Mentoring is a phenomenon whose benefits are wellknown not only to singers and artists, but in the business world, where mentoring programs are a popular means of fostering employee retention and maintaining a consistent company learning curve.
Court systems are adopting mentoring as a means of potentially cutting the rate of juvenile crime; in Utah’s Third District Juvenile Court Mentor Program, the Village Project matches boys and girls in troubled or crime-impacted family situations with adults who provide role models and a voice of hope and empowerment.
Anyone can be a mentor–teachers, coaches, singers, directors, conductors. What matters is that they are trusted role models singers rely on for guidance, help and/or recommendations. But no matter what form it takes, a good mentor relationship should always be constructive.
“Being a singer, especially a young singer, is a confusing and stressful time,” said singer Karen Kanakis. “It is too easy to get bad advice and be misled. My mentor has given me a solid starting point from which to launch my career, and for that I will be indebted to him for a long time!”
Ms. Kanakis continued, “I first started working with my teacher, Jan McDaniel, about three years ago, while pursuing my Master’s. He guided me into a Fach category, advised on auditions, competitions, and helped my sense of musical style and interpretation. Because of his help and guidance, I won a Rotary International Scholarship to sing in Germany for a year.”
Another singer wrote us with a similar tale. “I am a late-blooming dramatic soprano and have, for many years, satisfied myself with small roles and choruses in major U.S. houses. This past spring I was called by the musical director of Washington East Opera, Dean Williamson, and asked if I could sing in a benefit concert for WEO. I found later this came as a result of the illness of Elaine Scherperel-Burgess, who stayed in my home during her treatments, took me under her wing, and helped me rewrite my résumé and bio. She walked me through the audition listings [in Classical Singer] and advised me on rep, as well as how to have ‘the look’ at my auditions, and continues to work with me.”
Some of the most powerful mentors are former or even current performers. One of those is Blanche Thebom. “Ms. T., as she is known in her studio, has been a constant source of support and encouragement,” said student Andrea Baker. “Her career at the Met was legendary, and she has been so giving of her knowledge as a singer and a performer that I felt the need to bring it to your attention. Although her studio is not well known in the New York area, she has a great number of successful students in the Bay Area and around the world.” Ms. Baker, who is currently singing in Europe, added, “I would not be where I am today without her selflessly sharing her technique, dramatic know-how, and love. She is the truest form of a mentor in every sense of the word.”
Honesty is a part of the successful mentoring process, and that can be difficult, and perhaps even painful. Of her relationship with famed singer and teacher Mignon Dunn, one student said, “She has been a guide and an example that persistence and hard work pay off. She’s no ‘softie’–in fact she can be hard on her students, but she always puts their best interests first. Once I asked her if she really thought I was good enough to continue pursuing this dream. She promptly told me that she would not be wasting her time working with me if she thought otherwise, and that I had to believe in myself–and kicked me out of her studio. Fortunately we talked, and I learned a valuable lesson–one that has stuck. And obviously I’m still in her studio.”
Singers acquire a number of influences along the way–teachers, coaches, administrators, directors, fellow performers. But a teacher with whom you work several times a week may not be someone you consider to be a mentor to you, and yet a director who may have done one six-week show with you feels like much more of a nurturing, helpful influence. The variety of responses we received in our opinion poll seems to indicate that it is not the role that matters as much as the desire to help others.
Sometimes one relationship may not be working, and you may need to find another. “I began taking voice lessons as a freshman at a southern university with a ‘name’ teacher,” wrote Lisa Goldberg. “Her career had been prolific, but I had never sung and desperately wanted to be taught. After months of unproductive sing-this-song-until-it-sounds-good lessons, she told me the only reason she had accepted me as a student was because she needed hours for tenure. I decided to find a teacher who believed in my abilities, and I found that teacher in Pandeli Lazaridi. Mr. Lazaridi studied at the National Conservatory in Greece and later went on to perform, compete, and win many national competitions. When he heard me sing he said, ‘You have a good instrument, but you have no idea how to use it.’ He gave me a six-month scholarship, and we worked five days a week for two hours a day. At the end of my six months I auditioned for music programs, was accepted at all but one of them, had offers for full or partial scholarships from two schools, and am now in my third semester as a music student at California State University Northridge. Without Mr. Lazaridi’s generosity and immeasurable knowledge and patience, I would not now be in the position to say that yes, I AM a singer.”
