As Jean Valjean asked in Les Miserables, “Who am I?”
It’s a question I’ve asked myself often in my life. And I’ve had to reinvent, redefine, and reintroduce myself a few times in my life.
Twelve years ago, I moved to Baltimore and decided to take Thomas back as my performing name and hyphenate it with O’Meally for teaching. The explanation of why I did that is here in my blogpost “Only the names have been changed.” (Note – the format of this is an absolute MESS because it came from a previous platform, and I was trying to clean it up but I would have to retype it and … the content is there and that’s what counts.)
Since my performing is winding down somewhat – I’ve decided not to return to Washington National Opera for a variety of reasons, some logistic, many political – I’ve decided that I’m going to go back to my legal name – Christine O’Meally.
I told someone that and she said, “Oh – did you get divorced?”
Well, yes. 30 years ago. (And, coincidentally, my ex died exactly one year ago today – weird.)
Everything else is the same. Just fewer letters to type and fewer syllables to speak!
You’ll find that there are still a few websites, platforms, and graphics that will say Thomas or Thomas-O’Meally on them. I’ll change them as I find them. I’ve fixed them on the website and most of my socials.
I may need to reinvent and redefine myself a time or two more in my personal and professional life.
But as far as reintroducing myself, this should be the last time I have to answer the question, “Who am I?” – at least in terms of my name.
Nice to meet you (again!)