What happens when we choke?

Canadian duo, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir

This week, I’ve been watching the Olympic figure skating events. It is my favourite sport to watch; the artistry, dedication, athleticism, and taste. I love it! I find it so similar to opera and singing and I often watch it to gain inspiration for my own singing and artistry. The 2018 gold medal performance from Canadian duo Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir is a frequent go-to on my YouTube playlist. I cry EVERY time! The audience reaction says it all and their gold medal was very well deserved. It is 100% top-tier artistry and athleticism!

I felt similarly this year with Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier’s bronze medal ice dance program. I know very little about the technical scoring of ice dance, but I was absolutely sobbing by the end of their performance. They certainly won my heart!

For so many reasons, opera and figure skating are in the same realm, particularly when it comes to competitions. In vocal competitions, we’re scored for technical abilities, vocal quality, language skills, historical context, all while connecting with the audience and telling a story. The way scoring is tallied can be so subjective. In the parallel ice dance world, you see this reflected in this year’s silver & gold medal placements of USA and France and the audience reaction from their respective countries. Scandaloso!

What was heartbreaking for me this year was seeing gold hopeful and world champion Ilia Malinin struggle through his long program in his signature piece with 7 planned quad jumps. If he completed all jumps, he would become the highest technical scorer in Olympic men’s individual skating EVER. Unfortunately, he only completed two quads, falling twice and under-rotating 3 times. He ultimately placed eighth despite a very high short program score.

His heartbreak, his disappointment, and most of all, his eyes, resonated with me. In light of this, I wanted to share a moment where I choked in a high-stakes competition, my emotional state, and the aftermath. Perhaps not the Olympic stage, but at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World.

To set the scene, this was a competition I always dreamed of since becoming a singer. When I was selected as a semifinalist, I was both elated and terrified. I had already competed and done well in a few other competitions: Concours Musical International de Montréal, OSM and Die Meistersinger. Likewise, I had not moved past video/primary rounds or semi-final rounds in many, MANY others. Losses and wins had generally become normalised. With the BBC, however, I decided it would be my last competition, and in doing so, I felt a duty to perform well.

Doing a mock performance for my friends as preparation.

I prepared like crazy! I chose difficult repertoire that would impress in five different languages. I did a mock recital for my friends. I even had a pizza party where I tried on my gowns for my friends and they voted on what to wear for each program! I had a dream of being the first Canadian winner and making Canada proud. The hype was fun, but it also created a sense of importance and necessity to do well... It got to me.

I started to have small anxiety attacks. I would be seated and my Apple Watch would notify me that my heart rate was above 120 bpm. I got sick four times between the time I found out about my participation and the competition.

When the competition arrived, I unsurprisingly got sick again. I went to the local ENT who confirmed my illness, but said it was safe to sing and gave me antibiotics/steroids for the week. I drank ginger shots and vitamin blends like juice. I was determined to get better.

If I were to perform my programs well, I had to be at 90% vocal health… and I was operating at about 60-70%. On top of the declining voice, my mind was doing complete circles around itself.

After the first art song round with my loved ones: JP, Jonah, my dad and step-mom.

The first couple of rounds of the competition were okay. I didn’t pass the first aria round, but I sang decently, so I didn’t feel like I let myself down. The first art song round was something I could be very proud of; I felt connected to the words, felt as though the audience was with me and my voice carried me through. As a result, I went through to the final art song round. Great!!! Except… not great… my mind started getting out of control.

My voice was losing strength every day from not being able to heal, especially with the rehearsals, communal breakfasts, and social aspect of the competition….

My hardest set was the final art song program. I kept thinking how stupid I was to program something so hard! “Why didn’t I transpose it? Why don’t I program something entirely different last minute? Why did I choose this impossibly tight dress for this program? Why can’t I breathe? Can I even sing anymore? I’m not going to make it through the program. I am not going to make it through!”

My mind was IN. A. STATE. Yet, I still had to present in public as though I was perfectly capable and maintain normal, everyday conversations.

By the day of the final, my mind and voice didn’t recover. We had a professional sports coach backstage. I asked to meet him to help me with my overwhelming anxiety. It didn’t help. I put on Great Big Sea’s “Ordinary Day” (my pump-up song). It didn’t help. I tried breathing exercises. It didn’t help. I had countless lozenges. They didn’t help. Nothing helped!

My round was coming, and my voice wasn’t working, and here I was to embarrass myself on international television. I warmed up too much hoping my high notes would eventually come. They were just not there…

I usually love the adrenaline hit from being backstage, but this was a real anxiety attack… and it was happening right before I walked on stage.

My name was announced…
And there I was.
On stage.
Having an anxiety attack in front of everyone.

The music started. My pulse was throbbing in my ears. At least I could remember the words. I prepared well enough that this wasn’t an issue. I tried to think only of JP (now husband) in the audience, and sing everything to him. It worked a bit, but every so often my voice didn’t work the way I wanted it to and my mind slipped back into a panic state. You could see it in my eyes. The same fear in my eyes that I saw in Malinin’s.

