Why do you sing?

Today I received possibly the best compliment about my singing that I've ever been given.

I sang my concerto piece (O Quante Volte) with Westmont's orchestra this weekend. After today's concert, an older man (of about 80 years) walked up to me and introduced himself. He told me that he has always loved classical music and enjoyed listening to orchestral music. But he's always hated opera, and whenever he would listen to classical radio stations and any opera would come on, he would turn the station. He told me that my singing changed his whole outlook on opera, and that I opened his eyes to the beauty in it.

I haven't been all that inspired about music lately. I struggle with the feeling that it was never my choice to pursue music - that it was just decided for me by everyone else that it was what I wanted to do with my life. I don't enjoy the vulnerability that comes with performing, and I've often felt like a slave to my talent (as melodramatic as that may sound). But I've gone along with it because part of me is afraid of being "wasted talent."

I participated in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions this past fall. It's a pretty intense vocal competition (one that I don't think I was ready for). After it was over, I had the opportunity to get feedback from the judges. One of them asked me a simple question:

"Why do you sing?"

I didn't have an answer for him. It was actually pretty embarrassing, how much this simple question made me doubt my motives. It made me wonder if I only sing because I'm good at it - and because it's what has always been expected of me.

After talking with that older man today though, I think I figured out what keeps me singing.

I remember when I was in middle school, I would sit on the floor in my room, listening to recordings of Kiri Te Kanawa, Maria Callas, Kathleen Battle, and all of these gorgeous sopranos, in awe of each unique voice. I would go from aria to aria for hours (as nerdy as that sounds), amazed at the things they could do. I've always loved listening to opera, and practicing what I could do with my own voice. I've struggled with performing, though. This is partly because acting is awkward for me, and partly because I spent a long time not liking the sound of my own voice. But now that I'm over being insecure and comparing my voice to this un-attainable ideal in my head, I realize that even though I don't always enjoy performing and being so vulnerable in front of people, I do it because I want people to feel what I feel when I listen to opera.

I know that opera can be brash and obnoxious - especially the nationalistic opera of Wagner and Strauss, which is what people usually imagine when they think of opera, crazy ladies with viking helmets and such. (Part of me is afraid of being associated with that.) But opera can also be completely divine, like the Bel Canto arias from 17th c. Italy. There can be such agility, subtlety and gorgeous expression in the human voice. I want to share the wonder that I feel, listening to the instrument which God creates uniquely in each person. Singing is a beautiful, more heightened form of expression amidst otherwise mundane, uninspired life. I want to share that with people.

And that is why I sing.