Back to Music, Part 3: Reaching Out

I realized, at some point, that I'd completely abandoned music as I pursued writing.

Still, every now and then, a TV producer or journalist trying to figure out what box they should put me in when reporting on my blogging about crime would use the phrase, "former opera singer." That always bugged me.

'You don't leave opera,' I'd tell them, 'It's like the Mafia that way.'

And I meant it.

Opera, once it takes hold of you, becomes something of an addiction--especially, I think, if you discover you can sing it. It's like having the ability to bite into some deliciously ripe fruit at any time. Who could resist such a thing?

I couldn't.

Sacred music, for me, has a similar place, though it's a different sort of food (to extend the whole 'eating things' analogy). There is a deep and sometimes disturbingly profound thrill to using your voice in worship, if you're a singer. All writerly remove from faith, all cynicism can be erased as you take joy in singing in a clear and ringing voice through a spiritual or one of the great English church anthems. No matter how much an agnostic or even atheist you insist you are, the moment you apply breath and voice to music celebrating the sacred, something in your heart begins to slip toward a feeling of worship, even if you don't want it to.

At least in my experience, anyway.

These things were tumbling through my mind tonight as I queried a church music director and the head of a small, local opera company about singing opportunities in church and on the stage. One part of my brain was saying, 'just see how you do with the chorus,' but another part was saying, 'just go for it. You took all those years of voice lessons and high-powered voice coaching for a reason, dipwad. Use them.'

I may not hear back from the Episcopal church music director or the soprano behind the local opera company at all. And that will be fine. But if I do hear from them, I'll go sing for them.

And just go from there.

We're all raised with some arbitrary idea that we have some individual and narrow destiny. That we must find this one thing and settle on it. I certainly was.

But as I've found my way as a writer (so far, admittedly, in journalism and blogging) I've begun to believe we are multitudes, just like Whitman said, and don't have to just settle on one thing.

I can write. I can sing. I can run.

I am about to turn 45 and I can still do any damn thing I put my mind to.

So I will.

LOL Starbucks: The True Meaning of Verismo

Starbucks is going to sell a $199 coffeemaker it calls "Verismo."

Which makes me laugh, because that name is a sure sign Starbucks's smug appropriation of Italian words in lieu of plain English has kind of bitten the company on the ass. Why? Because the word "verismo" has some strong connotations to Italians and anyone who knows anything about opera. On the most basic level, see, "verismo" just means "realism." Which is fine.

But read the Wikipedia breakdown of what that word connotes to opera lovers--or anyone who remembers a deep cut from their college music appreciation course:

Internationally, the term is more widely understood to refer to a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s.[2] The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes.

Hey, let me put a fine point on that--in the world of opera, verismo equals "music drama about love among what passed for the trailer park set." A lot of verismo music is incredibly gorgeous. But in the end it is raw, bloody, earthy, low-class stuff. It's about people gettin' buck and fucking each other up over a lady. People get kilt, stabbed, murdered but good in verismo. Verismo opera is ballsy, loud and doesn't give a shit about your pussy sensibilities. It is in your face, as opera goes.

So, for me, a guy who trained to sing opera, owning a Starbucks "Verismo" coffee maker would have me stumbling to the machine each morning half-expecting to get stabbed by the local cart driver for shtupping his lady.

Because that's what "verismo" is about, yo. Not fucking burnt, hyper-caffeinated coffee.

An example of verismo music is below. Enjoy this gloriously overblown shit with headphones on. Try not to cry at its in your face beauty like a drunk and maudlin Italian.