LOCATED IN THE HEART OF LOS ANGELES’S urban sprawl, the University of Southern California (USC) campus is an oasis of culture and learning. Its music department, now called the USC Thornton School of Music, has been cranking out professional singers since 1884. An integral part of this city’s musical landscape for more than a century, the school has deep roots and broad connections throughout L.A. and California.
Still, many aspiring singers might be wary of getting their training so far west. With its sunshine, beaches, millionaires and star sightings, L.A. is a hub of pop culture, not opera, and its laid-back image contrasts sharply with the East Coast sophistication of New York City, the Mecca of the American opera scene.
But a look beyond the stereotypes reveals that L.A. is itself a rising star in classical music. Just consider the growing acclaim of Los Angeles Opera, which features Plácido Domingo as artistic director and brings some of the most talented artists in the world to its stage each season. There’s the world-class Los Angeles Philharmonic, L.A. Master Chorale, an abundance of smaller regional orchestras, and professional ensembles of every description that represent excellent opportunities for young singers to learn and perform. And there’s the USC Thornton School of Music.
Even without proximity to New York City, this school stands proudly among the top ten vocal programs in the country, and for good reason. It has an excellent voice faculty, top-notch facilities, quality performance opportunities, and funding that opens doors for talented singers regardless of financial means. Says voice teacher Elizabeth Hynes, who has taught at USC Thornton School of Music for seven years, “We’re serving a purpose, because there’s a wealth of young talent out here, and many are not ready to go 3,000 miles away to the East Coast at 18 or 19 years old.”
Furthermore, many students see no reason to go east for their education. Take up-and-coming soprano Jessica Rivera, for example. A Thornton graduate who’s currently serving in L.A. Opera’s Resident Artist Program, she’s building a promising career close to home. Though encouraged to move to New York, she chose to stick around after graduation. “I already had a connection with L.A. Opera,” she says. “I received a contract to sing in a couple of the choruses, and I thought it was a great opportunity. So here I am. Right now I’m in production for Tales of Hoffman, covering Antonia. It’s incredible to me that I’m on the stage in an ‘A’ house with people making their careers.”
Adds tenor Randy Bills, a second-year graduate student at USC Thornton School of Music: “It’s a nice place to go to school, especially in Southern California with the great weather. And there’s so much out here in terms of music; I don’t think you can find more unless you live in New York.”
Bills is one of 85 Vocal Arts majors enrolled at the USC Thornton School of Music—47 undergraduates, 30 master’s students, and eight advanced studies and doctoral students. Of these, more than 50 percent receive merit and need-based scholarships from USC and local foundations, and these kinds of scholarships are growing every year. That’s because this city of 10 million people is fat with entertainment dollars and philanthropists looking for a lasting legacy, and what better place to find it than in educational institutions like the USC Thornton School of Music? Marilyn Horne started a scholarship fund here, as did the family of movie star soprano Jeanette MacDonald. And in 1999, philanthropist Flora Laney Thornton gave a $25 million gift to the school that now bears her name and offers a scholarship in her honor.
Those who don’t make the scholarship cut may turn to work study opportunities, student loans or part-time jobs. With tuition and expenses for the 2002-2003 year estimated at almost $32,000 for two semesters, most students do a combination of things to fund their education. Soprano Sarah Hagstrom, who started at Thornton as a freshman in 1996, utilized every financial tool she could in her six years there. “I had some scholarships as an undergraduate,” she explains. “And as a grad student I received the Marilyn Horne scholarship, the Dean’s Scholarship and the Jeanette MacDonald. I’ve also had part-time jobs. It’s not easy, but I think if you want it bad enough you’ll find a way, and they are very good at helping you to put together a package here.”
According to Gary Glaze, chair of the vocal arts Department, many students engage in church singing jobs and other professional opportunities while enrolled in his program. “L.A. Opera has grown enormously, and it often engages our singers to sing in the chorus,” he says. “We have a very happy with relationship with them. Also, a number of singers are singing with LA Master Chorale this year and being paid.”
Good financial aid packages make Thornton accessible to students, and professional performance opportunities are a bonus that provides much-needed income and singing experience for the résumé. But it’s what happens inside the program that has earned USC Thornton School of Music its high ranking.
“We try to keep ourselves at an enrollment level where we can pay attention to every single student,” says Glaze. “Our main goal is to mentor our singers, to help them reach their full potential, and that may not always be in the opera field. We’re training our people in stage decorum and acting, to be more entrepreneurial and find their own place. Some who train with us may have a greater penchant for the theater, and we offer a cross-disciplinary minor in musical theater. We are flexible because we want the best for each singer.”
