Blog

We’re now into the final week of our fundraising campaign for The Medium, and we’re getting so close! 70% funded, with 7 days left to meet our goal. You can help! Every donation makes a difference, no matter how small!

But don’t just take my word for it! Let our teens show you their passion and dedication for this work, and why it is important to them:

Our ability to raise funds for this summer’s opera directly influences the future of the workshop and the possibility of subsequent productions like this. If our workshop is going to continue to grow on this level, we must succeed now! You can help by donating to this campaign and/or by sharing our story and telling your friends why *you* think this campaign is important!

We’ve gone a couple of days without any Medium-specific coachings at the studio, so I’ll take a moment to just talk about the workshop or, more accurately, classical voice as an artistic path for young singers.

I’ve spent a lot of time (in person, in writing, and on-screen) talking about why I think classical voice study is the key to vocal development no matter what kind of singing kids want to ultimately do, and also how much getting involved in opera, specifically, has inspired my own students to train more classically and care more about the music that they sing. It’s been difficult, however, to find a simple way to support these arguments, especially from a distance.

A couple of days ago, I happened to be recording a student’s lesson, and he happened to be singing a standard aria that was, in fact, the very first classical piece he ever sang. Since I knew I’d recorded the same aria back when he first worked on it (just over a year ago), I pulled that up for comparison. Even *I* was stunned to realize how much he’d really grown as a singer over the course of the year, and just how much the specific technique issues we’d been working on had paid off.

So, I made this. To very simply illustrate the difference a year can make with dedicated classical study and hard work, I bring you this:

A few notes: First, Sage is not the only student who has experienced this kind of transformation—his is just the most clearly available video evidence. Secondly, this is obviously a fairly simplistic portrayal of a complex course of study. Sage has not just consented to study classical voice, but has embraced it with his whole being, scheduling double lessons, coaching extensively for his role in last year’s Opera Workshop experiment (spending hours at the studio nearly every day), and listening to opera and art song regularly on his own. But this is what can genuinely happen for a singer over the course of a single year, and this video is proof of that. Lastly, this kind of technical improvement is not the only good reason to study opera! I firmly believe that learning to discover the emotional truth and beauty in this music and the characters who sing it helps to make us more thoughtful and compassionate people! I’ve watched this kind of compassion grow in my own students, both in our opera and theater programs.

Many thanks to Sage for letting me share this with you all. I know it hurts his heart to watch it. But it also demonstrates what all his hard work has done for him.

You can support the efforts of our Opera Workshop here: Act Too Studio Opera Workshop

Act Too Studio Opera Workshop is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non‐profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Act Too Studio Opera Workshop must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” and are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Tuesday was a truly epic coaching day, beginning with a long session with Alexa (Madame Flora) who worked through her entire role, especially some particularly difficult sections in the second act. Her hard work has been paying off, and it shows.

You can watch Video Diary #4 here:

Later, Stephanie (Mrs. Gobineau) came to work on her role, and was later joined by Brandon (Mr. Gobineau) and Callie (Mrs. Nolan) for a full trio rehearsal. It was a productive and hilarious afternoon. You wish you’d been there. Trust me.

You can watch Video Diary #5 here:

To help make this production a reality for Alexa, Stephanie, Brandon, Callie, and the rest of our cast, please consider donating to our campaign, and/or sharing our campaign on your favorite social media platforms! Thank you for your support!

We’ve got a very quick video diary entry for you today, as we spent a short but lovely hour with Caroline (Monica) in the studio, tackling the opera’s most famous aria, “Monica’s Waltz.” Of course, Alexa joined us to make sure we still had some fun!

You can watch Video Diary #3 here:

To help make this production a reality for Caroline, Alexa, and the rest of our cast, please consider donating to our campaign, and/or sharing our campaign on your favorite social media platforms! Thank you for your support!

As our campaign crosses the 25% mark, we bring you the second installment in our video diary series! Today, Callie (Mrs. Nolan) came to the studio to work on her role. We ran her sections in their entirety, with the help of the lovely Alexa (Madame Flora), who mostly filled in for the much-missed Brandon (Mr. Gobineau).

You can watch Video Diary #2 here:

To help make this production a reality for Callie, Alexa, and the rest of our cast, please consider donating to our campaign, and/or sharing our campaign on your favorite social media platforms! Thank you for your support!

As part of our campaign to raise money for production of our summer opera, we’ve begun a video diary series to bring you along on the journey with our teens! In our first entry, Caroline (Monica) and Alexa (Madame Flora) spend some time at the studio working on some of their characters’ major sections, including “Mummy, mummy dear” and “Afraid, am I afraid?”

You can watch Video Diary #1 here:

To help make this production a reality for Caroline, Alexa, and the rest of our cast, please consider donating to our campaign, and/or sharing our campaign on your favorite social media platforms! Thank you for your support!