Level Up

This past October, I wrote this: “I’m still learning to embrace this fuller voice that has shown up this year, still shedding the mental skin of the “soubrette” label. Me? Manon? Can I sing “Adieu notre petite table?””

I had a great talk with a mentor today, and he brought up the notable change in my voice over the past few years. When he first heard me in 2005, I was sitting square in the middle of the soubrette section, unsure how my voice would grow and not entirely enthusiastic about the rep I was currently singing. There is a reason I’ve never really learned either of Despina’s arias... (Call me for a Despina when I’m 55, and it’ll be a different story; again, a subject for another post.)

Take a look at the lists I made back in the summer of 05. See those “roles I might sing in the future?” Juliet, Manon, Anne Trulove. The future is now, my friends. So what roles does the future hold? Character names were tossed around today in a way that was both scary - “But I thought I had a small voice?” - and affirming. Today I got some outside confirmation about something I’ve felt coming on this year: I’m leveling up. Maybe tomorrow I’ll post the 2008 version of those lists...