Baritone Rodney Gilfry—who graduated from Thornton with a Masters in Vocal Arts and has since performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and elsewhere—bears this out. His experience at the school was atypical. “I had the opportunity to be in a few operas,” he says, “but because I lived 50 miles off campus, I opted not to. It was required that all graduate students be a part of an ensemble, so I satisfied the requirement by taking Vocal Chamber Music, in which we sang duets, trios and quartets. I thought it was very accommodating of the school to offer that option.”
For most students, however, the focus of the program is opera, and their goal is to make it into USC Thornton Opera, a division of the Vocal Arts department and the program’s principal showcase. The opera division offers two full-scale operas each year and a major scenes program that give students year-round performance opportunities.
“Our singers have extraordinary opportunities,” says musical director Timothy Lindberg, who has been conducting and coaching at USC since 1997. “Besides the operas and scenes, we perform with the Bakersfield Symphony once a year, and there’s the Jeanette MacDonald scholarship that we want to turn into a third full-scale production. Of course, not everyone gets these opportunities. They have to audition, and getting cast depends on talent level. If you have the potential and work hard, you will get your chance.”
In order to land a coveted role in an opera production, students must audition for the musical director (Lindberg) and opera director, who then choose each role, usually double-casting and occasionally triple-casting. Casting is submitted to the department chair (Glaze) for approval before being announced. According to Dejan Miladinovic, a seasoned professional who was contracted to direct three Thornton opera productions in 2001-2002, operas are chosen with the students’ best interests in mind. “I’m always trying to choose titles in which a lot of students will be involved,” he explains. “We did The Crucible last year because there are a lot of roles, which we double cast. And with The Magic Flute [fall 2002], we triple cast Queen of the Night and Pamina.”
For those who don’t get into mainstage productions, there are other ways to chalk up performance credits: opera scenes, an early music ensemble, recitals, song literature classes with Alan Smith (who receives raves from all of his students and peers), an annual spring concert with the Bakersfield Symphony, various holiday performances and more. “We’re lucky in that every week, on Fridays, we have a vocal forum that gives all students a chance to be heard,” says Glaze. “And of course we have our own studio classes and guest masterclasses.”
Students Sarah Hagstrom and Randy Bills are among those who were frequently cast in operas. Both landed roles in The Crucible and The Magic Flute. They found the experience of working with Miladinovic, Lindberg and other professionals exhilarating and profoundly educational. Says Bills: “We’ve had an excellent stage director in Dejan [Miladinovic] for the past year and a half. He designed amazing sets for both operas. The costumes are really cool—you show up and professional costumers measure you. And our wig and make-up people are hired out from LA Opera. I was quite amazed.”
Such praise coming from a current student might not carry a lot of weight. But even Earle Patriarco, a baritone who graduated a decade ago and now performs at major houses internationally, remembers the productions he participated in with great respect. “The quality of the productions was very high and professional, to the point that when I entered the real world of opera, there were no big surprises except for the fact I was getting paid for something I would do for free.”
Miladinovic, who has staged more than 120 productions with professional companies in the U.S. and his native Yugoslavia, is also impressed by the quality of Thornton’s operas. But he gives much of the credit for this to the voice teachers, who are involved in their students’ vocal progress on every level. “The environment is like this,” he says, “all professors are there from the staging of the opera, through the last dress rehearsal. They are watching carefully their students, working with them, talking with them, improving their abilities. Preparation is wonderful because all of the teachers are professional opera singers, and they exactly know what they are trying to accomplish.”
Most singers agree that getting the right voice teacher is the most important component of a successful vocal education. Thornton’s teachers have solid reputations—as both singers and teachers—and they seem to truly care about the well being of their young protégés. “Our biggest strength is the faculty,” says Hynes. “More and more people are coming to study with specific teachers. Most of us come from performing careers, and we’re more than willing to pass that on. We have enthusiasm for the art, and we’re really on the side of the student.”
Cynthia Munzer, who plucked herself up from New York five years ago to come to Thornton, finds the environment at the school refreshing. Teachers have respect for each other and work collaboratively to ensure that students get what they need to develop. She sees herself as a mentor, technician and career builder for her students. “They have to know what the ins and outs of the career are so they can know if they want to pursue it,” she says. “It’s my job to help prepare them for this, but I also feel that I have to preserve their joy.”
