Canadian soprano Simone Osborne graces the Opera Glasses podcast - currently starring in Calgary Opera’s The Elixir of Love, Feb 3 - 9, 2024. We talk about how she expertly balances career and family life. Simone offers a rare glimpse into her craft and the supportive network that helps her excel both on stage and at home. After Calgary, she will be on the Canadian Opera Company stage as Norina in Don Pasquale, Apr 26 - May 18, 2024.
Simone and I share our experiences and extend a hand to the next generation of opera artists, imparting wisdom on the art of embracing the unexpected and trusting one's own voice in a post-pandemic era that demands both resilience and authenticity.
To wrap up this episode, we engage in a discussion about the power of genuine connection, both on the stage and off.
All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by Opera Canada Editor-In-Chief, Elizabeth Bowman. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.
Canadian soprano Simone Osborne graces the Opera Glasses podcast - currently starring in Calgary Opera’s The Elixir of Love, Feb 3 - 9, 2024. We talk about how she expertly balances career and family life. Simone offers a rare glimpse into her craft and the supportive network that helps her excel both on stage and at home. After Calgary, she will be on the Canadian Opera Company stage as Norina in Don Pasquale, Apr 26 - May 18, 2024.
Simone and I share our experiences and extend a hand to the next generation of opera artists, imparting wisdom on the art of embracing the unexpected and trusting one's own voice in a post-pandemic era that demands both resilience and authenticity.
To wrap up this episode, we engage in a discussion about the power of genuine connection, both on the stage and off.
All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by Opera Canada Editor-In-Chief, Elizabeth Bowman. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to the Opera Glasses podcast. Today I have Soprano Simone Osborne here. She is one of the youngest winners ever of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions back in 2008. I have known her since 2009 when I met her when she was in the Ensemble studio at the Canadian Opera Company and I was working there as Alexander Neef's executive assistant. We have a long history. She is currently in Calgary starring as Adina in Donizetti's the Elixir of Love, and in the spring she will be with the Canadian Opera Company singing Norina in Don Pasquale. So a lot of Donizetti ahead for Simone. Anyway, we talk about everything on stage and off stage, so let's get to it. Welcome to the Opera Glasses podcast, simone. It's so great to see you here.
Simone Osborne:I know so good to see you too, Lizzie. It's been too long.
Elizabeth Bowman:We've known each other. We were talking before we started recording this. We've known each other for possibly over 15 years, so crazy yeah a lot of life in between that time. So you are currently talking to us from Calgary and in rehearsals for Elixir of Love. So how's it going?
Simone Osborne:Oh, it's great. I love this piece so much. It's so nice not to have to die on stage. No, it's a really lovely cast and the company's great. There's such a nice feel about the company and they have the young artists doing a performance a matinee performance during the run too, which is really nice because it sort of feels like the whole company is really behind them and really connected to the project. We've got a fantastic director and a lovely conductor, and so it's all great. And it's not minus 50 anymore like it was last week. It's actually, I think, zero today.
Elizabeth Bowman:Is it your first time in Calgary?
Simone Osborne:It's my first long stint in Calgary. My grandparents lived in Manitoba when I was growing up in BC, so we would often road trip in the summer to see them. I distinctly remember Calgary. It's going to be so cliche, but we were driving through and I was probably like nine or something, and it must have been. It would have been July, so it must have been stampede time and all the cars we were driving by people were wearing cowboy hats in them, and so I always remember Calgary for that reason and thinking like I got to get back there and see what all these cowboy hats are about. So here I am.
Simone Osborne:Can you tell us a little bit about the production? Well, the nice thing about this production is that they've brought in an Italian-Argentinian director, so he speaks fluent Italian. He's, I mean, like an encyclopedia of all of these time frames and the politics going on at the time and the societal constructs at the time. It's wild. He's also a total polyglot.
Simone Osborne:The other day I heard him speaking perfect French and he's speaking Italian in rehearsals and then sometimes we switch to German because our brains go sideways and then his English is perfect, and he's just one of these. Like he must read every minute of every day when he's not with us and he's a trained actor so he knows all the comedia dell'arte staff and it's just fantastic. So he's taken a production that is not actually his own and kind of put his own spin on it and really made it quite unique but also quite true to the time, to the 1830s. But he's also not making it so specific that we can't put some little like Canadian jokes in there and we can't sort of switch up the costumes a little bit. So it's a really lovely, beautiful traditional production but with an incredible energy behind it. Just a really brilliant, brilliant direction.
