Three weeks out of the year, I stop being a performer and move to the other side of the audition table. As director of Spotlight on Opera, a summer training program at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, I have the very valuable opportunity to view singers from an administrator, producer, and stage director’s perspective. The applications to my own singing career are invaluable. The more I work with developing singers, the more strongly I adhere to two adages:
1: Hard work wins over talent whenever talent is not willing to work hard.
2: There is always a reason why a talented singer is not having a career, and it doesn’t always have to do with what’s going on onstage.
Any training program is going to get all kinds of singers, at all different levels of talent and ability. Young singers often ask for advice about what their next step should be and what their chances at success are. On occasion, someone even asks me point blank whether I think they should give it all up and take up pig farming. (All true, except the pig farming part.) I don’t feel that it is my place as a teacher to tell someone that they will never have a career on the stage; there are simply too many factors to consider, and people can always surprise you. Instead, I believe in offering the singer my perspective on where they are now and what they need to do to get where they want to be. I also strongly believe in helping singers develop diagnostic tools of their own, with both artistic and business applications.
Not sure whether you have “it”? Here are some general tools and bits of advice to help you figure it out—or discover what you may need to work on.
Develop perspective.
Many singers—not just the young ones—lack a clear idea of how they sound or how they should sound. They can listen to other singers and recognize that those singers sound good or bad or are better or worse singers than they themselves are, but they may not understand how they compare. Or they may not have the discernment to recognize that their own voices don’t compare favorably to others at their age or level of development.
Every singer absolutely must develop perspective about his or her own sound. It is a critical tool and one that will make the difference in figuring out where you should be auditioning and what you should be singing. Record everything you sing and listen to it. Find adjectives that you believe describe your voice. How do others describe it? What do you yourself think?
Listen to recordings of other singers who you think may have a similar sound (if you’re not sure who has a similar sound, ask your teachers and other singers, or just listen to every singer you can who sings similar repertoire). Find vocabulary to describe those sounds and then see whether you can describe your own voice the same way.
Ask other knowledgeable people whom you admire and trust—teachers, singers, coaches, conductors—to be frank with you about your vocal quality, your abilities, your strengths, and your weaknesses.
You need to be able to learn music and staging quickly and accurately.
It should go without saying that you need to be able to learn difficult music quickly and accurately, either on your own or with the help of a répétiteur or coach. Professionals simply do not show up without knowing their music—and, for that matter, neither do aspiring professionals who wish to advance. A stage director should not have to tell you more than once or twice what they want you to do and how they want you to do it. Nor should he have to dictate every expression and line reading to you—you should have ideas of your own and know how to execute them.
Understand your body and how it works.
Your body—all of it!—is your instrument. Many singers spend all their time learning how to use the vocal instrument, but pay no attention to the packaging it comes in. You need a strong awareness of how your particular body looks on stage, how to move and stand in order to make yourself not only look good but portray the character effectively. You need to understand how to make good “stage pictures” and develop awareness of how you look and where you are in relation to your scene partners. You need to be able to move naturally and realistically while cheating out and, in some cases, timing yourself to the music.
In Spotlight on Opera, our singers in training get used to hearing things like “You’re standing like an old man!” “Don’t be a buzzard on a clothesline!” “Get your elbows away from your body!” and my personal favorite, from our drama coach Rebecca Herman, “Stop doing the pee-pee dance!” And this past summer, I threatened to make out with the pianist in order to prove to a pair of would-be stage lovebirds that it is entirely possible for people who are not romantically involved to kiss convincingly onstage.
I expect singers who are learning their craft to need this kind of help, but if you want to be a professional, you should work hard to develop real acting skills. Acting is its own sophisticated craft and deserves as much attention as our vocal training!
Don’t make excuses.
“No one ever taught me that in school.” “I’m dyslexic and have a hard time learning music.” “I can’t afford voice lessons.” “I don’t have any way to get there.” There may be real frustrations and roadblocks in your path, but ultimately, you and you alone are responsible for overcoming them. It is up to you and no one else to find the help you need. No one is guaranteed work or success in their field, no matter how hard they work for it.
