For most people, opera is not the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the name Tallahassee. Yet Florida’s capital city—home of Florida State University School of Music—turns out some of the most talented young singers and teachers on the American opera scene today.
Rated as number five for graduate programs in voice by U.S. News and World Report, the 100 year old music school is the largest in the Southeast and the third largest University-based in the country. Its voice department alone has two voice coaches, one opera coach and nine full-time voice teachers on staff, including renowned lyric tenor Stanford Olson, soprano Yvonne Ciannella, and president of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Roy Delp, who heads the voice/opera area.
Somewhat daunting is the fact that the department serves 282 students, including voice majors, voice principals, music theatre majors and voice secondaries. Young singers might be dissuaded from attending FSU for fear of getting lost in the throng. Fortunately, only 65 of these students are voice performance majors, and that does make a difference.
“In voice performance tracks, we have 12 doctoral students, 24 master’s students, and 29 undergraduates. In addition, we have 24 undergraduate music theatre majors,” says Delp. “All performance majors get at least an hour per week in voice lessons with a faculty member. The remaining 193 non-performance majors may study with a graduate assistant.”
These numbers make the program seem much more accessible for singers seeking a place where they can not only learn, but receive the kind of individual attention necessary to develop their instrument to its maximum potential. Delp and his colleagues feel that their program does provide this.
Though the regular workload for voice teachers is 20 students, at one hour per student per week, many faculty members have other teaching requirements in addition to vocal instruction. In most cases they will teach 14, 15 or 16 students voice performance students.
Roderick George, who graduated from FSU in 1999 with a DM in voice performance, was pleasantly surprised by the instruction he received. “As a whole, I thought it was very thorough,” he says. “I got so much more attention than I expected. Of course, often what you get depends on your work ethic: if teachers see you are interested in achieving a certain goal, they will help you a lot more.”
Current doctoral student Christopher Mitchell agrees that the amount of time he gets with his voice teacher is adequate, but it is the quality of instruction that impresses him most. “The teachers here are amazing—they can give so much in a semester,” says Mitchell. “My teacher Jerrold Pope has a great combination of the artistic and the technical, and his knowledge of repertoire is vast. He also has a talent for being able to find things that work for different students: I’ve seen it with myself and others.”
Also pleased with the quality of instruction is second-year grad student, Kaimi Blaha, who is on the opera track and has Delp as a teacher. “He has gotten right to the core of what I need to work on. One thing I respect about him and most of the faculty is that they are so open and accessible. If you’re working on something that your teacher doesn’t specialize in, they’ll send you to someone who will serve you better.”
While regular voice instruction is available to all students on performance tracks, coaching is a little more exclusive, being reserved primarily for graduate students and those performing in opera productions. Masters in voice students audition for coaching after their first year (as a kind of quality check), and then have a year of coaching in preparation for recitals. Masters in opera students coach primarily with Douglas Fisher, the School’s director of opera activities. At the doctoral level, any student can coach with any faculty member. In addition, all students, including undergraduates, receive coaching when cast in an opera production.
We have good depth in our voice faculty,” says Fisher. “Many of our voice teachers had professional performing careers before teaching. And I would say that in general our students get much more individual attention and performing opportunities than they would at larger, more performance-intensive programs like that at CCM [Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music].”
Performance opportunities, one of the major measuring sticks for graduate voice programs, are indeed plentiful at FSU. They include: Opera Workshop scene recitals, which occur each April; chamber opera productions that provide opportunities for younger students to perform; Music Theater productions; recitals for students in each area and at every level; solo performances with the choir or different orchestras; Baroque ensemble; and voice seminars. And then there is the crème de la crème for most voice performance students, Florida State Opera (FSO).
FSO presents three productions per year with auditions open to all students, even undergraduates. 2001-2002 season productions are Die Zauberflöte, which took place in November of 2001, I Capuleti ei Montecchi, to open on March 29, 2002, and Candide, which will open in June of 2002.
The opera program, a component of FSU’s voice area, provides required performance courses for graduates and undergraduates, mainly through Opera Workshop and FSO roles. And, as at most programs of its kind, graduate students receive preference in casting for mainstage productions. Fisher and the opera area’s stage director choose the operas each year, with their decision based on what they feel best serves the greatest number of students currently enrolled in graduate performance tracks. Then they begin casting.
“We hold individual auditions for each show,” says Fisher. “And productions are almost always double cast. If it’s a tough call between two singers, we may give it to the person who hasn’t had the experience yet. Casting is a balance of how well they do vocally, in languages, acting and stage presence, and what opportunities they have already had.”
Performing in an opera at FSU is a terrific educational experience because the opera department builds almost every production. With its own scenic and costume shops, it can give performers a taste of the professional experience, in which costumes are made for your body, and set construction progresses along with rehearsals.
“Our productions are professional level in regards to sets, costumes, make-up and use of orchestra,” says Delp. “Professional opera companies rent our sets. I would say that even the rehearsal schedules and coaching sessions mirror what they can expect in the real world. In a sense, our students work in a professional atmosphere. They are not backstage painting sets—there is a professional crew doing that.”
First-year grad student Megan Roth, a mezzo, is looking forward to her first major role—she was cast as Romeo in I Capuleti ei Montecchi. For her, as one of a minority voice type, the performance opportunities have been nothing short of excellent, and not just in the area of mainstage productions. “We have Seminar—every other Wednesday, every department has students involved in their programs go to a bigger hall and perform in front of their peers. It’s an hour long and can accommodate up to 12 singers. To me, Seminar is absolutely the best thing because we are always performing.”
