The Art of Auditioning

There really is an art to auditioning. With more talent than jobs out there ("a pretty voice is a dime-a-dozen"), refining every aspect to the process of getting a role on the operatic stage is becoming more and more important. Sure, luck can play a big role in getting that big break, but eliminating certain sure-fire "audition don'ts" can make the difference. Beverly Sills admitted that she auditioned in vain for New York City Opera so many times she became exasperated, explaining they had already heard all of her soprano audition repertoire, so she might as well sing the mezzo-soprano repertoire. She finally gave them the "personality" they wanted by letting her hair down and wearing a low-cut dress. As we all know, she ultimately became General Director of the City Opera after serving as prima donna on stage for a number of years.

I had the honor of sitting in on a round of auditions for a small opera company in NYC recently. I have been in on musical theater auditions many times before, but opera auditions are different. By sitting in on this audition, I was able to gain some much needed perspective on the art of auditioning for a classical singer. What to do and what not to do became all too clear by the 10th auditionee.

Remembering what everyone sounded like is an impossible feat -- at least in this blogger's mind. I retained a few stand-outs whose voices I could call upon in my memory, but only in small snippets. For the most part, much of the lasting impressions the singers made on me came from their dress, how they dealt with the accompanist, general air about them, and some of the information I could glean from their resumes.

~Less is More~
Dress.
As as an opera-singing actor (which, by the way, is the best description of many emerging opera stars), there is a fine line between looking like an attractive blank slate waiting for direction and having "personality." Both can be achieved, but one can also fail at both. For instance, animal print, in general, is never a good idea on either sexes. Gobs of makeup, on either sex, is also not a good idea. Animal print and lavish makeup says that you already have a certain idea of yourself, and it doesn't lend itself to a general feeling of ease and it lacks a certain amount of versatility. It's like you're hiding behind something that is bigger than you. Think like a business person: your commodity is you, and you want to look as easy to work with as possible and 100% on top of your game. Being on top of your game also means staying on top of what's generally fashionable, but not the cutting-edge of fashion. Know what looks good on you.

What does all this really mean? It means keep it simple, but not too simple. Steer clear of wearing all black, or all red. Know what you look good in. If you're short, wear something sophisticated that elongates your body. If you're tall, wear something that doesn't make you look lanky. If you're fat, wear something that gives you a waist, or some shape. If you're flat-chested, wear something that shows off your neck. If you have curly, long red hair, brush it out and show it off. If you have a face full of freckles, don't hide it with foundation. If you have great eyes, pull your hair back. The focus should be you and what's good about you, not your 3 carat diamond earrings or your new leopard-print wrap dress. You don't have to be an expert in fashion, just know what looks good on you. In short, wear the packaging; don't let the packaging wear you.

Resumes.
I prefer not to know age, weight, hair color, eye color, mother's maiden name or your first dog's name. Those are unimportant facts, usually seen on musical theater resumes. I do, however, prefer to know where you went to school, what degrees you received, what roles in what shows you have performed, summer programs you attended, private voice teachers, special talents applicable to the stage, and even something unique or silly about you. By unique, I do not mean that you like to cook or you have 2 kids and a wife. Unique is graduating Summa Cum Laude, experience as a sign language interpreter, training in certain circus arts, previous employment as a pantyhose-crotch-sewer, etc.

Double check your resume with professionals. Make sure everything is spelled correctly, umlauts and accent aigus are all where they should be. Also, make sure someone can spend 10-20 seconds looking at your resume and can tell what important things you have done. TAKE OUT anything you did in HIGH SCHOOL. It does not matter after high school what you did while you were in high school. I don't care if you performed the complete role of Susanna in a staged performance of Le Nozze. (There are some amazing schools that do that, by the way.)

Aria choices.
Please, for the love of God, leave your 15 min aria in the practice room. It's better to avoid the potential embarrassment of being halted mid-aria by a perturbed artistic director. It really only takes about 3 min to get a good enough understanding of someones voice. But, if you have to bring that 20 min Act II finale death scene lament, then don't sing it first. Let them ask you for it later.

~More is Less~
Assumptions.
If you fail to bring your audition repertoire list with you ("bad dog!"), please do not assume everyone in the room is an operatic expert. There could be a stage director who is legendary in the straight theater world, but who is just getting acquainted with opera. The accompanist could be a last min fill-in from the local orchestra. You never know. Yes, you don't want to seem like a know-it-all, but you should announce as much of the full title of what you have to offer as possible. Saying, "The Doll Song" isn't necessarily enough. "The Doll Song from Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffman" is enough, though. Saying, "I have a French and an Italian aria" is really not enough. Be as thorough as possible, yet still concise.

