Singing Live in Front of an Audience in COVID-19

I want so much to tell you what it felt like to sing for a live audience this week and I don’t quite know how.

The good news is I haven’t forgotten how to perform.

Seriously, don’t laugh—a part of me was legit worried about that.

Because it’s one thing to sing alone in the house and another to remember the sacred conversation that requires so much presence, lightness of touch, the grounded-ness, clarity, the joyful give and take, where they, the audience, receive your energy and you receive theirs.

Truthfully? I was shaky at first but then I remembered. Oh yes. This is how it goes. This is what performing feels like. It goes like this. You love this.

The concerts took place the exquisite backyard garden of a wonderful Provençal home, both nights for an audience of about 50 people. Both were sold-out.

Sylvaine and Michel, our gracious hosts, set up a table on the terra-cotta terrace.

They put out trays, for us musicians, of fresh melon, little glass dishes of homemade mousse au chocolat, and a pitcher of berry-red iced-tea.

It was all so lovely and I was too nervous to touch any of it.

Please, I prayed, please, please, please let everyone in the audience and every one here be healthy and virus-free.

Please let them space the audience out, safely.

Worryingly, I would not be in control of any of that.
Worryingly, the mistral winds were starting up.

During sound check, in fact, my voice just kind of vanished into the wind. I could not hear myself or have any sense what was carrying. I could barely hear Ruth or the other musicians.

I tried not to fret.
OK, I fretted the most amount possible.
I don’t exactly know why—it’s not my first rodeo and I’ve sung open-air many times.

I think there was so much riding on it: First Live Concert Since Covid-19 and in my head I was going, this needs to be momentous, it needs to be AMAZING it needs to be OUT OF THIS WORLD GOOD and profound. No pressure or anything. Lol.

Open-air is always tricky for opera folks.

We don’t  typically use amplification, and since you cannot hear yourself well outside, the tendency is to push/over-sing, and then wonder why you feel hoarse.

I tried not to push. I pushed a little. Then I remembered to go easy.
Meanwhile, during our warm-up/sound-check, audience members were flowing in.

I realize this is not universally true and probably just my quirk/pet-peeve but I *hate* having people listen to me warm up.

To me, warming up is deeply private. So when people observe it feels like being watched in the shower. Sigh.

When the concert finally started, the sun was setting and the air was gentle.

And then—because, of course this would happen—during our first song “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” the mistral winds came in with a vengeance and blew away all of Ruth’s sheet music, up off her stand, into the air.

We both frantically grasped at the pages, tried to save them, and I kept on singing.

“Sorry!” I sang out, in operatic voice, to the audience.
And they BURST out laughing, as it was the funniest, most entertaining quip that had ever been made.

I breathed easier. The mistake broke the ice! Now we could all just relax and have fun!

There were more things.

During my favorite song on the set, the gorgeous American folk spiritual Down to “the River to Pray, which starts a capella and is super quiet and holy, a *freaking motorcade* of what appeared to be a troop of  Hell’s Angels vroomed by, one after the next.

“As I went down to the river to pray…” I sang.
VROOM VROOM VROOM CRASH VROOM.

“OK THEN” I stopped. “ Peut-etre je chant pas un duet avec motorcycle. On attends.” Perhaps no duet with motorcycle! Let’s just wait a sec. Again the audience laughed uproariously, as if it was the most hilarious thing.

I relaxed a little more.

As the concert went on, the musicians–me, Ruth, and the amazing folk music trio of Marie Madeleine, Damien, and Mario—got to look out in the distant vineyards as the firey orange sun disappeared under the Mont Ventoux mountains.

And the grounding came back. And the joy flooded back.

As we sang and played into the night, we looked over the audiences heads, as the wide July sky turn cotton candy pink and then a dusty violet. The backyard smelled of honeysuckle and lavender.

They audience cheered after our encore.

The so-called mistakes had made them love us more. It humanized us.

I know it to be true that humans cannot ever really fall in love with perfect. We can admire it–but never deeply love it.

We only fall in love when the vulnerable is there. I sometimes forget this, and then life always reminds me again.

In the end: the evening was joy medicine, even if at the same time, the edges were dipped in sadness.

Because this essential, joyful thing for our souls, has become a rarity, a luxury, when actually is essential.