A mentor relationship is inherently unequal. The mentor’s career or life situation is normally more advanced, perhaps at the very apex of the field. When the playing field begins to become more level, as it may well do after a certain length of time and experience, the relationship may suffer, or even dissolve. The unequal relationship can cause problems, even abuses, as the singer below relates.
“As a direct result of my mentor, I now have a full-time performing career, yet the costs have been high. From the beginning, it was assumed that my time was worthless and my mentor’s time, precious. I’ve been expected to sing for free, to fetch coffee, to do many menial tasks at the expense of my own life and career. I have been made the ‘whipping boy’ in some very painful rehearsals when the whip should’ve come down on an unprepared singer instead. One example: I was asked to come in for a coaching, arranged a babysitter myself and put other pressing concerns on hold. Yet when I arrived, I was asked to babysit, to go to the grocery store, to recopy some music and finally to make dinner. Frustration burned, but after several hours, I was taught one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned about the art of performing. Bottom line? Despite having to learn painful lessons about boundaries, I owe my career to my mentor.”
One singer told us the following unfortunate story. “I had a coaching mentor whom I want to keep anonymous. We are both sopranos. She is well-known, and she was definitely an angel in the developing stages of my career. She encouraged me to try for things that I wouldn’t have otherwise, which I did successfully. But when I asked her to advise me on management issues and the like, to make the next step in my career development, she was no longer there for me. Apparently, we had become equals on perhaps a competitive level. Not in my eyes, however, and I’m only guessing. This woman has approximately 100 recordings and a reputation in the field that I don’t feel I would ever overshadow.
“However, if I asked her to write a recommendation–the standard type of stuff, I believe she would do it. But based on this experience, I have the feeling that singers who are still out there singing and share your voice type can only be a mentor to you up to a point. I’m going to try to befriend a mezzo next time!”
Problems of an entirely different–and familiar–flavor can arise, as well. “I believe mentor relationships can be wonderful for both mentor and mentee,” one respondent wrote, “but in my experience one should be VERY careful when one’s mentor is of the opposite sex. The intensity of a shared goal may lead to one party assuming a deeper emotional attachment where there isn’t one, which may in turn lead to needing to find a new mentor. My mentor figure was more interested in me as a romantic prospect than as a singer he could aid and mold; he used the promise of a coaching session as an excuse merely to see me. I was hoping to get his assistance on a project I was about to rehearse, and realizing he wasn’t serious about helping me really irritated me. End note: Keep your eye on your professional goal, be courteous to everyone, and keep your emotional boundaries intact.”
In the end, the potentially positive impact a mentor can have on a singer’s life can’t be underestimated. Although bad experiences can and do happen in some mentoring situations, just as in any other type of relationship, usually this is a positive, helpful contact, and one that may last only briefly or an entire lifetime. Deborah Schmidt wrote to us about her teacher, Thomas Schilling. “My voice teacher has been a constant source of support and encouragement to me for the past four years. When I began my studies with him I was experiencing major vocal and technical problems, which were causing me to reevaluate whether I could succeed in the world of opera. He explained to me that the best course of action was to basically ‘start over.’ He not only restored my voice but my technique, my confidence, and my career. He taught me to remember each day why I sing–because I love to sing!”
Mentoring vs. Sponsoring
There was some confusion on the poll between the terms “mentor” and “sponsor.” The most essential difference is–to put it in the bluntest terms–money. A mentor may or may not help a singer’s career financially. Mentoring is by no means equated with monetary assistance; however, sponsorship may include money, and indeed very often does.
A sponsor is typically someone interested in the arts, in opera, and in helping to further a singer’s career, whether by patronage or other means. A sponsor may have little or no actual knowledge of opera or singing, but simply be an ardent admirer.
A mentor, on the other hand, is a person with hands-on, first-hand knowledge of the field. A mentor can be a fellow singer, a teacher, a conductor, a director–but he or she is a person the singer can learn from, look up to.
