You have given me so much… possibility. So many people to connect with, so many ways to express oneself. Like a singer who wants to sing everything, I’ve jumped on the songs but forgotten to work on the voice.  I’ve been a junkie feasting on potential for far too long. My strings are too loose.

Birthing four babies has been empowering and thrilling and seriously time consuming. As you can imagine, even if you’ve never been there. But my journey into discovering who I am and how I want to express my gifts and my mission – well that has needed so much more time and attention from me than I have been capable of giving.

Until now.

So, I’m diving into some deep work. Working on my Medicine, as Gail Larsen puts it. Exploring what the unique combination of singing fearlessness, understanding of personal presence, energy alchemy, mama love and operatic divaesque flair really add up to. And then, how to hand it back to you in a way that serves you.

I want to feel like myself here, in this space, And I haven’t felt that for a long time.

So expect a huge shakeup in how I present my online space, how I speak to you and how I create an incredible sanctuary for brilliance, energy, passion and intention so that you may find your own Big Voice. I just have to tune up a little first!

Old friends, let’s reconnect. New friends, something magical is coming.

Love,

Arts funding is being cut again in Wales. I’m not being political here…. I hope. I’ve had some of the best years of my life working for companies that receive public funding, having said that……my parents ran a theatre in Carmarthen for over twenty years with no arts council funding at all, by balancing the books with a mixture of popular shows, that would make a profit with more experimental performances that didn’t. My question is this ….. Is it time for the bigger companies who receive public funding to run their companies with the same ethos?

This is such an important subject for anyone in the arts but especially opera, given how much of it is funded by arts councils (at least it is in the UK – Tom Sutcliffe had some interesting points to make about this and opera in Germany on this post.) Are these cuts the work of the Tory devil? Or necessary?

I like to argue that they are at least an opportunity to do things differently.

Instead of lamenting the loss of the financial support, why not strive for a way to be self-supporting? The best way to start is to look at your audience (or market, which is the same thing but not always perceived as such by the arts.)

What are they coming to see? What are they buying into? What do they love about you? What do they loathe? How much do they want a deeper, more intimate connection with what you do?

Because if you can assess the engagement your audience has with you and your work, you can then tailor a plan to take these connections further. Because in this model, you build you audience first, and then you sell to them.

Arts funding dependent organisations must make stronger connections between themselves and their audiences – the ones that actually pay for tickets – and then go to them for support. This has been happening for years in the film making industry where Hollywood money is not an option – they go straight to their fans, and if they don’t have fans they spend the time to gather them up. Look at Kickstarter in the UK, or Pozible here in Oz. All sorts of arts creation is going on there – films, exhibitions, books, documentaries – and I did see an opera company (was it Opera Rara? Can’t recall right here) crowd sourcing a studio recording of a Mozart opera.

I honestly think crowd sourcing is a brilliant option for arts companies to engage their audience first before trying to sell them something difficult – and not necessarily by doing the whole ‘jeans ‘n opera’ thing. I wonder how many regular opera patrons (not the ones already being feted for their patronage, but regular everyday opera lovers) would dig down to find $50 to support ‘their’ company if they could vote for the shows to put on, for example? Or if they could receive a personalized photo signed by the leading soprano? Perhaps attend an exclusive post-show party? It’s a little radical, and I’m not getting into the ‘what equals culture’ debate here because that’s messy and for another post… but seriously this is an opportunity for broke arts-dependent companies to sit up and decide to make it work by looking at alternatives and being, dare I say, creative.

What do you think? Is arts funding essential? Or should creative organisations at least learn to flourish with or without it?

“The hardest thing to do is see what is right in front of your eyes.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Here’s a 1 minute hit list to flush out the cobwebs.

1. cultivate creative innocence:

As a mum, I’m always exposed to the fresh thinking of my children. Seeing the world from their perspective is a great lesson in creative innocence. Give yourself permission to be playful, stupid, naive, curious, contrary. Practice seeing the world for the first time, every day.

2. shake up your perspective:

It’s time to question not just what you see, but how you are seeing it. Can you shift your perspective to see your situation from a different angle? Like those famous silhouette pictures, are you seeing the faces or the vase?

3. assumptions:

Assumptions kill creativity. What are you assuming that just ain’t necessarily so? Ask “What if?” and question everything you can. You’ll be surprised at what you assumed to be true. What if you start loving your day job because it gives you a schedule for your creative work? What if you stop focusing on the game and just change the rules instead?

4. prime your mind:

Often we don’t see what’s right in front of us until we’re primed for it. So enjoy some quiet time every day to program your subconscious to keep its eyes peeled – for connections, signs, hints and inspiration.

5. steal with intent to innovate:

No one is truly original. Creativity is as much about reinventing or re-purposing the great ideas of others as it is being unique. This is not a free pass to plagiarism – but a reminder that great creativity demands exposure to the great creativity of others. Expose your mind to the art of others constantly – their great ideas can be the lighted match for yours.

6. limitations help:

Give yourself fewer choices can be strangely rewarding. Like a picture needs a frame and a composition needs bar lines, throw in a few limitations deliberately and see what happens. Can you write it in fewer words? Use only 2 colours? Do it in an hour?

A little light recommended reading:

Did You Spot The Gorilla?, Richard Wiseman

Lateral Thinking, Edward de Bono

Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon

But it will always be niche. And a recent article by Jennifer Rivera in the Huffington Post prompted me to say on Facebook that instead of moaning about the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t get what we do (or thinks Kathryn Jenkins is an excellent example of it) let’s stop waiting for the opera houses and record labels of the world to give us permission, and just get off our arses and sing.

