Success in this career, especially at the highest levels, requires an enormous amount of focus, perseverance, and sacrifice—not unlike relationships. And relationships are often the prime source of strength and support for singers. Yet career and relationships can easily be at odds, to the detriment of both. Reconciling them is one of the most critical tasks of the professional singer.
Singers are drawn first to the artistry of making music; deciding to make a career of it comes later, and it’s a rare young singer who does much research into the business before racking up the student loans to earn a degree. Simply put, most young singers have no idea what they are getting into and they don’t usually get much information, and certainly few specifics, at school.
I recently read a post from a young singer who was trying to decide whether to take an important audition, because getting it would mean living separately from his fiancée for a long period of time. He wanted to be able to pursue his career without long absences from her, but this, unfortunately, is unrealistic. If you want to sing opera or high-level concert work, you will be traveling a lot. Contracts usually don’t last longer than a month (and in this economy, rehearsal periods have gotten noticeably shorter), but if you’re working a lot, you can easily go from contract to contract with anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks in between. It may or may not be practical to go home in between contracts.
As I write this, I have spent six months out of this year on the road and at least once have had to step offstage and into a car to the airport so I could be at my next gig, ready to rehearse, the next day. A colleague of mine recently told me that her infant son, who travels with her, has seen his father only a few days in the last several months. Another friend is a young artist in a very high-profile YAP, and though his wife and child are with him, he is in rehearsal or performing so much that he might as well be a doctor on call.
This is the reality of a successful singing career. You will miss birthdays, funerals, parties, soccer games, and holidays. You will miss cuddling on the couch with your loved ones watching some silly TV show. You will cancel or postpone vacations at the last minute because you got an important audition or gig. Even your pets will be mad at you for a while when you finally come home.
Are you selfish enough to withstand this?
I don’t mean are you cruel, are you uncaring, are you truly only self-serving. I don’t mean by ignoring or belittling the other people in your life. I mean, do you have the fortitude and single-mindedness to wrench yourself away from the rest of life when you must and focus on yourself and your performances or role preparation or the career when you must? Because you will need to be able to do this if you are going for the big career. You need to be able to look at the big picture and find a way to structure your life so that you still have room in it for the things and people you love most. But you will not be able to have all those things—at least not all the time or to the level you would like.
Case in point: a wonderful singer I know spent two years away from her husband, doing one of the most prestigious apprenticeships in the country while he established his teaching career. Of course it was hard on both of them; but they visited each other whenever they could and they both supported the other’s dreams. Now she bases her career out of the relatively small, remote city where he teaches. It’s not her first choice and isn’t very convenient, but they have a really nice house and a nice life. The inconvenience is the price she pays for her husband’s happiness in his work, and her long absences are the price he pays for hers.
It is absolutely critical that you have a partner who truly understands and supports what you do and is willing to make it work. And it takes a great deal of work from both parties. Both of you will be unhappy at times. The partner who stays home may find himself carrying more than his fair share of the burden too much of the time. You’ll feel awfully selfish when you’re off on the road in some cool place and your beloved is at home dealing with dog poop on the living room carpet and a busted water heater. But this means it will be your job to ease your partner’s burden as much as you can from wherever you happen to be, and to make up for misbehaving dogs and uncooperative water heaters as best you can when you are home. Be prepared to negotiate—a lot.
Opportunities, especially when a singer is starting a career, are relatively hard to come by. A singer who is yet to be established needs to take what comes his way. That doesn’t mean taking every offer, but if you are regularly passing up major opportunities like important gigs or apprenticeships because you fear for your relationship, then the harsh reality is that you are not serious about having a big-league singing career and you really ought to think about configuring your life differently.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with valuing your relationship over your career, but you must be realistic about your career expectations. Another singer I know turned down a very prestigious, career-building apprenticeship to stay in a relationship in which the partner, also a singer but considerably less successful, refused to relocate or be separated temporarily. The singer took a less prestigious apprenticeship, did a few gigs here and there, and wound up divorced a few years later, when age limits made seeking another big apprenticeship impossible. The ship had sailed on that opportunity and, as far as I know, on that person’s singing career. In being generous to the partner, this singer ended up being stingy to himself.
It takes an enormous amount of energy to launch a singing career or, for that matter, to maintain one. If you want the big career, you and your partner must figure out a way to make your relationship work. And if you don’t want the big career, or don’t want it badly enough to sacrifice the white picket fence, you can absolutely have a satisfying smaller-scale career, working in regional houses closer to home, working fewer gigs a year and holding a teaching position or some other job to tide you over between singing engagements. You can sing professional chorus, direct a church choir, or start your own caroling business, and still sing a few gigs every season. But be aware that even a smaller-scale career is going to require some selfishness on your part.
What’s important is what makes you and your partner (and any future children) happy and fulfilled. Just do yourself and your partner the service of figuring out, together, what “happy and fulfilled” looks like to the both of you. Figure out how selfish you can or can’t afford to be and still be true to your relationships. Because dragging a civilian partner into this career without preparing, discussing, and negotiating—well, that would be really selfish.
And not in the good way.
