In the Mouth of the Wolf

It’s bad luck to say good luck on opening night! If you do, I’ll tell you…

Thanks, Mel Brooks for writing the song that is now stuck in my head, but also for poking fun at the superstitions of the theater.

“Break a leg!” is the customary saying in American theater but in the opera world, “In bocca al lupo” is the common phrase heard backstage before a show. It translates to, “In the mouth of the wolf” and the response, “Crepi il lupo” means “Let the wolf die”. I’ve heard different origins and meanings of this saying but my favorite way to translate it is that the proscenium of the stage represents the mouth of the wolf and the response means I’m going to kill it on stage. What can I say, superstitions get me pumped up. 

I’ve been out of college for 10 years and I have to say the first decade of my career was not what I thought it would be. In opera college (undergrad/grad school alike) everyone tells you that in order to have a career in this country you either have to get a Young Artist Program or… oh, actually, that’s the only option. I cannot stress enough the amount of pressure to have a year long YAP by the time you’re 25. And if you don’t have that, or at the very least, a few prestigious summer programs on your resume by the time you’re 28, then what are you even doing? Maybe you should just stop singing. 

Now that I’m at the wise old age of 33, I’ve learned over and over again you can’t plan out your journey in such a way. You can always hope for something, you can strive and you can work towards goals but you can’t know where life is going to take you, especially when you’re too young to respect or even really know your own strengths. 

Don’t get me wrong, I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with many wonderful opera companies. The majority of the summer programs and YAPs I did were well suited for me, and the ones I wished I’d done at the time--well, I don’t know where I’d be if everything I wished actually happened for me. So even though my plan went a little sideways,  I’m incredibly grateful because I now have more creative license than my 22-year-old self could have thought possible.  

Last week, I performed on a stage, in front of a live audience for the first time in quite a while. I felt the pressure of being in the mouth of the wolf once again and I won’t lie, I almost let it bite me. The energy I was feeling leading up to the performance day was everything from excitement to panic to mania and I was extremely overwhelmed by how much it was affecting me. This week I’ve got another performance, and it’s a return to Rita, a character that is so near and dear to my heart. In fact, it pained me to such an extent that covid canceled my shows in 2020 that I was adamantly not working on the script for many months. But now, the timing feels right to bring her back into the world and I’m so very excited.

I don’t know what is going to happen next and I never will.  As a planner and type A person, I can’t tell you how uncomfortable that makes me. I just hope I have the faith to lean into the path the universe has for me, rather than the plan I’ve set for myself. Because as imaginative and creative as I am, the universe can always outdo me

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