The first company survey/profile: DragonDiva Operatic Theatre

About eight months ago I published a post wherein I talked about getting some of the small and medium sized companies to answer some questions so that I could put together profile posts of their companies on the blog to get a state of the industry for singers who haven't yet made the jump to A and B level houses. The thought was that, in addition to a little bit of PR for the companies involved, singers could have their questions answered without having to email every company to ask. I'm also willing to ask questions that most individuals don't. It's also a good, if brief, look at some of what goes in to setting up auditions and a production, as well as the costs involved. The answers are pretty much verbatim with the questions in bold and the responses following. As always, let me know if I've missed a question that you want answered.

Well, I may not be fast, but I'm slow. My friend and colleague John Arsenault, Music Director of DragonDiva Operatic Theatre has bravely volunteered to be the first one up. DragonDiva has been around since 2007 and is run by a dedicated group of singers who saw a gap in performance opportunities in Vancouver and actually decided to do something about it, for which they should be loudly applauded.


DragonDiva Operatic Theatre
Location served: New Westminster/Greater Vancouver Area
Number of productions/year: 2
2009/2010 season's operas: Iolanthe - Gilbert and Sullivan
Hansel and Gretel (in concert)- Humperdink
2010/2011 season's operas: Cendrillon - Massenet
Hansel and Gretel (staged) - Humperdink
Approximate annual (or per-production - please specify) budget. I know that it varies, but try to guess: Approximately $8,000-$10,000 per production
Rehearsal period length and frequency:Generally. we rehearse 3 times a week for 3 hours each rehearsal.
We rehearse in the evenings so as not to interfere with "day jobs". For a typical show we will have 2 weeks of music rehearsal, 5 weeks of staging, and a tech week.
Are rehearsals generally evenings or days? Evenings.
Number of performances per production: 4-7
Performance venue(s) and size:Mainly the Bernie Legge Theatre, Queen's Park, New Westminster.
What are your ticket price ranges?$18
Typically, are your productions with orchestra, piano, or small instrument ensemble with piano?Sometimes piano, sometimes piano with small ensemble.
Are your roles paid? Lead roles? Secondary? Small roles? Chorus?Unfortuately not. We are only a 3 year old company and are still building our "nest egg". We just beacame eligible for grants last year, and so were able to offer the value of the grant to our cast as an honorarium (approximately $50 each). It certainly wasn't much, but maybe covered some gas money for trips to rehearsals. We are very much working toward paying our singers, as we strongly believe in performers being paid what they are worth. Our board has four regularly working singers on it, and our Artistic and Music Directors are both professional opera singers, so we certainly value our casts.
Do you have a relationship with Actor's Equity/Union des Artistes?No (and yes) see below.
Regardless of a relationship or not, how does Equity effect your management of your company?We are absolutely limited at the moment. The Artistic and Music Directors are Equity members. We often have colleagues who we work with in a professional capacity who are interested in taking principal roles with our company, however at this time, with an $8-10K budget per production, there's no money left for Equity contracts. Of course we hope to change that in future. So at this point, the artist has to approach Equity to ask for permission to do our show. Equity has been quite gracious so far, but at some point the grace period will end.
What is the typical level/amount of performing experience that your lead and secondary singers have?Generally our leads are graduates of a university level opera training program, or at least current students in an opera training program. Our secondary roles are often either students or avocational singers, but sometimes they are also graduates of university level training programs as well. It really depends on the show, for example a G&S show tends to bring out a different kind of singer than say, Cendrillon!
When do you hold auditions? Generally in the spring of each year (March or April)
Who do you want to hear from when you audition singers? Established artists? Fresh faced kids hungry to prove something? Anyone who wants to be in a show. We've had everything from high school students to seasoned performers to emerging young professionals in our shows. We think everyone brings something valuable to the table.
How far in advance do you cast? We cast about 3 months in advance of the first rehearsal.
How far in advance do you choose productions? We have a general 5 year plan. So, we know what we would like to do over the next five years, but we finalize approximately one year in advance. Sometimes it is necessary to change the show depending on our current financial situation.
When you audition, do you want to hear arias from the operas you're casting, or not at all? We're open to hearing arias from the opera. However, I want the singer to sing what they feel shows off their voice the best. You don't need to sing the aria from the show for us to hear whether your voice will fit it or not. So, I encourage people to sing what they sing best. However, if you feel that the aria is a great fit for you and you would us to hear it, I certainly am not opposed to that either.
How often do cast members get re-cast in other productions if they do well in their first one? It is impossible to hear a singer and discuss their potential casting in a show without remembering the excellent (or not so excellent) work they have done for you in pervious productions. I would say it is quite influencial. Often you will have someone in a supporting role in one show, and if they do a really great job and they are vocally appropriate for the lead next time, we certainly would tend to consider them for a bigger role.
In an audition: Sing it or act it?A little of both. Sing as you would sing in any other performance. You don't need to go over the top with the drama, but please look alive. Our director is very capable and can show you what to do on stage, but we do want to see that you can be engaged and present in your performance.
What else would you like singers to know about your company?We would like singers to know that DragonDiva is a company that LOVES singers. We are here because we are professional opera singers ourselves and we know how difficult it is when you are starting out to find opportunities to get on stage and hone your craft. We do regret that we can't offer compensation at this time, but we will not ask you to pay any fees to be in our shows. We do fully staged productions with sets, props, professional lighting, newly built costumes and though we do our shows with piano rather than orchestra we hire one of the top opera pianist in our city, who is also on staff at Vancouver Opera. We also make DragonDiva a safe and collegial working environment, where a singer can feel comfortable with themselves no matter what their current level of experience.

