Innovative Artists
ABL Aviation Opera Studio Update
“Like almost everything else in the world, the ABL Aviation Opera Studio programme has been completely turned upside down this year due to the outbreak of Covid-19.” INO Studio and Outreach Producer James Bingham talks to us about how the studio is adapting.
We had hoped to stage a one act opera with our singers and director in July, we also had a run of coaching sessions and workshops lined up over the next few months as well as planned outreach activity, and all of this disappeared within a week
Irish National Opera always strives to ensure that we are supporting the operatic community in Ireland to the best of our ability. In the context of the ABL Aviation Opera Studio, this means continuing to provide support for our artists, especially at a time in history when being an artist couldn’t be more challenging.
Whilst it has not been possible for us to run sessions in person, Richard McGrath, our studio coach and répétiteur, has been working hard to find ways of meaningfully delivering coaching sessions with our singers online through pre-recording accompaniments and offering feedback on recordings.
Nathan Morrison and Vourneen Ryan
We’ve also been offering studio members a variety of different seminars, all deliverable online with a collection of guest speakers. Fergus Sheil, Artistic Director at Irish National Opera, led a roundtable with our singers on their career plans following the studio. Nathan Morrison, Associate Artist Manager at Askonas Holt, spoke with artists about the work agents do and what agencies look for when recruiting new artists. Performance Psychologist, Vourneen Ryan gave a presentation and online workshop on stress and anxiety in performance as well as sharing a range of skills and techniques on how to effectively manage this. Finally, actor and accountant, Peter Daly discussed managing tax and finances as a freelance artist.
Like everyone else in the world, the coming months are filled with uncertainty. We at Irish National Opera have to be quick-footed in managing activity that is safe, supportive and of genuine use to our artists. In whatever format, the ABL Aviation Opera Studio will continue to support Irish artists.
ABL Aviation Opera Studio
Inside The ABL Aviation Opera Studio
The ABL Aviation Opera Studio takes on eight artists looking to forge an operatic career each year. The studio offers artists from a range of disciplines; singers, directors, conductors, répétiteurs or composers; training and development that provide a bridge to the professional world of opera. We spoke to director Sarah Baxter, who has been a member of the studio for the past two years about her experience.
I applied for the ABL Aviation Opera studio in 2018 because I had worked with the company as assistant director on their production of The Marriage of Figaro at the start of that year and had felt exhilarated by the experience. In short, I applied for the studio as I was greedy for more.
My background is, I trained as an actor, then specialised in devised and physical theatre and then happily diverted to directing. I had been directing my own theatre work since 2015 and when the opportunity to apply for the studio came along it was the perfect opportunity I was unknowingly looking for. I have always been a freelance artist and I was also excited for the opportunity to align with a company, like Irish National Opera, who have such a clear vision, passion and ambition for creating a diverse programme of exceptional work and connecting with a wide audience.
In my directing work I have never felt the need to adhere to one style or genre – I have worked on comedies, dramas, new work, adaptation, devised work and more. The story and shared experience is what drives me. The possibilities of expanding my varieties of storytelling under the umbrella of opera thrilled me.
And then there’s the music… I had studied piano and music in secondary school and had always been interested in all types of music, including opera. One of the greatest joys during my time in the studio has been the music. Live music, in any form has the ability to arrow straight to the heart. During the past two years my heart has been broken by arias, lifted by choruses, sent racing by orchestras and so much more. Most of my time in the studio has been working as assistant director on productions. It’s been a privilege to share the rehearsal room and theatres with so many extraordinary singers and musicians.
And beyond them, on every production you have everyone else involved – an endless parade of talent and hard work. One of the core things I love about directing is collaboration. Opera is the most brilliant collaboration, not only between art forms, but also people, as the sheer scale of productions mean you could easily be working with over a 100 people on a show. I love this. I love the grandiose effort of everyone mucking in, those on and off the stage, striving towards the common goal of creation of a show. Each time, the impossible becomes possible. I will have worked on six productions during my time in the studio and I am so grateful for each one. Each one a unique experience but a constant throughout is exceptionally talented colleagues who go above and beyond. I have become a better director through working with the people that I have had the opportunity to learn from and work with.
For anyone thinking about applying for the studio, don’t think – do it! You will be met by a world of passionate, welcoming, imaginative and hardworking people. For directors, aside from working on productions there are opportunities to direct smaller projects, to develop skills and to build your professional network. It has been a joy and a privilege to be a part of the ABL Aviation Opera Studio and I’m sure it’ll be the same for the next lucky director.
ABL Aviation Opera Studio
ABL Aviation Opera Studio Masterclass Series – Brenda Hurley
We’re delighted to welcome répétiteur and ABL Aviation Opera Studio Vocal Consultant, Brenda Hurley, to INO this weekend for the second in a year-long series of masterclasses and coaching sessions.
