Ask Me ANYTHING About OPERA!! ｜｜ I didn't expect some of these questions...
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Summary
In this episode of Opera Ask Me Anything, I answer your questions about singing in opera! Are you new to opera or have you been in opera for a while? Do you have questions about what it's like to be a professional opera singer or do you want to learn more about it?
Transcript
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Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be doing an opera
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So I have done a few AMAs on my channel, but I had the realization the other day that you
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guys might have a ton of questions about opera that you've never thought to ask or had anyone
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that you could ask, and I was actually having this conversation with my husband because
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he is a newbie to opera in his own way, and he has really been trying to educate himself.
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He's a wonderful man, so he was talking to me as I was kind of explaining something about
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opera, and he said to me, have you ever asked your followers if they have questions about
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Because I didn't know any of the stuff you're talking about, and it was kind of funny for
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I was new to opera at one point in my life, and for it to have less of a stigma in a way
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of being for rich people or being just too far out of reach, it's important for us to
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start from the very bottom and answer your questions.
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So I have a whole list of questions that I gathered from Instagram.
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I asked you guys on Instagram to ask me your questions, and I'm really excited to go through
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So I'm just going to answer these in no particular order, and I'm going to go through as many
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Some of them are going to be quick and short and easy, and others will be a little bit
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Which role's costume was your favorite to wear?
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When I was at the Manhattan School of Music, I was in an opera called The Dangerous Liaisons.
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So if you saw the movie Growing Up, Cruel Intentions, I do not recommend it.
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But if you've seen it, it is a modern retelling of the book and story of Dangerous Liaisons,
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and there's also a movie of Dangerous Liaisons that you can see.
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And so there was an opera written by Conrad Souza.
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So I was playing the role of Madame de Torval, who is kind of an innocent woman, and she had
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Corsets and beautiful skirts and fabrics and wigs.
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I will post a picture on the side, and you guys can take a look at it for yourself.
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But they were so beautiful, and I felt so blessed that I got to wear that costume.
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The next question is, do you have to belong to an opera company, or can one freelance?
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So the only people who really belong to a company are the people who work in the chorus.
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They're like the Met Opera Chorus, for example.
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So after college or after your master's program, a lot of young singers will do kind of an internship
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at an opera house, an apprenticeship, and they kind of work with that company for one year,
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And that's the only time really in a singer's career that they belong to a company.
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The rest of the time, you take gigs and you perform maybe with a company for a summer,
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but you're not going to be just singing with that company, which is why being an opera singer
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can be really hard, because you don't have a certainty for how long you'll be working.
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If you're going to be doing freelance, which is what most people do, it's an incredible
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accomplishment if you're booked two to three years out.
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One question is, does it have long-term damage to your voice?
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If you're singing healthily, actually the healthiest voices are going to be opera singers
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because they know how to treat their voice as well.
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They know how to speak in such a way that they're not putting strain on their vocal folds
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because the average person can actually have issues with their throats and with their vocal
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And somebody who uses their voice a lot, somebody like a teacher or somebody who works in a business
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where they're constantly on the phone, if you're talking all the time and you have no technique
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for how you're doing that and you happen to speak not healthily, you can have long-term
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Whereas a singer, they're trained to know how to use their voice.
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So the way that we speak and the way that we sing very often will actually make us have
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The next question is, can you sing non-opera music well?
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Are you above average in other types of singing?
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Me personally, I would say that I do sing other types of music, but of course opera is what
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But I grew up singing musical theater and I love jazz.
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I think most opera singers can sing in a few different styles, but I would say the thing
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that differentiates us the most is that we learn how to sing in our head voice.
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For women, we sing in that upper voice, that sound that's very distinct, as opposed to
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what you hear just generally when you're listening to pop music or country or whatever, which
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is chess voice, that la-la-la-la-la-la, you know?
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So yes, we can sing in other styles, but we're not trained in other styles unless you specifically
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I think one of the things that makes a singer able to kind of cross over the different genres
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and still sound good is pitch, because not everyone can sing on pitch, and vibrato.
