Ice Breakers
Favorite Questions I ask other Opera Singers
As a freelancer, I really enjoy asking new colleagues certain questions about themselves during the forming stage of collaboration. It is a fun, albeit slightly nosy game of learning about other people’s relationship to music. Here are a few examples, and how I myself would answer, whenever the question is returned to me.
I have not until now left comments open for my posts, partly because at this point only a handful of friends know that I even have a Substack blog, but if that ever changes, I would genuinely would love to hear others’ answers to these questions.
What would you choose as an occupation if you were not in music?
Me: I had always assumed that I would go into Early Childhood Special Education like my mother, but as a child, I aspired to be either a farmer or a librarian.
What is your strangest pre-concert ritual?
Me: I use flower essences, though I do not have the same sensitivity to smell after having Covid.
What operatic character do you think exemplifies your personality?
Me: I would say that I am 60% Mélisande, 20% Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos), and 20% Alice in Wonderland.
Tell me about the last time you were moved to tears by a performance.
Me: Fall of 2023, the premiere of Francesco Filidei’s Cantico delle Creature with Ensemble Modern at the Kölner Philharmonie. I spent intermission weeping in the ladies room and got lost on the way home, in a city that I have lived in for 10 years.
What is a dream role you would never be cast in?
Me: Tatiana, from Eugene Onegin and Violetta, from La Traviata
Hypothetical: You can only sing the music of 5 composers for the rest of your career— who?
Me: 1. Richard Strauss, 2. Gerald Barry, 3. G.F. Händel, 4. Kurt Weill, 5. A living composer who writes as well for my voice type as Strauss and Barry, but probably Kate Soper.
Favorite aria?
Me: “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen”, from Die tote Stadt, Korngold
What would death sound like if it were music?
Me: The final movement (VIII.) of the Quartet for the End of Time, by Messaien
Berlin or Vienna?
Me: Always always Vienna.
Favorite Opera?
Me: Ariadne auf Naxos.