Soprano Sashell Beck knows the coolest places to sing and live in Berlin.
With the presentation of Californian soprano Sashell Beck, this blog continues to publish a series of profiles of young American, Canadian, and British singers who went to Germany to sing and live. Their answers to a small set of questions show what it takes to move to a foreign place, mainly to Berlin, and pursue the career of their dreams.
Sashell Beck. Photo credit: Sven Sindt Photography
Your name:
Sashell Beck
From where? Pasadena, California
What is your Fach? Soprano, somewhere between lyric coloratura and lyric.
Since when in Berlin? I’ve lived in Hamburg for 2 ½ years, but I go to Berlin often to have voice lessons, do master classes, or perform in small productions.
Your favorite role: That I have or haven’t played? Favorite role played: Musetta. She’s a lot of fun because she’s so fiery and it’s a fairly easy sing. Dream roles would include Juliette from the Gounod Roméo et Juliette and Violetta from La Traviata.
What do you think of Regietheater?
Sometimes too “innovative”
Best opera production you saw in Germany: I think that would be a production of Eugene Onegin I saw at Kiel Opera. For it being a smaller house I felt they did a fantastic job with the set in creating space, and of course the singing was amazing.
Craziest opera production you saw in Germany: I haven’t seen any of the “My German opera experience involved giant penis’ on stage” performances unfortunately, so I guess I’ll go with a version of “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” that I again saw at Kiel Opera. There was nothing stand out strange about it. I think it’s just generally a weird opera, and it’s not my favorite.
Your hero in opera:
Renée Fleming.
Your hero in real life: Opera is real life
Two things you like about Berlin: There’s so much going on. You can go to a show every night of the week if you wanted to, and all in different venues. I recently did a production of Le Nozze di Figaro in an old silent film theater that had been closed for 70 years. At one point during a rehearsal a small piece of the ceiling fell down onto the stage, but everyone was all right and it was still one of the coolest places I’ve sung.
(Sashell Beck’s performance at Ehemaliges Stummfilmtheater Delphi, Berlin.)
What you don’t like about Berlin: The occasional smell of sewer can be off-putting.
A story in which you were glad that you spoke German: Everyday. The first year was made much more difficult by not speaking the language.
A story in which you made an embarrassing mistake in German (if you want to tell): One time I was in a coaching and he was saying something about a B♭ vs a B♮. In German B♭ is “B” and B♮ is “H”. I didn’t know this and took a guess and said something about the “BH”, thinking it must mean B♭. Unfortunately BH is just short for “Büstenhalter” which is bra in English. We laughed about it in the end but it was certainly embarrassing at the time.
Your most recent performance: Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Ehemaliges Stummfilmkino Delphi in Prenzlauer Berg with The Berlin Opera Group.
Your next project, performance, and where: I’m trying to bring some of the Berlin culture to Hamburg so my friend Corinne and I have started up Opera on Tap Hamburg. Our next and third performance will be on November 16th at Mathilde Bar Ottenesen with the theme “Family Feud”.
What soprano Samantha Britt finds impressive in Salzburg and Berlin
Samantha Britt at Chelsea Opera. Photo: Robert J. Saferstein
Recently, this blog has started to publish a series of profiles of young American, Canadian, and British singers who went to Germany to sing and live. Their answers to a small set of questions show what it takes to move to a foreign place, mainly to Berlin, and pursue the career of their dreams.
Your name: Samantha Britt
Where are you from? New York
What is your Fach? Lyric-coloratura soprano
Since when in Berlin? My first trip was in 2014
When are you going to go/move to Berlin? 2016/2017
Your favorite role: It’s hard to choose one! Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor
Best opera production you saw in Germany: Ariadne auf Naxos at Stuttgart Oper 2014
Craziest opera production you saw in Germany: It wasn’t in Germany, but in Salzburg, Austria, in 2006, I saw a Don Giovanni which had a rotating stage. During Leporello’s catalogue aria the stage displayed a carousel of examples of Don G’s conquests which included naked women shaving their legs and a girl in a frilly dress around age 8 playing jumprope. Pretty shocking.