And when you are hired for a job, you are expected to deliver, plain and simple. Can’t follow the conductor’s beat pattern? You better find a way to stay with the orchestra and get your cues on your own. Don’t understand what the stage director wants? You have to make it work somehow. That isn’t to say that help may not be available or that you shouldn’t ask for it—but it’s your job to figure it all out.
Recognize the difference between personal achievement and marketability.
“But I’ve worked so hard and come so far!” How often I have heard this from frustrated singers who have invested so much time, money, and hard work into their training, yet still aren’t reaping the rewards they hope to deserve. Realize that your personal progress, while significant and hard won, does not necessarily qualify you for professional gigs. Producers don’t care about your progress unless you have progressed to the point where you can deliver what they need.
This is where that perspective we discussed comes into play. If you’re not getting the roles you want—whether it’s in church choir, school, a training program, or the mainstage—you need to take a serious look at the singers who are getting the work, and figure out quite literally what they have that you don’t.
Yes, there is a window of opportunity.
It’s a youth business. There, I said it. If you leave your undergraduate school with serious technical issues, having never learned or performed a role of any kind, you’re behind. Graduate school should be for refining technique, not learning the basics. If you leave grad school without having learned or performed any roles, you’re way behind. And if you leave graduate school without having a viable (if perhaps somewhat unpolished) technique, you really need to get on the ball.
Certainly there are late bloomers and folks who take a hiatus in singing before coming back to it who get their careers off the ground, and being older or having gone off the grid for a while is no reason not to make the effort if you’ve got the goods. By “goods” I mean a fairly solid vocal technique and the ability to develop a professionally viable sound relatively quickly—good languages, acting ability, quick on the uptake, and the personal resources of time and money to invest in a singing career.
If you don’t have these things, you may still be able to sing but you probably will not be able to do so professionally. And yes, many opportunities such as Young Artist Programs and competitions will be closed to you. That’s part of what you sign on for when you decide to pursue a classical singing career later in life, and part of your challenge is to gain experience and get people to hear you without some of these opportunities traditionally reserved for younger colleagues.
Come prepared to work hard and make a great impression, or go home.
As a program director, I would much rather cast a less talented or accomplished singer who is working hard than someone who is further along and is lazy or a junior diva. Working hard and having a great attitude is the very best way to make a good impression. Case in point: this summer, we had two singers cast in major roles who showed up unprepared. We replaced both of them.
One of these young singers, realizing the mistake he’d made, worked as hard as he could, covering the role that had been his, doing his best to learn everything he could, and generally making himself a valuable company member. The other dutifully attended rehearsals but instead of studying the score and learning a core role for his Fach, spent his time texting. Guess which will get a good recommendation from me and which won’t? These types of incidents can follow you and affect your fledgling career.
When you get past the young artist stage, failing to work hard or giving bad attitude has much more serious implications. Your audition merely begins with your five-aria offering; it continues through every rehearsal and performance you sing. It’s possible to overcome a bumpy start—ask international star baritone Mark Delavan, who has been very frank about his rocky beginnings—but it takes a great deal of effort. Why handicap yourself? A lot of singers do this without even realizing it. Do your homework and don’t ask other people to do your work for you. Know what’s expected of you. Don’t confuse confidence with arrogance. Fill out the paperwork correctly and completely. Don’t make work for other people because of your laziness or ignorance. Be on time.
Does all of this sound . . . well . . . a bit harsh, perhaps? Good. We need more straight talk in this business. Straight talk can hurt, but it can also save you from a great deal of hurt—the pain of wasted time, money, and effort because you didn’t apply your gifts correctly. It doesn’t matter in the end whether it was out of ignorance. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself as an aspiring professional is the gift of straight talk. Insist on it from your team, and insist on it from yourself. If you can do that, you will soon know whether or not you do, indeed, have “it.”