Who wants to make a CD?

It seems like a dream to get your own CD. Whether you self produce, or have a label fall on you with heaped praise, a CD is your ticket to fame and riches right?

Well, maybe if you believe that it's good PR and not much more. With a lot of discussion about file sharing taking money out of artist's (potentially your!) pockets, it's worth taking a look at what kind of sales numbers are required to really make an album your ticket to the lap of luxury.


Here's a chart from Information Is Beautiful detail the kinds of sales, from what mediums, an artist has to sell to make (US) minimum wage in one month. It's not pretty. (Click the image to see the right hand column if it doesn't display normally).


Maybe recordings solely as promotional material are a better bet.

Read the article at InformationIsBeautiful.net

Your input needed: Canadian opera company profiles

I've promised to do it for a while now but I'm finally putting the questions together now: I'm going to be asking some of the Artistic/General Directors of some of the small and medium sized companies in Canada to fill us is on what it takes for them to run a company and what singers can expect when they audition/work for them. What I need from you folks are the questions that you'd like to ask companies.

If you had the ability to ask anonymous questions of the Opera Company Gods, what would you like to know? Auditions? Money? Production nuts and bolts? I'll try to include most of the questions in the email that I send out to them (although I can't make them answer them,) so let me know as soon as you can because I'm going to be sending the first batch out right away.

And, if you run a company, let know if you'd like a profile post up on the blog. The questions shouldn't be too painful :-)

Email me at gtheule at gerrittheule.com or leave your questions in the comments below.

Free Classical Singer subscription

Alright, I suck. It's kind of been a busy month and the blog's fallen by the wayside but at least I'm back with something good:

Classical Singer magazine, which started out life as The New York Opera Newsletter and was really the only place to get opera audition listing for a very long time (until Yap Tracker,) and who's forum spawned NFCS after some bad blood between some members, has a pretty great deal surfacing via their Twitter account: A free subscription to the web service.

By going to www.ClassicalSinger.com/onefree.php and signing up you get access to a number of things but most importantly the Audition Listings and the Magazine Archive. The audition listings are great because, although they're not as thorough as Yap Tracker's they are purely company submitted so you know when you send a package off to a company listed that they want to receive it. The catch is that it's only for the first month after which it's $12/year (regularly $52/year so there's that).

But for my money, the real gem is the magazine archive (which doesn't go away after a "trial" period). Here's why:

For a long, long time, before the Opera America Career Guide books (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should!) everyone who was anyone who wrote articles for auditioning singers wrote them here. To be honest, most of it was before my day but in the short time that I've been looking through them, there are some really great thoughts put to paper from people who know what they're talking about.

Long story short, use the link. Sign up. It couldn't get any easier!