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So if you are somebody who has a healthy vibrato, that can sound good in a couple of different
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styles, or it can sound weird in different styles.
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How low can you get your voice while making your voice sound pleasing to the ear?
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So D, but I don't think that's pleasing to the ear, personally.
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I can comfortably sing an E and that doesn't sound bad to me.
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I would say it's definitely the mixture of drama and the music.
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And the music is there to make the drama even more dramatic.
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The other part of it is that in opera, people are experiencing the craziest version of emotions.
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And we as the audience are able to kind of watch that and realize that we too can experience
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kind of the mini version of the very intense emotions that are happening on stage.
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And it allows us to get out of our own heads and really kind of engage with feeling and engage with experiences.
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Because obviously what you're watching on stage in opera a lot of the time is going to be incredibly dramatic.
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And it's going to be different than what you're going to experience in your everyday life.
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But those people are still experiencing their emotions, but they're experiencing them at the height of those emotions.
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And to see somebody experiencing the height of their emotions, it draws something out of the viewer, which is incredibly powerful.
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But the music is just stunning and the stories can either be funny, scary, hilarious, and really moving.
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And that is also an incredibly beautiful thing.
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What operas would you recommend to someone who is new to the genre?
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And it depends on who you are as a person and what kind of music you like and what kind of stories you like.
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And you guys can decide which one of these you'd want to check out.
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So the reason I always recommend the Magic Flute is because it's a Singspiel, not a traditional opera.
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In the sense that a lot of it is spoken dialogue like a musical and then there will be sung songs.
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And so for somebody who is overwhelmed by the amount of just sheer music that you're hearing at an opera, that might be a good fit.
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As well, it's a fairy tale, so it's very kind of fun and interesting and you're seeing a princess and a prince and that's kind of fun to watch.
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So if you're somebody who's into fairy tales, if you're somebody who is overwhelmed by the amount of music, Magic Flute.
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Mozart is stunning and Magic Flute is one of my absolute favorite operas.
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It is incredibly beautiful and the story is the same one in Rent.
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Rent and La Boheme are based on the same story, but La Boheme is better in my opinion.
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And the reason I think La Boheme is so good is because the music is so gorgeous and the story is incredibly relatable.
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It's something that could happen and that you can, of course it's dramatic, but it's still something that you can relate to all the characters very easily.
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People really aren't caricatures of themselves in La Boheme.
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And the third opera that I would recommend is Carmen.
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Carmen, you already know a ton of the tunes from Carmen.
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Like, you don't even realize how many of the tunes that you've just heard in commercials or in movies are from the opera Carmen.
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I'll see if I remember any more as we keep going.
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So, the way that the breaking the wine glass thing works is actually it has nothing to do with how high you sing or even really how loud.
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It actually has to do with matching the frequency of your voice to the frequency of the glass.
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So, you can watch videos of this on YouTube where people will match the frequency of their voice to the frequency of the glass in whatever range it is, low, high.
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And then they'll just sing pretty loud and that will be what shatters the glass.
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There's so many and there's so, oh my gosh, I can't, one second.
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I guess just for fun, just in this moment, let's say Don Giovanni.
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And also, if you're learning Italian, a lot of the Italian in it is pretty simple.
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And that is kind of a nice thing when you are learning the language because you can watch it and think to yourself,
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oh, I kind of understand what they're saying because it's simple Italian.
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So, Don Giovanni, which is Don Juan in English, is amazing.
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Are any languages in opera harder to sing than others vocally, tonally, etc.?
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So, I would say that English for me is the hardest.
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English has a lot of fricatives and it has a lot of diphthongs.
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But basically, it has a lot of pronunciation stuff that can mess with just singing beautifully and singing lyrically.
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Italian is definitely the best for that because it has just really pure vowels.
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German, I think a lot of people don't like singing in German, but I personally really like singing in German.
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I think that the vowel structure in that language is great and you can use the consonants to your advantage.
