And this is a post about sex.
DISCLAIMER - This is a post about sex. Only read it if your parents say it's okay. So before you read any further, ask your parents! This goes double for anyone over the age of 20. Call your parents and ask if you're allowed to read something dirty about singing. I'll wait. No, seriously - go make that call. If you're under 13, skip on to the next post. This is a grown ups only blog entry.
This is one of those posts where I have to make every story anonymous, but it will be worth it.
In a recent discussion with a colleague of mine, it came up that every singer has a story about... mixing business with pleasure. At some point in a life devoted to classical music, one finds that one sensualist pastime is actually quite close to another... and it all goes downhill from there. It occorred to me that since most of us have these stories, someone should try and collate them. If nothing else, it makes for great copy.
I've known a singer who had a hell of a time relaxing for his high notes. At his teacher's suggestion, this young man asked his girlfriend to help him "rehearse" - if you get my drift. The assignment was, at the moment of greatest relaxation, to sing a high note, rather than lighting the more traditional cigarette.
Another singer friend was using a newly purchased, "great hits of the opera" CD as romantic background music with a man she had been seeing for all of two weeks - until Wagner's "Wedding March" from Lohengrin came on. Awkward silence and a sudden lunge for the CD player ensued.
One of the coolest sopranos I know swears that she learned her high notes in bed. Yes, apparently her husband is that good. Another singer friend, a mezzo, still uses the sense memory of a great orgasm to get ring in her voice. I can certainly think of at least one great bass, who was rumored to have encounters with chorus girls in the wings before he would go on to sing!
It works both ways, though. Stories abound about a certain great tenor (OK, why hide it - it's generally rumored to be Franco Corelli), who would refuse to make love to his wife for three days before a performance. This is actually a common restriction - many singers feel that it ruins their energy or voice for the big night. According to rumor, Mrs. Corelli went to (then Met General Manager) Rudolph Bing, and pleaded her case: "please give Franco some time off! You are ruining my sex life!"
Do any of you have good stories of mixing business with pleasure? Comments are anonymous for a reason... :)
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