Répétiteurs are a crucial part of the opera process, as Brenda explains, their work involves “teaching opera singers their roles, playing for staging rehearsals from an orchestral score which has been arranged for piano, playing keyboard parts in the orchestra during performances, assisting the conductor, and supporting the singers with corrections and feedback and giving them psychological support. Opera singers cannot always judge how their voice sounds to others and they need an expert opinion. The job fits me like a glove, since I am by nature a team-player and I love the sociability of being in a rehearsal studio with others, be it in production rehearsals or doing one-to-one coachings.”
Originally from Dublin, Brenda trained as a solo pianist in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Trinity College, Dublin and Freiburg, Germany, before studying accompaniment and opera at the Guildhall School of Music and the National Opera Studio in London and her career has taken her to opera houses all over the world. She is currently Director of the International Opera Studio in Zurich Opera as well as holding the role of Vocal Consultant to the ABL Aviation Opera Studio singers where she provides invaluable advice about repertoire, career choices and the opera business in general as well as preparing them for upcoming roles and auditions.
We asked Brenda why programmes like this are important. “The objective of the ABL Aviation Opera Studio is to help singers bridge the gap between study and career and to introduce them to the realities of singing professionally in an opera company, alongside receiving further vocal and career training. It is a wonderful tool for young singers, who may not have experienced this during their study years. In a studio environment they are surrounded by advisors and mentors who have invariably worked for years in the profession and who can guide them in these early steps. In addition, they receive publicity and exposure in a world where getting known is increasing difficult. Having the name of a prestigious studio behind you can be an enormous boost to starting a career.“
The path of a young opera singer can be a challenging one, as Brenda explains, “inevitably, it involves long trips away from home and loved ones or, more commonly, living in a foreign country, sometimes for many years. It can also involve a lot of rejection, regardless of how good one is.” So, what advice would Brenda give to aspiring young singers? “I would encourage young singers to be hard-working, well-prepared musically, to be a good colleague, to be business-like and proactive in seeking employment in an increasingly competitive world, to have an updated website, to prioritise learning languages such as Italian, German and French, to try to find a niche where they can be better than others, be it in standard repertoire or perhaps baroque or contemporary repertoire, and above all to listen to good advice and to be realistic about achieving their goals. Being open to options is important. Choosing to be an opera singer should not be taken lightly and apart from a handful of singers in the world, the “star system” has long gone. It is not for the faint-hearted!”
ABL Aviation Opera Studio
Amanda Feery – ‘As Above, So Below’
ABL Aviation Opera Studio Composer Amanda Feery is working on a new composition, As Above, So Below, to be premiered as part of First Fortnight in January 2020. Here she gives us an insight into this new work and the inspiration behind it.
“no matter how deeply sunken or submerged – there can always be found a celestial, luminous spark that must ascend”
M.F.M Van Den Berk, The Magic Flute: Die Zauberflote, An Alchemical Allegory
‘As above, so below’ is an oft-quoted adage, perhaps clichéd, though it still carries meaning. It is used as a means to comfort one another, but also to understand the mysterious and the familiar in the world around us. The phrase has myriad associations spanning the spiritual and scientific; from the synchronicity of the inner psyche and outer reality, to the aesthetics of beauty and orbits of the planets. It represents the macrocosm and microcosm – multiple realms of the universe all influencing one another. The ‘above’ can represent healing, transcendence, or a higher power, depending on ones beliefs. The ‘below’ is concerned with concealed thoughts and feelings, perhaps knowledge accessible only to the initiated, to those who have experienced it. The ‘below’ is an undercurrent that never really goes away, but is influenced, and can be managed by the ‘above’. My intention was to take this perhaps overused phrase and look at it from multiple angles, using it as a conduit to jolt the conversation around mental health into other places, not exclusively with our modern world, but with a more remote history; of myth and folklore. The title also represents the idea of individual ills resulting from larger societal ills. To me, this conjures up issues around feelings of alienation. I recently heard a TD acknowledge the issue of alienation among young and old in Ireland. They did not offer reasons as to why this might be, perhaps fully aware that our current government continues to perpetuate one cause of alienation; the commodification of everything, from the roofs over our heads, to our forests, to the arts, etc. This issue of alienation is not a recent one; both Max Weber in 1920 in The Sociology of Religion and Ernst Fisher in 1971 in The Necessity of Art talk about how changes in the western world, capitalism, and the prioritisation of scientific rationality led to isolation, alienation, and disenchantment. It goes back to the above and below, the macro and micro, these larger issues influencing the individual. Unsurprisingly, these are issues that surfaced in conversations and in the texts written by participants in the workshops.
