One of the most frequently recurring questions in my private consultations with singers is how to make a comeback after a significant break in pursuing a singing career. Like many issues surrounding our business, it’s fraught with emotion—hope and passion, to be sure, but also regret, anxiety, confusion, and frustration perhaps. These negative emotions can cripple your efforts, so it’s important to acknowledge them, but also to do your research and make a plan so you’ll have concrete steps to work on. This will help cut those negative emotions down to size.
A plan will also help cut obstacles down to size. If you’re a late bloomer or an older singer, many opportunities that were once open to you, such as Young Artist Programs and competitions, may no longer be options. You may have lost touch with or never established business contacts who might have once helped you. And, of course, the business—and your entire package—may have changed significantly since the last time you tried to make a go of it.
Let’s look at three different situations of singers rebooting their careers: a singer who had a career at one time but took a significant amount of time off, a singer whose career has just begun but wants to take time off, and a singer who took time off to rework his voice and is re-entering the business in a completely different Fach.
Dear Cindy: How do you get back into singing after taking many years off? I have two situations for singers returning to the biz. First, I have a student in her 60s who had a decent career some years ago, but left it to have a family and later became a church musician. She’s now retired, but her voice is splendid and she is a stunning musician who can read anything. The second situation is me. I’m 56. I sang opera in my 30s and then branched off into recital, oratorio, and a touring ensemble, where I blew out my voice undersinging. I am now reconstructing my real sound, and though it’s not quite ready, I have no clue what to do when it is!
Signed,
Seasoned Singer
Dear Seasoned: The first bit of advice I have for seasoned singers such as you is the same as I would tell a young singer just starting out in the business. The very first thing you must do is decide what your mission is—why do you want to re-enter the world of singing, and in what capacity? What do you hope to achieve? Do you want to sing opera and, if so, as a soloist or chorister? Is it important to you to make money doing it?
Secondly, what resources do you have to dedicate to your pursuit? How much time, how much money? What obstacles are in your way—are you tied to a certain place or time frame by work or family obligations?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you can start making a plan to proceed. Here are some steps to get you started.
1. Make a list of all your old contacts.
Write down every place you sang, everyone you sang for, everyone you sang with, and especially those people who were supportive of you. Do some research and figure out where they are now. Start making contact again.
At first, you’re just playing catch up, but once you’ve re-established the relationship you can eventually let people know that you’re looking to sing again. Just put it out there at first; then after a while, ask to sing for people to get their opinions about where you should be auditioning and for whom. If they seem favorably inclined, ask if they will make introductions or if you can use their names for recommendations.
2. Do a very careful assessment of your repertoire.
One big mistake that people make when they’ve stepped away from opera for a while is to come back with whatever they were singing when they stopped. Voices change over time and so do bodies. So even if you were a fantastic José in your 20s, now you might be more of a Remendado. You need to work carefully with teachers and coaches to figure out what your voice is most marketable for right now.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a consultation from an agent or an artistic administrator. At the very least, sing for some people you trust who are in the business currently and will give you an honest assessment. When you begin to audition, especially with a big gap in your operatic résumé, you need to make sure you are presenting a solid package of what you’re really marketable for right now.
3. Carefully assess your current technique and abilities.
If your technique is rusty, if you find that the years have brought out different qualities in your voice, or if your stamina isn’t what it once was, it’s very important to take the time to work it all out before you begin to approach people for work. If you are going to re-enter the professional arena, especially after time off, and ask people to take a chance on you, you need to be absolutely certain your product is professional quality.
4. Tune up your résumé, bio, and headshot.
This is especially necessary if you’re looking to work in opera. Please do not use your headshot from 20 years ago—make sure it’s current and looks like you. And take a careful look at your résumé. If it’s opera you’re looking to do, you’ll want to highlight your stage work and perhaps even add a category for roles you’ve been working on currently or have in your repertoire but have not yet performed. Regardless, you’ll want to show your level of experience and that you’ve been singing for the past x number of years—just not singing opera.
5. Get some credits.
It may seem like a Catch-22, but in order to get hired after taking some time off, you’re going to have to prove you’ve still got the goods. If you haven’t been doing any singing recently, you’ll definitely need to beef up that résumé before you start sending it out. Learn a couple of roles you think you’ll be marketable for and list them as “roles in repertoire.” Target those key roles and find a way to perform them, even if you have to produce your own concert or do a pay-to-sing.
6. Be prepared to start small.
Even if you were singing in bigger venues prior to your break, you may have to start your career reboot a few levels lower than where you were singing before. The opera world has changed a lot in the past 10 to 20 years. Take time to learn the ropes anew. Talk to singers who are currently working at and above the level where you hope to re-enter. Get the scoop.
After that, you simply have to do what the kids are doing—research companies, find out who’s doing repertoire that you’d be good for, and work your contacts to get auditions.
Dear Cindy: A couple of years out of college, I find myself burned out by the whole singing grind. I still love to sing, but I want to take a few years off to work, make money, and finish getting my voice together—but I’m afraid that I will age out of all the YAPs and have a hard time getting started again. Is it true that I’ll be at a major disadvantage? What can I do to keep myself viable?
Signed,
I Want a Life
Dear Life: It’s true that taking a lot of time off at the beginning of your career can bring any momentum you’ve developed to a screeching halt. There are certain opportunities available to young singers which simply aren’t there for older ones: apprenticeships, competitions, grants, and small roles that a company knows a young singer can and will do when a more established one either wouldn’t or isn’t affordable. There are also intangibles like the indulgence and support society at large has for young people starting out. It’s harder to get people to support you financially when you’re starting an arts career in your 40s as opposed to your 20s.