Getting singing grants

Okay, this posting frequency is just getting sad but it's a busy time of year. Hanukkah, then Christmas, then New Year's means lots of obligations and lots of singing. Who wants to count Messiahs with me?

But with New Year's coming up I want to talk about resolutions. I want to start applying for more grants next year and fortunately I've found a site that can help. What's more, it a government site so I know that there's no vested interest in the site. The only down side is that it only covers Government grants (but not just Federal - provincial too).

CultureCanada.gc.ca is the Fed's repository of arts grants. Splitting the grants into a bunch of different categories with a handful of search narrowers, it covers, for us opera folk, not just "Music" but also "Performing Arts." There are some other resources too, and although not all of them (or even most of them in fact,) cover singers/opera, there's enough here to get your search started the next time that you have a project in mind that needs funding.

Happy Hunting!

Opera Atelier takes a loss

Okay, essentially they broke even. The 08/09 numbers are out and they took a loss of $68k on a budget of $2.3 million. That's not bad - I can barely balance my cheque book that well. Unfortunately the shortfall means that senior management is taking a 3% pay cut, though the article says that singer's pay isn't affected (not that it would be under either individually negotiated contracts or under CAEA minimums). Looks like it's time to feature Colin Ainsworth naked on the advertising posters again next season!

Regardless, they did show some great numbers in the mix with subscriptions up 31% and more than $1 million in fundraising money.

Singing day jobs

There's a great article in the Calgary Herald today where they take a look at the cast of Calgary Opera's upcoming Manon, but not in the traditional way: They find out what they do for a living. Yes, we all sing and even make money at it every once in a while but it's neat to see that it's not just me that needs to supplement in between shows. For this show the non-opera jobs range from lawyer to contractor to trucker.

As for me: I freelance doing Partnership Development (helping businesses work with other businessess), project management for non-profits (I helped run the Toronto Halloween campaign for UNICEF a couple of years ago), and some occasional web coding and, need be, design.

Anybody want to 'fess up to their day jobs? I know you're out there.

Audition fee rant

Not my rant, mind you. I rant enough. Today I'll leave the ranting to the sensational Susan Eichhorn-Young over at the Once More With Feeling blog:

Where does this money go? It's my money, if I am applying and I would like to know, if I am not granted an audition, what I have just paid for. This business is a business of rejection - I don't need to pay money to be dealt it too. We all get enough of it daily!

There's more, here.

My favourite time of the blogging year

Ahh, it's that time again! Kim Whitman over at the Wolf Trap Opera Blog is gearing up for audition season. If you're unfamiliar with it this means that from now until the Wolf Trap audition tour is over, this blog should be visited daily by every singer out there, Canadian or not. Right now we're in the middle of the "Fall 2009 Audition Season Mini Course" covering everything from Depth vs. Breadth in choosing audition rep, to a guest professional every Friday weighing in on their take on auditioning. All of culminates, of course, in a daily run down of what she sees during the auditions and the famed "Aria Frequency List" detailing how many of what aria was offered at this year's auditions, (last year's is here). Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic! Go Now!

Competition season

With competition season upon us, it's time to brush up on the little ins and outs that make competitions different from an audition. For most, auditions mean that you're up against a small handful of people for a specific role whose requirements are often nebulous: Tall, short, fat, skinny, smooth tone, comedic - who knows what's wanted for this particular production. For me, particularly as a bass, it also means that my competition is limited to those within my voice type. In an open competition, especially an international comp., there are a lot of other factors at play.

One of the best singer blogs out there, Jean-Roland LaFond's "Toreadorssong's Vocal Technique Blog," covers some of the factors at play here in a recent post. An example from the post:

Know the politics of the situation

The French-Quebec prize was given to a young French coloratura. The prize is a series of concerts sponsored by the Quebec organization directed by said judge. The same coloratura was indubitably edged out in the mélodies category by a fanstastically gifted French baritone who received well-deserved bravos for his performance. However the two prizes for that category (1st and 2nd) where changed to two first prizes, and the soprano was announced first. The same soprano was also a finalist in the opera category and was given first place in the female category although a Russian coloratura with a near flawless technique edged her out, in my opinion. It might have appeared strange if she had also won the overall grand prize. That honor went to a French-Chinese soprano. The prize was announced by the mayor of the town who reminded the audience that this soprano had sung the soprano lead in The Pearl Fischers two years before in the town where the competition takes place.

