Criticism as a gift!

My job is built on criticism. Since the first steps, the first lessons, the first auditions we are confronted with analysis of our work. External analysis by teachers, family, friends and audience and our inner analysis/ self-criticism.

This is a path built on the technical basis IDENTIFY – RESOLVE – IDENTIFY AGAIN – RESOLVE AGAIN, which allows us to grow and have the privilege of living under the premise: there is always something to IMPROVE. Perfection doesn’t seem reachable to me in such a noble art and so subjective appraisals. What an artist carries with him has so much subjectivity that even near perfection there will always be at least two different perspectives and one always less favorable than the other.

Hence comes learning how to deal with criticism, to humbly accept opinions and be selective and retain what really serves us. It’s not about pedantry, but rather about the capacity of self-evaluation and enhanced use of what’s suggested to us. This is because no one knows our body and instrument better than we singers do.

Therefore, the whole process of building a career, a voice and singular artistic truths hides behind a panoply of moments of criticism. And even those considerations made with some meanness and no constructive purpose other than destabilize are as valid as important like all the others, because they give us the possibility of learning to filter what we should or shouldn’t retain, to identify what’s genuinely said and to prove ourselves we are ready or not to embrace such a beautiful career, however full of demands and creeps.

What’s important is to look at criticism as a gift!

© Krystallenia Photography