Singing the Arias

To be a opera singer means years of study----I mean years of study. Grueling study, long sessions in front of the voice coach, and a mirror, daily hours spent in the practice rooms at college or music school. To be able to sing Bel Canto (beautiful voice), is a long ardous trip of training. To be able to make it on the professional stage, you don't get discovered in opera at the age of 15 . Unlike a child prodigy violist or pianist, you have to wait for your voice to mature. And it doesn't matter how young you started training, you're not going to sing until you're "ripe"--your voice, that is.

That being said, some of us have been in a few amateur opera productions. Carlos Menotti is an accessible composer whose operas like "The Telephone" or "The Medium" are within the reach of "fairly good" voices who will never make it to the professional stage, but can put in a passable enjoyable performance. Even audiences who are inexperienced in opera listening can enjoy a well done amateur production of these operas.

I was thirty years old, mother of three children, and pregnant with a fourth, when my voice teacher asked if I'd like to come back to the school and play the lead in The Medium. Sure, I guess I could do that. It would be fun. I had sung a few singable arias over the years. This would be something to occupy my time these next couple of months. Another friend and musician teamed up with me as Leticia, and we located a few other musicians at the college to fill in the parts.

My contralto voice was just right for the part of the medium character. My friend had the high lyrical soprano voice for the daughter. The opera's synopsis is that the medium and her daughter have fake séances for customers. They have a screen that a mute boy operates along with Leticia, the daughter. A real spirit comes, scares the heck out of them and the medium shoots the screen and the boy falls dead pulling the curtain down with him--end of play.

The rehearsals over, the night of the first performance came. Being the kind of mother that wanted her children to be exposed early to the finer things in life, I had Gramma and Grandpa bring the six year old twins . They were experienced concert goers, but one could not predict what might happen with children at the opera. Grown men have been known to walk out on operas.

The boys and grandparents were seated up in the front row of the auditorium. Excited to see Mom, they had already talked about and seen the "gun" I would be using on stage. The curtain went up in the middle of a séance, and I could hear hushed but loud child whispers, followed by adult shushes emanating from the front row. This repeated several times during the performance at the exciting parts. At the intermission, the boys came backstage, talking non-stop, wanting to know when the gun was going off. I assured them it would in the second half. So back to their seats, they settled in as they expectantly waited for "the gun."

The suspense was building and the audience was absolutely still for the final scene, as the spirit noise rose from the screen. My character, singing all the while in a frenzied state, pulled the gun out from the séance table drawer, I let out one last moan and fired the gun. The boy fell through the curtain and lay on the floor. There were gasps, total stillness, and then audience giggles broke out as my front row twins released the tension with that sound made by sticking your tongue out and blowing.

The delighted boys rushed backstage to embrace me and ask if he was really dead. We left the theater with the grandparents, flowers, and boys in tow. The huzzah they had given the opera at the end had been recorded on the tape and we still laugh when we listen to it. As I said, I was pregnant and 4 months later, we had a daughter who was named after the aria "Monica, Monica, Dance the Waltz." She was lullabied with that for many years to come.