I have the distinct impression that nobody in the real performing world cares where you went to school, or even if you went to school at all. What they want is someone who can fill the shoes of a working opera singer. Qualifications: a working voice with the necessary strength and powers of expression, real presence on the stage, the ability to move and take direction, and basic (preferably excellent) musicality. In addition it’s nice if the singer knows languages, but many performers sing phonetically (and flawlessly) without speaking a language. The theater bosses will forgive that, as long as they can talk to you. You should be reliable, learn fast, and be a good colleague.
It isn’t easy to find people who embody all this, and the theaters would be working against their artistic purposes by restricting themselves to singers with certain schooling. When you arrive in a theater or an agency and fill out their forms, you are sometimes asked for information about your education. But if you have none and still sing and act like a god(dess), any reservations are likely to evaporate.
A musician friend once joked that the only worthwhile thing he learned in conservatory was to always have a pencil handy. One can make many jokes about the conservatory and college education of musicians, but of course one learns useful things there. I never went to a conservatory. I’m not very good at transposing on sight or reading moveable clefs, and I don’t know the rules of voice leading. I would have a hard time getting a teaching position at a college.
But onstage I don’t need that kind of material. I have a master’s degree in physics and worked for many years as an engineer. However, I was always a musician. I have been a pianist all my life and have also learned to play guitar, cello, and recorders, along with several other instruments. I played in chamber music groups and orchestras, sang in choirs, and did some amateur acting. My parents sent me for summers abroad at an early age, and I picked up English, French, and German before I was 20 (besides my native Norwegian). I could always spin a phrase. I never had to learn that.
In some ways, all I had to learn when I finally decided to become a singer was to sing well and to comport myself effectively on the stageóand that I could do most sensibly with private teachers, master classes, and workshops. I spent 10 years with my voice teacher, went to Wesley Balk’s summer course, took acting lessons, and just jumped in and started swimming.
I sang in opera choruses and did smaller roles at first. All along it was like being a sponge, soaking up stuff I had been wanting to learn. I felt like a fish finding water.
It wasn’t all that easy, of course. Learning to sing well is a chore. But I really wanted itóI believed in my dream and never looked back (much). There are more than a few people who remember my first years of training and didn’t share my optimism at the time. It was probably good that I didn’t know how bad I was.
Did I need a conservatory? No, not for being a working opera singer. Was I a typical prospective opera singer? Probably not, and therefore my path wouldn’t work for everyone. Most of my colleagues had a more traditional music educationóbut most also say they donít need everything they learned. Thatís an easy thing to say, of course. If you havenít, as I did, learned to be a musician before embarking on the singing path, music school must be a help. When youíre 18 or 20, it may be the only option these days, unless you want to study physics or something else crazy, in which case you should! There aren’t many who are groomed to be singers like in the old days.
I am generally impressed with my colleagues; they’re intelligent, musical, and dedicated. Did they learn that discipline in music school? Probably not. But they learned roles, got to know the repertoire, and did many things that I never did or have had to scramble to learn later. Twelve years ago I didn’t even know who composed Tosca.
Music schools and conservatories can be sensible ways to enter a musical career. For an instrumentalist who needs so many hours in the practice room, that training is probably indispensable. For a performing singer, Iím not sure itís critical in every case. If you have the talent, there are definitely other ways to enter the operatic world.
