A Tasmanian's Willow Song

The year was 2007 and I, along with other eager young singers from around the region, was competing in the City of?Hobart?Eisteddfod. The adjudicator was Jonathon Welch AM, of 'Choir of Hard Knocks' TV fame, and I had entered the DJ Mazda Operatic Aria Award with 'Salce, Salce' from Verdi's 'Otello' - an aria now, in hindsight, I'm rather surprised that I was assigned in my mid 20s at a conservatorium, but perhaps my Conservatorium teacher thought I had the right instincts and maturity to pull it off.?

It is an aria that requires a great deal of compassion and maturity from the singer approaching the role. Part of a larger scene, Desdemona is talking to her ladies' maid, Emilia, and getting lost in remembrance of an old?willow?song, whilst simultaneously feeling the foreboding of the terrible events of the evening to come. (I'm trying not to give everything away here!) The freedom required to truly soar like a leaf on the wind as you sing uninhibited and with pure innocence is quite different to the recitative-like bars, particularly the panicked ones, and of course wildly different to the final bars of the aria as Desdemona lets loose with all the unbridled passion she has as she bids farewell to Emilia.

I performed the aria in the competition with whatever worldly knowledge I had at 26 and somehow our esteemed adjudicator was very taken with my interpretation, though I'm sure I exceeded the time limit, and I won first prize, which I believe was $2000. I put the money towards a study trip to "the mainland", and another $500 prize I received for the Recital section, I spent on Amazon buying a large number of vocal scores which I still own and use today.

I remember my thought process when I was?performing the aria back at age 26, and I?identified strongly with Desdemona's innocence. Nowadays, at 38, I would say I identify a little more strongly with the injustice of Desdemona's situation, as well as the innocence, but I have great compassion for the blind trust and love she put into her husband. Her situation is still so relatable today, with more than one woman a week in Australia dying at the hands of their current or former domestic partner. Though I understand it, I have no sympathy for Otello!

Singing competitions were good and bad in equal measure - wonderful for the opportunity to be able to perform repertoire from memory under pressure for an audience, but awful in my opinion for the yardstick mentality it instilled in me as a young singer. Was I better than the singer before me? Did I sing the notes more accurately than the soprano who sang the same?song?as me? Years of competitions taught me to view other singers as competition rather than colleagues, and it took me a long time to work out that my fellow competitors were colleagues who had value to me as friends and confidantes; people I could try out new repertoire with, celebrate in our successes with, and trust implicitly to be my rock and cheerleader whenever I needed it.

I am privileged to be able to perform with such friends and colleagues as The Opera and?Song?Collective. Nothing better than making music with friends!