As with other voice programs, Thornton students receive one hour per week of private instruction from their voice teachers. There are five full-time voice teachers who handle up to 18 singers each, and four adjuncts on staff handling anywhere from six to 14 singers, including some non-voice majors. Besides voice lessons, vocal arts students also receive instruction in pedagogy, oratorio, acting, song literature, diction, coaching, languages, theory, history and more. And because the department limits enrollment to around 85 singers, no student is likely to get lost in the shuffle.
Says musical director, Lindberg: “One of the things that I really want to express, being from the East Coast and having done a lot of work with young artist groups, is that the program here is small enough that I can work with everyone, yet big enough that we can attract a high level of singer. It’s a unique kind of balance.”
Limiting enrollment allows teachers to pay more attention to each individual, and it allows students to get to know each other and form lasting bonds. This kind of camaraderie is not only good for a singer’s self-esteem, it can also prove beneficial later on when one gets out into the world. “Some of my best friends in the business are friends I made at USC,” says Jessica Rivera. “I don’t know if it’s typical, but ours was an encouraging environment. Teachers supported one another. They all seemed to work together with the students and programming. I never felt affected by politics.”
For Patriarco, the professional contacts he made in school were invaluable later on as he built his career. “I recently explained to a young singer that you can basically get the same education in all disciplines at any school,” he says. “However, the contacts and networking opportunities at these high-powered private schools are what separate the good from the great. This is what you pay for, and it’s usually well worth it. It’s important who you know sometimes.”
Being a relatively small school in a large private university has other advantages, such as a broader audience for performances, access to the resources of other departments, and more money for facilities. Most vocal programs are notoriously short of practice rooms, and in that area Thornton is no exception. But the school is fortunate to have its own performance spaces for mainstage productions and recitals. There’s the Bing Theatre, a proscenium house that seats 590 and accommodates a full orchestra, Bovard Auditorium, which seats 1,544 and is currently undergoing a major renovation, the 300-seat Alfred Newman Recital Hall with its terrific acoustics, and other, smaller recital venues. “We could use more practice rooms,” admits Glaze. “As for our venues, it’s very competitive to get the dates you want and the hall you want, but we seem to be doing okay in accommodating everyone. We stage our operas in the Bing Theatre. It’s a very good venue. And we have four major recital halls that we use, including the Newman, which is also our newest because it was renovated three years ago.”
Besides adding more practice rooms—a common need at music schools—Thornton could improve in a few other areas. For example, the program doesn’t offer formal instruction in business for singers, though there are masterclasses that address this, and most voice teachers are generous about sharing their professional experiences with students. “I’d like to see a course on the business of singing,” says Elizabeth Hynes. “We are talking seriously about something like this coming up. And I’d also like to see some sort of body movement and more acting for singers.” Both Munzer and Lindberg would like to see a third fully-staged opera added so that more Vocal Arts majors have a chance to be heard in a mainstage production. And student Sarah Hagstrom feels there could be more collaboration between schools at USC, and more promotion of the Vocal Arts department in general. But all of these are minor issues, and many are being considered by the voice faculty even now.
The main question is whether or not USC Thornton School of Music is preparing singers to achieve their goals after leaving the nest. The two current students and three graduates interviewed for this piece were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the school. Rodney Gilfry has no doubts about the value of his education. “It expanded my knowledge of operatic and concert repertoire. I learned sound performance practice and traditions. I learned to love art song, and my knowledge of the art song repertoire increased about twenty-fold. My foreign language pronunciation was further refined. And then there’s the obvious advantage of having a master’s degree if I ever decide to teach.”
And today he’s putting all of these skills to use in a career that takes him around the world to operatic, orchestral, musical theater and recital stages. He also presents a weekly radio show, “Los Angeles Opera Notes on Air” with co-host Suzanna Guzmán on KMZT, 105.1 FM Los Angeles. And he is not alone in his success. Earle Patriarco has made a name for himself internationally, and Jessica Rivera is clearly on her way up. Sarah Hagstrom, who graduated in December of 2002, and Bills, who will complete the program in the spring of 2003, feels confident about their chances of conquering the professional stage.
“I definitely feel prepared,” says Bills. “I think I could do quite well right now, but I’m going to stay on for two years and incubate. I’ll stay here in a good environment and not go out before I’m completely ready. The training here has been really excellent.”
In terms of being totally prepared to be a professional opera singer, Rivera has the final word: “I don’t think anything can prepare you for a career in opera. Only because you never know what kind of experience you’re going to have into until you do it. But there’s so much I learned at USC Thornton School of Music, especially that you have to be true to yourself and your artistic instincts. The faculty helped to develop that in me and was wonderful across the board in pointing me in the direction that I needed to go after I left so that I could succeed at whatever I wanted to do.”
