Some of us are born with a nice singing voice, but regardless of natural ability there are things we can do that will improve our ability. Whether you’re singing on a stage or around a campfire, don’t be shy about practicing and leveling up. Firstly, whether you’re new or not you should always rehearse with scales. Warming up is important but the reason why singers doing scales is a cliche is that you’re looking to push into the edges of your ability. Just as an athlete works

There are certain TV shows that became a part of my core personality when I was a kid and watching my eldest totally glom on to Brooklyn Nine-nine this past year made me think about those shows that shaped me. I wonder if we are attracted to them because they already reflect our inner selves? Or do they do more than that and actually work to shape us the way a mentor might? Social media was passing around a thing asking people to list their top five shows to indicate their pe

It’s funny how often the world of opera crops up around me. I’d bought my youngest a large Kinder Egg Surprise that promised to have a female super hero inside. She was disappointed to find Harley Quinn as she was hoping for Super Girl. I ended up explaining that the name is a play on Harlequin and then we discussed the Commedia dell’arte with Harlequin and Pierrot and why we decorate with Pierrot dolls in France. And also telling them how Harley gets her particular diamond-d

I do enjoy pulling the celebrity-style vintage photos from my family vault to share with you guys. These are from a photo shoot my mother did in Paris for the opera in the late 1960s. Aren’t they just the most? The living end? But with the umbrella and those buildings it’s all a bit Jacques Tati somehow. #fashion #opera #vintagephotography #Paris #JacquesTati #glamour #France #MariaBaroni #1960s #vintagephotos

The trouble with having such a deep knowledge of my family history is I find I must bite my tongue when my kids speak casually of their interests. I have no desire to bog them down with the weight of our history. When my kid says she’d like to grow up to be a dancer I want to say, “Like your great aunt.” When they learn to ice skate and say they can never do it I want to say, “But your grandmother became quite good at it living outside of Chicago.” When they tell me they love

The items my performer parents accumulated in their long careers sometimes travel down to me in the form of mysterious poster tubes. I have a vague sense of the contents but I’m afraid to unroll them because they are from as far back as 1947 and fragile as a butterfly wing. These were not designed to be long-lasting posters. These are thin paper that got plastered across walls with cheap glue and the expectation of impermanence. I had looked into mounting and framing for post

One of my fellow opera nerds made a joke by saying, “Meet you at Maxim’s” and I was transported to Art Nouveau Paris. Only, I could hear my mother sing Vilja. It’s funny how these things live inside us. I thought I’d share in my latest time travel adventure. Vilja is a delightful song and the most well-known piece from the beloved operetta, The Merry Widow. #opera #Vilia #Paris #Vilja #aria #France #TheMerryWidow #ArtNeaveau #MariaBaroni #mezzosoprano #Maxims #operetta

I’m doing a production of Madama Butterfly and the set and costume design are what I’ve dubbed “impressionistic” Japanese. We hint at the idea of Japan and try to do some things with accuracy, but we’re not attempting to recreate Japanese culture. For example, I’ve learned that the kimono is to be crossed left over right as the other way is reserved exclusively for the dead. This detail popped out at me when I looked at our poster. Foreshadowing, perhaps? Our costume designer

My friend said I needed to do a blog post about Mariah Carey because I went off on an impassioned tirade when some unedited vocal tracks came out last week and many people were goofing on her. So here’s the thing. Professional opera singers get compared to professional athletes and there are parallels. One of the things about opera, however, is that if you’re singing properly you will maintain your voice. Your body will fail you before your voice does. Here, an 82-year old op

My maternal great aunt Hermine is a spitfire who has always amazed the family with her abundant energy and stubborn streak. She is tiny. Here she is in her teenage years, a sweet slip of a girl, looking smaller than even her father, the jockey. But as is often the case with people, looks are deceiving. This is a woman of great strength and force of character. [1930s Chateau Egurande, France. Hermine & Hector.] You’ll also notice her natural grace and elegance. It’s hardly sur

