To have come so far...again

Faith comes in many shapes and sizes and knows all limits and tests all wills.
  

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The thing it also does is give a person WONDER. Everyone knows things can be explained away into "well it happened because", but what are the reasons when we just can't put a finger to it. I'm talking really about the small, everyday things that we would normally call luck.

Whether or not God had a hand in making something bad or good happen seems immaterial. To apply faith to it, just complicates things. That's what my head says...

My heart tells me that I should thank God for giving me a small opportunity, or for testing me, or for what I am MOST grateful - making my life just a little easier that moment. While on the outside, when a light turns green just in the nick of time I am stoic and unemotional, on the inside, I just say a little thanks.

This performance was a BIG thanks. I have a video of a dress rehearsal from a recent performance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

It's a big opera piece, Nessun Dorma, or translated as None Shall Sleep from the opera Turandot composed by Giaccomo Puccini in about 1927. Puccini was dying at the time and indeed end up expiring before the opera could be finished. So this most triumphal piece of Grand Opera was the end of a great life captured in music.

What captured me about this event, Burana at Brucemore is that it had so many great elements going on all at the same time. All of the planned elements were there. Great singers, great orchestra, great town, conductor, venue, crew, staff, Great great great. But the variables... Outdoors in September, health issues, travel issues are things over which we have no control. Our lives are a mix of chaos and odds and after seeing events just blown up, literally destroyed after dozens of hours of work at the last minute by nature's fury, there was reason to keep my heart in check.

But rather than the event getting decked by a rainstorm and the torrential floods seen all too often recently, we had gentle breezes, warm weather and a fantastic day and evening.

The music was exhillerating and there was no hitch, no catch, it was just plain awesome.






As a singer, I have been able to travel to so many different places and see so many things and meet so many different people. I am thankful for this. It is an awesome responsibility to share an emotion with people. Opera takes the deepest emotions of people and connects them with the world.

My first real connection with opera was when a girlfriend of mine died in a tragic auto accident when I was early in college. I was mad and defeated, sad and depressed. I went to see La Boheme (also by Puccini), where a ragtag poet and seamstress fall madly in love only to have her die in the en d. Geraldine McMillian, who I was fortunate enough to share the stage with a decade later, sang the part of Mimi, the seamstress.

I cried hard, painful tears. I was happy to cry because I hadn't yet. I just felt so alone beforehand and when I learned that Mimi was ill and the events that transpired during the opera, I knew it wasn't just me. Tragedy strikes everyone in every way, it's how we deal with it that makes the bell ring at the end, Clarence.

So, for me, singing has been a way for me to share emotions and help people deal with those hard feelings. 

Well, opera has been at the core of my existence for 20 years now. I've been a way from it for a few years though, due to the competitive nature of the business and from working on other projects and touring concerts, and all sorts of other excuses, but the one excuse I had hidden deeply was that I didn't think I could really SING opera any more. That is, in the upper echelon of opera companies.

To begin with, as a younger man, mine was never a huge voice. This is not a total deal breaker in the opera houses in the USA, but if you mix that with other things, there are going to be few major outlets in which to sing professionally. At first I was offered smaller roles and bit parts with the understanding I was going forward and leads would be mine, but I kept getting held back for some reason or another. Even signing a big record deal with Sony Classical was, what my old manager said, a setback.

One would figure that with all of these things, positive forward momentum and marketing I'd be singing on the opera stage more often. But the voice has to match and try as I might to make the parts synch up, it just didn't work. Forcing the issue did not make the ball turn faster, in fact it turned backward it seemed.

The point of FAITH is that you have to stop forcing the issue. I'm an opera singer. I tried to quit, I really did. I was mad and sad, but I hadn't been letting the water flow on its own. In the back of my head, I thought, "You have to let this happen in its own time". and indeed. I was right.

Of course, in its own time is a LONG time!!!!!!

But striking out on this path again...basically starting over in opera...I am not back where I left off, but I am starting with something far greater than what I thought I could have in the end. Letting go, I am a better singer and have decades ahead of me to harness the elemental nature of the voice that I was given, that We as humans are given.

Two years ago I got back into the opera gambit by auditioning for a bunch of HUGE opera companies. It was horrible. I thought I would be snatched up and whisked away to opera nirvana... Au contraire.

I cracked and wheezed and it didn't help that I was getting over a major sinus infection that had me coughing for weeks. I breathed in the middle of words...That was two years ago. The awful  feeling that I just messed up an audition where the ramifications are STILL being felt was an agony I know too many singers have felt. One I would wish upon no one.

Last year was better. Got over my sinus infection sooner and sang much better and had hopes to advance, but the results were worse than the first year. Mortified,  I quit. "I am done with opera!" I yelled to my wife from my cell phone. "I have so many other irons in the fire,I don't need this." Indeed, I went off to LA and had some of the best musical experiences of my life.

But in the end, I didn't quit. 

Because great singing is not about opera or any other style, it's about great singing.

So I started taking throat singing lessons from a Tibetan Monk. and honest to goodness the voice clicked in. What I've been striving for all of these years...the ability to convey emotion on the stage operatically just clicked into place.

I'm talking Otello, Canio, Radames, Calaf, huge roles that call for not only large voices, but the musicianship and acting to be able to convey these characters on stage.

My thanks goes to my faith that outlasted my will so that I could perform Nessun Dorma with the voice I thought I had, but was never able to access. It's not perfect, AND it's rehearsal, but this was the first performance with a large orchestra with the new voice. It may not sound too much different if you are a fan and know my work, but to me, I just got the Super Sport version. 

For two years it's been changing and finally when I just let it go, it happened. Meep Meep.

There is a lot more road to travel, but I'm glad I'm on a really good route

best, Nathan
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Nathan Granner - Nessun Dorma (rehearsal) Orchestra Iowa, Daniel Kleinknecht cond.
Dress Rehearsal and soundcheck for Burana @ Brucemore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The dress was fun and the air was sparkling, but the performance the next night was STELLAR. Everything about it was fantastic. The audience, the singers, the crew were all up for a great night. We were not dissappointed.
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