History of men

"History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man." ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Two weeks ago it was my birthday, and also the ninth anniversary since I took my first voice lesson. It changed my life. I left my job as chief designer in an architectural firm to pursue a dream in music. This dream that has asked sacrifice and immense effort, but has taken me around the world, while giving me the joy of the most beautiful music ever written by man. And sometimes, just sometimes, it has given me the chance to touch ever slightly a piece of glory.

So I went to see my first voice teacher a some days ago. That man who discovered before I did, that I had a rare instrument and that it would change my life when I discovered it. He was already an old man when we met, he is very very old now. He still teaches, and he is still very much active, lucid and strong… maybe a little bit more stubborn, but ever wiser.

He became, as the teachers of the body often do, a trusted and beloved man. A figure of revered authority who would pass on what he knew of this difficult craft, but as he did, he also passed on much of his life vision, of his learning as an honest man. Being born in Mexico City in the mid 20’s he had a long and vast experience. He traveled around the country as an actor and as a musician. He later toured the United States, singing in the most varied venues.

It was when he turned 50 that he started teaching singing. He said he taught for fifteen years before he felt ready to teach an opera singer. “And it took you another ten years to come across my door”, he told me one day when I had already sang my third opera and I was going away to further my career abroad. “Let me tell you my story, which is now your story” he said, “so that you know where you come from when you try your luck in the battle fields of this art”.

This is the story he told me as I remember it:

When he was a little boy he lived in the outskirts of the city, his family owned animals and he helped working their land after school. That place is a walking distance from the Zócalo, the main square of the city, and it’s actually part of the Centro now, back then it was “way out there”. When he was a teenager he used to play squash and was very strong. He had a job as a salesman in a gelatin factory. He would go to the factory very early in the morning, filled his bag with gelatin packets and walked the city from store to store selling.

One morning he was leaving one of this stores when a truck jumped over the sidewalk and ran him over. He was caught with one leg under the back tire. The driver heard him screaming and moved forward, and on doing so the tire ripped a chunk of his leg. My teacher spent many long months in the hospital recovering, (what he did, by the way, amazingly well for he still goes daily to the gym and runs in the treadmill for a little while). When he was released from the hospital he found himself without a job and recovering his former strength. He exercised thoroughly and learned how to walk again.

When he felt stable again he was looking for a job and ready to play squash with his old friends. He took his gear and was waiting for the bus that would take him to the sport center, when he saw a cousin across the street waiting for the same bus but in the opposite direction. He told him that he was going to a theater casting, and that he should come too. He was unsure about this, but the conversation with his cousin was good so he crossed the street to wait with him. When the bus came he jumped in not to follow him to the casting, but to continue the conversation. His first job as an actor was a sturdy and silent Roman guard holding a spear.

His career in the arts started, and he was an actor, a singer, a playwright, a poet, he was the culture director of a company so big that they own a city with the same name of the company, and finally he became a voice teacher.

“You must know”, he told me, “that this is your story also. So that when you come onstage and the lights descend upon you, and you open your mouth and Mozart and Verdi come out of it, and when the audience cheer your name… that a man in the late thirties had to be run over by a truck for you to be there”.

And here I am, arriving to a new city to sing again, to battle through this art as he always said, and I think of my old friend, his passion and generosity, and I realize quite well what it took for me to be here. I’m grateful, Jorge.