As Above, So Below will be premiered as part of How Aria?, a new community opera project taking place during First Fortnight 2020. Over several weeks in September and October, poet Stephen James Smith led writing workshops with service users from St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services that formed the text for the piece.
I was moved by the participant texts, how raw, poetic, funny, and hopeful they were, how quickly they composed, so much expression sitting at the surface. It really reinforced for me the idea of a creative route of expression via words and song, how that can function as an outlet and lead to the expression of something much more direct than if one were having a spoken conversation. It was a challenge for me to assemble the texts together as a whole, but I used them as entrances into themes around mental health, following a very loose narrative path, shaping them around a history of asylum in Ireland, being unseen, stigma, and dark days. That’s not to say that all the texts dealt with the idea of the ‘below’. The piece ends on the ‘above’, on resilience, the Sun, rebirth and new beginnings.
The piece is written for mezzo-soprano, Bríd Ní Ghruagáin, and percussion quartet Bangers and Crash. While the text, and musings on the meaning of ‘as above, so below’ have been a large influence on the musical material of the piece, inspiration has come from other places.
A quote from writer, Mark Fisher;
the 21st century is perhaps best captured in the ‘bad’ infinity of the animated gif, with its stuttering, frustrated temporality, it’s eerie sense of being caught in a time-trap
inspired some of the percussion material in the piece, the idea of a fragmented time, with patterns and rhythms trapped in endless, glitched repetitions. Other parts of the percussion material and vocal part were influenced by the ‘aura’ photography of Susan Hiller. She describes these photographs as “metaphors for ourselves in the digital age”.
Sometimes the musical material is hazy and obscured, while moments in the vocal part play with breath. I was also interested in playing with muffled diction, inspired by Kate Bush’s song Watching You Without Me, where Bush conjures a disembodied vocal through concealed enunciation, only allowing vague plosives and sibilance to get through.
Additionally, the vocal writing comes from prompts in the text – there is anger in there, as well as frustration, and optimism. It was interesting to experiment with the idea of both weariness and defiance in the voice, allowing me to think about different vocal ranges, colours, delivery, and atmosphere.
This project came to me at a time when I was processing loss, and when I probably most needed a creative outlet. For that, as well as getting to meet the workshop participants at St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services, and setting their beautiful texts (hopefully faithfully!), it is the most rewarding creative project I’ve been part of. I want to thank First Fortnight, Irish National Opera, and the staff and service users at St.Patrick’s Mental Health Services for the opportunity to be part of the project.
ABL Aviation Opera Studio
A Masterclass with a Golden Voice
Regular masterclasses with internationally acclaimed artists are one of the cornerstones of the ABL Aviation Opera Studio programme. Studio Singer Bríd Ní Ghruagáin talks to us about preparing for the recent public masterclass with superstar tenor Joseph Calleja which took place at the National Concert Hall ahead of his gala performance there in December…
I am a nervous creature, but I am ambitious. It can be hard to reconcile one part of me with the other. So, an invitation to take part in a masterclass elicits excitement and nerves in equal measure. Joining the ABL Aviation Opera Studio, I knew that I was likely to have to step up and do more of these masterclasses. I had a few under my belt, but my voice is always changing, and with it, my repertoire. I was keen to get the opportunity to sing for experienced, world-class singers. The first such chance for the class of 2019/2020 was with the Maltese tenor, Joseph Calleja.
Fergus Sheil and Bríd Ní Ghruagáin
The preparation…
I ask three questions of each masterclass before I decide what to sing:
1. Who am I singing to?
I think I approach things differently if I know I’m singing for another mezzo, or dramatic soprano. Singing to the home team brings extra baggage. So, while fellow studio singer Andrew Gavin might have to contend with that, I can focus a little more on the material. I hit Google and find out all I can about Calleja. What is he singing currently? What recordings does he have? I quickly ascertain that he has a lot of Donizetti and Verdi in his wheelhouse, as well as big French roles like Werther and a lot of Puccini so those are in for consideration.
2. What do I want to learn?
I’m keen to work on my Italian diction. I have a few Verdi arias knocking about inside my head – one quite short and the other quite new. While both would benefit from Calleja’s expertise, I feel I’d rather bring something more polished, more sung-in and my Donizetti repertoire would give me the opportunity to work on a wider range of issues. I wanted to sing something French as well, as I have been learning new repertoire here too. Aging out of younger roles, I had stumbled across some exciting roles that, if I nailed them, I could sing for the next twenty years.
3. What will I wear?
A perennial question for female singers is “What’s the dress code?” It gives the appearance of us being fashion obsessed, but it is a minefield! You go to a masterclass to showcase not only your voice, but your performance too. So, dressing smartly while feeling alive in your aria is important.
