The word success is defined for many in the performing arts as the accomplishing of a personal goal, to be continuously engaged, to reach higher positions, to be critically acclaimed and all of the above. Is it really success when it is only about ourselves? Is success not something that also given from ourselves to others? To take a great work and to give it a great performance actually pales into insignificance compared to a performance resonating to the point that that it alters someone’s being, gives them pause to reflect on themselves or even potentially saves a life!…..I pose a question….
I hark back to a now out of print AP article that appeared on the CNN site in May 2006 describing the Dallas Opera program Red Carnations a one act opera featuring singers from SMU (Southern Methodist University). It was designed to give students a professional experience whilst at the same time presenting an Opera to educate children about the perils of stranger danger. A quote in the article from a student jumped out at me proving in my mind that the point of the program was completely lost on her, and that music schools focus on success purely in terms of personal achievement, not on the profound effect that music might have on an audience. Here’s the quote:
Hopefully by performing for children, it will be a learning experience and I can take that away to perform for discerning critics
Now the set up to my question. Let’s say that 25 years later this student singer becomes a renowned singer and gives a performance of Aida at the Met that reviewers call the most stunning performance of the last 40 years, her room is adorned with bouquets from admirers and producers and only the top Opera houses in the world can now afford to book her she is in such demand. Major success right? Well what if at the same performance a man in early 30’s is waiting at the stage door and upon meeting the new star he reminds her of the Opera Red Carnations that she sang when she was a student in Dallas and that because of that performance (that he attended as a young boy) he refused to walk away with a stranger and it potentially may have saved his life. He just wanted to thank her.
My question: In which performance was she the most successful, in the one that may have saved a life, or in the one that garnered her adulation as a performer?
Whilst deciding, here is one of the most profound of clips regarding this from The Shawshank Redemption. What Morgan Freeman says starting at 1:59 encapsulates it all!