Studying with legendary vocal teacher Yvonne Ciannella, Roth is developing her voice along with an appreciation of how the process of voice training works. “I had so many different teachers and techniques in my undergrad,” she says. “Now, after a semester with Ciannella, I look back on things I thought I understood and realize that I didn’t really. She has helped me to figure out for myself what it should feel like to produce vocally. And I have seen improvement already.”
Like many of her peers, Roth chose FSU because she wanted to study with a particular teacher. Though she auditioned at five other schools, her desire to learn from Ciannella was a deciding factor. The tremendous financial aid package FSU offered her clinched the deal. “This school is great about that,” she says. “It has a lot of money to offer students, and with an assistantship you get the chance to teach. Most people are going to have to teach at some point anyway, and I love it.”
Graduate assistantships serve several important functions at FSU School of Music: they provide students with the means to pursue higher education; they give singers valuable teaching or administrative experience that allows them a glimpse of what it’s like to work as a professional in academia; and, by having graduate-level singers give lessons to non-professional voice majors, they free up the full-time voice faculty to concentrate on performance majors.
“We currently have 18 graduate assistants in voice who get anywhere from 9 to 12 free hours per semester in addition to a stipend,” says Delp. “Generally, the assistantships are competitive. The whole faculty ranks the students and strong ones get the assistantships. It’s not automatic.”
Because it is a public university, FSU tuition is a bargain for Florida residents (a paltry $2,400 per year for undergrads and about twice that for graduates), though out-of-state students pay fees more in line with competitive programs at Juilliard, Eastman and elsewhere. This is especially true at the graduate level, which can run up to $24,000 per year when all expenses are factored in. Assistantships are the only way for most out-of-state students to attend. Fortunately, there is a tuition loophole that eases some of the financial stress for those who stick it out: “Once you come here and are a graduate assistant for a year,” Delp says, “you become a Florida resident and your tuition goes way down.”
Soprano Kaimi Blaha, who got a clerical graduate assistantship, found this process worked for her, but with a few problems. “FSU has a late deadline and auditions are also later than at other schools. As a result, they inform people whether or not they have been accepted later than other schools. That puts applicants in a position in which they have to decide whether to choose a school or wait for FSU. When they have other schools offering them things and haven’t yet heard from FSU, they may jump the gun.”
Despite FSU’s affordability, abundant performance opportunities and great teaching staff, the idea of being stuck in a musical backwater like Tallahassee is unthinkable for many singers. The closest professional opera house is hundreds of miles away in Orlando and the most desirable young artist programs even further. Reaching major metropolitan centers like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, where much of the action is, requires an investment in time and money that the majority of students cannot afford. For Roderick George, location was the biggest drawback of the program.
“A major airport would have been nice,” George says. “There are only about two airlines you can fly out of there. Also, I would have preferred that more companies come in and audition students for summer opportunities because, generally, you have to travel so far to do that.” Current doctoral student, Mitchell, adds: “In Tallahassee, there are not a lot of possibilities outside of the school, not like you would have in a big city. You have to fly to New York City or Chicago if you want to do an apprenticeship program.” Both George and Mitchell felt that geography also prevented more major artists from coming in to do master classes. “Marilyn Horne was the only major artist to come in during my three –and –a half years,” explains George.
Even Fisher admits that geographical distance can be a problem for certain students, specifically those who need to be exposed to a lot of professional productions and auditions as part of their development. “The plus side is that this is not a fish bowl,” says Fisher. “When singers come here to study, they are not seen by agents or others until they are ready. They don’t have the kind of pressures that students do at some conservatories. Of course, in terms of exposure to professional performance, the location is a handicap. That’s why we encourage students to audition to apprenticeship programs.”
Delp feels strongly, however, that graduate students pursuing a performance career do get adequate opportunities and exposure to ‘real life’ situations in their program. “First of all, most productions are sung in the original language of the opera, we use supertitles, and we require foreign language training at all levels. We offer students training in auditioning, résumé preparation, and all of the things that go on in the real world. And we encourage them to audition for all the young artist programs. If they need to go to New York for three, four or five days, we let them go. That sets up the real world in terms of opera. Obviously, we are also teaching our students to be teachers.”
Many of FSU’s voice students are, in fact, planning to teach after graduation, more so than at some of the other top programs and conservatories. Three of the four students interviewed for this article consider a balance of performance and teaching to be the ideal career scenario. The fourth student hopes for a major performing career. But regardless of their goals, each of these singers believes that FSU thoroughly prepared them to succeed—or is in the process of doing so.
Says Christopher Mitchell: “I feel extremely ready to teach. In the performance area, it’s hard to say because I haven’t had any roles outside. But in terms of languages, styles and repertoire, I feel very confident.”
Roderick George is, in fact, already teaching at Stillman College in Alabama, his undergraduate alma mater. “I realize every day how well prepared I am,” he says. “All the little things that I put in my tool kit, I can pull them out now. My time at FSU was definitely worth it.”
For singers seeking a balanced program with strong academics and varied performance in operas, scenes, musical theatre, recitals and more, FSU is a great place to go while avoiding the difficulties of living in a major city. It can provide easy access to financial aid, teaching experience, and an almost-professional environment in mainstage opera productions. And it has produced singers who are staking their own claim on the American opera stage today, among them soprano Susan Patterson (see sidebar) and countertenor David Walker.
The biggest disadvantage to the program, as mentioned above, is its geographic isolation from major opera houses and the young artist programs they support. Singers who picture themselves surrounded by some of the biggest names in the business while still in grad school had best look northward and westward for a program to suit their dreams. (Though exposure to Stanford Olsen is a considerable advantage for any developing singer!)
Those seeking a place to discover their strengths, learn solid technique, and focus on developing their voices in a supportive environment may find that FSU has everything they need and more.
