I've somehow ended up with an anachronistic calling. In an age where the next new technological miracle is expected and anticipated, I am somehow an opera singer. My entire medium for communication can be argued to have died a century ago. I would argue against that statement, obviously, but – talk about a specialized field with limited appeal! I spend my days earning enough to continue to pursue my art, while my companions in these waking hours of corporate indenture are pursuing the cutting edge of technology. Simultaneously, I pursue the ostensible purpose (porpoise?) of streamlining the chaos of corporate red tape. Amazing contrasts. If any performing art survives the next century, it will be because the immediacy and intimacy of live performance cannot be recorded. However, many musicians I used to respect have given up on attending live events for a variety of reasons – some more resonant to me than others. They whine about the music industry taking away all meaning, about crowds of rude people, processed and mixed and overproduced unmusical acts, and mostly, they complain that the acts they can roust themselves out of the house to attend are mediocre. So, they insulate themselves in their apartments, listening to the precious recordings of what they consider to be real music. This applies to every "genre" (even though the imposition of those genres is an artificial construct). Now, if you want, you can take that argument, and the issues surrounding incessant web surfing, and create a "Matrix" prediction of the future. If you want. I get so angry with the people who say that what I do isn't real music. They think that it must be stifling to have to sing the notes that were written, with the shapes that were indicated, and include stylistic interpretation that some diva improvised 150 years ago. Of course, in every form of human communication, some of it is going to be less effective than others. I don't deny it. The overweening presumptions of people who purport to be knowledgeable, who pride themselves that "if it can be done, it has been done, and I have the recording to prove it", galls my soul to an unendurable point. How boring. Uncreative. They even have the audacity to tell me that they can't see why I sing it. In those individuals that concede that there may be beauty in opera, they smugly say, "Callas sang that," or "Nielsen sang that," and then ask what they think is a rhetorical question – "why would you want to sing those songs when nobody will ever do it better?" Does it have to be better to be true? Who gets to judge better? There is no other medium by which a person can so clearly and instantaneously communicate the plight or ecstasy of universal human experiences across as many as three languages and two times. The length and breadth of our global cultural world has so many sources to draw from, and instead of diving in and finding out how nice the water is, we make Wonder Bread. An actor can have a moment of authentic connection between themselves, the script, and the house, but some never mention it. My not-so-humble opinion is that those moments are rare enough that it must be kept to oneself. Hmmph. Just like every other form of creative expression, sometimes people have to become good artists. They don't all "spring fully formed from the brow of Zeus." Yes, those that burn brightly from the first are easily recognized, but most artistic platitudes are about the process of getting from God-Awful to Tolerable to Halfway Decent to Enjoyable. Some even get past that, and the moment can happen when a painting or a sculpture or a dance or a song is crystalline and intense and magnificent. As a person, participating in that moment can define a lifetime. The fear for me is that, like the traditional music theatre of some nations, my specific art will become obscured by conflicting priorities, and shunted aside into a sideshow display of "our cultural history". The need to grow so desperately overshadows so many aspects of life that we forget why we're growing at all. There is and there will continue to be a need in communal life for the intensity, the honesty and the immediacy of art experienced in person. Hopefully, a large enough minority of people and funds can continue to go toward this expression of the human pinnacles and travails that have ended up in the amalgamated modern performing literature to keep the vibrant expression and experiences happening. I'm still training for it. I just hope there is an audience left when I get chances to be heard.