Soprano Angela Meade shares her experience of turning competition wins into a lasting career through steady preparation and organization. Meade continues to learn at every step of her journey in singing.
In an excellent cover story by Daniel Vasquez in the March 2012 edition of Classical Singer, Soprano Angela Meade explains how she used a combination of logic, reflection, and data analyses to win eventually 57 vocal competitions. This might be a world’s record. She’s like the Michael Phelps of classical singers.
But winning competitions and having a steady, successful career are two very different accomplishments. Sometimes winning a competition can be the catalyst for a major career. After Siberian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1989, his career skyrocketed. Other times, a competition prize represents the pinnacle of a singer’s career. If you examine the rosters of former competition winners, you’ll find a variety of outcomes. You’ll see names of now-famous singers who didn’t win a big prize, and names of big-prize winners who had modest careers.
Angela Meade is currently enjoying a successful international career. A glance at her website will show that she has performed leading roles in most of the major operas worldwide and is booked years in advance. The grand bel canto roles and the heroines of the early Verdi operas seem tailor made for her large, beautiful, flexible voice. But she also ventures into other repertoire.
Does she manage her career with the same pragmaticism that she managed her vocal competitions? Absolutely. Highly organized, detail oriented, and disciplined in every aspect of her career, she’s clear about what roles she will accept, where she will sing them, and even how to book airline tickets. She’s careful with her investments. When she first began singing professionally, she wanted enough money saved so that she would not feel financially compelled to take engagements that might be detrimental to her voice. During the pandemic, while some of her colleagues faced financial difficulties and had to give up singing, Meade was prepared for the downturn.
Competition Strategy
I remember hearing you in your competition days. You always opened with the daring choice of “Casta Diva.” You began singing piano and brought us in with your voice as opposed to…
Pushing you away?
Exactly. So many singers bellow the first few bars in part because of nerves and, in part, trying to impress the judges with the size of their voice.
I think that part of the problem is that many singers don’t have a lot of self-awareness about what they do well, what they don’t do well, and what aria highlights their strengths. They perform what they think the judges want to hear rather than choosing an aria based on what truly highlights them. For example, when I began offering “Casta Diva” on my competition list, my teacher told me not to do it. But I felt I had a special connection to the piece and I thought it showed what was special about my voice. I realize it was a bold move and I got a lot of questions and a lot of doubt from judges—but in the end, I felt like I knew my voice, which is what we want young singers to do: know their instrument. It also seems that everyone wants to believe they are a very loud voice, so they sing the biggest thing in their Fach and sing forte all the time. The idea of dynamics and sensitivity gets lost along the way. I’ve always been very conservative about what I’ve taken because I would rather be the biggest voice or the biggest fish in the smallest pond rather than the small fish in the big pond.
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I believe Joan Sutherland said that if you sing one notch below your Fach, that your voice sounds bigger.
Sure. I would agree with that. I want to keep singing the bel canto and early Verdi operas as much as I can and keep the voice high as I take on these more middle-voiced roles with some chest voice singing. If you do a completely steady diet of all the middle-voice stuff, and you don’t ever exercise the top, you lose it.
Middle voice feels very comfortable and natural singing down there now. It’s like a massage for the voice—but I don’t want to sing in that range all the time. I’m going from Ballo to Rossini’s Ermione, which can be very high in the way of ornaments; it sits in the upper tessitura in a lot of places. Then I’m singing Chrysothemis in Elektra for the first time (which is also my first foray into Strauss), and the tessitura is very high as well. And then from there, back to bel canto with Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda. And then onto my debut as Turandot, which also lies high and is extremely comfortable in my voice. I also love Turandot since the role is about 18 minutes long.
Role Study and Preparation
What’s your process for studying roles?
I take them apart. I’m an analytical, logical sort of person. I like to use a physical score first because I’m a very tactile person. Then I put it on my iPad so that I don’t have 50 scores in my suitcase. I highlight my score, then I write in the translation. And then I study the words, let them sink in, and mull them over.
If there is source material available, I always read it. And then after I’ve plunked all the notes out for myself, I will take it to a coach. I’ll also listen to as many recordings as possible to hear how others interpret the role and how they emphasize words and phrases and what they choose to do as cadenzas and such.
Bel canto music has a lot of fast-moving passages. Do you do exercises for coloratura like the ones in the Garcia or Marchesi books?
Not specifically. I like to take apart the actual phrases from the roles I’m looking at and study coloratura that way. I do a lot of work on scales and arpeggios and, while I think the exercises in the Garcia or Marchesi books are helpful, there are patterns in Rossini’s works, for example, that working on scales won’t help you with because of how the voice has to jump in order to sing them. I do think the Garcia and Marchesi are helpful for working on speed of coloratura in general, though.
You worked with Zedda, right? (Alberto Zedda, Italian conductor, musicologist, and music director of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy.) Did he send you ornaments for you to choose from, or did he send you ornaments to say you should do these?
Oh, I loved him! I was working with him as a last-minute replacement for Rossini’s Ermione in A Coruña, Spain, for which they asked me jump in with about three weeks’ notice. Zedda sent me ornaments and said, “These are what I’m thinking. Please learn these, and then we can discuss.”
So, being the good student that I’ve always been, I learned them, and then once I began working with him, we tweaked what worked best for my voice and what didn’t. I’ve learned over the years what my voice likes to do, how my voice likes to approach high notes, what patterns make most sense to my ear, and how to capitalize on what is good for my voice.