If you’re burned out, however, taking time to regroup could be the very best thing for you. Just don’t take too much time off. It’s one thing to take a couple of months and another to take a couple of years. If you do decide to take a few months, consider the timing. Fall is traditionally the time when applications for YAPs and competitions are due, with auditions often scheduled for December & January. And fall is also the busiest mainstage audition time (although these auditions are ongoing throughout the year). If you miss application deadlines, that may take you out of the running for a full year.
There are some important things you can do during your hiatus to keep your toes in the water, and they’ll help a lot when you’re ready to come back.
Don’t Vanish from the Face of the Musical Earth
Keep in touch with contacts, especially mentors and other professionals in the business who may have expressed an interest in you. An occasional phone call, e-mail, or text can do the trick. (For more casual contact, make sure you have that kind of relationship with the person in question. Hint: if you’d feel comfortable inviting this person out for a drink, you can probably text or Facebook message them. If not, stick to e-mail.) Show up at concerts and let your colleagues know you’re there. Make sure people don’t forget your name.
Keep Working on Your Voice
You may not be performing much, but don’t let your voice go entirely if you can help it. If you can afford to and it makes you happy, keep taking voice lessons and coachings, even if it’s not every week.
Learn New Roles
Even if you’re not ready to sing them anywhere, identify key roles in your Fach and learn them—all of them. Don’t just work on arias. Learn the recits, learn the ensembles, do your homework on the background of the piece, perfect your diction. Not only will it keep you on your musical toes, but when you’re ready to make your comeback, you can list these on your résumé as “Roles in Repertoire.”
Perform
One of the biggest challenges of getting any singing career off the ground is that you are, essentially, an unknown quantity. Classical music is expensive to produce (even more so if it’s a staged production), and if you haven’t been out there actively pursuing a career for a while, it’s to your advantage to show that you’re not completely rusty.
Keep your fingers in the pie, so to speak, by doing some sort of performing, even if it’s just a church job or an occasional recital. These things will not count for much on your résumé if you’re trying to come back as an opera soloist, but they will at least give you a basis from which to start climbing the ladder to bigger, better opportunities when you’re ready for them.
What if you did completely walk away, and now want back in? If you didn’t do any of the above during your hiatus and you’re ready to start making a comeback, start doing them now!
Dear Cindy: In college, I didn’t have any high notes, so I trained as a baritone and started my career as such—did a couple of YAPs and got a few professional credits. I took a year off to retrain as a tenor, and I’m worried that I don’t have any tenor roles on my résumé. How do I show people that I’m a tenor now? Do I have to start from scratch with my résumé?
Signed,
Bari to Tenor
Dear Tenor: This is a pretty common issue, especially for young singers. Lots of people change Fach early or even later in their careers. It only becomes a problem professionally if you can’t make up your mind where you belong, have chosen poorly, or stubbornly stick to a Fach you’ve outgrown.
Here’s the secret no one tells students about Fach: ultimately, the market decides what Fach you are. What I mean by that is your teachers and coaches can rave all day long about your “Che gelida manina,” but if what people want to hire you for is Monostatos, then guess what—you’re a character tenor.
For that reason, it’s best not to micro-Fach yourself on a résumé. I don’t care how proud you are of being a Jugendlicher Heldensopran or a Baryton-Martin—unless you have a well-established career in your repertoire, don’t create unnecessary limits on your résumé. Let your repertoire speak for itself, and the producers will decide how they think they can use you.
Therefore, you needn’t worry too much about Fach changes on your résumé. Here’s what you do:
1. List your new Fach under your name. (OK, duh).
2. Keep your baritone credits as they are for now. Later, when you begin to have more tenor credits, you can remove the least relevant or least important baritone credits first. Eventually, you’ll eliminate all of them.
3. Create a new category for “Roles in Repertoire” and list there the tenor roles you’ve been working on and now know. Don’t list a slew of roles unless you really, truly know every note and could sing it in a couple of days with a little study. Three or four is plenty for now.
4. A line or two in your bio will take care of the rest. Something along the lines of “After his initial success as a baritone, including an apprenticeship with Prestigious Grand Opera and critically acclaimed appearances with Somewhat Smaller Opera and Teensy Opera, Mr. FormerBari has made the switch to tenor. His current repertoire includes roles such as Rodolfo, Alfredo, and Faust.”
Finally, if you took time off to retrain, you’ll need to employ the same suggestions I made in the first letter. A great way to get started is to make some recordings of you sounding fabulous in your new Fach, posting them on your website or YouTube channel, and making the rounds of your old contacts. Let them know you’re now a tenor and ask them to listen to the new you. That’s actually pretty irresistible—everyone will want to know if you’re any good!
Rebooting your career is a challenge, no question, but it’s not impossible. The key is to make sure that before you make your professional re-entry, you are truly prepared and viable for the market you’re entering. If you’re not sure, a professional consultation with someone currently working in the field—a manager, a conductor, someone who does the hiring or hears a lot of professional singers on a regular basis—would be a good investment.
As always, check in to make sure you have realistic goals and have prepared the resources you’ll need. Then invest those resources wisely and just keep moving. Step by step, you’ll bring that career back to life.
