Your Career: Just One Click Away (Part I)

A web service in the UK can lead you to opera auditions throughout Europe.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an oracle was a female priest in ancient Greece who gave people “wise advice.” Nowadays, advice for singers comes from the London-based digital casting-book Audition Oracle. Its programming system is designed to offer the wisest help that can be given to singers: connecting them with organisers of musical events. In a two-part interview with AIF, Melanie Lodge, founder of Audition Oracle, lays out the benefits of a membership and gives advice to aspiring singers who want to make it in the opera world.

Melanie Lodge, founder Audition Oracle

AIF: How do singers and the organisers of music events use Audition Oracle to come together?

Melanie Lodge: There are several ways that Audition Oracle connects people. Organisers can post a vacancy and professional singers who meet the criteria can apply with our one click application process. Organisers can then offer a job directly or select which candidates they would like to invite for audition. Alternatively, organisers can browse our database of professional artists and offer work directly, or invite to audition, any artist(s) that they feel might be suitable.

AIF: What is the benefit for professional singers?

Melanie Lodge: Membership of Adition Oracle gives professional singers access to the latest vocal auditions and opportunities in the industry. We are the largest source of professional opera, classical and choral auditions in Europe. Artists can upload their CV, publicity materials and media to enable employers to find and view them based on their experience, voice type and more.

AIF: How much does the membership cost?

Melanie Lodge: Student professional membership costs £54/year and professional, £99/year. Audition Oracle offers a free 30-day trial to singers so they can experience directly how beneficial the service is before becoming a full member. Membership to the service includes access to a mobile friendly work and auditions board that keeps them up to date with hundreds of auditions, work and Young Artists Program opportunities throughout the UK, Europe and North America every day.

AIF: Presenting a centuries old art form, Opera houses and agencies might be hesitant to embrace the use of digital technology. How do you convince opera houses and agencies to change their habits of recruiting singers the traditional way?

Melanie Lodge: We find that once we have helped a company or an individual employer out, they have been swift to embrace our system and continue to use it without prompting in the future. Many companies have registered their own account and choose to receive applications for their opportunities exclusively via Audition Oracle.

AIF: What happen when singers apply?

Melanie Lodge: When singers apply via the website for an opportunity, they can do so at a click of a button as their CV’s, media files and experience are automatically attached to the application. This saves companies precious admin time, protects their email inbox and organises applications into one format in one designated space. Here companies can clearly view individuals name, head shot, voice type, cover letter, CV and all associated media from their applications and sort them to follow up as required.

More information can be found at https://auditionoracle.com

Soon: Read part 2 of this interview – Melanie Lodge’s advice for auditions and how to get hired again.

 

 

Tosca Writes Poems and Sings Them, Too

For London-based soprano Katerina Mina, generosity of emotions is the most important trait on stage.

This blog continues its series of profiles of young American, Canadian, and British singers who sing German repertoire. Their answers to a small set of questions show what it takes to pursue the career of their dreams. Katerina Mina’s singing ranges between Wagner and Puccini, Barber and music to her own poetry.

Photo: Shantha Delaundy Photography

From where?
I was born in Cyprus to a Greek father and a Cypriot mother.

Your Fach?
Spinto Soprano

Your favourite role:
My absolute favourite role has to be Tosca! I’m so looking forward to performing this role next year in a tour in the USA with the American National Opera Company.

Your hero in opera:
Joyce DiDonato

Your hero in real life:
My beloved mother Anastasia

Your recent performance:
Dvorak’s “Stabat Mater” & “Te Deum” in Bishop’s Castle, England.

Best opera production you saw in Germany:
“La Forza del Destino” at Bayerische Staatsoper.

Craziest opera production you saw in Germany:
“Faust” at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

The biggest challenge in singing German opera or Lieder:
Organising and forming the consonants in such a way that they are prominent, yet part of the legato line.

The latest opera production you’ve put on stage:
Santuzza from Mascagni’s opera “Cavalleria Rusticana”, one of my favourite characters of verismo opera.

