Today was an amazing day . . . but it started with me wondering whether i would survive it.
Yesterday I was really sick, y'all. My BP was off the charts and my head was spinnin, I was this close to going to the ER (what my younger sister, would have demanded had she known), but instead I cancelled all appointments, including supporting my brother in music, Charles T. Hayes with the amazing work he is doing with NRAC's beloved Rogers Park Singers this past Saturday. They and everyone at New Rhythm Arts Collaborative have been doing amazing work. Ok setup for my next blog . . . haha
Anyway I was really sick and was afraid I wouldn't be able to sing this morning as scheduled for my responsibility as soloist at Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist. I have been looking forward to presenting what I had prepared for this Sunday because it has special connection to my history as a singer and that of the church.
Back Story
So I'm looking a month ago for a solo setting of a specific text: Mary Baker Eddy's "Mother's Evening Prayer".
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.
More
Because of the week's Bible lesson and our schedule for presenting texts by Mary Baker Eddy, it was particularly appropriate to use this text for this Sunday. I came across a solo setting by a woman by the name of Adrienne Tindall. At the top is inscribed "For Ardis Krainik".
This caught my attention because Ardis Krainik is the woman who gave me my most auspicious job as a professional singer.
If you know much about opera in Chicago you know who Ardis Krainik was. She turned an almost about to go under, practically bankrupt opera enterprise into one of the most fiscally healthy and artistically successful opera institutions in the world. At points, Chicago's Lyric Opera was considered second only to the New York's Metropolitan Opera during her leadership. She did that in 15 years and then suddenly passed away in 1997.
Ardis Krainik had come to Chicago in 1955, just as I had in 1986 to try to make it as a classical singer.
From Summer of 1986-88, I was doing all the same things she did when she came to Chicago after finishing graduate school, trying to get started. Working a day job, singing in church choirs, auditioning for productions, doing small gigs and more auditioning. One of the many auditions I did was for Lyric Opera Chorus. From that audition I got a contract to sing in the supplementary chorus. I got one opera out of the seven in the season to sing, but it was a pretty exciting one. A new production of Wagner's Tannhauser conceived by Peter Sellars, during the whole Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker scandal. Peter Sellars made Tannhauser into a Jim Bakker clone and Eva into Tammy Faye. We had a Crystal Cathedral that flew in. There were 100s of people on stage. It was the loudest musical sound I had ever been enveloped in and oh my lord, the artistry of every one involved. Amazing! And I was in it. Wow.
I think I got that contract late in the hiring process because somebody dropped out. Miss Krainik (as she was known and called by chorus singers) would not have heard me in that initial audition. Miss Krainik got involved when singers were called back, either for a more robust supplementary chorus engagement or the golden ticket: Full Chorus. I sang that production, loved it, and then went back to the same grind I was on before. Soon after the Tannhauser production, I scheduled an audition to be considered for the next season. I had learned a few things and had a better audition. I got a callback! Oh my gosh, this is serious!
So I get to the callback and everyone is at their very best because they are about to sing for the most powerful person in the singing universe as far as they were concerned. One by one we enter the small theater next to the stage door, (now long ago demolished to make way for expanded backstage facilities). I go in . . . she's there toward the rear of the theater; I think with Bill Mason, her successor after her passing (We called him Bill, much more approachable). This would have been in spring 1989. Likely, at that time I think I would have sung "Una furtiva lagrima" from L'elisir d'amore or this Anchio vorrei
I don't really remember the specifics of the audition other than walking onto that stage. I remember seeing her and the people around her.
Ardis Krainik is described by many as a force of nature. She could be gentle and charming when she wanted/needed to be, but we often saw the side of her that got right to the point and scared us greatly. The woman fired Luciano Pavarotti; that should tell you something. And she ran EVERYTHING. You weren't getting into that organization except through her. Especially, the Full Regular Chorus. Her time in the chorus was pivotal in getting her to her position as general manager. Additionally, it was a union shop -- so harder to get people out than in. As a result she was VERY careful about who she accepted to sing with that ensemble.
