April 12, 2018

Finished the practice readings for my seniors. They’re all good, but they’re too many, and the audience will be begging for mercy before the end. In fact, they are NOT all good, and my problem child came late to class, red badly, spent most of her time making excuses, and had us drop pennies in a pitcher as though it were a wishing well. I don’t know why. She kept me afterward to plead her case that she stayed up all night with anxiety and she shouldn’t have to fulfill the requirements along with the other students.  She has never stayed for a full class, never brought work for me to see, blames Attention Deficit Disorder, and adds that she’s off her meds. I don’t doubt her, but I wonder why she thinks that is an excuse. Our students were taught somewhere that if something is inconvenient, they need not worry about doing it; they will be “accommodated” and passed along toward an unearned success. “I know I didn’t complete the requirements, but I really need that degree–“ I will probably pass her whether she reads or not, for she has been 15 years trying to get a degree, and mercy in me is stronger than justice. I’m not proud of that.

Croaked my way through rehearsal. The “final” version of the commission was rolled out, and it is, if anything, worse than what one imagined. W used his exclusive access to the librettist to falsify Cantaria history, sniping and backbiting through the text as he does through a rehearsal. The balance of the music is a duet for tenor and baritone–W and B– about their lives, having nothing to do with Cantaria or the people who actually paid for the music. The rest of us are reduced, literally, to the chorus in their love story. It is the worse case of malfeasance I have seen up close, and the perpetrators do not seem the least bit ashamed, either to have done it or to have been caught doing it. All people not themselves have always been pawns in their lives. I imagine they wonder what all the fuss is about.

Ended the day stuffing cheesecake into my mouth.