I was waiting tables, had a deadbeat boyfriend, was thoroughly miserable and completely adrift. I was 22 and was half-heartedly preparing auditions for graduate drama programs at Yale and NYU while wholeheartedly in denial about having no idea what to make of my life. I was aimless and clueless and given that I was living in the city in the 80's, a little reckless.
Even though I'd LOVED musicals all my life I had never performed in any. I always felt more comfortable pouring myself into damaged, fragile, eccentric characters or taking on smart-talking comedic roles. It was much more natural for me to burst into tears than burst into song, so Blanche Du Bois was a cakewalk for me compared to Ado Annie! When it came to musicals, I learned I was a girl who COULD say “no” so I needed some help in finding and refining my voice for the singing part of my auditions. 16 bars. How hard could it be?
A musician friend of mine gave me the card of a voice teacher. Julia Speratore, vocal coach, the Ansonia Hotel. Being firmly entrenched in the downtown scene in those days I rarely ventured north of 14th street much less the Upper West Side, and my aesthetic was much more the grungy, post-punk debauched Chelsea Hotel than the ornate grand Dame that was the Ansonia. I had my doubts about whether Ms. Speratore and I would be a good match.
I remember meeting Julie for the first time in her apartment on the 6th floor. Julie was tiny and energetic. She spoke in a clipped staccato with an accent and tone that was like Katherine Hepburn played on a scratched record. She wore black slacks and a tailored shirt, her dark hair in a tight bun, her eyes intent and direct. We had a cup of tea and then she sat at the piano. I knew the words to every musical I'd ever heard as well as the complete Ramones songbook and a lot in between but I had never sung for anyone. As I croaked through, "You've got a Friend", Julie, head cocked, stared at me.
Since Julie was staring at me, as well as managing to play piano while poking, correcting, adjusting my posture, my breath.... I was taking a good look around, too. Her eyes were dark, intense and old, yet ageless. Her skin was flawless and smooth, not a wrinkle. Her hands gave some clue to her age. Large-stoned rings that may have fit decades earlier were now several sizes too large and twisted easily around the slender fingers that poked me in the belly throughout surprisingly strenuous vocal exercises and later emphatically marked the time in the air through Vaccai and Marchese. In front of me, on the grand piano, there was a multi-colored stuffed spider with a card attached that read, "Happy Birthday to my favorite octogenarian." This little spitfire could NOT be 80. I walked out of my first singing lesson physically aching and doubting my understanding of the word,” octogenarian" but sure that Julie and I were indeed a good match.
It turned out that while my speaking voice was vintage Debra Winger my singing voice was more suited for Cavallaria Rusticana than Carole King and Julie initiated me into the mystery and rigors of classical voice training. While I never made it to New Haven, I began an independent life study with Julie, a lesson a week over more than 15 years that primed me for my life and prepared me for who I would come to be in hers.
Our relationship developed over hundreds of cups of tea and the piano. Some weeks I was late, in bad voice or broke. Sometime all three. Julie never judged. Sometimes I would forget to show up or cancel at the last minute. Julie was always there when I was ready to come around. She never berated or tried to tough-love me. She never tried to guilt me into being more than who I was on any particular day. When I was broke, she taught me for free. When I was flush I bought her cashmere sweaters. She never disparaged my indulgent lifestyle; late nights and partying resulting in chronic laryngitis. The only advice she ever gave me was, "Don't sing in the street, its bad for the voice." If she only knew. When I was in really bad voice we'd stop the lesson and just have tea and talk. She'd talk about her childhood. Of picking strawberries and making ice cream on her farm near New Haven. Of leaving her family for New York in the early 1920's. Of making a living during the depression while studying voice. Of knowing that music was her calling and, believing that she couldn't have both a career and a family, and chose music. Julie was fearless and confident and everything I wasn’t.
I was afraid of being alone. So much of my party-girl act was just that. I didn't know where I belonged or what I should do. At 20-something, I thought I had already missed my chance to make my mark on the world. I longed for Julie's clarity of purpose. I was still searching and not sure if I was looking in any of the right places. At my age I should...at my age... at my age...wait a minute...look at Julie. She’s in her 80's. She's never achieved "fame" but her life, is an enviable success story. She's not famous, but of course she's remarkable! She's giving lessons. She's vital. She's in the world. She's going to the opera. She works out. She's volunteering at the Y, she's taking care of a sick friend, (in her words, "the old lady up the block.") She’s living her remarkable, wonderful life.
My experience with old people was pretty much limited to them dying so for the first few years, I dreaded getting to her apartment door. Afraid, every week, that Julie wouldn't be there. She was hard of hearing and a bit too vain to wear her hearing aid when she wasn't at the opera. And while she could tell immediately if I was flat or too wobbly on a high C she sometimes couldn't hear the doorbell, leaving me to pace the cavernous hallway outside her apartment playing worse case scenario in my head. She fell in the tub. She had an aneurism/stroke/heart attack. She was burgled and conked on the head, unable to reach the door. I'd start ringing the bell again. She'd answer impatiently, "Get in. Get in. Where you been? You're late." I'd go in and make tea with shaky hands.
I went from thinking Julie would die every week to believing she would never live to see me grow up. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time with her to put together a life for myself. To make her proud. To accomplish something. But she was there to fall in love with my husband, be an honored guest at our wedding, delight in both of my children. Julie saw me go on to eventually make it through grad school. Buy houses. Grow up.
Well into her nineties, she was still giving lessons to a dozen or so regular students. Over the years we'd all gotten to know one another meeting at the beginning or end of our lessons, listening to each other's progress from the hall, and singing together around the piano at Julie's annual soirees. We became Julie's family. The one she thought she couldn't have because she chose a career in music. I was no longer catastrophizing Julie's end. Her life force was so strong, I never even thought about it anymore.
But there were signs that she was faltering. While Julie could remember exactly how much rent she paid in 1935, she'd forget to turn off the stove or close the front door or why I was there.
There were medical issues and hospital visits. I was afraid that Julie wouldn't be able to stay in her home/studio of 35 years unless she got help. It was a painful talk to have with her, she was so private and independent, explaining that strangers would have to come in to help her, she was angry and accusatory. "Who are you to come in here and tell me this?!!! You're not family!!" "Yes I am Julie. I'm family." We never said another word about it. Homecare was arranged and the round-the-clock ladies soon became part of the family as Julie continued with her life un-interrupted.
One freezing December night, I got the call. I reflected on how knowing Julie shaped my life and helped define my beliefs on aging, beauty, friendship, womanhood, success and family. I wrote her eulogy and drove to New Haven. Julie’s death was a heartbreaking loss and it was my honor to speak on that bone-chilling morning, in that beautiful church in the small city she had left the better part of a century ago, not only about Julie’s life in music but about lessons she taught me. The grace notes. To give and accept love, gifts, talents, time. To open up my heart and home. To create family and define it in its most lovely and varied forms.
As an opera singer I was an inconsistent dilettante, but I can teach a master class in crying. When I stood up for Julie to say the words, the poems, the missives I wanted to send up about and for her, I thought my grief would stifle me. But the love I felt and the honor I wanted to show her allowed me to sing her praises in my own strong, clear voice.
More than 10 years have gone by and she is still with me; poking, encouraging, chiding, accepting, loving, challenging. And we sing. We’re always singing.
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