It has been a week since my final Don Giovanni curtain-call at Baxter Theater, and with the relief comes that good old bitter-sweet feeling. Production time comes with late hours and exhausting physical and emotional work but also a means of truly connecting with your art. Some, I know, will never experience the unforgettable moment when, singing with the support of an orchestra, a house full of opera goers listen and watch intently as you share your soul, your voice and entrust to them the highest gift a performer can give to their audience- art.
With the joy of opera or any other art form comes great toil and difficulty, this is why it is a skill that takes a lifetime to master but this gift chooses you and once in does, your responsibility to it drives you.
When I was younger, my mom put a picture on my wall of a ballerina hard at work in a rehearsal space. The caption read: "What you have is God's gift to you, what you do with it is your gift to God". Regardless of your individual religious views, we must recognise our gifts as our responsibility, and the greater the gift; the bigger the responsibility.
I like to believe that in the end, it's the little moments that make it worth while. The backstage laughs, the jokes made from sheer boredom or the missed cues in the rehearsal room. These are the moments we remember fondly when it is all over. We remember the joy our art brought us, and we are renewed in our mission to press on in the hope that we may continue in this journey already paved for us by musicians past.
With all my Love:
Just Janel