Then came the high repertoire at the end of the set. When programming, I had imagined an intense finish, with a sure-fire high note and incredible piano outro… but… it just didn’t come out. Well…Something did… but it wasn’t any good and certainly not what I had hoped. Though the piano solo was incredible.

My performance ended.

I was disappointed. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my voice. It wasn’t how I communicate. My panic took over… but at least now it was over. Backstage, an interviewer asked how I felt. I probably said something like, “I did the best that I could in that moment.” I don’t remember.

The competition continued and the results came in. My wonderful friend and tenor, Sungho Kim, won the art song prize. He is a beautiful artist and singer so he was extremely well deserving! All of my fellow competitors are equally impressive all throughout.

The week following the competition (and after a few days of vocal rest), I had performances… but now… and seemingly out of nowhere, I couldn’t trust myself! Each time a high note came, I would feel a tightness in my chest that I never had before. I couldn’t breathe properly. I suddenly had stage-fright that I never had before! My high notes did come out, but all of a sudden I had immense anxiety around them and an absolute dread to go on stage. This particular week, my stress was still so high that I eventually fainted in a train station. My anxiety attack in Cardiff followed me… and I was burnt out.

It took over six months to recover mentally and vocally. Time helped me heal mixed with exposure therapy. I was on a performance run of The Barber of Seville in Scotland, for which we had 12 performances and a long rehearsal run. Rosina is a vocally high-stamina role, but a heck of a lot of fun to perform. The long rehearsal period allowed me to integrate the role well into my voice and regain confidence. In the open dress rehearsal, however, I experienced the same tightness and stage fright as the post-BBC performances. I was worried that my newly acquired stage fright was now a part of me.

In the first performance, however, I finally felt fearless again. Thus starting my recovery.

Each of the 12 performances became a therapy session. My breath began to regulate, my high notes more confident. Eventually, I was able to come back to the performer I once was. Presently, I would say that I’m back to the healthy addiction to the adrenaline and dopamine hit from the stage as I was before.

Ilia Malinin at this year’s Olympics

Back to figure skating world, when I saw Malinin falter in his Olympic performance, I saw myself. I saw the panic, the pressure, the celebrity, the goal, the realisation of not reaching it, the feeling of failure. It was devastating. My hope is that he’s surrounded by a team that can help support him through the rise and fall of his experience. The BBC was big for me… but the Olympics is a whole other beast! For this incredible 21-year-old skater, as with all athletes on the world’s stage, the pressure is unimaginable. Malinin skates with a technical aptitude mixed with resonating artistry that is hard not to root for. Choking is devastating but an integral part of the artistic and athletic process. I expect that his team will offer a mental recovery plan to help him heal through this process. One that can take months or even years, but I hope that in the next years, he will continue to grow as an athlete, artist and person.

So… The big question: What happens when we choke?

As a 90’s Disney kid, a very wise baboon once told me, “The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you either run from it or learn from it.”**

It can be tempting not to face your fear. To look away. To go into another career path and say “enough”. Each choice is valid and personal. Traumatic events like this can happen in an artist’s journey in countless other ways: An abusive teacher/mentor, a degrading conductor or director, workplace gossip, online forums, internet trolls, etc. There is SO MUCH that can bring an artist down. It’s up to us to bear the brunt or to say when it’s enough. For me, I’m glad I had the opportunity to work through this traumatic event over time and through the production of The Barber of Seville. It’s helped me gain confidence and perspective on myself. Looking back at the recording all these years later, my performance wasn’t that horrible! You can’t even tell that I was having a panic attack - only in a few moments you can see brief panic in my eyes. I had a few botched notes, but nothing that big of a deal. The internal experience felt way more significant than the result. My career hasn’t been decimated and it was far from the end of the world!

Competitions are strange… They can be great! For those drawn to them, it’s an excellent form of exposure to the professional world. The camaraderie between competitors is palpable, the competition can challenge you in ways you don’t expect, and you always learn a lot about yourself! However, they ALSO have the potential to eat away at you from the inside. For me, it’s both. I’ve had great accomplishments from competitions, but also significant rejection, and in this case, a major mental barrier. I’m nonetheless grateful to have learned so much from my competition career, and can look at many moments with great fondness.

I wanted to blog about this experience to normalise sharing the unfiltered experiences of being an opera singer. The real ups and downs! My hope is that by sharing my BBC experience, perhaps it can help give perspective for someone else going through a parallel journey.  ❤️

Footnotes:

*Can I even say “pizza party” anymore? I promise there was actually pizza there 😆. I also have the best freaking friends who really showed up for me during that time! :)

** Quote from Rafiki in The Lion King

*** I want to note that the BBC administration gave us everything they possibly could to support us: A sports coach, resources to prepare for the online discussion, on call ENT, etc. They were absolutely lovely!