Erasing the "I"
- Molly
- Apr 1
- 6 min read
STUDIO NEWS
Madeline Friesen (UNT - BM) finished her first year as an apprentice artist with Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She also sang Cherubino for UMKC, where she is pursuing her MM degree. This summer, Madeline will appear as Olga in The Merry Widow and the Baker's Wife in Into the Woods at Opera in the Ozarks. She will return to Lyric Opera of Kansas City next year as an apprentice artist.
Han Hsiao (UNT - DMA) debuted as Tatjana in Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin at Weiwuying National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan. Upcoming engagements include Mahler's Symphony no. 2 and Symphony no. 8.
Julie Liston Johnson (UNT - DMA) recently sang the leading role of Ellida Wangel in the world premiere of The Lady from the Sea, an opera composed by Ray Luedeke based on A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. Performances were held at Symphony Space and the National Opera Center in New York City. Upcoming performances for Julie include singing in Dalibor by Bedrich Smetana at Bard SummerScape, a recital with pianist Emma Luyendijk, and continued performances of Pieces of 9/11: Memories from Houston by Jake Heggie.
Spencer Simpson (UNT - MM, and current GAC student) will be a featured soloist in the UNT Symphony and Grand Chorus performance of Honegger's King David this month. Also in April, he will sing in a master class with Patricia Racette. Earlier this season, Spencer sang the role of Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte with UNT Opera, and appeared with Orpheus and Verdigris, two Dallas-based professional ensembles.
MSU = Michigan State University, UNT = University of North Texas
STUDIO MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Shelby van Nordstrand (MSU - MM) recently joined the faculty of her alma mater, Iowa State University. She also serves as Vice President for Conferences with the National Opera Association and in regional leadership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Shelby graduated from Iowa State with a music education degree, then completed her MM degree at Michigan State, working with Molly Fillmore. Shelby has appeared as a soprano soloist from the United States to Indonesia, China, Japan, Hawai’i, Lithuania, and Oman. She is the singer on Storms & Stars, songs for soprano and piano by Jodi Goble, and is a featured soloist on the upcoming album of Regency songs, Let us the fleeting hours enjoy! She was awarded an honorable mention in The American Prize, Women in Art Song in 2023. As a teacher, her students have been named winners of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Student Auditions at the state, regional, and national levels and winners of the National Opera Association's Collegiate Opera Scenes Competition. Previously, she served as Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Nebraska Omaha. @shelbyvn
Congratulations, Shelby!
REFLECTION - Erasing the "I"
To a certain extent, the question of "how much of my true, relaxed self do I bring to this situation" comes very often, if not daily. In more formalized settings, like a job, we tend to need to conform, to some extent, in order to present the professional persona that will allow us to succeed. This need not be much adjustment from how we are at home - it may be as simple as wearing a certain kind of clothing seen as 'professional-looking' for that work environment. Most things we do like that are relatively minor. On the opposite end is professional acting, an extreme example, which in some methods, involves becoming another 'person' to the furthest extent possible, by wearing make-up, adjusting hair, even speaking with a differently-pitched voice and/or accent, etc. One can completely 'erase the I' and immerse oneself into the character. Some of the world's best actors can become unrecognizable from film to film, or play to play, and in that context, the result can be a perfect manifestation of an actor's craft.
In an theater class I took as a freshman at American University, we had to perform a monologue of sorts, so I chose a speech by Cassius, an ally to Brutus and foe to Julius Caesar, in Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar. I remember marking up my text with all sorts of symbols to reflect where I wanted to raise my voice in pitch, where I wanted to speak more slowly, or more pointedly, and so on. In what I will call "regular acting", we have the freedom to essentially compose our spoken rhythm and pitches.
What happens, though, in opera acting? In earlier years, I had the attitude that opera acting and regular acting should be basically the same.
But my opinions about that have altered, and recently, an email from a former student made me realize how differently I view encompassing the “I” in our craft than I used to, and of course, like much that we do, it translates into other facets of our lives as well.
A studio alumna, Camille Ortiz, sent me a clip from her performance of Pamina at Seattle Opera last month. As I watched it, I thought happily, “There’s Camille, and there is her special voice!” She was acting the role beautifully, which resulted in a captivating Pamina. But she was also still recognizably Camille, both in terms of mannerism and sound. That is what made the performance so wonderful. As another example, I'm sure that, when people went to hear Maria Callas perform, they did not think, "I hope Maria Callas is unrecognizable in voice and manner tonight." Certainly not! They wanted to hear that special voice, and see the special way in which she acted as she produced her unique tones.
What that viewing experience made me ponder was how much of a unique task our opera acting is. I no longer believe we should attempt to erase ourselves from our characters, as one likely aspires to in regular acting. Our acting rules are simply different, largely stemming from such realities as these:
The composer has predetermined the pitch of our voice in each line.
The process of our loud tone production demands a full-body engagement which does not always allow for certain postures or physical actions to happen, let alone be sustained for a long duration
The composer has predetermined the length of each syllable.
The composer has predetermined the rise and fall within each phrase, and therefore its intrinsic momentum and point of greatest intensity
As opposed to my acting project in theater class, in opera acting, we cannot look at a text and make all kinds of decisions about pitch, inflection, and pacing of the words. That has been done for us. We can, though, understand the uniqueness of our voice, how our bodies produce that unique sound, and create movements for our characters which appropriately merge the storyline and the physical demands of very loud singing. Opera acting requires more of our uniqueness (voice, physical mannerisms), more of our "I".
We should not, in opera, attempt lose our own identity as we perform. We should, instead, embrace our unique sound, the crux of our craft, and add that proudly on top of the character. Think of it as an equal partnership: your voice and the character, a mutually beneficial collaboration.
Similarly, the more we trust ourselves to bring our unique life experience and perspective to all that we do, the more creativity we will produce, because no one else can offer to the world what each of us can. Singers, please never erase your 'I'!
FEATURED FRIEND
Diesl joined our family in 2016. He was left at the Denton Animal Shelter with the word "unwanted" on his intake card. :-(
My husband, Wes, picked him out, and since then, Diesl has never been 'unwanted'! Diesl's alternate name is "The Sheriff" because when we were fostering kittens, he always was the first to want to check out who they were and what they were up to.
Diesl has a very distinctive meow, and an equally distinctive personality. When he closes his eyes, it looks like his face disappears because he is so monochromatic in color. Diesl is named after my cousin's former cat. She lives in Austria, so when we named him, I gave him the "sl" ending of his name, since that spelling is prevalent in that part of German-speaking Europe (e.g., the name Liesl).
We love our house panther!
Let me know!
If you are a studio alum or current member and have news to share (music-related or otherwise!), or would like to be featured (or would like your cat, dog, et al. to be featured), click here!
With gratitude for my students and for the craft of teaching,
Comments