#operalover

“When one is singing high and loud it’s as though one is in light air, high upon a mountain. I feel a lightness and dizziness. Exhilaration too. I’ve never smoked marijuana, but I fancy it might be the same sort of feeling.”

Joan Sutherland

Here’s my reply to iconic mezzo-soprano Jessye Norman spoke out on opera critics, or better to say to all these people who posted this famous extract of her interview.

The whole interview is actually great, but this quote was taken out of context. And I really wanted to confront the wave of negative celebration it caused.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of talking to American soprano Angel Joy Blue on the phone, in between her performances of Mimì in La Bohème at Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. At the time of our talk, she was in a practice room working on one of her future roles, Tosca, also by Puccini. Never a dull moment, folks! I had already been following Angel’s career for a while of course, but during this run of La Bohème she went live on her Facebook channel and it was so genuine and inspiring that I felt the urge to communicate with her, understand where this was coming from and share it with all of you!

Click Here to Watch Video!

360 of Opera: What inspired this video? You truly touched a lot of people with it, especially young singers working hard towards a career in opera.

I’m so happy to hear that! There’s so much going on in the world at the moment. I’m pretty sure that was the day Notre Dame was in flames. I’m a pastor’s kid, I grew up in the church and I was really touched by what happened in Paris. This great monument that was burning, watching it being engulfed in flames, watch it go down like in a movie, it was very disturbing. That, coupled with the fact that it was opening night and there is so much going on in general in my personal life. I’ve been studying new roles and I’ve had quite a few people say very negative things to me. In our profession, the first job is to learn the music, and then there is all this other stuff, but ultimately we are supposed to be able to sing what is on the page. I was thinking about everything that I have coming up and all these opinions that I wanted to get out of my head. I also thought it was my 50th performance of La Bohème, which it was, but I guess I was including dress rehearsals and student matinees and one of my friends told me I’m not supposed to include dress rehearsals!

You know, ten years ago when I was a young artist, I wasn’t able to sing Mimì’s arias and I had a lot of comments about my low voice and my middle voice: “You can’t do this, you can’t do that. You’re not going to be Mimì, you’re too tall, you don’t look fit…”

I like to turn off the lights of my dressing room before I go on and sing. I do that every show and I just sit there. And this time I had this overwhelming feeling of: “Angel you get to sing these roles because you didn’t listen to all that stuff. You didn’t listen to what people were saying to you” and I was overcome with a really big feeling of gratitude and thankfulness just to be able to have a job. Maybe some years ago I was not able to sing some of these roles but I still worked on them diligently. That’s the reason I put that video out there, because I knew that someone out there would need that. I feel like in opera we’re always told what we’re not supposed to do. It comes down to what YOU want to do, it’s your voice.

360 Of Opera: You are now singing roles that you were not able to sing 10 years ago. This concept of maintaining a big picture mindset is hard for young singers. How was it for you?

I always had it in my mind. My sister is a clinical psychologist. I had a concert a couple of years ago and I noticed that my voice really changed around 2013. I was telling her how it felt weird and it was out of control. I felt like I was out of control. She said: “you’re not telling me that you don’t think you can sing, all this stuff that you’re saying is psychological.” I was constantly doubting everything. I was really beating myself up for every single thing I did. And my sister said: “Number one, you need to celebrate your successes, number two, give yourself permission to be successful.” And when she said that it really hit me! Whatever success means to you. For me it doesn’t mean that I’m getting to sing at all of these houses, that is a form of success for sure, but at that time what it meant specifically was for me to be able to appreciate and enjoy my talent.

Everybody has an opinion, that’s what people do. It’s a battle, but since then, I’ve really tried to stay in this positive mindset and be excited about my talent and what I can do, be thankful for my talent. My message to young singers is to not let other people decide how you feel about your own voice. That would be weird! I’m constantly working on myself, but it is important to have a very strong opinion about your voice and to find things about your voice that you love.

360 of Opera: You have an exciting year ahead, especially with ‘Porgy and Bess’ at The Metropolitan Opera, which will open the 2019/2020 season. What does this mean for you?

The historical value of it is what makes it special for me. It’s also a full circle for me because my first professional opera role after being a young artist was Clara in ‘Porgy and Bess’ in 2009. Back then, I never would have thought that in 10 years I would be singing Bess and opening the Met Opera season with it! It’s interesting because Eric Owens was also in that production. For me it’s a true story of not giving up on myself. It’s hard to do, this is not an easy career. Once you  get in it, it’s full of highs and as high as you can go, you can get as low.

