A good blend of all great things - Fantastic! You are a very balanced, well-rounded person. You could do anything you set your mind to. Just like Benjamin Franklin, you're known to be a bit strange or even eccentric, but you are also wise and generally very charismatic. You like to stop and think about things, like to surround yourself with intellectual pursuits and lofty dreams, but you are also down-to-earth when it comes to other things. You are a dabbler: that is, you try a lot of new things. Risks don't seem to frighten you, as long as they are well thought-out first. You like to have theories and ideas, but you are never detatched. People generally see you as one to be admired. It is very difficult to get you really, really angry. This is good because, when you do get angry at someone, you tend to stay angry for a very long time. You should probably keep at what you're doing if this is all the case; but just be careful not to let it all go to your head! Be sure to use those abilities!
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Lately I've been noticing my eccentricities and strangeness more and more. While I wasn't exactly self-conscious about it (what would be the point?) I would sometimes leave a particularly unusual conversation and think to myself, "Wow, I have no idea how most of that happened, but I'm pretty sure I was the one leading the way." Having good company by way of Benjamin Franklin makes my recent awareness of my occasional oddness seem less like something I should attempt to rectify.
I do not seek to specialize, I don't think. I sing because it's the thing I can succeed at that will allow me other pursuits. I love being on stage more than anything, sure, but that's such a small portion of the career path I'm on that the stage itself should hardly qualify as the goal of the pursuit. The real questions I've had to ask myself during my recent introspective periods:
Q: Do I enjoy rehearsals more than I enjoy not being in rehearsal?
A: This is important... rehearsal, based on what I've been learning, is the "9-5" of a professional singer if such a thing can be said to exist. Aside from the crappy "just payin' the bills"-type jobs one must take while starting out in the business (ie waiting tables), it seems the bulk of your time is spent in rehearsal rather than performance. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, it has just been my experience thus far that for every hour I spend performing, I spend at least forty preparing (this is an estimate based largely on counting on my fingers and thinking back to the two productions in which I have been cast). And in my experience, rehearsals are fun. My answer is a resounding yes. Singers are, by and large, sociable creatures who get along well so long as everything is going well, and I enjoy being around them and working with them. The exceptions to this have been those with low work ethic or self-important attitudes. I am certain the professional world has very little of the former, but I am equally certain that those people are replaced by twice as many self-important divas (or divos, for that matter). Either way, the negative of these two personality types has not been sufficient reason for me to change my answer; the positive of constantly meeting new friends in casts and always being able to share new jokes and stories will forever be appealing to me.
Q: Do I find my subject matter interesting?
A: Yes. I find opera to be absolutely fascinating. The history of the art form as a whole intrigues me to no end (check my browser history sometime if you're really curious), and even moreso I am enthralled by the individuals within the stories of each opera I see or perform in. The question "why would someone do that" is a never-ending reservoir of introspection and analysis, and each opera I've encountered has been filled characters that need to be understood at their most fundamental level in order to be done justice. On top of that, this interpretation can change based on who is singing the role; a potentially depressing line of thought can be given an air of nostalgia or wistfulness or playfulness, based on what the actor perceives it to be. We are limited to the notes and rhythms on the page, certainly, but our facial expression and vocal tone are rarely notated for us. I have stated elsewhere in this blog that I find small talk to be a waste, that it's reading a person as a pamphlet when there's a whole novel to be discovered; this is the part of my nature to which role research appeals most sincerely. My subject matter will never get old until I have run out of characters to interpret or new ways to interpret them.
Q: Can I handle the stress of having to line up new jobs and auditions all the time for the rest of my life?
A: Absolutely.
Gotta go to class now...
