina was poor, not very bright, and had tiny feet, I mean really tiny. We called her Bird Feet Gina, though I don't recall doing it to her face. Nor do I recall any direct bullying, at least not from my group of friends. We sniggered at her behind her back, but we also felt sorry for her. Still, I am sure that in some way I contributed to some misery for her in high school.

I remember each of these girls. I remember my part in behaving cruelly to them, and I am sorry for it. I hope that their school years weren't miserable and that they are happy, strong people now. I don't consider myself to be a mean person, but I have my share of meanness in me. Even as an adult, I have partaken in some pack behavior (internet bulletin boards in particular encourage this) of which I am not proud. It's in all of us.

Ironically, I was teased and bullied, especially in middle school and parts of high school. I was considered fat by the time I got to middle school, and I believed it at the time, although a review of photographic evidence reveals that I simply matured earlier than other girls. I was in a C-cup before high school, and had the hips to match. The athletic girls and cheerleaders didn't like me for some reason, and they always gave me a hard time. I didn't have the right kind of clothing or the right haircut. I didn't live in the right part of town. But I did have friends, and I was smarter than most of those girls, and I wasn't afraid to fight back. The only time it was ever really a problem was when they ganged up on me.

I was in band, and played the oboe, and I was always first chair. One day I had a challenge for my chair, and Andrea, one of the jock girls, took my oboe. I was frantic;  this was a very expensive instrument and I knew my parents would be furious if I'd lost it. I looked everywhere and finally I just went to the principal's office and reported that Andrea had taken it. She had hidden it in the girls bathroom, and she and her gang thought this was a fine joke. I don't remember her getting in trouble for it. I do remember that I lost the challenge, which was the worst thing of all for me.

I also had trouble from two girls in the marching band --- they were upperclassmen and liked to harass me at every turn. Kelly and Lisa. They were good friends and often ganged up on me. They were also pretty trashy, and I remember the day I took my power back. I don't remember what they did to provoke me that day; it might just have been that I was tired of putting up with them. But I turned to Kelly and said, "You can say whatever you want to me now. Two years after we graduate high school, I'll be in college and you'll be living in a trailer park somewhere, having your third or fourth abortion." That apparently shocked her so much that she more or less left me alone after that, and frankly, it's probably what actually happened.

I don't know what makes us as a race so mean. Sadly, it's probably the same thing that gives us strength and the ability to perservere.  I do know that, whatever you're going through, living well is the best revenge. I also know that, as an adult, one of my greatest regrets in life is my own past meanness. Maybe thinking about that from time to time will help me be a better, more compassionate person the next time my own demon of cruelty rears its ugly head.

RHEINGOLD CRYBABY

I'm listening to the forging scene from Siegfried, sung by my dear friend Gary Rideout and conducted by the great Israeli maestro Asher Fisch, with whom I will shortly be working in Chicago. I am covering --- understudying, for you opera civilians --- another great, the mezzo Stephanie Blythe, who is the current "It Girl" in my repertoire. It is a great privilege, and scary as hell.

This is the first time, the very first time I've been able to listen to this recording without weeping.  You see,  Gary passed away in 2007, and not a day goes by that I don't miss him. I especially miss him when I am on the road for singing engagements, as I am now, or in a part of the country that reminds me of Arizona, where we met singing the Ring Cycle (he was Loge, the god of mischief, which suited him very well; I was Erda, the Earth Goddess), or when I need good advice such as only Gary could give, or I see something ridiculous which I know he would have enjoyed. He is always with me, in the way of soulmates, sometimes more present than others.

Gary is present with me today because earlier this week, I experienced my first Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcast, of Das Rheingold. How can I express  how overwhelming this experience was on every level? First, Rheingold is a deeply personal opera for me for many reasons. I sang the role of Erda several times throughout the 90s, at the beginning of my career, in the Arizona Ring. This is where I met Gary, but also many other wonderful singers who became wonderful friends. Those Rings were a very, very special experience for all of us, something not to be repeated. We had a conductor who knew and loved and understood every note of the score by heart, our late and most beloved Maestro Henry Holt. We had caring colleagues and an enthusiastic fan base and a stunningly beautiful setting, Flagstaff. It was a magical time. I cannot now hear this music without hearing the voices of my friends, but especially Gary's.  When I did Rheingold again in 2009 at Indianapolis Opera --- also a wonderful experience --- I was blindsided by how very emotional it was for me. As I waited to make my entrance as Erda, to issue my warning to the marvelous Wotan of Greer Grimsley, I found myself once again suppressing tears.

But this Met HD broadcast was overwhelming for other reasons. The personal connection continued --- Miss Blythe was singing Fricka, in one of the most sensitive, loving, and beautiful performances of the role I've ever heard --- and I was completely humbled by the thought that in a few weeks I will meet her and stand in her shadow, having been chosen to take over for her should she for some reason be unable to sing. (No pressure!).

But apart from the personal, this Rheingold, especially on the big screen, embodies Wagner's ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk. From the first moments of the score, when you hear the waves of the Rhein, you are enveloped in the world of the opera. The set is a masterwork of technology and design, greatly enhanced by a brilliant lighting scheme, a wonder of which I am sure Maestro Wagner himself would have approved. It consists of a series of planks which move in various configurations and possess projections which can respond to movement or sound --- so when the Rheinmaidens,"swimming" on cables, sing or move, corresponding bubbles rise behind them. The Rainbow Bridge at the end is spectacular, as is Donner's gathering of the storm clouds and lightning strike. I don't know whether I would have had the same reaction had I heard it in the house --- I would love to, but it is sold out --- but on a giant movie screen, it was visually and vocally stunning.

From the opening chords, when those giant planks began to undulate gently like waves, I gasped and began to weep as the music and the visuals invaded my soul. I was captivated from the very first moment and remained riveted for the entire two and a half hour opera. I wept again when Richard Croft, a sweet-voiced Loge, began to sing the familiar lines --- of course I heard, and saw, my Gary, and I always will. I felt pinned to my seat by the sheer mastery of it all --- how often can anyone say that? Certainly there were things I didn't care for --- Bryn Terfel, as splendid a singer as he is, will never be my preferred Wotan; Loge's costume was silly and unflattering; I disliked the staging of the measuring of the Rheingold; but these are details. I loved the vocal performances, every one of them solid and convincing --- Eric Owens as Alberich walked away with the show in cast of stellar performances --- and each of the smaller roles was luxuriously cast.

I wept also because, for the first time since I was in college and saw a production of Carmen, I wanted to be part of that production --- that one --- so badly that it hurt my heart. That sounds pretty silly, but it's an expression of how much I love singing and performing, and the level of it I aspire to be able to create and be a part of. To be part of something that grand feeds an artist's soul in a way nothing else does. There are other, equally satisfying ways of feeding your soul; but this one is special.

That production of Das Rheingold fed my soul. Currently, I am performing music which is in no way as profound; Gilbert and Sullivan's comic masterpiece The Mikado; but it has its place in the pantheon and I love doing it, too. My goal as an artist is to take a fraction of that nourishment I received from experiencing the truly great art of others and imbue my own performance with it, in the hopes that I can feed someone else.