What: A Recital of Art Songs and Opera Arias by Ashwati Parameshwar, accompanied by pianist Natallia Kapyllova
When: Nov. 18, 6.30 pm
Where: St. Mark’s Cathedral, St. Mark’s Road
Making one's living as a musician is hard, as an opera singer, even more so. Soprano Ashwati Parameshwar, however, is undaunted by these challenges. "It's an expensive thing to do," she agrees. "But I have a lot of support," she smiled, as her father jogged across the living room in hot pursuit of her lively two-year-old daughter. "My parents offer full-time babysitting services! I couldn't do it without their support!" On Friday evening, Ashwati, accompanied by Natallia Kapyllova on the piano, will bring a carefully thought-out repertoire of compositions by Schubert, Handel, Mendelssohn and Mozart to her audiences.
With two days to go for her performance, we managed to squeeze in a chat in the middle of the afternoon at her home in Bengaluru, talking technique for nearly an hour. "Singing operatic music means learning to use your body as an instrument," she explained (Ashwati is very fond of the Italian Bel Canto method).
"You learn how to use every muscle, become aware of the shape of your body and the sound that is being produced." She loves the nuances and the attention to detail - "for me, that learning, that understanding of how to use your body as an instrument came like an epiphany," she remarked.
Ashwati has been singing for as long as she can remember, having started out in the U.S. with Carnatic music lessons. In the eleventh grade, she switched to Western traditions, which were all she got in school.
"I was singing Broadway at the time," she recalled. At the age of 17, she attended a master class by a mezzo-soprano in Pune and was hooked. That in itself was unusual, classical music lends itself better to the more accustomed ear - "I suppose that's true," she said thoughtfully. "Then again, I had had a certain amount of exposure to it already. Still, I was so struck by her voice. I knew at once that this was what I wanted to do."
All this in a world where funding for the arts and the classical traditions is constantly on the decline. "There is no funding anywhere in the world, comes to think of it," she agreed. In India, the situation is even more stark. Ashwati teaches music and isn't dependent entirely on her gigs to make a living. Even so, she says, it's an expensive thing to do.
"As a musician, you end up paying for the accompanist, the rehearsal space and the performance venue. All you get in return is a token amount. In the U.S., you can get paid even for rehearsal days, even if those gigs are hard to come by. You can't do this for the money!"
As far as Ashwati goes, one thing is clear. The joy of discovering a beautiful new song or mastering a new technique greatly overshadows the hurdles of practicality. She lights up as we go through her song list together, animatedly telling me about compositions she has chosen, explaining the meaning of the songs and detailing the history of the composers' lives.
"I will have someone explaining each song before I sing it," she said. The program is extremely detailed too - it contains the original lyrics of every song as well as an English translation. "Carnatic music is all about pure music," she said.
"These songs, however, are all about the words. Without those, you're only getting half of it. I glance at the lyrics to Plaisir D'amour, the first song on her list. "The pleasure of love lasts only a moment The grief of love lasts a lifetime," it begins and I see her point at once. "It's all about the words. That's where you understand the real pathos of the song."
She teaches children who idolise Adele, Sia and One Direction, with their throaty, electronically enhanced voices. She perserveres, though. "I teach them a couple of classical songs and sure enough, they come back and say, 'I'd like to do more of that'." That is perhaps, the essence of the thing - to impress upon people that there is a lot of beautiful music out there, waiting to be heard.
