Dramatic mezzo-soprano roles in opera and operettas

• Azucena, Il trovatore@ (Verdi)
• Amneris, Aida (Verdi)
• Brangäne, Tristan und Isolde (Wagner)
• Carmen, Carmen (Bizet)@ (Also Lyric Mezzo)
• The Countess, The Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky)
• Dalila, Samson et Dalila (Saint-Saëns)@
• Dido, Les Troyens (Berlioz)@
• Eboli, Don Carlos (Verdi)
• Herodias, Salome (Richard Strauss)
• The Witch, Hänsel und Gretel (opera) (Humperdinck)
• Judith, Bluebeard’s Castle (Bartók)@ (Also Dramatic Soprano)
• Kundry, Parsifal (Wagner)@ (also Dramatic soprano)
• Klytemnästra, Elektra (Richard Strauss)
• Laura, La Gioconda (Ponchielli)
• Marina, Boris Godunov (Mussorgsky)
• Mother, Hänsel und Gretel (opera) (Humperdinck)
• Ortrud, Lohengrin (Wagner)
• Princess de Bouillon, Adriana Lecouvreur (Cilea)

@-denotes a lead role

Dramatic mezzo-soprano singers

Lyric mezzo-soprano roles in opera and operettas

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1. Sit comfortably and close your eye lids softly to rest on your eyes
2. Inhale deeply feeling your breath fill your whole body. Before you exhale, hold your breath for a couple seconds and when you are ready slowly feel the air release your body into a comfortable sitting posture. Repeat 3 to 5 times, until you become comfortable and begin to focus on yourself.
3. Draw your mind to the ideal of peace. Imagine peace in your home, in your workplace, in your community and in the world. How does it feel, look, taste, etc.?
4. Begin to know yourself as a deeply peaceful person. Bring this peacefulness into your body, that everywhere you go, your peaceful quality affects everyone around you, and that your presence brings a sense of calm into every situation – even those that are stressful and tense.
5. Imagine those around you expressing appreciation to you for bringing peace into their lives. Enjoy the feedback
6. Gradually return to the present and open your eyes.

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Eating and Drinking

I am a great believer that what a person eats and drinks creates a healthy person. Eating correctly generates a healthy body = a healthy mind = a healthy voice = a long life.

Eating Healthy

One of main difficulty in eating correctly is the world around us promotes processed and refined eating choices; whether a vegetarian or a carnivore.

White refined foods dominate our food supply. I choose to eat by separating my carbohydrates (grains, seeds,) with my proteins (beans, meat, nuts) and only eating whole grains; No Refined Carbohydrates (white bread, white rice, all foods made with white flour) because it makes me feel my best. Refined/White foods are converted into sugar faster and move into the blood stream faster, and why you are hungry an hour later.

Eating no refined carbohydrates is excellent for lowering blood sugar levels in diabetic and the overweight. I began this eating pattern in my early childhood, not because anyone or fad because it is healthy eating. The body can only digest either a protein or a carbohydrate at one time, if you eat both together, the body simply digests one and stores the other as fat. For fabulous info on eating healthy and eating whole grains, see www.drmirkin.com

Understandably, we are all different with different sensitivities, you will need to experiment with different foods and see what works best for you.

Some guiding principles:

When to eat:

Think of yourself as an athlete and eat this way: an athlete eats lightly before running the mile and thus so should you. A full stomach inhibits the movement of the diaphragm-you will have difficulty taking in full breaths and you will be prone to burping. Do not starve yourself, either singing is hard work, you need fuel. A normal meal an hour or two (two is better) before a singing session works best. If you need to eat between sets go for non-bulky, easy to digest food. Before a singing like eggs as they are high protein, low density.