In essence, sponsorship and mentoring each foster the singer’s career. One provides a creative sounding board, input and education, perhaps even a helping hand professionally; the other may provide a financial springboard from which the singer can begin the difficult climb to a solo career. They are different in their execution, but similar in the fact that both these phenomena can further your career and make you a more accomplished artist.
Great Singers As Great Mentors
I had both great and terrible advice from mentors. Great advice: Jerome Hines was my first mentor and the first person who straightened out my technique by using business principles: “Well, you see, some of the lesser singers of the 60’s sang that way and didn’t really have the big careers….” Then he imitated me. “But Leonard Warren, Cornell MacNeil and Robert Merrill had huge careers and they sang like this.” Then he proceeded to peel the paint off the walls with an earth-shattering tone that got my attention. Terrible advice: An anonymous mentor told me to never accept comprimario work because companies don’t take you seriously. This is not the case anymore. There are many companies nurturing inexperienced singers by giving them small roles and then on to bigger and bigger roles–Sarasota Opera, New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, to name a few. I believe this has hurt a lot of his younger students. –Mark Delavan, baritone
Diana Soviero has, in the past few years, begun to give back to the industry that has been so generous to her in her own career. My maintain a fulltime schedule with her own successful career as well as fitting in time to teach at the Metropolitan Opera Studio, beginning the Advanced Role Preparation Studio with her husband Bernard Uzan, in Miami, coaching singers at the Young Artist Studio at Florida Grand Opera and the L’Opera de Montreal Apprentice Studio, as well as maintaining a small private studio My experience with Ms. Soviero goes back about 15 years when I first met her and she has inspired me ever since We were reacquainted last November and I was fortunate enough to be accepted into her private studio A dream come true, for me She is not only my voice teacher and coach, but indeed a mentor and constant inspiration I can talk to her when I’m feeling depressed about an audition, or a performance, we can discuss my next course of action in reference to my singing career, we talk about any myriad of things that affect and enhance one’s professional career I look to her for guidance and friendship and I treasure the wonderful relationship we have established She believes wholeheartedly that it is her duty to give something back. She has been singled-out numerous times, by other organizations and given awards for just this very thing–her commitment to young singers! She feels she has been very lucky in her own career and she loves helping and inspiring up and coming artists Her absolute boundless energy and never-ending patience are amazing to watch and that passion for singing is always evident to everyone who observes her I feel that Diana is indeed my “angel “ Since the beginning of our relationship as student/mentor, my life has been completely changed, and I owe it all to her love and support I can never find the words to say just how grateful I am Thank you Diana! –Name Withheld
The late great tenor Richard Cassily was a wonderful, paternal “straight shooter “. He was at once tough, demanding, encouraging and loyal to his students. Once could glean great wisdom from his years at the top of the business, and delight in his myriad stories from a great life in a difficult business. A real mentor. He is sorely missed. –Name Withheld
I have been fortunate to study with Ellen Faull for the past 5 years in the Portland, OR, area where she is in semi-retirement. Miss Faull not only gives generously to her students the savvy she gained from being in the vortex of the career for so many years, but she also has contributed to raising the standard of classical vocal music in the Pacific Northwest and has actively encouraged young artists. –Carolyn Gronlund
Every time Frederica von Stade sang at the Lyric Opera in Chicago she put me on the backstage list so I could come back and see her. She let my father take pictures of us together and we talked about her singing and why she liked singing the roles she did. I am a mezzo with a deep love for Cenerentola, Octavian and Cherubino all because of the sensitivity she portrayed while singing those roles and because of our talks. This was when I was in high school and I’m almost 26 now. She still inspires me! –Name Withheld
Mignon Dunn has been my friend and marvelous teacher and coach for the past 10 years Besides her skilled instruction she was the first person I ever met who “gave me permission “ to trust my own creative process and expression. –Janet Ellis
Teachers Who Mentor
Gary Race, director, voice teacher currently head of Opera-Cleveland Inst. of Music has been a wonderful mentor and teacher Unbelievably thorough and committed to teaching He has been a tremendous inspiration and resource!” –Name Withheld
Gary Race (Opera Director at the Cleveland Institute of Music) has been so instrumental in helping me start my singing career I started with him, feeling so low about my acting and singing, and he slowly brought me up. He gave the tools to becoming a Singer-
