Fat people in horns screaming on stage.
People tend to expect opera singers to be flabby and unattractive. I present Anna Netrebko and Nathan Gunn as evidence to the contrary.
What are some good websites for singers?
What method of support do you use? I forget the exact names that my teacher talked about. Resistance-down was one. He mentioned there were three main methods that singers adopted. Two involved the central abs and one used the side abs. Man I sound so ignorant…
Stereotype: That opera is boring, and that opera singers are pretentious gits that hate all other types of music.
Keeping in shape: It takes daily work. Singing is a lot like athletic pursuits that way: you need rest and days off, but you also need to maintain your fitness and flexibility. If I don’t sing at least 4-5 days a week, I lose ground. Stamina is the first things to go for me, but eventually the sound quality and certain elements of coordination (like the blending of low and high registers to make a balanced sound) start to go. In my case because I’m a bass, my voice starts to get heavy and lose its more lyrical, heady qualities. I took about 6 weeks off this winter for some surgery, and man…I was a mess when I went back to practicing.
Basic elements of technique are more like riding a bike…once you’ve mastered them you will always have more facility than you would if you’d never learned them in the first place. But to be on top of your game you have to keep after it every day.
I adore her!
‘I’m not making this up, you know.’ Priceless stuff.
B. J. Ward also created a funny show and CD, “Stand-Up Opera”.
Well, there’s nothing like one on one lessons for developing your voice. The more often you can sing, the better; choirs are not good for developing the individual character of your voice, IMHO, but they are good for developing your reading skills, your ear, and giving you a chance to sing more often.
I don’t work on volume per se - I find the volume comes from getting out of the way of your voice. Trying for volume often makes the tone quality harsh and forced. The important thing for range is to make sure you gently stretch both ends in a session, eg. try for one more note on the bottom as well as one more note on the top. It can take years to add to your range, so don’t force anything.
That’s an interesting question, as I know lots of singers who smoke, and many more who smoke as an occasional thing. I, myself, love a good cigar or a pipeful with my whisky every now and then, but I’d never do that in a week when I had to sing something major. I just find it dries me out, and something where I inhaled (like ciggies) can’t be good for your lung capacity. If I have more than three cigars a year, I’d be astonished… I’d probably smoke more if I didn’t sing (and if my wife didn’t hate it so)
No, on the contrary, there are many of them for whom I have nothing but respect. Like anyone else, I’ve got my favourites and my dislikes, but for example, Jeff Buckley just astonishes me. I’ve always been impressed with Hank Williams, Sr., and how he uses the simplest means to shape and phrase a lyric while being entirely true to the country style. In my teaching, I frequently refer to folk singers like Joan Baez, Stan Rogers and Gordon Lightfoot as having an ideal ‘naked’ voice. I’d have loved to have sung with Stan Rogers if he’d have thought I was good enough.
A toss-up between “The Bunny of Seville” and the Marx Brothers’ “A Night at the Opera”. The last time I was in “The Barber of Seville”, we were all on stage behind the curtain during the overture. Everyone was acting out “The Bunny of Seville” down to the last detail.
“A Night at the Opera” has made it impossible for me to hear the overture to “Il Trovatore” without hearing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in my head in the middle of it.
I could live without the viking horns, and the fat thing kinda gets me down (I’m packing an extra 10 - 20 pounds myself, but so’s half of North America), but my number one stereotype to get rid of would be the idea that opera singers and opera fans are pretentious snobs. Because of things like the Saturday Afternoon at the Opera/Met broadcast, opera is available to anyone who wants to listen. In Europe, lots of the houses have tickets for 5 or 6 Euros where you stand up behind the seats. I’m in the midst of a school tour of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ right now, and the biggest fun is the grade 1 -3 kids who don’t know anything about opera, they’re just enjoying the story, the music and the singing. I love hearing about people who listen to the Met in the afternoon and the hockey game that night.
