Anne wrote:
>I would be interested to hear how some of you opera singers deal with >anxiety (stage fright) when performing on stage. It appears that people >react to it in different ways from shortness of breath when singing, >shaking hands and feet, forgetting the lyrics and notes, and so on. Would >some of you who perform professionally on a regular basis please give us >some ideas on how to best cope with it, and some solutions that work for you.
In my opinion, preparation is the most important factor in handling anxiety.
The obvious parts are musical, linguistic, and dramatic preparation, i.e. knowing the music and text intimately well, along with what I want to do with it. This means I try to learn the music as far ahead of time as I can. And if I find myself in a situation where I have to learn a piece quickly (to fill in for someone or because the composer is behind deadline), I *pretend* that I have a lot of prep time. It's a discipline: staying calm and purposeful no matter how logical it would be to panic!!
The other part of preparation that helps me is psychological preparation. I consciously feed my mind with positive thoughts and images. (It helps to write them down.) Whenever I sense that my feelings are starting to get negative, I literally change my mind! In the weeks approaching a performance (as the fears tend to grow), I combat them more and more vigorously. In the day or two before a performance, I intensify this process further by imagining my performance goals over and over. (I actually picture myself singing the piece the way I want to sing it.)
These techniques are commonly used by athletes in preparation for their events. I learned them from a variety of sources, particularly Don Greene, a performance psychologist who has taken his background working with Olympic-level athletes and applied it to vocal performance. He has some books out which deal with different aspects of the singer's preparation, and I believe he also has a web site: dongreene.com.
There are other books that have been helpful, including:
A Soprano on her Head, by Eloise Ristad The Performer Prepares, by Robert Caldwell, Power Performance for Singers, by Shirlee Emmons and Alma Thomas Managing Fear, by Judith Owens Lancaster
I find that the more I can focus on my own goals, rather than worrying about what people might think of me, the less performance anxiety is even an issue -- because the anxiety (for me, anyway) is strongest when it's about something I can't control, whereas embracing my performance goals is entirely within my control.
One other thing, a strategy for the anxiety that happens right before you go on: Don't try to get less anxious, it tends to have the opposite effect. Instead, focus on deepening your breath and let yourself be anxious. Once you step onstage, that anxiet will turn to energy that feeds your performance!
Best of luck! Naomi Gurt Lind omigurt@m... omigurt@m...
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