~More is More~
Script Readings.
It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does happen, relax and do your best. And please, SPEAK OUT. All of the lovely inflection you're doing is great except we don't know if you can project to the back of even a 20 seat theater with that voice! Think of it this way: When we sing, we sing much louder than necessary to fill a practice studio. Why? Because we want to project to the back of whatever theater we're booked to sing in. Same thing goes with script readings!

Experience.
Because there is an art to auditioning, save the best companies for last, when you're most experienced. Don't blow your only 3 chances at auditioning for the Met on the first 3 years out of college. Take all the regional auditions you can afford to at first, even choral auditions, then work your way up. The more auditioning you do, the better you'll become. But, also remember it's important to remember that first impressions don't last forever, but they do last a long time in this industry.

With that said, don't treat the small-time opera companies as if they're unimportant to your career. You never know if someone might be hired on by another company. Nothing in this industry is static.

~General Don'ts~
Sheet Music.
Plastic sheet protectors are for your Science project/English report only. The glare of the over-head lights on the plastic makes reading the music much more difficult, and therefore worse for the singer. Unless the aria anthology you're using lays completely flat, like a spiral bound notebook, do not... DO NOT use it. We don't really care if you have originals to the music or not. Most of us don't have time to be concerned with your copyright infringement. But, books have a tendency to have wild pages that don't lay flat and the last thing you want from your accompanist is to be more concerned with just wrestling with the music than following you.

Assuming the singer has a copy of the aria, double sided, with all of the music on the page (that means the lowest notes on the bass clef are not cut off), another guideline to follow is to keep the music in the same general layout as the book you copied it from. For instance, if you're using the Prima Donna album, and the first page of Caro nome is on the left side of the book, put the copied version in your (black) binder the same way. Make sure the first page of Caro nome is also on the left side of your binder. The more experienced pianists, have certain well-loved arias almost or totally memorized. Accurate page layout can keep from tripping them up.

But, if the aria is three pages, make your copy so all three pages are visible. Do not have three loose sheets, but tape them together so it folds out like an accordion. A faint breeze from the air conditioner could send one of the pages flying, but taping them together usually keeps that from happening.

Also, have legible tabs in your binder with the aria name and composer separating the arias/songs, and even an index of all the pieces in your binder at the front. If a second aria is asked of you, it is much better if you don't have to walk over to the pianist and find the song for them.

Make sure the accompanist's copy of the music is clean and free from extraneous markings from your voice lessons like "BREATHE," "ARCH," "RELAX," "SUPPORT," etc. By leaving the markings, you're immediately bringing your vocal "issues" to the table, and anyone who can see the music will know what your issues are, even if they're not apparent in your audition.

Above all, make sure all of your artistic liberties with each song/aria marked in your accompanist's music. That means, rubatos, accelerandos, all ornaments, etc. Even if the aria is the Habanera from Carmen, go ahead and mark in that sudden rubato.

Breaking character.
And if you happen to get an accompanist who is stumbling over the music you gave them, for whatever reason, don't break character to give them looks or glances, don't point at them when they miss that sudden rubato, and try to not stop singing. If you must stop, quickly pick a spot in the music and move on. Pointing, glaring and breaking character makes you look worse than the failing accompanist. Again, you want to look like you're easy to work with, and not a diva/divo. Be forgiving and get the job done. It isn't a recital, it's an audition.

No-show.
There are no excuses besides death for not showing up to an audition. Don't do it no matter how insignificant the company may be. If you are running behind and miss your time, show up anyway. Late is better than never. If you have to cancel less than 24 hours in advance of your time due to sudden sickness or death in the family, call the office, or call the venue where the auditions are happening to give a message. People who no-show without notice are never hired in the future, no matter how "amazing" they are. And as mentioned above, you never know where someone from one opera company may show up next -- nothing is static.

~General Dos~
Smile.
Relax.
Remember, that they want you to do well. If it were socially acceptable, I bet most auditioners would like to have a martini or a glass of wine while listening to auditionees, not to dull the pain, but to add to the enjoyment. Perhaps by the 8th hearing of Barber's "Must the Winter Come So Soon?" a little dulling might be nice, but still, a good performance is still a good performance.