Why don’t we get up and record our own recitals? Stage our own operas? Create our own compositions? Perform on Ustream to the dinner tables of the world? This is the future of opera. Crowdsourced. Collaborative. Personalised to our audience. Because ultimately if we are gifted with the talent to sing, it is our responsibility to be imaginative and entrepreneurial and get our voices heard outside the opera house.

My friend Imogen Roose – herself an excellent singer – raised a vital point in response to my call to arms:

“For some of us this “outside the opera house” is the vast majority of the work we do, and I have to say that quite a few (ex)colleagues seem to think we’re no longer “opera singers”. An attitude that is a great pity, I think.”

As an opera singer who stood back from international level singing to raise my children, I’ve experienced the same thing. And it is precisely this attitude that is killing opera, slowly from the inside. Aside from suffocating any kind of innovation and entrepreneurial spark, it demeans and devalues our art, our talent, our contributions and our identity. But why do we allow it to flourish? But where does this attitude come from anyway?

I think it’s based on 4 major beliefs we have about the business (I’m sure there are more but hey, it’s early here and I probably need more coffee) :

1. We associate true opera singing with a specific set of skills that can only be measured fully in an “opera house”.

Singing Carmen in an A house demands more vocal athleticism, projection and stamina from a singer technically than singing Carmen in a small hall with a piano or warbling mock-Rossini in a studio to a backing track. So a singer must prove themselves worthy of the name opera singer by actually singing on stage in an opera house.

2. We associate the opera house with a ‘success tag’ – where you sing is a definition of how successful you are.

This is where it’s not just the architecture that defines your success but the opera house’s address. The Metropolitan Opera, New York and Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich will always carry more weight than the New Theatre, Cardiff. (And I think this also goes for record labels – which label has more cachet, DG or Naxos?)

3. We believe that if a singer is not singing in opera houses anymore that this is because they are now no longer good enough to be hired.

We value talent so highly that it’s inconceivable that a great singer may not want to be on the opera circuit anymore. How can you waste such god-given talent, those years of study and application? If a singer is no longer singing in a house, it must be because they are not good enough, or their voice is knackered, their technique faulty, or some such flaw.

4. We associate being an opera singer as more than just a profession but as a declaration of everything we are.

Opera singer as artist, glamorous, diva, prima donna, expansive, artistic, unusual, unique, esteemed, revered, dedicated, self-sacrificial, obsessed… we are peacocks, admired yet enigmatic. No one really knows what we do unless you do it, too. Secret. Undercover. And this is highly alluring and difficult to let go of, especially in exchange for the perceived drudgery of “normal” paid work or the plain domesticity of motherhood.

Again, this small list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor is it definitive. But I do feel very strongly that they shape and influence everything from a singer’s career choices to their overall feeling of personal success and failure.

And it’s important to note that a belief is simply a thought we have chosen to think over and over again until we believe it is true. So many singers would look at the above and declare all of them to be true statements of fact. And in part I agree. But seriously – architecture, postcode, status and scarcity as the true defining elements of a successful career?

I readily would acknowledge – indeed celebrate – the fact that there are plenty of happy and successful singers traipsing the boards of opera houses all over the world. They are happy within the conventions and boundaries of what currently exists, they have balanced their lives accordingly and whether it is conscious or not, the terms for success they have defined for themselves are being fulfilled. And right now, they are the lucky ones because they fit the paradigm that is already in place.

But we must acknowledge for every singer who fits into the system, there are those who are stifled by it. Who are teeming with frustration because the love they have for their profession is seemingly at odds with the rest of their commitments - to their partners, to their children, to other passions, to their intellect, to their desire to abandon the physical introspection and neurosis that is the hallmark of the jobbing singer.

The singers who will be left with no choice but to exchange the glitz of the big houses for the frenzied over-populated ponds of small, regional houses so they can sleep in their own beds at the end of the night. The ones who crave a five day week so they can fly home to see their children for a night or two.

And what about the ones who actually jumped ship and who are now silent?

Thousands of excellently trained singers are out there waiting, aching to define success on their terms and not by the narrow confines of the opera world. They sense instinctively the possibilities of owning their lives more, the power of owning the assets their voices might create, and the creative freedom that the new digital distribution allows them.

These singers still have a voice. These singers still deserve to feel successful outside the conventional paradigm. And they believe, passionately, that opera is not dying for want of an audience. But that it is being killed slowly from the inside by destructive, unimaginative and restrictive beliefs about what the business is. It’s time for a vision not for what opera singing is but for what it could become.

We are desperately looking for role models, leaders, trailblazers… will you be one of them?

Think back over the things you have done today.

Many of the little actions you have taken have been automatic. Unconscious mental triggers, breath sucked in without a thought, your heart a background thump keeping time. All of this is energy pulsing to a higher beat, with the conductor swirling a great baton around the universe keeping everyone together.

But what about the big things you do? The ones you hope might change your world?

The energy is still there, only this time, you are the one in charge. And you’ve got to know why you’re there.

Energy without ownership – without a clear reason why – strips your great actions down and renders them emotionally meaningless.

Because energy without ownership is Mess, not Art.

Energy without ownership is Noise, Not Music.

Energy without ownership is Silence, not Suspense.

Ownership takes a dead thing and brings it to life. Isn’t that incredible? You are the ultimate creator. And as creator you must be responsible for the energy you bring to the world, and have the courage to make a mark on it as you leave.

I truly believe that we must always strive to be as intentional, alert, specific, detailed, honest and fierce as possible about why we choose to do what we do. Only then can we buff the fuzzy smears off ourselves and shine like the stars we are.