As I near the end of my studies at Guildhall, I reflect back on these past six months of my life, a little taster of the opera singer’s life as a travel machine!
I feel very fortunate that not only do I get to do what I love every day of my life, but I also get to travel the world and see the most beautiful sights, even if most times I don’t actually have the time to play the “tourist” as trips are often short. I love staying with Airbnb because it means I get to actually meet and sometimes spend time with locals and the way they live, what they love about living there etc. It’s an extremely enriching experience, and hotel rooms can be quite dead (and more expensive) so it’s a win win!
The term started off with a bang, with a performance in the Clore Studio at the Royal Opera House of the Opera Makers’ Contemporary Operas in which I sang Echo (which I have already written about in a previous blog). Of course it is highly prestigious to have been invited to perform there and needless to say it was an exciting day, as you can tell from our faces (with two of my colleagues, Josep Ramon-Olive and Katarzyna Balejko).
Two days later I was on a plane to Munich for an audition in January, it was snowing when I arrived!! The town centre of Munich by night is breath-taking – picturesque and beautiful, it still retains the charm of an old town. My trip there was an indispensable lesson in considering audition repertoire and management of it for auditions. It also made me realise that perhaps, a young artist programme was not necessarily the next step I wanted to take in my career, which led me to consider the option of going out into the big wide professional world,
at least to gain a bit of experience before committing to more years of studying within an institution! It was also nice to meet up with current young artists in the Munich YAP, including Johannes Kammler who was kind enough to show us a few popular hang-outs in the area.
Next stop (literally) was Budapest, which I travelled to on a long night train journey with my amazing colleague Milan Siljanov! Budapest is very beautiful and retains the charms of a central European city with a twist of Eastern European – the architecture, the language and the food! We performed our Contemporary Operas there, but this time, we were in a beautiful theatre which in my opinion, made the experience far more special, because one feels like they can sing outwards (as opposed to in a studio, where the audience is very up, close and personal…you can tell what is going on in their minds…sometimes what we are performing is rather shocking, so this is not always a good thing!)
It was back to London after that, to continue rehearsals for Guildhall’s production of The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten which we were to perform at the end of February. I was to sing the role of Lucia, a very good role for my voice type. It was a good learning experience on understanding the music of Britten, and the psychological journey of this was very deep. Both director Martin Lloyd-Evans and conductor Dominic Wheeler guided us wisely and warmly through this journey (a very disturbing piece can be rather traumatic), and it was very well-received.
Here are a few dressing room shots with my beautiful colleagues, Elizabeth Karani who played the role of Female Chorus, and Bethan Langford who sang Lucretia.
In March I travelled to Malta to premiere the soprano solo in “Via Crucis” by talented Maltese composer, Karl Fiorini, with the Socjeta Muzikali Peace. I really do enjoy the occasions when I get to work with my fellow Maltese in Malta, and it makes me so proud to see how the musical culture is growing, slowly, but surely.