I was represented by an agency and auditioning as a commercial actress so I’ve been expected to keep the same long dirty blonde princess hair with few changes. You’re not supposed to make drastic changes to your appearance so the casting director knows what they’re getting. It’s been all: Hair is a ridiculous thing for women. I don’t think most men realize how fraught it is for us, and how loaded with cultural significance. Women will mourn for weeks if they get a bad haircut

It’s almost like a totem. When an individual has signaled their readiness to become a classical singer a teacher will lead them one of these Schirmer books. [A slew of singers just smiled with recognition.] The art of classical singing is learning the best possible, healthiest, most effortless way to sing bel canto. Instructors have told me different definitions for what is literally translated as beautiful singing but I’ve come to understand that it means the technique where

Many people who learn I sing opera feel compelled to apologize for not liking the art form. It’s okay. I get it. I don’t like opera either. I mean, I don’t like the representations of it in pop culture, which is where most people get their exposure to opera. For example, when children’s television programming tries to get cultural on the kids it’ll do an episode centered around opera and it’ll be terrible. At 00:44 seconds I WANT TO CRY. Even when opera is represented well in

Many nations have rules around how much broadcast television must be in the native language. This was of particular concern in France during the popularizing of television as their airwaves were inundated with English-speaking programs. The way around the problem of expensive production is to do a doublage, that is, a voice over work in the native language that loosely matches the lip movements of the original show. My father, known as Daniel Crouet, started out as an actor a

In America, I was an awkward child. It’s because I’m a time traveler. Opera singers, more than many other artists, spend their entire professional lives immersed in the artistic product of people long dead. They inhabit roles created centuries ago. They’re meant to breathe life into characters from a past epoch and they’re meant to pluck at modern hearts and elicit timeless emotion. I grew up in an opera family and the music playing in the living room strayed only as far as t

We’re probably being jerks (to ourselves). Or: Why Beyoncé isn’t the problem I had an important realization today. I was never as ugly as I thought I was. This is important, actually, because it still holds true today. There’s a reason why a blog post by a photographer telling us to love ourselves despite our fat rolls elicits so many tearful comments. [No, but seriously, get in the picture with your friends and family. You’re ninety-year old self will thank you.] We’re all d

Below the beautiful song Laylay by Sövkət Ələkbərova, and the superb animation work from the creative Russian group METRONOME FILM, part of a project called “Lullabies of the World.” As some of you may have noticed, we have a new mouth in our opera household. As I hum various Bach oratorios to this little one in the middle of the night I think about standard folk songs and what people used to sing to children. I bet there are a whole lot of new parents using Beatles songs as

Let us consider the usual story arc of the Kung-fu Hero. Countless hours of practice to make your body achieve inhuman feats… no way she’s going to connect Kung-fu to opera, of all things. An individual with some natural talent wanders on their own for a time. They face bad guys and get a frequent beat down, but still demonstrate a certain amount of moxie in facing their enemy. Perhaps even bordering on hubris/chutzpah. Our nascent hero seeks out a Master, or stumbles on to t

I’m a big reader and this week I enjoyed Nuiala O’Faolain’s The Story of Chicago May. [‘Chicago May, one of the few notorious women in the male-dominated rogues’ gallery of American criminals.’] The Story of Chicago May  is a biography by an Irish author about a native daughter who moved to America and traveled in international criminal circuits during the Belle Époque. At its heart, it is a quintessentially American story of re-invention and moving through social stratum. “C

Opera can change the way you see women. A before and after of Deborah Voigt. When you first plunge into the world of opera divas you can have a bit of a shock. Why? Because you didn’t realize how trained we are by media in western culture to expect tiny women on stage or screen until you see ones who aren’t tiny. With all due respect to our naturally Audrey-Hepburnesque gamine women of slim proportions, they are the norm in our media images and we see them ninety percent of t