Having parked the Verdi rep, I opt for Leonora’s “O Mio Fernando” from Donizetti’s La Favorita. It has recitative, long, slow passages, and a quick shift in tempo to a brief flash of heartbreak-infused madness – the WORKS! It’s the kind of aria that can show off vocal and acting ability, and also give lots of scope for improvement. My other choice is from the lesser-known Le Prophète by Meyerbeer – “Ah! Mon Fils!” and the character Fidès. Her music is heart-breaking!
A performance for a performer
Rory Dunne and Andrew Gavin with Joseph Calleja
We have a half-hour each with Mr Calleja and the time flies. Working first with baritone, Rory Dunne, Calleja took a single word: “piccina” in Leporello’s Catalogue Aria and opened up a whole other world of interpretation. While taking care never to overrule our artistic choices, he offered another angle to enrich our work. Reflecting on Andrew Gavin’s wonderful high notes, he suggested that sometimes it can be better to leave something in the tank. Just because you can sing an F four phrases from the end, doesn’t mean we always should. Let the final C be as glorious and triumphant as possible, without being foreshadowed. He chatted enthusiastically with Kelli-Ann Masterson about her choice of Donizetti aria and the knowingness of her character, presumably having often sung opposite her. The richness and depth of his stage experience as well as vocal expertise was a well we could have drawn from for hours!
For myself, two things that had particular resonance were his gentle reminder to watch my diction so it does not hamper my sound production, but also to give myself permission to take a pause. He reminded me to take the time I need for a big flourish. If there’s a pause in the orchestra, let them wait. Allowing your voice some room can feel like a diva move, but if you think “I want to give the audience the best possible phrase”, you turn the act into a charitable one instead of a selfish one.
The aftermath
In the moment, I remember thinking ‘I should be taking notes’, but decided instead to keep eyes and ears open and just soak it all in. Later that evening I wrote reams on the pointers he gave me and my fellow studio singers. I think often of the former Munster & Irish rugby player Ronan O’Gara: He kept notebooks as a player and a coach, and can find an inspirational tract, or guiding principle almost at will. This is something I have worked on over the last few years – journaling these experiences so that I build up a library of excellence from which to draw when I come up against a technical or artistic hurdle as an opera singer. Joseph Calleja has added to this library. So too have Andrew, Rory and Kelli-Ann with their artistry and openness. Bring on the next masterclass!
ABL Aviation Opera Studio
ABL Aviation and Irish National Opera Soar to New Creative Heights with the Establishment of its New Partnership
Irish National Opera and ABL Aviation are delighted to announce a new partnership.
As part of a multi-annual agreement, the international aviation investment company take title sponsorship of INO’s opera studio mentoring programme which henceforth will be known as the ABL Aviation Opera Studio.
This creative collaboration between the opera and business world will ensure the continuing professional development, education and mentoring of emerging Irish opera stars. It enables INO to continue the company’s mission of providing a platform for Irish singers and opera practitioners and provide the best-in-class training for its burgeoning artists.
Launching the partnership at The Mansion House in Dublin today, Artistic Director Fergus Sheil said “I am excited to announce this news. We have been very impressed by ABL Aviation’s interest in the development of opera talent in this country and look forward to a fruitful relationship with a commitment to fostering talent and nurturing excellence at its core.”
Furthermore, he said, “INO has received a fantastic reception since our launch in January 2018 and this partnership comes at a time when we can see the positive results and benefits accruing from running our own studio programme for opera artists. This new relationship with ABL Aviation represents great recognition of the reputation we have built in such a short period of time.”
CEO of ABL Aviation, Ali Ben Lmadani said, “We strongly believe in the work of Irish National Opera and we consider this partnership to be a great foundation for the development of the art form and training involved in producing world-class artists. ABL Aviation has a core ethos of innovation which we see echoed in INO. We have a common goal of augmenting our presence nationally and our reach internationally and are pleased to have a partner with a shared vision.
The ABL Aviation Opera Studio programme for the year is ambitious and includes the esteemed Brenda Hurley working with our young artists as a Vocal Consultant, in addition to masterclasses and coaching sessions from world-renowned artists. The studio will also begin a new partnership with The Civic in Tallaght, in which the theatre’s Artistic Director, Michael Barker-Caven, will work with studio artists as Stagecraft Consultant. Studio artists will also work on some of INO’s main stage productions undertaking smaller roles, singing in the chorus and working as assistant director or conductor.
Irish National Opera was selected as a Tier 1 organisation for the Arts Council RAISE programme, an initiative aimed at building capacity to generate significant new private investment including philanthropic investment.
Martin O’Sullivan of the Arts Council said “We are delighted with the success Irish National Opera has achieved from the RAISE programme leading to this exciting partnership with ABL Aviation. It clearly demonstrates the benefits business sees in helping to promote Ireland’s vibrant arts and cultural sector and supporting arts organisations to create and share their significant impactful work.”
