Feeling it

My method of dealing with the recession has been to simply try to ignore as much as possible and pretend that everything is fine. For me, whose 401K will hopefully have some time to recover, I can do this more easily than my parents and grandparents. I find that focusing too much on these things can leave me with a feeling of despair that makes it difficult to go to the next audition, learn the new aria, send ANOTHER packet out to ANOTHER company, etc. I'm not blind and deaf, though, and as much as I try to pretend like things are fine, it's always in the back of my mind that the opportunities for singers are going to diminish just like everyone else's.

And this morning, I saw the article in the Washington Post about the Baltimore Opera Company's official decision to dissolve. It's very sad to me, because I've been to a couple really unforgettable performances there, and having a professional opera company a few blocks from my house was a fabulous luxury that not many people get to experience.

Baltimoreans are plucky people, though, and ESPECIALLY the singing types. We're like bulldogs around here, I tell you. At least two new opera organizations that I know of have sprung up in the wake of the loss of BOC. This one seems particularly classy. And Opera Vivente, is, by all accounts doing fabulously. So, there is hope after all, it seems.