Anatomy of a Singer: Part 1, Birth

I can’t say exactly where I began to love singing. It could have been as a rosy-cheeked child memorizing the Croatian National Anthem in my grandmother’s kitchen, or in the Catholic school basement where we rehearsed the hymns for Wednesday morning mass, or singing Bette Midler’s, The Rose, ad nauseum on my bathroom floor. Just remember, in the winter!...with excessive scooping could be heard on any given Saturday morning. Later it would be Whitney Houston’s classic...And aahh-eee-ahhh-eee, will ahhlways lu-huv yooooooooo-ahh-ee…waving a scarf around, just like in the movie.

I loved theatrics, even though I’m more of an introvert by nature, I feel perfectly comfortable in front of a crowd. Wearing makeup and a costume. There is the magic of the third wall. They don’t see the real you. You’ve turned into a character. Does anyone wonder why I delivered my first oral report in grade school dressed up as Henry the VIII’s last wife with a British accent?

My obsession with becoming an opera singer began after working with my first voice teacher, Lynn. She was an opera singer herself, and almost a caricature: heavy-set, boisterous, loquacious, and made the most outrageous of noises for a grown woman. She always had a new quirky sung message on her answering machine which I would call repeatedly to listen to, and lived with a gay man. We'd go on trips to the music store which was like our candy shop, and ironcially enough her day job was as a chocolatier. She gave me some classically based pieces to start off with and I was enamored.

Becoming an opera singer was my version of becoming Cinderella, who I found tragically pathetic in her simplicity. Opera heroines were tragic in a fierce and exotic sort of way. They were always suffering from deep loss, insurmountable odds, or tuberculosis! Absolument incroyable! Je l'aime! Je meurs pour cela! When a woman can still sing after being strangled to death...that's not just the magic of theatre, that's the pinnacle of human expression.

Catholic school politics wore on me, and my parents could no longer afford the "suggested donations" anyway - so I begged to transfer to public school with a few days to go before the year started. The only remaining electives were shop and choir, and so I was forced to join.

The first day of choir I was required to audition in front of all the other students who had been placed the prior year. I was nervous, as for some reason I assumed everyone in the class would be much better than I. However, at that audition, it was as if the skies parted and I was granted That Thing...That Thing that would make me happy and adored...

"Wow, how can you sing that high?" Said the cutest boy in the class.

I, blushing, replied, "Oh, I don't know, it just does that."

Ah yes! The days of being a tormented loser in Catholic school were over!! Singing would be my key to fame, fortune, envy of friends.

Next: Anatomy of a Singer: Part 2, Madonna and Me

Anatomy of a Singer: Part 3, Art and Death