So when someone’s image of an opera fan is restricted to Niles and Frasier Crane, or Felix Unger, or the opera singer that was insufferably stuck up on show X, I just want to show them the homeless guy that comes to any free operatic gig in Toronto.
I’ve done it twice - both times as Yamadori, the rejected suitor. Butterfly is a fantastic show - it’s beautiful, glorious, and it’s soooo tragic if it’s done right. A hell of a marathon for the soprano singing Butterfly.
Well, you have to find your groove - if you treat yourself fragile, you’ll make yourself fragile. I take as much physical rest as I can get away with, and we all have to watch out for colds. If you’re really overworked, you can ‘mark’ a rehearsal, eg. deliberately undersing to conserve your voice and energy. I don’t like marking, but sometimes the schedule gets to be too much. The downside is that if you start marking a lot, it makes the conductor and the company nervous that you’re not going to make it through the real performance.
The more you can make performing an everyday rhythm for yourself, the easier it’s going to be when the going gets hectic.
You sang that in Montreal, didn’t you? About 12 years ago? !!! Wow. Now I won’t be able to comment at all on this thread, I’m star-struck. That was an unforgettable musical/artistic/emotional experience. Thank you. If that wasn’t you, then I think it’s awe-inspiring that you sang Wozzeck.
If you were being mugged, what would you yell, and would you sing it operatically?
I can’t begin to tell you how flattered and astonished I am that you remember that production! We were double cast, so you either saw me or Desmond Byrne as Wozzeck, and if I wasn’t Wozzeck that night, I was ‘The Colonel’, as we alternated both roles. But yeah, Sept. of 1995, Monument National. That whole year was a wonderful blur for me working on that incredible piece.
Now, don’t you be star-struck or I won’t know how to react - I’m not a star, I’m just a guy with a weird job who works in public. A star is a perpetually expanding ball of hot gas that will eventually draw in and consume anything that gets too close.
You know, the astrophysicist in me wants to take exception to that. 
The amateur singer in me however knows what you mean from the stories she’s heard from her singing teacher and the way she’s seen one Bass opera singer do just that…
Great thread.
As an opera singer, what is more satisfying: individually nailing a huge passage or note and becoming this…focused vehicle for sound, or finding that perfect interaction with your fellow singers where you are all inside the piece you are performing?
I have a rock band perspective, but to me, opera would have a different dynamic…
Let’s just say that, on the golf course, I’m the designated yeller of FORE! 
They’re independent things for me, and I look for both. Being part of a production that really clicks, or even just one scene that peaks expressively in performance, is immensely satisfying for me – it reminds me of exactly why I think live theater is so special and vital. But there is always a component of individual achievement involved, and I’m trying to do my best singing even as I weave myself into the fabric of a production. That’s especially important if the role I’m singing is a stretch for me vocally. If I come out on top of that struggle, it makes the success of the production much sweeter. If not (and I"ve had a few of those experiences), it’s hard for me to enjoy the production overall.
ETA: I did one very prominent contemporary opera about a decade ago that really got the better of me on opening night. It was brutally difficult, and it showed. After the performance, the composer came up to me and said “my God, you sounded like you were going to ruin yourself up there!”. I said “go to hell – you wrote it!!”
Okay, I’ll be the crass one and ask about money.
Are you able to support yourself and/or your family solely by professional opera singing? Have you ever been able to do so? Without getting into personal finances, what can a journeyman (non-star) opera singer expect to be paid for a production? And how many productions can you expect to be in in a year? Are all or most professional opera singers affiliated with a particular opera company, or are there free-lance opera singers? If you’re with a company, how much can you expect to be paid?
ETA: And what about benefits? Do you generally get any?
Thanks for an interesting thread from another opera fan. 
For my part, I’ve never been much more than an avocational singer. I do get paid, but I don’t have what could really be described as a career. Right now I’m doing two or three shows a year. Most of my income comes from teaching (I teach voice at a university and I’m currently looking for a classroom job, ideally in high school choir, although at this point I’ll take anything). The most I’ve been paid for a show is $600; most of my gigs are in the $400 range. Most of my singing income comes from two professional choral gigs.