This entire blog is a fantastic look at vocal technique from one of the modern day gods of technical vocal workings. I never read his blog that it doesn't give me something to think about vocally but check this post out for a first hand account of some of the concepts surrounding competitions.

Winning International Voice Competitions via Toreadorssong's Vocal Technique Blog

Singing Stateside - getting work (and Visas) in the U.S.

As much as we'd all love it to be true, there's just not enough work up in Canada to make a fully fledged career. If you want a chance at doing this full time, you'll have to head elsewhere for at least part of the work.

Europe is great. It's easier to get E.U. work visas with an offer, and German Fest contracts, if you can get one, set you up for a year of paid (hard!) work. There's a great blog by an English singer called "An Englishwoman Abroad," who is writing her experiences down. I particularly like it because it's about the experience as a whole, not just the music or house.

For most of us, though, the U.S. is definitely closer. The initial investment of flying to Miami to sing your two arias is significantly less than making your way to Dortmund to do the same. Factor in same languages and the fact that you can be home on weekends if you need be and it's a great place to start expanding. The question is how.

A lot of singers enter a catch-22 when they try to audition down south: A lot of small and mid-level houses need for you to already have a visa before they'll hear you. It costs a lot of time and money for them to arrange one for you so you'd better be pretty awesome to get them to do that. (If you're reading this blog post, instead of getting your rep at CAMI to arrange your visas, it's not you I'm afraid,) The kicker is that you need a contract signed and in hand to get a regular performing visa yourself.

So what do you do? Everybody's favourite forum had a little thread on this last week and I think that it pulls together some really valuable information. The main things to get out of it are that college teaching is a great way to get a visa, and that the American Federation of Musicians (if you're a member - most singers are not,) can help grease the wheels for a price. Some YAPs, particularly non-paying ones, can be easier to get visa for and, above all, competitions are your best friend: If you want to attract the kind of attention that makes mid and mid-upper (B) level houses get you a visa, win a competition.

Or marry an American.

Musicians, actors, given shaft today (and not in the good way)

So the government survived a confidence test today, propped up by the Bloc and the NDP who had, reportedly, major concessions given to them with regards to EI. My gripe? It's not that we've been subjected by the Conservatives to never ending ads on tv about how evil Iggy would team up with the Bloc and the Socialists to run government who then go ahead and make deals with the Bloc and Socialists to stay alive themselves, (this is a gripe for another blog). It's this:

Where is the bill that fulfills the promises made in the last election with regards to EI for self-employed people, which would include (for those of you reading this blog,) private music teachers, singers, actors, and musicians in general. With all of the talk about extending benefits, we've seen nothing about this integral issue that effects a huge swath of the artistic community.

You see, during last year's campaign the Conservatives swore up and down that EI would be available to those self employed people who choose to pay into it for a pre-determined amount of time, presumed to be six months.

That means that if you taught from home, or taught at a school but not as an "employee," or if you're a performer either on a longer term gig (such as a touring production) or stringing multiple contracts together, and then suddenly lose the work you'd be a little bit covered until you could find another job. You would have to pay into the EI program if you wanted it but when the boom was lowered you wouldn't have to give up your apartment, you wouldn't have to stop buying lunches, and you wouldn't have to sleep on the couches of friends (none of which I've, fortunately, had to do personally, but I do know those who have).

The government and some parties may claim today's Ways and Means Bill as a triumph for EI and for Canadians, but not for us, folks. We were promised protection and got the artists' shaft.

To be fair, the bill isn't yet finished - it will likely be sent to committee next week to be fleshed out. My concern is that although Bloc and NDP support is strictly tied to this bill, no one is talking about this election promise. It's going to take some pushing from politicians to get this safety net implemented for artists and the only way that happens is if we contact them and ask them to. Consider it.

(Full disclosure for this post: I'm a card carrying NDP member.)

Why can't Hvorostovsky sell out in Edmonton?

