To Daniel and Maurice.
'Yes, that's very no.' 'Oh yes!'
Sometimes in pursuit of your dream you have to momentarily compromise your vision... right? If you aspire to be something you find any opportunity to do that thing and you do it, JUST for the enjoyment, even if you have to pay the person offering you that 'opportunity'.
Right?
Well you're probably reading that and going 'that sounds pretty ridiculous'. If you're an aspiring architect you're not going to...PAY for the OPPORTUNITY to draw up a plan. You probably hardly need me to tell you that it is ridiculous.
Well somehow, it is NOT deemed ridiculous in the world of opera training. Young opera singers (most of which are not ready to have a career) are asked to fork out horrendous amounts of money for 'training' courses as short as 4 weeks, telling you you have a 'scholarship', and even then the institutions chew them up and spit them out.
You may be wondering, how is this legal? Well, I can't really answer that question. I have no idea. For music theatre performers, auditions are free, and opera singers pay in the thousands just to audition for a top tier house.
So why is this a comedy?
I decided to write this because there are some certain farcical elements about all of it. One of my favourite moments occurred in a program my baritone friend and I participated in that cost most people 700 dollars, but we got it cheaper- somehow, everyone was on a 'scholarship'. We were singing the Traviata brindisi, and a terrible singer who somehow got work was singing Alfredo. I decided to go to the high B flat at the end- the terrible singer was standing next to us, then the person that ran the program told my friend he was a tenor, then an old lady told me to go stand somewhere else.
We both laughed for days. To be honest, we are still laughing.
Ridiculous, right? Somehow it's still hilarious.
