Campbell Vertesi

I don't need to post much content here.  If you've been reading my postings for the last few weeks, you know exactly what I mean.

But tonight I've come across a couple of phenomenal posts on other sites that deal with the issue, and which helped me feel a little better.  A little linky goodness:

Have a vegetable

Inside Wolf Trap Opera Casting

 I also had a very interesting talk with my father-in-law about sports - really, one doesn't talk about much else with him - that turned into a private pep talk.  He had no idea he was giving me a motivational chat, but it turned out that way.  He was telling me about a kid on my brother-in-law's football team, who was considering leaving the team in his last year of high school.  And it's so sappy to say this, but I really empathised with this kid I've never met whose name I'll never recall.  Because I really was thinking about quitting.

So my father-in-law reminded me about all of the other things I get from singing, and how much I've already invested here.  It would be stupid to stop now - I've put in so much energy and time, and I'm only starting to reap the rewards.  I have nothing to complain about, except that the structure of the industry is really hard for singers.  Well, yeah it is.  Tough shit.  This kid had put up with three years of working his tail off in practice, but getting hardly any play time.  I've gotten lots of play time - much more than most of my colleagues at my level.  So dealing with the opera industry means wading through a lot of crap.  That really shouldn't stop me.

i made my decision about my career six years ago, and I still believe that I have a product worth developing.  I know that this is a tough business, even for basses.  But dammit, I'm going to keep shovelling the shit until something sticks.  Maybe I'm stubborn, but I really don't see enough of a reason to give up yet.  The bullshit around young artist auditions is really only the foothills of the vast mountain range of bullshit that I'm going to have to deal with in this business.  But this is the only business that could motivate me to deal with it. 

My name is Campbell Vertesi, and I'm still an opera singer. 

ed: sorry for the disgusting analogy there in the last paragraph.  Pretty foul.  I'll post some clean stuff next time to make up for it, I promise.