Ravinia 2019, Issue 5, Week 9

%OXe mDGe her 0etroSoOitDn 2SerD GebXt in 201 stDrrinJ Ds 0im® in 3Xcciniȅs La bohème OeIt DnG retXrneG to the oSerD ODst \eDr Ds the ɷirtDtioXs 0XsettD riJht “Without pageants, I don’t know that I would be where I am now. It taught me so much about myself and comparing myself to other people.” “In church I played the bass gui- tar,” says Blue. “And because my mom wanted me to learn piano, I took piano lessons. But I just really enjoyed singing. I always liked being in front of people, performing. When I was younger, I felt it was a very large part of me, as a per- son. I always felt ful lled when I sang.” But she craved a certain kind of singing. Surprisingly, perhaps, for a pastor’s daughter, she wasn’t keen on choral mu- sic. “I never enjoyed singing in a choir,” says Blue. “When I was in choir, I liked having the solos.” Blue attended the prestigious Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, making a daily commute—two hours each way—that entailed her par- ents driving miles to San Bernardino, where she caught a Metrolink train to Los Angeles. When time came for college, however, her parents couldn’t underwrite the ride. ey had little tuition money le a er helping Blue’s three older sisters through college. She managed to nance her undergraduate work at University of Redlands and master’s degree in opera performance at UCLA through scholarships and her beauty pageant earnings. “I mainly did pageants because of my mother,” says Blue, who is “just shy of feet” with a t, statuesque build. “It was almost like a challenge. My mom said, ‘Angel, you know you’re going to need money to get through college. Our savings are gone.’ She said, ‘You’re tall, you’re very thin. You should go and do some pageants.’ ” “I thought she was being funny,” says Blue. “At the time, I was taking a mod- ern dance class at Victor Valley College (a state community college in nearby Victorville, CA). “I said to her, ‘Sure, Mom. If I go to school tomorrow and somebody hands me a pamphlet to do a pageant, then I’ll do one.’ I was being very sarcastic, almost rude.” Sure enough, the next day a fellow student, a former Miss Teen Califor- nia, handed Blue a pamphlet about an upcoming beauty pageant. anks to her winnings and some modeling gigs, Blue was able to graduate University of Redlands debt-free. Blue’s record as a beauty winner wasn’t always an asset as she worked her way through the operatic apprentice ranks, notably as a member of the Do- mingo- ornton Young Artist Program as Los Angeles Opera from to and a nalist in the Operalia competition. She won rst place in Op- eralia’s zarzuela competition and second in its opera category that year, and she toured with Plácido Domingo, founder of Operalia and namesake of the LA Opera apprentice program, in . Staying in shape for pageants re- quired Blue to spend hours every day in the gym. She recalls one coach telling her that if she were as serious about her voice as she was about the way she looked, she would be a great singer. At an audition in Europe, an administrator asked her why she was even thinking about a career in opera. “It was an issue, absolutely,” says Blue. “Opera can be a very snooty place, and at times it’s hard to navigate. But I look at snootiness and all of that as something like turbulence. We y so much, all of us. One has to MARTY SOHL/METROPOLITAN OPERA (BOTH PHOTOS) 20 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 29 – AUGUST 11, 2019