Foods to indulge in:

• Fruits and Vegetables – eat as many as you can raw rather than cooked
• If you cook your vegetables and fruits use a little oil or butter (not margarine please) in the bottom of the pan, no water with lid. Cook on low heat and the moisture already in the food will cook it just fine. You will be surprised at the amount of liquid that comes out while cooking. This assures great tasting foods without loosing nutrients.
• Chocolate – high cocoa solids the better, even 90% which is my favourite. Pure Chocolate is good for the heart, lungs and general good health.

Before Singing foods generally to avoid:

• Foods that dry the throat: citrus fruits, alcohol, sugar
• Foods that add mucous: milk, ice cream, all dairy products
• Throat Irritants: spicy foods, coffee, sugar
• Lozenges or Cough Candy: may cause infections; colds, soar throat, as the sugar helps conduct germs especially when around other people.
• Carbonated drinks: puts air into your stomach
• Ice cold food/drinks: your throat will constrict.
• Food with corn syrup.

People become embarrassed to sing because they do not sound like the singers on the radio or on cd’s. Most people cannot sound like a pop singer because these singers do not sing naturally. We in the modern world are inundated with pop artists with voices that are touched up, computer generated, not natural at all. We have lost the ability to recognise a beautiful natural voice.

When children grow up listening to mass-produced songs, singers, they lose the ability to recognise a natural voice. This is like the modelling industry; unhealthy skinny models dominate our vision until young women believe they need to look like that. These women poses muscleless paper think bodies – this is very unnatural but because we see it glamorised, people think it is the norm. Most pop artist cannot sing, take away the music and well….. you will understand.

Before the radio and television, people regularly sang for entertainment. Even now in many countries, people sing while they work. Most people are limited to singing in church, temples and religious place, where decent singing goes on, but it is not popular.

Adding to the poor quality of singing is the poor quality of music in the school system. I found much of the required music is now homogenized, no disrespect to the teachers. The silliest thing is the political correctness of how Christmas music is being removed, in place for seasonal music. At least with Christmas music the children learn structure, harmony and historical music sometimes challenging to sing.

When I taught in elementary and grammar schools I taught modern vocal techniques (which are really primal and historical techniques not taught anymore) that the student were wonderful, playful and excited to learn. They were happy to hear their voices.

Most people are out of touch with their natural voice that they had at birth and as children and using, a vocal coach is great to help them re-learn to sing. A voice coach helps you to make easy resonant sounds, chant, sing aloud and get over the fears of ‘I don’t sound like them on the radio’. Ah neither does your voice coach.

Voice lessons can help anyone and everyone; from the beginner to the professional, in fact most professionals still see a teacher or coach.

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I firmly believe that we can begin to do anything at any age but when we live in an environment that values youth, one can be challened trying anything later than 30. It is getting a little better now to switch careers without too many obstacles. Though there is still resistance in the arts for older people, especially in the pop culture. You would imagine in the arts that it would be easier but not. There is agism about what age you should be to sing professionally, sing opera or attempt to be a pop artist.

In saying this about the arts – I’m speaking of the professional realm of the arts – like tv, plays, soundtracks and the alike. Realistically this is only about 1% of where people sing. Most people sing for fun, sing in choirs, sing in community plays, are hired to sing as soloists for amateur choirs and shows.

What I found is that there are voice coaches that will not teach anyone over 35 saying ‘no you are much too old to learn to sing, why don’t you try singing in a choir?’ What there is a whole world out there for you to sing with and for. There are all types of songs to sing and chants to meditate on. Our abilities don’t diminish because of our age, in fact often they improve.

Community arts programes and festivals and such don’t have restrictions on age. They are just happy if you can sing and want to committ to the production. Often this is the most satisfying outlet to sing as well because they appreciate your efforts. This isn’t to say that they want anyone, just that

Though inspiringly television shows like Britain’s got talent does enable the older singer to audition. Also it really does make a difference what type of singing you’d like to do. One of my earlier voice coaches Judy Maas was 52 when she passed a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) audition – I should note it was a blind audition in that the ajudicators were not able to see Judy.

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