How-To

Aria guides: Una voce poco fa

Aria guides: Una voce poco fa

For the next in our series of Aria Guides, we're nodding to all the mezzos (and a few sopranos) with "Una voce poco fa" from Il barbiere di Siviglia. This is a cornerstone aria for many young mezzos, and one of the few chances they have to show off coloratura and play a girl. It's also an aria full of options. Ornamentation, cadenzas, high or low keys; there's no "right way" to sing rep like this.

Jenna Simeonov
Aria guides: the Count's Aria

Aria guides: the Count's Aria

We're continuing our new series of Aria Guides with more Mozart, this time for the men: baritones, it's your beloved Count's Aria from Le nozze di Figaro. Like all you aspiring Counts, I too love this aria to bits. It's got a recit that's both textbook and full of life. The aria is wild soliloquy, full of unnatural mood swings from a powerful man who realizes that he can't buy intelligence.

Jenna Simeonov
Aria guides: Deh vieni, non tardar

Aria guides: Deh vieni, non tardar

Readers, we've got a new treat for you! Welcome to our new series of posts that take you through popular arias of all voice types, step by step. We'll point out tips and tricks for making the learning process efficient, and try to answer as many FAQs about the repertoire as we can.

Jenna Simeonov
Pianists: 3 tips for sounding like an orchestra

Pianists: 3 tips for sounding like an orchestra

Pianists, when you're playing orchestral reductions, it's all a complicated system of smoke and mirrors. Rather than on getting every note under your fingers, your priorities lay in creating a broader palate of sound, representing the different sections of a hypothetical orchestra. There's a difference in sound between a viola and an oboe, and a group of strings can have a different collective rhythm than a group of winds.

Jenna Simeonov
Quick tips: the rolled R test

Quick tips: the rolled R test

What I've found is that rolled Rs in a singer's text can act as a sort of litmus test for where that singer is maintaining their resonance. As a coach, if I ask for more consonants in an Italian aria, and a rolled R seems difficult to project, the problem usually lies in the preceding vowel.

Jenna Simeonov
3 ways to have a great first rehearsal

3 ways to have a great first rehearsal

Technically, a singer's deadline for learning and perfecting a role is opening night. In reality, the ubiquitous deadline for opera singers is the first day of music rehearsals with the conductor. In this rehearsal, most singers want to a) sing incredibly well, b) make the conductor happy and c) not embarrass themselves in front of colleagues.

Jenna Simeonov
5 ways to build your rhythmic chops

5 ways to build your rhythmic chops

Some folks have an inner pulse that rivals most metronomes. Others have to work for rhythmic perfection. Singers, we know you all get bad reputations among classical music circles for not being able to count, and frankly, sometimes you earn the stereotype. Singers who work regularly have excellent rhythm, and they know how to make music within a beat structure.

Jenna Simeonov
How to be a star répétiteur (yes, there is such a thing)

How to be a star répétiteur (yes, there is such a thing)

Répétiteurs, rehearsal pianists, the ones who repeat sections of music over and over; they're a special breed of pianist, with an insanely focused set of skills. Being a répétiteur is one of those jobs that can feel thankless, where people only notice your playing when you mess up. It's about checking your pianist ego at the door, and facilitating a rehearsal for others: singers, conductors, and directors.

Jenna Simeonov
Claire de Sévigné: how to sing fast & high

Claire de Sévigné: how to sing fast & high

If you go to hear Claire de Sévigné in an opera, there's a good chance she's the one singing the highest. The Canadian coloratura is a graduate of the COC Ensemble Studio, a recent finalist of the Montréal International Music Competition, and soon to be a member of the International Opera Studio at the Zürich Opernhaus.

Jenna Simeonov
How to really learn a song

How to really learn a song

The universal steps to learning a song, I know you've all got them down. You can read music, count rhythms, learn language, and tell stories. A lot of the music I work with involves a pianist and singer, and duetting is all about communication. In the process of "learning your part," it's easy to forget to look up (or down) at some of the other musical lines happening in tandem with your own.

Jenna Simeonov

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