“What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.” ~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton.
There is a general consensus that talent alone does not make you a success. You also need application and the right kind of hard work. You need the skills to analyse the results you get, and the perseverence to continue where others give up. And luck, of course.
But is it really as simple as that?
I was moved to write this article in response to a Triiibes discussion I have been taking part in. One of my friends on this excellent forum was discussing the book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
But my perspective on this is quite a different one, and I’ll do my best to not make it too lengthy.
As a teenager I was considered Gifted and Talented. I attended a school based on academic selection, and very soon I discovered that I also had an unusually beautiful singing voice with operatic potential.
As I followed the operatic path, my talent opened many doors. I won huge national competitions, dozens of prizes, received a great deal of financial patronage and was snapped up for my professional debut before I had even finished my formal musical training.
But no matter how much talent I had been blessed with, it really didn’t matter in the end because how I felt about the “business” of singing impinged too much on my love of the “craft” of singing.
You see, to me it is not a question of talent vs hard work. It is a question of preserving the love for what you do.
The business of opera means travel (oh, for a major opera house in every city!) for long periods of time (a new production takes at least 6 weeks to rehearse) for the least amount of money the house can afford (= one broke singer).
I was fortunate to have been signed by the largest and most powerful agent in Europe before I’d even made my professional debut. And yet the first contract I secured after 6 years of formal training was as Principal Soprano in a leading house for the grand annual salary of 14,000 pounds a year. I still laugh at that figure….can you imagine a trained medical student emerging after 6 years of education earning this kind of money? Certainly not. Opera may appear glamorous, but at its heart (especially in the UK) is a system where the companies depend on government handouts and not private sponsorship. The coffers are almost always empty, and the cupboards bare.
And it isn’t just about the money. It’s about the logistics of pursuing a glittering operatic career at the expense of everything else. If you have children, do you bring them with you? What if they are at school? Who stays home if your partner is also a performer? How do you even get to meet non-performers when every one of your colleagues are either singers themselves or intimately connected to the business? Male opera singers at the highest level sometimes endure weeks without their families. High level female opera singers either pay for the nanny to come along, or they exchange the cuddles of their kids for the proverbial roses strewn along the footlights.
Personally, I chose family over career, because my audience could never have loved me back in the same way as my daughters. I chose personal growth and variety over the continued pursuit of an artistic legacy that I believe is really a mirage.
Many of my friends and colleagues see this as a “waste”. We can’t help believing someone has been gifted with a talent for some divine reason and that they are obligated to selflessly share it with the world. But surely it is just as much a waste to continue plugging away at something that does not nourish us anymore?
Persistence is a tool. It serves us in the pursuit of something we are passionate about. But all the persistence in the world will not enable a person in any field – talented or otherwise – who’s heart is not in it.
If there is anything we can teach our children, it is about learning to know themselves in such a way that they discover their passions and learn to follow them, whereever they may lead. For what good is talent without joy? What good is hard work without passion? Persistence is merely a means to an end – and many can pursue failure with the same persistence as those who pursue success.
I just want my daughters to know – intimately and with conviction – their own values, follow their passions with purpose, strive to contribute to those around them, and always do what they love. And I am learning to do the same.
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