OperaWire: How Motherhood, Career Gaps & Stage IV Cancer Led Toni Marie Palmertree to Her Met Opera Debut
Excerpt:
The singer worked multiple jobs to save money before going to Merola and moving for the Adler Fellowship.
“I basically created this fund for myself because I knew I’d need it to pay for babysitting as a young artist and on that salary.”
Palmertree and her son spent those six long months sleeping on people’s spare couches and bedrooms, facing financial hardship and discrimination from the housing market.
“I couldn’t tell them I had a kid because I wouldn’t even be considered. Plus, since so many people were looking for apartments, all they had to do was look for a person willing to pay six months in advance at an open house. I thought ‘how am I going to do this and on this salary?’”
Palmertree’s last resort was going to City Hall to be placed on a lottery, in the hopes she’d be moved to the front of the list as a mother facing homelessness.
“All the while my son can’t know ‘oh my mom is also actually dying.’”