What’s a typical routine you do the day of the opera?
I try to always get a good night’s sleep, drink a lot of water, and I usually take a nap before I go over to the theater. I try to get there about three hours early—I often grab a warm drink—usually an Earl Grey latte with honey and milk. Then, I do some scales to gauge how my voice feels. If it’s in good shape, I do less warming up; if not, I adjust accordingly. Depending on the role, I will warm up for about 20–30 minutes and take a break, do some stretching on my yoga mat, and come back to warming up again a bit later and do another 10–20 minutes.
I’ve heard singers lose their voice in the dressing room.
Oh, definitely! Through the walls, I’ve heard many singers over-warm up. They give it their all backstage, and then when they step onstage, it’s not quite there anymore because they’ve used it all up beforehand.
Repertoire Choices
What’s your process for accepting a role? You must get crazy offers.
The truly off-the-wall offers I’ve received tend to be the very heavy roles, or at least they were too heavy for me when they were offered. I was offered Senta in Dutchman very early in my career and I knew it would have been a misstep at that point, although it is definitely something I’d consider adding now in my 40s. I’ve also been offered Elektra a few times, but I feel like, at least at this point, Chrysothemis is a much better fit for me. I was also offered Isolde many years ago, and it was definitely way too early for it. As I mature and move into my late 40s, more of these roles become a possibility, but certainly they were too heavy for me in my 30s.
I’m sure someone is going to offer you the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten one of these days.
I hope so. I’d love to take on that role.
Traveling
Do you have someone handling your travel arrangements?
Oh gosh, no. I do it all. Finding housing is the bane of my existence, especially in Europe. I joke with my husband that I could be a travel agent if I ever wanted to quit singing because I book all the flights and the transportation from the airport to wherever we’re going, whether that be trains or taxis or Ubers or whatever. I’m very Type A. I figure out where we’re going to stay and I try to figure out the most economical way to do it for the best advantages. Yeah, I do it all.
Oh, and I write lists. I told you I’m Type A. Look, this is my to-do list. I’ve got Dallas Electra, what we need to do for that. For Genova, what I need to do for that. For L.A., for Turandot, what I need to do. This is the only way I can stay on task and get everything done because it’s just an overwhelming amount of things to do.
I’m in awe of your organizational skills.
I swear I could be a project manager. I always joke that I only moonlight as an opera singer and my real job is project manager/travel agent. It’s difficult finding places to stay and figuring out where the nearest and best stocked grocery store is. Is the apartment going to be close to the theater? But is the theater in a funky neighborhood? Are the rehearsals at the theater or in a different place, which often happens. How do I get back and forth? Does Uber exist there? Is it walkable? Is the subway safe to take? That kind of stuff. I read a lot of travel forums and ask a lot of questions. On a side note, I also always pack an evening gown with me. I’ve had it happen that I’ve been asked to jump into a concert while away on another gig and didn’t have a gown with me and had to turn down the jump-in because of it—so now I always travel with an evening gown, just in case.
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How are your spoken language skills?
I am not fluent in another language. When I was in undergrad, there were no Italian courses. I took some French, because I had taken it in high school, and I also took some German. At USC there were no requirements for it as a Master’s student.
At AVA [Academy of Vocal Arts] we had Italian class, but it was difficult to learn a lot because you would have class for the first couple of weeks of the semester, and then once the opera you were doing was in production, they stopped having language classes. You would go for two weeks, and then nothing for eight weeks, and then you’d have to start over again. What I know, I’ve learned on my own from doing operas and playing on apps like Duolingo. Working in Italy has also helped me quite a bit.
I notice that at lunches and dinners in Europe with professional colleagues, everyone seems to speak a bit of everything and easily switch languages back and forth.
Yes, so I listen a lot. And I think, “Oh I know mostly what they’re talking about.” But I get nervous about speaking it because I always want to speak correctly. My perfectionist nature will not allow me to just interject most of the time.
I do think that this is specifically an American problem—meaning that schooling in America doesn’t place emphasis on learning other languages, and so by the time we American singers arrive at college to major in vocal performance, we are already behind.
It’s also very easy, once you are in the career, to surround yourself with the safety of only interacting in English if it’s available. If you go to another country and surround yourself with other people who don’t speak the language, you will never learn the language. I mean, I understand it. It’s about being in your comfort zone, but you will never learn if you do that.
Social Media
What are your thoughts about social media?
I’m very conservative about what I post and how much of the outside world I let into my personal life. I don’t need to share that with anybody. It’s not my job. Your career is separate from your political identity. Whatever you stand behind, there are people on the other side. You’re going to alienate someone. Why would you want to do that? You cannot win. Have your beliefs at home with your friends, with your family, whatever, but don’t put them out in public like that.
Parting Words
The secret to your incredible success is not mysterious. Obviously, you have a very special, large and beautiful voice, you have a solid technique, and you arrive well prepared. And from my conversations with you, it’s clear that you must be a good colleague. What words of advice can you give a singer trying to begin a career?
Learn, learn, learn. Listen and be curious. Be a kind, considerate, giving colleague. Try your best to understand your voice and all it has to offer, and then use and draw attention to those special gifts to the best of your ability.
For more information, visit angelameade.com