As I remember, she spoke and told me to sing what I was going to do. I did it. I guess they must have asked me for something else, but I can't remember. I don't even really remember how I felt it went. Just another audition and maybe this next year I could get picked for an opera or two again. So I went on with my life and can't even remember when I found out, but they had openings in the full regular chorus for two sopranos, a tenor and a bass. She hired me to be the tenor lol.
Some of my own insecurities lead me to think that Miss Krainik didn't like me very much. She was always quite aloof it felt, especially towards me. There may be a truth portion to me feeling like it was something more than aloofness. I will never know, and I think it's unfair for me to cast her that way. She was very powerful person and I was a quite unpowerful person. That was probably more the dynamic.
I know Miss Krainik must have liked me artistically, because she hired me as a family member into her company. She didn't hire just anybody into her company. She was very value oriented person, but also very community oriented. So the requirement for good performance, was your responsibility to hold your place in that very comfortable singer community. After that hire I was afforded many amazing opportunities including being on the cast list here. She was in charge when that happened and I am grateful. I was one of 4-5 very talented black members of that 50 person full regular chorus at that time. She negotiated contracts with the best operatic singers in the world. I guess I must have been ok lol.
So finding this piece of music with this inscription was quite interesting. I found a very short partial recording of the piece, I liked it and decided to submit it as the solo for today. I just submitted the Title and the composer, Adrienne Tindall. A few days later I get a return email from one the music committee chairpersons that she had been acquainted with Adrienne Tindall from childhood. Tindall was a member and organist at the Glenview church for decades and arranged music for all Christian Science churches as part of her own publishing company, Darcey Press, which was named after her first granddaughter. Tindall and the chairperson's father had developed a close friendship. "Because of that, my father’s background in publishing and his deep love of Christian Science, Adrienne often asked him to look over her arrangements." It had been in the back of my mind that I remembered that Miss Krainik had been a member of Seventeenth Church. I asked the chairperson if she remembered Ardis Krainik; it turns out she and others in the congregation remember her time as a member well, some remembering her as their soloist at some point, the position I'm now taking. This member remembers that ". . . whenever Ardis attended church as part of the congregation, you could always tell she was there once we started singing hymns."
Ok, so I should return to tell about feeling ill yesterday: I get my blood pressure under control, just by resting drinking water and taking the meds I'm supposed to be taking regularly. Checking blood pressure regularly, slowly, the numbers come down, and I'm feeling more focused. By this morning, I'm ok, but not 100%. I get up early, take my time preparing, and get ready to go to the church. Warm-up at home, sing through the piece, sounds not 100% (not even 80 really), but it's early, there's still time for warm-up to kick in. Other departure prep. I depart and get to Church on time, still feeling a little foggy, forgetting things, just kind of being stupid. Get to the podium for rehearsal about 20 minutes late; I have never done this with accompaniment, haven't actually even heard the accompaniment ( I don't play like that), our organist hadn't seen or played the piece till this morning. I open my mouth to sing, and to me it sounds like the sound a strangled frog would make. Alex, the amazing organist at Seventeenth church, is patient and kind with me as I work through finding my voice while at the same time feeling like I'm going to fall over at any moment during the rehearsal.
The service begins and but I'm still feeling out of sorts; The time comes for the solo, I stand at the podium, open my mouth and this comes out.
It occurs to me that I have aspired to be a famous opera singer throughout my career. Maybe I should strive to be more like Ardis Krainik, a force in classical music that was a compelling model for making an important difference in the musical art space. In interviews she always spoke to leading with love. Serving this congregation I see how she practiced, what she preached. My dominant faith community remains the United Methodist Church, but I feel so blessed by this association to Seventeenth Church.
Thank you Miss Krainik!
Cautionary tale though: Miss Krainik passed away at 67. I'm about to be 64. Time to work on that BP and some greater positivity. ;-)