The Edmonton Symphony has brought in some big guns (see picture, above, for amusing double-entendre) for their fundraising gala slated for the end of the month but can't seem to get the seats filled to see him. If things don't change, come September 28, Dimitri Hvorostovsky will be singing to a less than half packed house. The Edmonton Journal is reporting that the ESO has sold only around 47% of tickets for the upcoming concert leading them (and me) to wonder why?

Coming from Winnipeg, a city that notoriously waits until the last minute to buy tickets for events, I was wondering if delayed purchasing was responsible here, but Yo-Yo Ma apparently sold out last year's fundraiser in record time, and months in advance.

The article, and the ESO, mention (of course,) the economy as a major factor. Tickets run $50-$250 and Alberta certainly wasn't as recession-proof as the other middle-Canada provinces, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. My mind wonders if the recession is a factor, just in another way: They've not announced a program, (as far as I can see) and a night of Russian music in the middle of a recession, just isn't what people are looking for. Songs and Dances of Death is great music, but Zeigfield Follies in the 20's it ain't.



Get a program on there of opera arias, or heck, even (shudder) Broadway crossover and you'll have a party going on.

Of course, maybe to a symphony crowd, Hvorostovsky isn't as household a name as Ma.

Whatever the reason, if you're in Edmonton, and don't have your tickets yet, this could be a great chance to pick up some great seats. Give them a call right now and get on board for what could be a very intimate show.

Video of ENO auditions

Okay, admit it. You've really wondered if international A level house auditions look the same as the auditions that you've been doing, especially if they've not been international A level house auditions. Apparently, they do.

English National Opera has been (fantastically!) posting video all the way along of their production of Carmen and some of the first video is of the audition process. They have a couple of videos, here, of David Kempster singing for Escamillo and Julian Gavin singing for Don Jose. Interestingly, neither of them wears a tie.....

New German Fest contract blog

I just got word of a new blog about someone who will be starting their first German fest contract on Wednesday. If she's able to keep up the posts - and I hope she can - it should be great reading for anyone who's considering the "if it doesn't kill you it will only make you stronger" route.

An Englishwoman abroad

At Salzburg, not a BBW to be found

The Telegraph is running an article today talking about the absence of larger singers at this year's Salzburg Festival. This isn't really news - it's been a creeping trend for years and has only been cemented with the tenure of Peter Gelb at the Met. Under the guise of "This is not about dumbing down the Met, it’s just making it accessible," he has led the retreat away from singers with the greatest voices in the world should they be larger than one would want them to be.The interesting point covered in this article is: If we can't cast by race, how is it that we can cast by size? The author uses the line "We've also learned, for perfectly good reasons, not to be put out when operatic Russian generals come with Afro-Caribbean faces or if Mary Stuart looks a touch Chinese. We listen for dramatic truths beyond the colour of the singer's skin. And in the modern world that must be right."

I would ask "why?" My personal feelings on the issue notwithstanding, (I would tend to lean towards a "realism is good" idea,) that part that bothers me the most is the double standard. If you don't want fat people, fine. But I don't want to see Domingo in blackface as Otello either then.

YAP Tracker

I just did a post below where the the info was forwarded to a singer's forum by the good people at YAP Tracker. For those of you who don't know, YAP Tracker is a site that keeps track of virtually every audition opportunity from pay to sings up through to major A house auditions worldwide, but mostly concentrating in North America and Europe. It is one of the single best tools in a singer's arsenal as it makes not only finding out about auditions easier (too easy for my taste, letting everybody out there know about auditions without doing the work, but I'd rather be on the inside looking out than not subscribed when others have the info,) but it also helps you keep track of application and audition dates and has live updates as people start hearing about auditions or casting. It is $50 a year (and worth every penny,) but you can get 10% off if you send me an email letting me know you'd like to join as a part of their referral program. Write me at gtheule at gerrittheule. com for the discount.

Who wants to work for Vancouver Opera?

Okay, I mean work, not sing, but it's still a pretty cool job - working shoulder to shoulder with the artistic and operations staff. VO is hiring a Vancouver Opera In Schools Program Manager. For someone with the right skills who is interested in, or actively pursuing, a career path that includes opera administration, this is an excellent opportunity. A great many singers who have gone on to run major opera houses have started in companies' YAPs. The list of duties is enormous so it looks like the right candidate will have a chance to develop skills in a huge variety of areas including production, marketing, artist liasing, and finance. Again, an amazing opportunity for someone with the right skills and interests. Visit VO for the whole description, and to apply.