I’m really thankful for this opportunity. I think the opera hasn’t been performed in 25 or 30 years at the Met so I feel really blessed to be a part of the cast that is bringing it back to that stage. I think it’s going to be a very big success and I’m very happy that they decided to call me for it! They believe that I can do it and it’s a wonderful thing to be able to perform this American opera. I’m a very proud American, I love my country and it means a lot to bring this great American opera back where it all began.

360 of Opera: Talking about American opera, what are your thoughts on new compositions? Is there any contemporary American opera in your future?

I love it, I thinks it’s great. Especially composers like Jake Heggie and also Bruce Adolphe who has some beautiful song cycles. It’s amazing, Jake Heggie is one of my go-to composers whenever I do recitals. I would hope to be a part of new projects, operas or song cycles that have yet to be written.

You know, I’ve been to 41 countries. I made it to 30 in 6 years. For politicians it’s nothing but for me that was random and very unexpected. I’m so happy I had the opportunity to travel and see what music is for other cultures. When I came home, I was very happy to confirm that we have a big classical music culture. We’re so far geographically from a lot of the European classical music scene. But I think we don’t give ourselves enough credit for having a rich culture of classical music. I think we really do and it’s unfortunate that people don’t really recognize that we do. It may be that it’s expressed in different ways, maybe a lot of it is through film but I think that we do have a lot for opera and orchestral music as well. I would be really happy to be a part of new compositions based on this American culture.

360 of Opera: What are some of the new roles you are preparing and how are you approaching them now that you are able to sing them?

The voice is just like our bodies when we are growing up as teenagers, first we look funny and awkward and then we level up! The same happens with opera, you have to grow into your voice. It’s something that happens throughout your life but being 25 versus 35 years old is very different. And I’m sure that when I’m 45 it will also be different. But at least now I have a better understanding of my voice and I look at my voice in a different way. I’ve grown into my voice more and as times goes on, hopefully I’ll be able to continue to grow into it and be able to make the proper changes that are right for myself.

As far as roles, I’m learning Leonora, Luisa Miller and Tosca. I’m actually in the practice room right now! I’m making sure I can get the roles into my body. I do believe most things get better with time. So, I’m sure Tosca will be one of those. I can sing it now, but I have it coming up in 2020/2021 and 2022. As I get older, I hope it gets better and better, I pray. It happened with La Bohème and I keep learning more and more about the piece as I go.

360 Of Opera: The opera lifestyle can be challenging. What is your relationship to it and how do you stay grounded?

It’s hard, this is not an easy job because we are gone a lot, we are not home most of the time. I think having a healthy lifestyle and mind is important. My thing is more spiritual, I have to have peace in my heart and in my mind to be able to do my job.

The psychology of singing is important. You cannot let everybody into your head or into your world. I have a very small circle of friends, a coach and a voice teacher, with whom I’ve been working for 15 years, his name is Vladimir Chernov. Whenever I need to talk to somebody, I talk to those people. If I’m not grounded, I feel like I’ll be a walking mess.

Scheduling can be very difficult too. Right now, we have three days between shows, some people fly home in between shows, but that extra traveling can be stressful for me. It takes a lot of balancing. The biggest thing for me is to have my spiritual life in order.

360 of Opera: Could you tell me about your work with Sylvia’s Kids Foundation?

Sylvia’s Kids Foundation is an organization that I founded with my mom. She grew up in what would be considered the ghetto near Cleveland, Ohio. Her parents were restless with trying to provide her and her siblings with a better lifestyle, but they were not able to get them out of that environment. My mom and her siblings all worked very hard to eventually get out of there.

I’m the only one in my family who sings. All are musical, but everyone is either a teacher or a psychologist, or a therapist. When we moved to California, my mom was working with a lot of inner-city kids, who grew up like her. Then, my siblings and I became mentors of the church my parents were working with. In 2016 I said to my mom: “I would like to go back to that, it would be great to work with kids again.”

She was teaching in Nevada and she had a student who was struggling to graduate, we wanted her to succeed. So, my mom helped prepare her and I funded her to get through the schooling, so she could graduate. That’s when I realized we should start an organization for inner-city high school kids, who are graduating and trying to go to college. It could be anything, but they need to be continuing on with their studies. I thought we should name it Sylvia’s Kids Foundation after my mom, because they are all her kids!

I’m so excited with how all this is developing. With our foundation and the Arts High School I went to in California, we’re giving two awards this year to graduating seniors. It’s such a blessing to be able to give back and see the excitement on young people’s faces when they have that kind of encouragement to go to the next level.

Going back to that video on my channels, that’s one of the reasons that I put that out there. I just want people to have encouragement and be helped and happy, because I know I need that too. And I just want everyone to know that there really is greatness inside of each of us. It just depends what we choose to do with it!

To learn more about Angel Joy Blue, visit www.angeljoyblue.com and follow Angel on her social channels under @angeljoyblue.