Post thoughts and lessons
OK. What have I learnt?
I got (lightly) canned by some out of some critics. (2 of them came to the second show, where I didn't even get an announcement.) they didn't quite get me. But would *I* get me under the circumstances? mmm.. Not knowing the deal behind the scenes, I am actually not sure my self.
I know the truth: I was sick. Sick as a dog for the opening, sick as a cat for the second show, and starting to emerge on the 3rd, but not at all there yet.
How did the audience feel? hell who knows; They clapped and cheered like they always do, for my Carmen, for ANY Carmen... Here is the big question: Would it have been better if I'd cancelled? Canceling is way against my will. I just can't fathom the thought. Over all I think the answer might be,maybe, yes. it *might* have been better for my career, tactically. But hell, not for my own damn satisfaction. I am one bitterly proud case. So there. I'll quitt boring you or myself right now. NNNext.
I got (lightly) canned by some out of some critics. (2 of them came to the second show, where I didn't even get an announcement.) they didn't quite get me. But would *I* get me under the circumstances? mmm.. Not knowing the deal behind the scenes, I am actually not sure my self.
I know the truth: I was sick. Sick as a dog for the opening, sick as a cat for the second show, and starting to emerge on the 3rd, but not at all there yet.
How did the audience feel? hell who knows; They clapped and cheered like they always do, for my Carmen, for ANY Carmen... Here is the big question: Would it have been better if I'd cancelled? Canceling is way against my will. I just can't fathom the thought. Over all I think the answer might be,maybe, yes. it *might* have been better for my career, tactically. But hell, not for my own damn satisfaction. I am one bitterly proud case. So there. I'll quitt boring you or myself right now. NNNext.
posted by Singin'rin at 9:53 AM
3 Comments:
You were not boring either my daughter or me.
Both of us know about sickness and art. One of us knows about The Times... which has the strangest club of otherwise appealing women writers.
We'll call 'em the Dowd-anger Queens.
It is pretty simply the worst mean girl table in Times Square.
I dragged my falling forward self (Ashkenazi genes and their endless gifts -- this go round is an incurable leukemia) to City Center to see and hear your Carmen twice.
Once was the performance Midgette hemi-semi-demi-reviewed. The other was the same Nordlinger heard.
Midgette's review puts itself up alongside Alexandra Staley's equally willful pile of falsehoods in her review of "The Path to 9/11" which shamed the paper more loudly than Midgette's cant but just as notably.
The first performance you gave me a personal blessing. I have heard you sing and seen you act before. But what I saw you do that night was absolutely present and at great cost with little reward to you.
I understood, I was concerned. But I was more grateful. Even while you were having your own phlegm phestival, you gave me more to appreciate as someone who has striven to present despite the many uninvited guests of illness.
What I saw and heard at the second performance was a crystalization of what I would hear long after the needle was lifted from my parent's Rise Stevens LP...
And what I had read in Merimee's novel...
And even something unexpected... what I kept finding in the character who Proust based on Bizet.
So here is the most grateful, humble, amazed, delighted and even blessed thank you I can find in my heart's wallet.
By the way... since you mentioned The Producers remake... I just remembered what Mel Brooks said in his famous Playboy interview when he was asked about critics.
"Crickets? Crickets? Those little things that make NOISE! That's all they do -- they rub their legs together."
Again, thanks.
Arrrrgh...
City OPERA.
I guess I miss City Center's tiled dome more than I thought... it makes such a lovely hat for dreams.
Dear Jim F
I read your comment and through a stream of tears I started typing and typing back to you, and after I was done, long later, somehow the whole thing got deleted. why, I will never know. Maybe because I needed to type it again, in different words, I am not sure. But here is what I wanted to say:
Dear,Dearest Jim.
What you left with me here today, is one, so very special gift which as I unwrapped, seemed to make me understand, somewhere very deep inside, something.
I am a bit overwhelmed so I might write more later.
But It is your tender words, so beautifully written too, that I will remember and forever cherish; It is the greatest compliment you have handed to me today, which I will take in my heart, in my art, from now on.
Among the self doubt, fears, disappointments,You made me believe that, as lousy as my health might have been, my soul still managed to touch a soul, YOUR gentle soul! (and look, this is exactly true like a mirrored image; for your soul is touching mine in return!).
Please know, that I am honored to have given you whatever it is that I did , and I would be delighted to have you as my personal guest any time, any where I might be singing again. Just let me know (you can Email me through my website as well).
Thank you so, so very much. with all my love, Rini
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