Thanks YAPTracker, via NFCS.

Canadian opera companies and the copyright consultation process

The Canadian Conference for the Arts has come out against what many are seeing as a disingenuous consultation process on copyright reform in Canada. The group, which represents, among others, Opera.ca and by extension, most of the opera companies in Canada, says that they will be unable to participate in the process because they were given just one week's notice to prepare.

By way of background, the Federal Government is holding copyright consultations this summer in what they say is a way to make sure that everyone has input into this fall's upcoming copyright reform. Many, however, don't believe this to be a legitimate consultation process as the public will only be admitted to two meetings - one in Montreal, the other in Toronto. In addition, as we are hearing, many those invited to the other private meetings won't be able to attend, mainly due to 1) it being held in the summer when many artists and representatives are either on tour or out of the country, 2) they won't have enough preparation time to put together presentations, and 3) most non-profit groups would require board approval for travel expenses to the meetings and boards won't sit within the next week. Lobby groups for recording companies, film distributors, and the US-tied copyright groups won't have those issues though.

It is widely pressumed that some of the only groups at these "consultation meetings" will be record labels or their associates and that that would suit the Conservative government, who have been under US pressure for months to re-address the issue, just fine.

Why does this matter to you? Well, professionally it will affect the copyright expiration times on new operas. This means that, as in the US, but not in Europe or here at the moment, operas written 60 years ago, and with the composer dead, the publishing company would still be able to charge performance rights on those shows despite having no one around who was involved in the work's creation to benefit from the money. The same is true about opera translations. Opera recordings are also expected to be under license for up to 75 years, meaning no more inexpensive recordings of long dead artists. Personally it will mean things like you won't be able to buy a CD but put the music on your iPod - you'll need to buy an iPod copy too or face a $500 per song fine.

If you live in Montreal, or Vancouver, you may want to consider getting out to the meetings. You can sign up (because there's limited space at them,) here.

Free TV ends and small town access to opera goes with it.

Last week the CRTC issued a ruling that will reverberate with many Canadians, although they may not know it yet. They've announced that when analog (antenna) television goes dark, in two years time, they will only be requiring stations to replace the signals with digital ones (like they did in the States earlier this year,) in "major markets:" Cities with populations greater than 300,000.

For people in cities like Kelowna, Red Deer, Brandon, Kingston, Sudbury, and countless others, including the area that I spent time growing up in, Notre-Dame-de Lourdes, MB, it means that they will either need to step up to paying $30+ a month for something that has been free, (well, ad supported) for more than 50 years, or go dark, shutting their TVs off for good. 10% of Canadians still get their TV from analog broadcasts. The rest of you should see your cable bill go up by around $75 a year as local networks will now receive a fee from you that was originally meant to go only to specialty channels that you subscribe to.

How does this affect us? Well, the CBC is one of the stations going dark. I, and a whole host of other singers better known than I, caught some of our first glimpses of staged opera on the CBC, often via antenna. One of the first things that the CBC broadcast on their brand new television station in 1952 was Don Giovanni. Hundreds, if not thousands, of operas have been broadcast by CBC television since. The 70s and 80s saw the COC broadcast around the country, and live Met telecasts have taken place regularly for years. Norma with Joan Sutherland, Hansel and Gretel with Maureen Forrester back in the day, up to Burnt Toast (a personal favourite,) with Jean Stilwell and Benjamin Butterfield a couple of years ago. But before these amazing singers took on roles, they needed to find their passion, seeing, absorbing, and loving opera.

But not all singers come from Toronto or Montreal. Singers no less than Jon Vickers (one in a family of eight children from Prince Albert, SK), Victor Braun (father to Russell, Rabbit Lake, SK), and Ben Heppner (Dawson Creek, BC) all come from small towns and likely all saw their first glimpse of an opera via rabbit ears on a CBC analog trasmission. If any of them were children today, and caught in the group of people who aren't going to be able to afford to make the switch to paying for satellite, I can only imagine how much poorer our country's art would be for it.