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So, they allow you to like springboard off in a way.
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I do not like open air vowels and French asks you to do that quite a bit.
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French can be difficult for people just generally because the language is very different from our own.
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But I would say that singing in French and German and Italian, they're all great.
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A lot of people have issues singing in German just because there are so many consonants.
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But I personally, I really enjoy singing in German.
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I love people who don't know anything about opera and I love teaching people about opera.
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That is part of the reason I started this channel was because opera is something I think really everyone can enjoy.
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There's not a lot of information out that you can easily get about learning opera.
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But there is a lot that you can do to teach yourself opera.
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So, I would say that the first place to start is to listen to a Pavarotti CD.
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I mean, you'll just fall in love with the sound of his voice right off the bat.
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And it's just, it'll make you start to think differently about how people sing about music generally.
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Just listen to a CD of Pavarotti's greatest hits.
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Then what I would do is I would choose one of the three operas that I recommended for beginners.
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And choose, let's say, seven selections from the opera.
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And listen to them a few times so that you're recognizing them and that you start to like them.
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Then when you watch the opera for the first time, you'll like have little points throughout that you'll recognize.
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And that'll make you excited because you won't just be hearing all this new music all at once.
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Instead, you'll have little points that will help you kind of hold on to something throughout.
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Make sure you understand the plot because you should understand it, but it can be confusing.
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But just reading up on that stuff beforehand and really preparing yourself.
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Because it can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming.
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And what my husband has been telling me lately is something he never realized is that he always felt like opera was this really high art.
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That was just totally kind of unreachable for him.
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And if you don't give it more credence than just that.
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I don't have to think it's this grandiose thing.
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Then you'll realize that it's really available to all of us.
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What tips do you have for improving vocal range?
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It kind of comes with time and it kind of comes with age.
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You can't necessarily control your vocal range.
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You can't say, okay, I want to be a soprano, but I'm a mezzo-soprano.
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I want a higher voice, but I have a lower voice.
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You can start to kind of work on your extension.
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You can sort of start to feel out if maybe there is more room in your upper range.
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There are certain times where there is no more room.
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But there comes with learning how to sing and learning technique ways to support as you go up.
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Support these little tiny muscles in your throat as you go higher and higher and as you go lower and lower.
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And that will be the way that you grow your vocal range is just by learning how to support.
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That's really like primo, number one, first thing to do.
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What makes opera different from musical theater?
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So, musical theater is kind of like the baby of opera.
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Musical theater has a lot of the same conventions as opera,
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but most musical theater is not sung for women in head voice.
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They use microphones, which in opera we don't use microphones at all.
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The orchestras are usually smaller for musical theater.
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And I would say that the stories for musical theater are generally more relatable in the sense that they're more toned down.
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Like this is what would actually happen in life, whereas with opera you're dealing with really oversized stories.
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And I think that's kind of the main difference is the singing type, the amplification, and the storytelling.
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And the other thing you have to keep in mind is that musical theater is a fairly new medium.
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Opera has been around since the 1500s. Late 1500s. Middle 1500s.
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So, number one is warm up. I have to warm up my voice.
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Make sure that everything is a-okay, that I feel comfortable singing.
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I'll also usually steam, which is sit in front of hot water and just kind of let that moisture get into my vocal folds.
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Essentially, you can't actually make your vocal folds more moisturized with water, with drinking,
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So the only way to actually get your vocal folds moisturized is to inhale steam.
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So that's what a lot of singers will do before they perform.
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And I'll usually have, I don't know, just some time to read and cool down and just collect myself, go over the music again.
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Can I sing the Queen of the Night aria from the Magic Flute?
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And even though I can sing the first half of the aria very, very well, the first one,
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the second half and the second aria, they go up to the F quite a few times.
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And I can hit an F, but I am not comfortable staccatoing an F, meaning those little popped notes rather than sustaining.
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That's not really what I would consider a role I would play.
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If I was going to play a role in the Magic Flute, it would be Pamina, which I'm not mad at because her music is stunning.