Get out there, kid, and knock 'em dead.

On Recording and Friends

Monday night was a busy day for me and my husband. I did my usual 9-5 job thing, and after work went straight to church. Ok, well, I got a couple burritos and a half-dozen dounuts on the way...

Anyway, the plan for the evening was to have a recording session at my church. I wanted to record myself singing a few arias to have on hand as demos. I bought some high tech vocal microphones, on Svet's recommendation, a few months ago. These AKG mics are highly sensitive and are especially made for solo instruments and vocals, and they're rather expensive. I figured this would be a long-term investment, and I hope these are the only pair of mics we have to buy. Svet had all the rest of the recording hardware and software needed to record. I contacted the best accompanist I could think of in the area, Eric Trudel, who was available to help out. SCORE! I also had a fellow soprano friend contact me a few months before to ask if I had any suggestions on how she too could make a demo. I figured, if we were going through the whole ordeal of having to set up for a recording for me, it wouldn't be a big deal if she joined us to record some of her own arias too. So, I extended an invitation to my pal, and once everyone gathered at the church, we got going started.

We got to the church, only to find that the piano wasn't really tuned, and, well, wasn't what I thought it would be. It's a nice old piano, but it needed some work. I had thought about every detail of this recording session beforehand, but had taken for granted that the piano would be "in shape." Lesson #1.

Once we got set up, my friend began with a lovely Berlioz aria. She's got a great voice, and she's technically very strong. She chose very long, florid arias, in general, all of which showed off both legato/sustained and mellismatic/florid styles of singing. My only concern was that they were rather long. Do people who listen to demo CDs actually listen to a 7 min aria all the way through? It's a sincere question, because I don't know. Maybe a CD recording is just the place to present a longer aria. The adjucator can always fast forward if they want to, unlike in live auditions.


At the end of her first aria, my friend admitted that she felt she was getting sick. And it showed in her voice toward the end of the 2nd time through of the Berlioz. It just sounded tired. I suggested that she let me record something, thereby giving her 20-30 min of vocal rest. She could always come back to it later and see if it's any better.

So, I started with the most delicate, exposed piece of my three scheduled for the evening -- "Lorsque vous n'aurez rein a faire" from Cherubin. It was first because I didn't want to risk vocal fatigue while recording something so exposed. The damn piano was also pretty exposed in this piece, showing off its refined flat tuning and stunning squeaky sustain pedal...

After I had taken as many takes I figured I needed to choose from, my friend came back for round two - Donizetti's "O luce di quest anima." That aria is no walk in the park, yet, with the 30min of vocal rest behind her, she came back strong! Lesson #2.

The rest of the night went like that. She and I alternated, and we both benefited from the moral support, vocal rest, and even singerly advice to each other. Granted, the poor pianist didn't get much rest, but he was a great sport about it.

So there you have it. Two lessons, one blog.

Cold Fronts and the Not-So-Reluctant Receptionist

I guess from the 22 years of conditioning I went through while in school (K-12 plus the extra 1st grade I had to take, plus 1 year of undergrad, 2 years of Associates Degree, 3 years of Bachelor Degree, and two years of Masters Degree), fall weather always makes me feel complex. It's this complicated mixture of excitement, dread, anxiety, new beginnings, old friends, goal setting, people meeting, school shopping, first impressions, earlier crepuscular hours... It's a general increased activity to prepare for the upcoming year.

Is it any coincidence that at the same time our hibernating animal friends also go through the same increased frenetic preparatory activities? I don't think so.

Anyway, I'm going on the second fall season in a row in 24 years when I'm not beginning classes. Yet, I still have some of the same conditioned freneticism. This feeling last year was bothersome -- I was just settling in to a new state and city having moved that summer, I was maintaning an easy cosmetics job that I had already grown to hate, and was just about to start my new church job. I entered the cool New Haven autum season with a rather simple life (no, not Paris and Nicole's "Simple Life"): I had two great "gal pals," Svet and I had a tight one-bedroom apartment in which to explore co-habitation - I wasn't doing much more than work and church... But, I got kind of depressed. Dusk's early approach, my unflattering winter clothes, my strickingly short ackward-growing-out-stage of a boy-cut hair style left over from the last opera I did, all didn't do much to help me along into the first season of a lifetime of playing hooky from school. Not to mention we were living in a big college town. And not just any college town - Yale's college town.

