Alison Scherzer shares her experiences in contemporary vocal music and working abroad as a singer.
Much like the title role, which she has performed to great acclaim, in Gerald Barry’s opera Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, Alison Scherzer has managed to maintain a curiosity about life and a dedicated pursuit of her dreams throughout her career that the world has been unable to stifle. Scherzer is an American coloratura soprano based in Germany and specializing in contemporary vocal music. From intense language study to cultivating a life she enjoys, Scherzer began in school to create the future she wanted.
Could you tell us about your education?
I was very active in choir growing up, and during high school I started taking singing lessons in order to make myself a more competitive candidate for honors, all-state, and chamber groups. Voice lessons helped me discover solo vocal music integrated theater, and I was gradually and inevitably lost to the opera world through exposure to the classical music scene in Vienna while studying abroad during college.
I studied at the University of Minnesota for my undergraduate degree and at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music for my Masters and Artist Diploma studies. I remember my professors at the time telling us that the busiest and most intensive phase for musicians would be during conservatory training, and I have to say, they were absolutely right!
What experiences in your education prepared you for the career you have now?
I believe that artistic development requires continual growth in both craft and consciousness. Musical training is an invaluable experience that provides a foundation of education and support for musicians to work in the professional world. That being said, the philosopher in me also believes that a life that school could prepare you for is not really worth living. That is to say, I believe that self-awareness and creativity is generated from one’s life experiences, relationships, ideals, and other sources of meaning.
Conservatory training provided a springboard, but whatever artistry and creative value I have to offer the music world has come from how I experience living my life, and not necessarily from an intellectual understanding of pedagogy.
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Did you always want to work abroad?
I knew that I wanted to live in Europe long before I knew I wanted to be an opera singer. The objective while in the States was always to gain the education and experience necessary before going to Europe. I am not sure I ever had the sense of belonging that many people assign to a specific place. Neither am I one to feel “at home” anywhere. But I am compatible with Europe, not only in terms of lifestyle and values, but with the performing arts scene here as well, both in the diversity of repertoire and the aesthetic with which it is presented.
I have been based in Cologne, Germany, for 10 years. It is very centrally located, and most of the work I have done outside of Germany has been in Switzerland, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. There have been periods where I have spent a long time away, working longer-term contracts in the German fest system.
You sing a lot of modern and new works. How did that come to be such an important part of your career?
I left grad school with the intent of performing the entire spectrum of genre within classical music. I think an early professional life is about discovering where your talents are, strengthening your weaknesses, as well as learning what kind of career you want for yourself—and what you do not want. There is also an added complexity of pigeon-holing from the outside—that a singer’s professional opportunities can also be limited by how others view them. A lot of what I really enjoy about contemporary music is that I find it a blank canvas to work with, or at least more so than standard repertoire. Not because of what the music is, but rather because of an oversimplified mindset of how some specialists believe it should be executed.
In terms of performance style, the standardization of repertoire is necessary, though restrictive in the extreme, in that it can limit creativity and authenticity if there is a be-all and end-all way of interpreting it. Additionally, because new music often challenges form, I think an audience engages with it differently—ideally in a way that inspires thoughtfulness and emotion. I do not mean to say that it is intended to be challenging just for the sake of provocation. Having said that, although contemporary opera is a lot of what I do and enjoy doing, I am certainly not opposed to the classics!
You have sung in several Gerald Barry operas. How did that collaboration come about?
Barbara Hannigan introduced me to Gerald Barry several years ago. Shortly afterwards I was invited to sing Cecily in a production of his opera The Importance of Being Earnest in Switzerland and Paris. It is not only the theatrical quality of his music that I appreciate, but also the female characters he writes for. They are not passive players in their own narratives; these are characters who actively participate in their fate and in achieving what they want, for better and for worse. After The Importance of Being Earnest came Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, which will be revived at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2025. I am recording Barry’s one-woman opera La plus forte with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the end of September and will perform the title role in the world premiere of his new opera Salome at Theater Magdeburg early 2025. That is three Gerald Barry operas in one season, so it is lucky that I am already a fan of his music!
Tell us about Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and the 98 High Cs!
Gerald Barry’s vocal lines are very acrobatic for singers, and Alice is no exception. I tried to approach the tessitura of this role in the way a runner prepares for a race. If you decide to run a 25-mile marathon having only ever run 10-mile marathons, the risk on the body is exhaustion and injury. Therefore, during the preparation phase, you just have to start from where you are, pushing your limit a little further every day, to build up endurance and agility. I think by the end of the rehearsal period, I actually had enough gas to sing Alice for an extra 5 miles, so to speak!
You are a partner and mother as well as a singer. And while I wish that women didn’t need to talk about these issues anymore, for now, it still feels important to share with young singers that it can be possible to have a family and a career. Can you share about your experience?
It is important for everyone to have a support system outside of a professional context, because personal life affects professional life regardless of how that is lived out for each individual. For women wanting to have children, it is a given that it becomes emotionally and structurally more complicated to manage both career and family, because the nature of the work requires a different complexity of separation from a child. Working schedules look different for artists than for most other professionals, but it is important to remember that separation is a necessary growth process for all children.
In terms of support from the music world, it goes without saying that there has been terrible treatment toward singing mothers. However, in my personal experience as a working mother, my employers and colleagues have treated me with overwhelming support in managing family responsibilities while performing—everything from providing accommodations to fit my needs, to finding babysitters, to optimizing my rehearsal schedule in order to maximize time with my son on the weekends. People should always hear about when treatment is unfair, but it is important to share the good as well, and so far I have been extremely fortunate in that respect.
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How do you keep yourself going when the career path gets frustrating?
It is such an exception to be working in this field as it is, so I am really very grateful for all of it, both the good and the bad moments. I do keep a list of thoughtful praise I have heard over the years from other colleagues, composers, conductors, etc., and I will refer to it every once in a while when I am feeling down.
I think the best thing you can do for yourself and others is to be the kind of colleague you would like to work with and the kind of artist you would like to see onstage. So to get positive reinforcement which reflects that is one of the more rewarding parts of being in the arts.
My interest in performing lies in exploring the complexities of human behavior as they are represented musically, using notation as a blueprint for characterization. As a profession, it is an adherence to developing the highest levels of ability and the lifelong process of pushing that level as high as one possibly can.
To live the human experience musically, with respect to tradition and innovation, onstage and in service of an audience giving of their time and attention, is both the greatest challenge and the greatest privilege any musician could hope to experience.
What do you wish you had learned earlier in your education or career?
When I think about what I would tell a younger version of myself, I realize that any advice I would give 20-year-old Alison would probably infuriate her! I did not have the early professional experience that most people would consider to be what a successful opera career should look like. Success is not a linear path, but one with peaks and valleys, regardless of metrics.
I wish I had not been in such a hurry to “arrive” somewhere as early as possible. So, to myself, I would offer a poem by Cavafy [“Ithaca”], [which] begins with “As you set out for Ithaca, hope that the road is a long one.” One of the challenges of early success is that arriving early means that your potential and output is defined by popular narrative. Starting small gave me more freedom to develop creatively. I experimented and took more risks, so that later on I could trust my intuition and impulses in settings where there is more pressure to deliver.
An artistic path is not about meeting preconceived standards but climbing your own unique mountain. The more formidable and diverse, the more potential for growth and depth, regardless of whether you are a late bloomer or a child prodigy.