Your hero in opera: Diana Damrau and Maria Callas
Your hero in real life: My Grandmother, the family’s Scrabble champion, who instilled in me a love of words!
Two things you like about Berlin: Food Halls and Festivals, always-interesting Graffiti
Two things you don’t like about Berlin: Grey skies and the lack of public water fountains
A story in which you were glad that you spoke German:
In general, when I want to do a yoga class and the only one available is in German, I’m very glad I know my “rechtes Bein” from my “linkes Bein”.
A story in which you made an embarrassing mistake in German (if you want to tell): I can only think of the times when I accidentally said sexual slang while speaking “Denglish”! Otherwise Germans have been forgiving and helped me through my grammatical errors.
Your most recent performance: Soprano solos in Carmina Burana with Camerata Orchestra NYC
Your next project, performance, and where: Sister Constance in Dialogues of the Carmelites with Sakrale Oper Berlin
Your favorite German word: (Also hard to choose!) Augenblick, it’s so much more descriptive than “moment”
What you can do: Bring your CV, cover letter, e-mail drafts etc.
The teacher: Bernd Hendricks, German Language Consultant and author of the book
“Ach ich fühl’s -German for
Opera Singers in Three Acts:
Studying, Speaking, Singing”
Price: The workshop is free. A review of the workshop by the participants in social media, their blogs and the blog “Ach ich fühl’s – German for Opera Singers” would be appreciated. The workshop will be documented with photos, in a video or/and with an article for blogs and other publications.
How two American sopranos founded the Berlin Opera Group and made a splash with their first opera production.
It took a few months after Lyric Coloratura Soprano Atalia Malin and Dramatic Soprano Kelsey Boesche arrived in Berlin to stage a full-blown opera production. In this interview the two Californians talk about their Berlin Opera Group of singers and musicians from around the world, the challenges of the German language, and producing an opera in a foreign city where they knew little of traditions, mentality, and the taste of the local audience.
Kelsey Boesche as Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Figaro. Photo: Paul Lear
AIF: You put together an ambitious opera production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, having lived in Berlin just a few months. How did it start?
Atalia:It started in a living room in the Berlin neighborhood of Schöneberg after we came back from one of the many auditions, but it did not start with the grand plan to produce and perform the opera in a theater. We wanted to perform and get roles on our resume, and therefore we thought renting a church, hiring a pianist and giving a little concert would be a nice beginning. We posted our plans on the crowdfunding sites Indiegogo and Kickstarter and ended up raising much more money than we had anticipated. It turned out that in Berlin other venues like small theaters are not that much more expensive than a church. We found the Ehemaliges Stummfilmkino Delphi where our colleagues of Opera on Tap had presented “Les Contes de Hoffmann” just a few weeks earlier. We said, “Let’s go for it”, for a real production with a cast, costumes and an orchestra.
Atalia Malin as Susanna. Photo: Paul Lear
AIF:What were the challenges?
Kelsey:The first challenge was putting together a cast. I had only been in Berlin for five months and I did not know a lot of singers. However, we were able to assemble an international and a fantastic cast through colleagues we met at concerts and through word of mouth. In Berlin you have tremendous opportunities for collaborations with fellow artists.
Atalia:After we announced our intentions on the crowdfunding sites, a conductor offered us help, not financially, but with his talent. He also helped to bring together an orchestra. We planned only one performance, but added a second due to the huge interest we created. Each night around 80 people showed up.
AIF: And how did the audience react?
Kelsey:As the director, I was a bit apprehensive about doing a comedy as our first opera. I hoped that what I found funny, would also be funny to German audiences. I knew that I wanted to modernize both the production and the characters. I wanted to show people how funny the opera can be, but still have “real” characters with real emotions who are trying to deal with a very complicated situation. Fortunately, my gamble paid off and many people came up to me afterwards and said that it was one of the best productions of Le Nozze di Figaro they had ever seen.
