Please pass the salt

Balancing out the flattery, compliment scale was inevitable. As if Pani Chojnacka hadn't done it enough between my hair and saying I walk on stage like a cowgirl, (which hello if you all haven't noticed I just so happen to be a cowgirl!)

today Ella Susmarzek finshed off the job. I was supposed to have my monthly class "opracowanie muzyczne partii operowych" which is pretty self explanitory even in the Polish. Ryszard Karczykowski comes all the way from Krakow to teach us every month and in the words of Mommy M, he is "famous like the stars." Actually he is a fairly well known tenor, at least in Poland.

Here he is with Mommy M and my Pianist Pani Malgorzata at a concert last year.

Anyway, Richard's is the last signature in need in my Index for the first semester's zaliczenia (this is where teachers account for your progress thus far) and I thought, heck why not sing for him while I was at it. It wasn't until I got to Warsaw today that I found out his plans had changed and that he would be coming Monday, not today. I decided to make the most of the time and rehearse with the pianist, Pani Ella Susmarzek. Now Ella Susmarzek may not be "famous as the stars" but heaven sakes, she is just amazing. Amazing enough to be more concerned with music basics and not some optimistic American who is good at moving her hands on stage. Lucky for me, I am good at taking criticism, and she was very nice in the way she handed it out. But she is the second person to tell me my french is "okropnie" or "terrible" as well as my Russian to the point where she said she cannot understand anything I sing. This has me a little angry, only because I have been singing in French for a long time and I always thought I was good at it, but apparently not! She also took the Dvorak Aria from Rusalka and changed about 10 things from the way I had been singing it to make it truly fit the characteristics of Czech music. Where has this woman been hiding and why aren't there more of her in my life?!? The criticism has me excited in a way because now I have a lot more concrete stuff to work on. But on the other hand I am feeling like there are so many aspects of being a vocalist that I don't know if I can even come close to succeed in all of them, I mean, trying to know the 6 or 7 languages I sing in on a regular basis is daunting enough, never mind tone, breath support and control, and stage presence just to name a few. How about dancing, gestures, make-up, and constuming? Master all of this, and then be competitive about it? Kurcze!!! Maybe I'll stick with being a cowgirl. Slobert says there is a great program in Horse Husbandry at Del-Val. Yeehaw!