Opera—My Happy Pill

I'll start this post as if we're in the middle of a conversation and as if we're the dearest and oldest friends—which, for lots of you, is actually the case. You know how I go from one topic to the next, one conversation to the next. Sometimes I think my attention span is no better than my brother Dave’s.

So I have decided that opera is my happy drug. It’s what I would listen to during my hours and hours of writing that I did this past semester. It's what got me through so many nights at the library until midnight. I would blast it in my headphones in the library, and I would be able to write in English without being distracted, because quite frankly, I don’t understand 99% of the Italian in the music. I pretend to know a bit, but I just memorize the words and pronounce them real well. That’s all. No cognition involved.

I love all the greats: Luciano Pavarotti, Anna Netrebko, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Rollando Villazon, Renée Flemming, and Elina Garanca. Don’t worry if you have no idea who those people are. Only the really opera-crazy people do. Here's one of my all-time favorites:

I love listening to and singing opera so much that I have continued to take voice lessons for the past ten plus years. Lots of people ask me why I don’t study opera as a career. They ask me what I’m going to do with my voice. And honestly, I don’t have a ten year plan for it. Heavenly Father gave me this voice and the resources to cultivate it, and so I know I have a responsibility to share it as a blessing for others. But if I were to enter the performing world professionally, in three years I would be unhappy, beat out, and burnt out altogether. The cut-throat competition is not for me, and don’t get me started on how much my knees shake when I sing in public or in auditions.

In short, I sing for my own enjoyment and not to squeeze every penny I can out of my voice. Music is one part of the pie of my life, just not the part that will make me money. I know that it’s a hard profession to break into, and that’s why I plan to stay on top of it. Not break into it and win every competition, but dabble in it when I can. When I put too much pressure to beat other singers, or when I feel that pressure heaped on me, I become so nervous I could pass out. So I’ll continue to sing the best I can whenever I can—yes, this includes singing the hymns at church, the national anthem at baseball games, and pop songs on the radio. I know I sound like a square, but once you’ve been classically trained, you don’t just go back to stinky technique—no matter where you are. It’s ingrained in your brain.

So I’ll keep on singing and pretend that no one can hear me. Because really, I always sing my best when nobody is listening.