AIF: Why did you choose Berlin as the place to pursue a singing career?
Atalia:I have been in Germany for three years, two and a half of them in the southwest of the country, in the states of Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland. Berlin, however, is the place where every singer from the United States, in fact from around the world arrives, either stays or moves on to other cities. That’s why the atmosphere in Berlin is so lively, constructive, and creative.
Kelsey:Germany has more operatic performance opportunities than any other country. I had planned to move here for some time and I decided on Berlin because I knew it is a city of much culture and history. I am really glad that I made this choice.
AIF: Where and how did you learn German?
Kelsey: I learned German when I was in graduate school at Northwestern University. I knew that I would want to move to Germany someday. So, I took German in school and then later in language programs in my hometown of Los Angeles.
Atalia:Before I moved to Germany, I took German lessons at the University of Redlands. It gave me a foundation but it is a difference if you learn a language far away from the country where it is spoken.
AIF: Why?
Atalia:Here, people speak faster and more natural than in a classroom of a university in America. I stayed where my husband studied, in Rheinland-Pfalz where they speak with a dialect. In the beginning, I had a hard time. I felt forced to be an introvert. I went to parties where people spoke German. I was able to follow, but once I composed in my mind a comment or an answer to a question the conversation had moved on, and I had no choice but to stand by quietly. Today, I understand more. I just sang Papagena at Opera Classica Europa in Frankfurt. After the shows my colleagues and I would go to a restaurant or a bar and I was able to participate in the conversation. They were very helpful and patient.
Kelsey:I think that my German is good enough that I can be understood and I can understand other people. The biggest problem I’ve had is when I receive a complicated e-mail with specific details. Luckily, we live in the age of “google translate” so there are ways around that particular problem.
AIF: What are the challenges in learning a role in German opera?
Kelsey:I think learning a new role no matter what the language is always a challenge. The only German opera I have sung in has been Die Zauberflöte, twice as First Lady, once as Pamina and once as Papagena. However, in recitals, I sing a lot of German arias, particularly Wagner and Strauss, and I absolutely adore the music. For me the biggest challenge with German repertoire is the pacing. The music is so beautiful that you want to sing at your fullest the entire time, but if you do that you will “run out of gas” so to speak. But, once you have found all the spots in which to grow your sound and those where you are tender, it is so rewarding.
Atalia:I actually really like singing in German. Because I live here and am more familiar with the language, it is easier for me to learn a new song or aria if it is in German. Vocally however, it is most challenging to find a way to keep a legato line and simultaneously sing a harsh German consonant clearly.
AIF: What will be next for your opera company?
Atalia:We call ourselves a group rather than a company. We are more like an opera band with singers and musicians from around the world as well as from Germany. We come together for a project and stay together when we decide to do a new one. Our next production will be La Boheme this October at the Brotfabrik theater in the Berlin borough of Prenzlauer Berg. This time we booked the theater for three shows, for October 13th, 14th and 15th.
***
Lyric Coloratura Soprano Atalia Malingraduated from the University of Redlands in 2013 with a Master of Music in Vocal Performance. Her opera roles include The Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte), Suor Angelica (Suor Angelica), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Najade (Ariadne auf Naxos), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Madame Herz (Der Schauspieldirektor), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) and now Musetta (La Boheme).
Dramatic Soprano Kelsey Boeschemost recently performed the title role in Suor Angelica with Main Street Opera in Chicago. Internationally, Kelsey was a member of the International Lyric Academy’s Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy, for three years. There she played Mimi in La Bohème, Adina in L’elisir d’amore and The First Lady in Die Zauberflöte. Kelsey received her Bachelor’s of Music from the University of Denver.
Ach ich fühl's 