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How much training did you have to take to get where you are?
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So I started studying when I was 16 years old and I then went to college when I was 17 and I studied for seven years.
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I still sometimes will check in with my teachers and I continue to study.
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So this is going back to that last question a while back.
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You want to listen to those seven pieces and then go to the opera and kind of pick those out when you listen to the opera in its entirety.
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And it can be overwhelming, but starting with the right opera is super important.
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If you start with an opera like Wagner that's four hours long and is literally just music for four hours, you will get overwhelmed, I can guarantee.
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But if you listen to an opera that's shorter and that has a really good story and that has less of like that wall of sound feeling, then you shouldn't get overwhelmed.
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What was the moment where you realized you wanted to pursue opera?
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So I had my first voice lesson when I was 16 years old.
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And after my first lesson, my teacher pulled me aside and she said, I think you could do this as a career.
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And I said to her, people don't do that for money.
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Well, I was wrong, but also I realized how much I loved it as I was studying.
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And I would get home from rehearsals for my play at high school at 10pm and I'd want to practice.
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And I think that's when I realized I really wanted to pursue it.
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Encouragement tips for a freshman vocal performance major.
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People are going to make you feel really stressed.
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Everyone is going to make you feel like you have to follow what everyone else is doing.
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Just do your best, practice, and remember why you started singing in the first place.
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It's really hard when you're getting a ton of criticism a lot of the time.
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And you just need to remember why you love singing.
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And if that means randomly going into a practice room and just singing because you love it
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and not because you actually have to practice, that's good.
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Like just keep in mind why you've been doing it and that'll carry you through.
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I would say F sharp is the highest note I can hit.
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As a conservative, do you feel out of place in opera?
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I don't think that there was a lot of room to be a conservative in opera.
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And I hope that I can continue to perform in one way or another.
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But now that I have publicly said I'm conservative, I don't know how that'll pan out.
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It would be interesting to see if I don't really get hired.
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What exercises do you do to train your voice to project throughout a whole theater?
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So what we're really working on with that is resonance.
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And you want to make sure that you're really getting that voice to spin in a certain way
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So I wouldn't say we do specific exercises for resonance.
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We do specific exercises to kind of stretch the folds and make them feel flexible.
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And I used to do exercises that would wake up the resonance a little bit more.
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And what I would do is kind of like just to kind of get things moving up here.
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I don't really have to do that so much anymore because I'm just used to it.
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What are some things you do for vocal recovery after a show or a long rehearsal?
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Sometimes I would make myself a really good cup of tea that has all these special herbal ingredients
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and it'll kind of like help with the recovery process.
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Just to let your voice really take a rest before your next performance.
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I didn't ever really struggle with stage fright all that much.
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My concern would be that I would forget the words.
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But I've never dealt with fear about what was going to happen too much.
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Maybe a little bit right before I stepped on stage.
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And then the thing that I've realized is that you will just have a memory.
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Like your body will just remember what it needs to do to get it done.
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So even if you kind of like black out, your body will just take over.
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And things will happen even if you're not like consciously doing it.
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And that is a very comforting thought for a performer.
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And that is still very helpful to me throughout my performing career.
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I've been sitting in front of the camera for a very long time.
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Figaro is the first name that's popping into my head.
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And I love his character both in Barber of Seville.
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And he's also the main character in The Marriage of Figaro, which is by Mozart.
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And he is so much fun and such an incredible character.
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And I just really enjoy that he helps people find love.
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And that he also is a goofball and a silly guy.
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And that he ends up married happily to his lovely girlfriend, Susanna.
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I love his dynamic with Rosina, who's the Countess in The Barber of Seville.
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I had so many more questions, but I'm not going to be able to get to them today.
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Let me know in the comments if you'd like to see another round two opera AMA.
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And as well, please let me know in the comments if you had any other questions that I didn't get to today.
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I would love to see what you guys are thinking about.
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And also let me know what's your favorite opera if you've seen one.
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Thank you guys so much for watching today's video.
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