And the reaction of the audience was …
It was such a great feeling to experience the love and warmth of the audience, something I am very thankful for. After I changed fach recently from the lyric to the more dramatic soprano repertoire, it is also very encouraging for me to receive the positive reaction of the audience, colleagues and my mentors.

As Elle in Francis Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine”

Your next project or performance, and where:
Next week I am recording a new CD Album with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, with Maestro Grzegorz Nowak. The recording will consist of many beautiful arias from the Spinto Soprano repertoire including two German pieces, Leonore’s aria from Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and Elsa’s Dream from Wagner’s “Lohengrin”. There will also be arias by Puccini, Verdi, Cilea, Giordano; Samuel Barber’s “Andromache’s Farewell” and two world-premiere pieces written by Swiss composer Stephan Hodel on two of my poems with titles “Love” and “Angel of Fire” . It is the first time my poetry is set into music!

Your favourite quality in a singer:
I love sincere singers who possess an individual sound in their voice and who are emotionally generous on stage.

Your favourite German word:

Natürlich.

Find more information about Katerina Mina at www.katerinamina.com/

Watch and listen to her performance of “Vier Lieder” by Alma Mahler-Werfel.

 

 

 

 

 

Schade, mein Idol!

The British soprano Kirstin Sharpin on favorite singers and favorite words.

This blog continues its series of profiles of young American, Canadian, and British singers who sing German repertoire. Their answers to a small set of questions show what it takes to pursue the career of their dreams. For soprano Kirstin Sharpin it means also to find her home in Berlin.

From where?
Scottish Kiwi or Kiwi Scot, depending on your point of view! Born in New Zealand, huge Scottish ties and family, moved there in 2001 and eventually gained British citizenship. My family is scattered all over the world, though.

 

Photo: Axel Michel

Your Fach?
Jugendlich Dramatisch Soprano

Since when in Berlin?
January 2015

Your favorite role:
That’s tricky! I’ve enjoyed different aspects of all my roles – Elettra, Tatyana, Suor Angelica, Vitellia, Leonore (Beethoven) are some of my favourites to date. Valkyries are fun, too.

Your hero in opera:
I grew up idolising Dame Joan Sutherland. Then she was replaced by Jessye Norman, Régine Crespin, Birgit Nilsson…. Sorry, Joan!

Your hero in real life:
I admire people who don’t choose the easy road, who break the mould and go for what they believe in. I’m very lucky to have a number of people like that in my life, and they are my heroes.

Best opera production you saw in Germany:
Lohengrin at the Deutsche Oper Berlin or Elektra at the Staatsoper – I can’t choose!

As Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo. Photo: Robert Workman

Craziest opera production you saw in Germany:
There was a Fliegende Holländer I really couldn’t find the key to. Still puzzling over that one!

Your recent performance:
I had the huge privilege and pleasure of singing at a benefit for ‘Pulse of Europe’ recently. It was organised by Alban Gerhardt, and I sang a special arrangement of Wagner’s ‘Träume’ with some of the best musicians in Europe, if not the world. When you struggle to sing because the playing is so beautiful… that’s a real treat.

A thing or habit of Germans you find funny:
It’s very unfair of me, but I do find the use of “oder?” at the every second sentence amusing, especially when it gets translated literally into English!

A thing or habit of Germans you find annoying:
I’m not a big fan of the high specificity of much of German bureaucracy/rule-following behaviour – a little room to improvise/adapt/use your own judgement is sometimes necessary.

A story in which you were glad that you spoke German:
Every day! I started with almost none, and can now have reasonable conversations in most circumstances. I love being able to build pleasant relationships with the people I encounter regularly, and having a language in common helps hugely with that! You also get to find out how many Germans are huge opera fans (and often, why – the assistant at my local Apotheke has very strong opinions on Tristan & Isolde!)

Your favorite quality in a singer:
I love hearing singers who take risks to convey the emotion of their characters. Even if it doesn’t quite work out, or isn’t the most beautiful sound, there’s a truth in it I can’t get past.

Your favorite German word:
Schade! So useful to have an all-purpose, non-rude exclamation.

Listen to Kirstin Sharpin singing “Einsam in trüben Tagen” from Wagner’s Lohengrin.

More information at www.kirstinsharpin.com