A prominent New York City vocal coach and accompanist, Kathy Olsen plays for so many auditions that she is known in Manhattan musical circles simply as “The Queen.” Her expertise in accompanying singers in the stressful audition process is legendary, and she is the perfect authority to offer some tips on how to audition effectively.
Freeman Günter: What can singers do to improve their effectiveness in the audition process?
Kathy Olsen: Practice. The secret is just doing them and doing them until you get completely used to it. Auditioning is a very artificial experience. I could name you the nice auditioning experiences on about one hand. Baz Luhrmann (director of the forthcoming Broadway Boheme and the film Moulin Rouge) is one of the nicest, easiest people to audition for I’ve ever met. Sir Colin Davis is also fantastically easy. Matthew Epstein is pretty easy to audition for, as is Speight Jenkins. But some of them never look at you, they never look up from their laptops. It’s horrible! You are standing up there so exposed, and anything can happen to make you feel terrible. You walk in cold off the street. Maybe your dog just died or your apartment just got rented or your boyfriend had a fight with you and still you must sing. You have to turn it all on instantly and sing the pivotal, the high point in the opera. You must go from a standing start to bolt. That’s really the experience and you have got to learn how to do that. I think that is what is very hard for the younger ones: just to come in immediately focused and really nail it in the first eight bars, which is what the judges really listen to.
Young people try to wow their auditors with versatility. They later learn what their real specialty is and concentrate on that. They will get the idea that the auditors want to hear, say, Micaela’s aria so they will quickly kind of half-learn it and sing it even though their French is not quite polished or whatever. Later, a singer understands, “I only get hired for Verdi, so let me give them that, since that’s what I do best anyway.”
I used to make fun of Hei Kyung Hong because when we were in Juilliard together she only sang “Caro Nome” and “O quante volte” at auditions and that was it. Basically, she would pretend like she didn’t speak English—which wasn’t true—if they asked for something else. But now I know that she was really smart. She could sing those arias exquisitely; she always did. She knew that in any circumstance that’s what she could do very well.
This auditioning technique can be learned, absolutely. A lot of it really is just practicing. I tell my young ones to go through Classical Singer, go through Backstage, audition for everything, even if you are not interested in doing it. Use the experience for yourself. Go to Da Capo, go to Regina Opera and sing for everybody. I also tell them, “When you’re standing in the crook of that piano, you go through your mantra, you get into the right physicality, you say, ‘I’m going to relax my shoulders and tell a story.’ Do whatever you need to do.
“I used to play a lot of auditions for Mark Delavan. Our thing was to sit on the steps of Cami, or wherever it was, and we talked before the audition. I found out all about his life. Some people don’t like to talk at all, and as their pianist you have to become aware of that. But our thing was to catch up, and that got him in the right place to sing well. It is different for everybody. Some people need to be there early to get their bearings; other people like to walk right in and sing.
FG: Just by watching a singer, can you figure out how you can best help them through the audition process?
KO: Well, musically, I can. Emotionally, it’s hard to guess that sometimes. I feel that accompanying is really what the word says. It’s “going with.” I don’t ever want to go into an audition and make my own musical statement. It is going with that person, even the young ones. Even if I feel like they are taking off to the races, I’ve got to go with it. My job is to be there with them. I’m not conducting them, I’m accompanying; I am going with them. To me that’s the most important thing. That’s the job, to make them look good. If they skip sixteen bars, I’ve got to skip sixteen bars too. And half the time, the people who are listening don’t even notice!
Detailed information about Kathy Olsen’s coaching background and studio can be found at the classical singer coaches website at: classicalsinger.com/coach/search.php3