And then September came. Something clicked in me around August 31st/September 1st. The first cool front of the season brought with it a gradually increasing amount of adreline. I decided even on my near poverty-line income level, and yes, even with the repayment of my enormous school loans fast approaching, that I needed a car. Not just any car, a new car. I didn't really have a reason to get a car. I mean, I walked to work, and could always get rides from my fellow church goers. But, something in me said that I needed to make a big jump and make my very first car purchase.

I bought my new Toyota on September 11th last year. Random.

And about a week after that, I left my cosmetics job (a field I had been working in for more than 10 years while in school) and was placed in an office as a receptionist/admin assistant by a temp agency. I bought the car before I had the job. By the middle of October, I was the permanent receptionist at a nice little family office that paid me fairly. Not a lot, but fair. And by that point I had received my first pay check from church. That's when I learned exactly why people have church jobs.

I know all that doesn't really sound like much, and has nothing to do with music, but it does. I took some risks, got proactive and made some changes that seemed like big deals at the time. I went from a restrictive day-job surrounded by high school dropouts, to a desk job which allowed me to work on my resume, bio, website, networking and side projects for 6 hours out of an 8 hour work day. From my desk, I was able to organize concerts, gather choir members, plan recitals, and generally keep busy. Ok, so maybe I was using some of their nice stationary too, but never too much.

So, here it is a year later and I'm about due for a raise. I'm again wrapped in the complex weather induced blanket of emotions. What am I cooking up this time around? No new car, and I'm keeping my job this time around (well, for now, at least). But I am gearing up to make my professional stage-directorial debut with Harbor Opera, and something else totally top secret, but oh-so-cool. I should be able to make a big announcement about it in a few months. And no, it has nothing to do with being or getting prego. That's not on the schedule till 2010 (fall, maybe?). I don't think it's totally a coincidence that Svet and I are planning our wedding ceremony for the fall, either.

Beyond my top-secret project which is keeping my plate rather full, I'm learning how to write grants and to fundraise. I've got lots of ideas but no money to do it with. That is one part of the job description that should be taught in school. We all know that most parents try to talk their kids out of a career in music because there's not as much money in it as, say a doctor or lawyer. But, if we were all trained how to create and maintain the financial nuts and bolts of a career in music, maybe fewer parents could think of a reason to deter their kids from this life. (But then again, that would mean more competition for us. Ah, Natural Selection, you are kind.) I think Peabody offered a business of music class, which I totally should have taken. Alas. I'm learning now, though. Crash course.

I am excited to see what else the season cooks up.

On Her Feet And Running.

All the cool kids are doing it, now. With cool things, I'm either on the cutting edge of cool, or I lag far behind the hip bus. No middle ground for me. But, it's better late than never, even with blogging.

I imagine most of my Blog-Visitors will be curious family, close friends, a few colleagues, and random people who search tags that say "opera," "swing dance," "soprano," "early music," or "dachshunds." With that being the assumption, there is no need to introduce myself. You already know who I am. And if you don't, then ask yourself if you're just being nosy or if you're a stalker/killer/bad person. If the answer is the former, then welcome. If the answer is the latter, then go away. And if you don't know how "former" and "latter" work in writing, then go away too (unless you're a kid, then I guess it's ok). Okaythanksbye.

Explanation on my blog title:

When I was in high school, my former and most beloved voice teacher, Kathleen Terbeek, gave me a book for my birthday. It was a book called, "A Soprano on Her Head: Right-Side-Up Reflections on Life and Other Performances," by Eloise Ristad. Eloise deals with topics such as inner judges, alternative learning methods (like standing on your head to sing), and a lot of common sense advice that transcends simple practical application. It's one of those books that stays with you, and calls you back from time to time to read it again. My Blog-Name is a personal tip-o-the-hat to Ms. Ristad.

Explanation on my blog purpose:

I intend this blog to delve more into the professional rather than personal side of my life. The reasons are probably obvious. I hope to be one small soprano voice in the blog-o-sphere that can shed some light on just one of the multitude of paths a young singer can take in his or her career. No one path is the "right" journey in a career in music -- especially vocal music.

With that said, I also hope to also throw in some purely random thoughts out there and see how they compete in the galaxy. If you know me, then you know I'm also a Very. Big. Goofball.

Okaythanksbye.