So, the short answer is: no, I can’t support myself or my family with singing. Others can. I believe, of the three of us, Le ministre is by far the most active and successful.
I made a go of supporting myself as a singer for about two years in the late '90s and managed to keep a steady stream of work coming in the door, but the money wasn’t good enough to cover the combination of my living expenses, payments on my considerable debts (mostly school loans), and health insurance, which I promised myself I’d never go without. Since 2000, my income has always come from a combination of a day job (in a music-related field, which is nice), a teaching position at a local university, and singing. Singing represented about 20% of my income on my 2007 tax return.
It’s hard to generalize about what people get paid for productions because it’s so variable. Any house that abides by AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists) contract rules has to meet certain fee minimums (usually at least $2,500 or so per production), but smaller houses are usually non AGMA contracts.
The most I’ve ever been paid for one production was $5,000 plus travel and expenses (1999, New York City…3 performances and 3 weeks of rehearsal). The least I’ve ever been paid for a production was $400 (1999, Maine, 3 performances and almost 4 weeks of rehearsal). That last one should give you some idea of how I ended up needing a day job! My current situation is similar to what Fachvervirrt, said in that the majority of the gigs I get these days tend to pay a few hundred dollars at a time.
Concert work is more lucrative for the amount of time involved. Even regional orchestras will often pay at least $1,000 for a series of performances, and those gigs usually only take about 3 days to fulfill, often with the only rehearsal taking place on the day of the first concert. Singers who line up a lot of oratorio work do pretty well for themselves.
In the U.S., singers are very rarely affiliated with specific opera houses, although it is often possible to forge ongoing relationships with local companies in your home area who may turn to you for smaller roles on a frequent basis. Freelancing is more the norm. Being a “house singer” is more standard in some areas of Europe, where you might win a contract to sing all of the lyric baritone roles at a given house for a season, for instance.
Benefits = no. If you’re an active AGMA singer in the U.S., the union keeps a portion of every fee you collect and puts it aside for you to use for health care expenses, but that doesn’t come close to being real health coverage, and if you don’t use that money in fairly short order they repossess the money and charge it to “administrative expenses.” This has happened to me twice.
Most of the people I know who support themselves as singers either had parents who were willing to bridge the gap for them financially while they started their careers, or had spouses who could (and often still do) support them. Getting things off the ground is expensive, and it takes a while to get enough momentum going to entice an agent to take you on and to build a reputation.
Lastly, if one does manage to break through and make a decent career, the money can be considerable. Stars can make what most of us make in a year for a single production at a big house. Superstars (Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, etc.) can often command huge fees (multiple tens of thousands) for a single concert at a big venue. Marilyn Horne’s recital fee before she retired was rumored to be $50,000.
Are musicals and operas two completely different camps of people or are they interchangeable? Do you guys ever take parts in musicals, or is that like asking a baseball player if he plays on the local football team?
That’s one of the most difficult and endlessly interesting questions out there. It really depends on which musicals we’re talking about. There are some that really can’t be done convincingly as opera, and others that can. Sweeney Todd, for instance, has been performed at several high-level opera houses like Chicago Lyric, New York City Opera and the Royal Opera House in London. Something like Grease, on the other hand, would never work. I’ve done two “musicals” as operas: Three Penny Opera by Kurt Weill, and The Most Happy Fells by Frank Loesser (of Guys and Dolls fame). I’ve also done musicals as musicals, although the last one (Guys and Dolls; I was Sky) was in 1999. There seems to be less interchangability in the modern scene; there was a fair amount of back and forth in the first half of the twentieth century, most famously by Ezio Pinza, who was a successful operatic bass before retiring and going on to musical theater. Broadway has in large measure been taken over by the pop/belter sound, which requires a different skill set from opera. There are still exceptions, though.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, La bohème was produced on Broadway as a musical by Baz Luhrman (most famous for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet; also a successful opera director in his own right, mostly in Australia) in (I think) 2001 or 2002.