In memory of Caruso

I really like singing. When I was five, one of my relatives said, that I have some sort of amazing singing talent. Since I’m a naturally trusting person, I never gave a single doubt to this postulate. I sang willfully and loudly, and I sang at any time in any place.

Somewhere around the age of 20, my voice had finally matured and reached a range of 4 octaves (there are witnesses that can confirm this information). The lower point of my range allowed me to sing Mephisto Aria without even trying, and the higher allowed me to please the ears of any bystander with an occasional Schubert’s serenade. By the way, just having this range means nothing. For example, the vocal range of our neighbour’s toilet is way bigger.

Somewhere around 27 I found out with horror, that the absence of regular vocal exercise, combined with systematic smoking, had a destructive effect on my singing abilities: my voice was quickly losing its’ strength and sharpness. And its’ sharpness was its’ main feature. And my appreciative, though low in numbers, listeners, confirmed this: “Your voice’s sharpness, Katia” – they said – “is mind breaking.”

So, the voice had to be preserved and improved, and it had to be done immediately. I’ll drop the story about the long and tiring path that brought me to the audition with a renowned soprano singer – let’s say her surname was Gorina. I had never visited the opera, not before the audition, nor after it, and me meeting Gorina was the only time I had such a close contact with it. The Renowned Soprano turned out to be a friendly and energetic dame of laughable height and with a somewhat appetizing body. After looking over my meager constitution, Gorina sighed and took me to the class.
The class smelled of notes and of music school. Gorina sat quickly behind a piano, and, lifting the fall board, she said:

“Let’s start?”

And after these words, I had for the first time questioned my talents, my four octaves, and my ability not only to sing, but to produce any sound at all. I felt my vocal cords respond to it with a spasm, so I had responded with a silent nod.

“Let’s start!” – And she started with a loud arpeggio, and it was so loud and unexpected, that I only could join her with a delay, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t catch up with her – I always was at least 1/8th behind her. Not to mention my note-hitting abilities; believe me, it wasn’t on the top of my priority list. I felt as if I was a car racer trying to catch up with the leader. I even sounded like a racing car, like a neighbour’s toilet – like anything, but not like a person who has a right to be auditioned by an renowned opera singer. And if at the start of our race Gorina was just frowning a little, closer to the finish line she looked like she was eating a stale ostrich.

Gorina took her hands off the keyboard and sat silent for a few moments. You could see that she was trying to put the welcoming expression she had in the beginning back on her face.

“You see” – she said – “I have perfect pitch, and the sounds you had just produced caused me physical pain”
I wanted to say something to this renowned soprano singer, something encouraging. I wanted to tell her that yes, I understand. Tell her that letting out these sounds isn’t an easy job too. I wanted to say something, but it was impossible, because my speech apparatus had refused to work with me by that time.

“Okay” – Gorina said – “Let’s do it like this. Sing something by yourself, without music.”
“Sing? Sing what?” – asked I.
“Anything; you love singing, right? Well, sing something. Whatever you want to”
Whatever I wanted to. What did I want? I wanted to slip out of this class, I wanted to vanish from the life of this patient and humane woman, and from the whole world. Not for long, but until the world forgets about this audition.
“Sing already” – she said, slowly losing her patience.
“Any song?”
“Any song. Your favourite. Even “Во поле берёзка стояла” (“A birch stood in the field”, a Russian folk song) would do"
“Favourite. Got it. Right. Yes. A sec” – said I – and right this moment, my mind was overwhelmed by all the melodies I ever heard in my life, and after they overwhelmed it, they created a horrible cacophony, from which I vainly tried to distinguish a single appropriate motif. I remember the lines “…a wolf hunt is going on, a hunt is going on” standing out of that stream of sound, but thought that here and now, or anywhere at all, this song will not sound very well when sung by me.

“Come on!” – Gorina said with such impatience, as if I wasn’t Katia Mohova, but as if I was, don’t even know… as if I was Caruso, whose godlike tenor Gorina wants to enjoy. And then I remembered the song. I coughed once or twice, opened my mouth, and discovered that out of my mouth comes a muffled voice, which is clearly not mine.
I didn’t even get to the chorus, as Gorina interrupted that singing torture with a gracious wave of her hand. She was using her second hand to cover her face, and it was obvious, that she wasn’t crying or laughing, but that she was trying to hide the cringes that my vocals caused upon her musical nature.

“What”– she asked without opening her face – “What was that?”
“This was Jeanne Aguzarova’s song called “Yellow Boots” – I answered.
“Ah, so that was a song” – the renowned opera singer took the hand away from her face and looked me in the eyes, right into my soul. And her stare reached my lungs and touched my diaphragm, and I felt on the inside, that Gorina had suffered more in the last few minutes, than most people suffer in their whole lives.

“I want to ask you two questions” – she said – “The first question goes like this: You want to learn how to sing. Suppose I help you, and, by some miracle, I manage to teach you something. Tell me, where are you going to, umm, concert?”
I wasn’t going to concert anywhere, I was going to continue singing to a narrow circle of friends and relatives, which I relayed to Gorina.

“My god” – she exclaimed – “do you really need my help to practice that? Trust me, you can keep tormenting you friends and relatives without my help – and they, as I would guess, are very patient people, and if I was in your place, I would reward their patience by discontinuing my attempts at singing forever. By the way, Katia, don’t leave yet, I want to ask you one more question. I’m really interested. Who told you that you have any singing abilities?

I left the building. It was a sunny spring day, there was a smell of petrol and melting snow in the air. On the branches of trees awakening from their winter slumber, sat different birds – and they sang, sang, and sang. I took my phone and called my mom.

“Nina” – said I – “please, answer just one question. Why nobody –especially you – told me that I am a bad singer?”

“See, darling” – my mom answered happily – “When you were small, we were trying to support your beginnings and develop all your talents.”

“But after that” – I cried – “after that, when I grew up, why did you all remain silent? Why?!!”

“You see” – Nina sighed – “After that, we did not want to disappoint you”