Elizabeth Bowman:So I'm excited. I think it's really interesting that you're starring in that production and also your Gordon Bintner, is in the title role of the Canadian Opera Company's production at the same time. So I must ask how do you two balance your lives together? Because I understand you also have a child yes, we do. And the dog.
Simone Osborne:Although he kind of counts as 0.5 because he's a Yorkie-Malt ese mix, so he's sort of more squirrel than dog. If we're honest, he's the best and he's 11 and he's been on this road with me since he was three months old so he knows the drill he goes to sleep on the airplane immediately.
Simone Osborne:I wish I could say the same for the baby. I mean, I think, first and foremost, it's important to say because I don't think it's acknowledged enough that we have an amazing support system. I have two amazing babysitters, local babysitters here. I literally could not do my job without them. I mean, they're the only way that I'm getting up there every day.
Simone Osborne:I once heard someone say I heard it on Instagram because mom life. The last thing I read was two years ago because I have a two and a half year old. So anything I say is come from either TikTok or Instagram, which is depressing, but true, sometimes there are pearls of wisdom. You know, people always tell women well, you need a village, takes a village to raise a child, but they don't tell women of our generation, who often live far away from their, you know, extended family and even an arch has close friends is that you might have to pay for that village. So we have an amazing support system and it is very expensive, and renting apartments all over the world that have two to three bedrooms to accommodate our family is very expensive. But so I feel very fortunate that we can make that work. It takes a lot of organization. It takes a lot of like I have five minutes to do this and then I have 15 minutes to get there and you just get more organized and you have no time for the like, chit, chat, extra politics, drama, which is incredibly freeing in the work because really there is no time or space for anything but her and the work. So, in a funny way, I've never worked harder, but I don't think I've ever worked smarter and I don't think I've ever done better work, which was, of course, a fear, you know, becoming a new mom and going back to work and going back to concerts and now opera.
Simone Osborne:This is my first opera contract back since having her because of the pandemic, and then, after having her, I kind of realized that I wanted to raise her and I didn't. You know the opportunities that were coming in as much as I'm very grateful for them would have meant me being away from her dad and contracts that he had already agreed to and her being either with him or with me, and that didn't feel right at the time. So we did a lot. We have, for these two and a half years, done a lot of traveling together and for us that works For the most part when he's working. I try not to be on a long contract, although that's shifting now, because it's just. You know, there are contracts that come in that you want to do and have to do, and so this is one of them. Then I'll go to the COC in the spring for Don Pasquale, while he's in Paris, but we'll go back and forth between. So, you know, you just make it work and it works differently for every family and depending on you know who. You've got A lot of singers I know have like a mom that will come with them, or a sister or aunt. We don't do that right now, but we found a way that works and it's so funny.
Simone Osborne:I was terrified, you know, as soon as I met Gord I thought, uh-oh, I'm probably gonna have to have kids with him because he's just such a good egg, and I was sort of terrified that it would change everything and it definitely has in the most incredible ways and I wouldn't change a second of it. I now realize why my friends that have kids before me never tried to explain it to me, because you can't, you can't describe it so to be able to have her with me here while I'm working and doing what I love, and for her to see her mom do that. She's seen her dad do that a lot in the last two years. I'm not sure how much she remembers it that first year and a half, but it's really important to me and it means a lot to me that, especially here at home in Canada, companies would hire me and be so supportive of me having my daughter with me. It's been really, really special and a really really special return to the opera stage and I gotta say Calgary's made it very, very easy.
Elizabeth Bowman:Does the company help with the child care connections or how do you arrange a babysitter?
Simone Osborne:We're so lucky in Canada Everyone's sort of like a two degrees of separation maybe in our world. So I went to university with a fabulous soprano who works and teaches in Calgary and she has a great student who is a musical theater singer. She's in her 20s, she's fantastically talented and just so happens to be off of work right now between contracts. So she's wonderful. And immediately when I wrote my girlfriend and said, do you know of anyone? She had this person in mind and we chatted and I just knew it was going to be a good fit and she's exceeded any kind of expectations. I'm going to be really sad to leave her. And then we have a.
Simone Osborne:I have a fabulous young artist who I actually taught a lesson to at UBC a couple of years ago. She was in the studio of my friend Rhoslyn Jones at the time, so I taught her a lesson and she's a gorgeous meds of soprano in the program here and she's taking the night shift, so she finishes coachings and things at five o'clock. She's not on the show and then she comes over here and hangs out and sits on the couch while Bertie sleeps or, more recently, puts her down to sleep, which is not an easy task, and she's succeeding. So I got really lucky. And in Toronto, of course, you know, there's so many wonderful young singers and singers make great babysitters because we've got great facial expressions and energy.
Elizabeth Bowman:I've heard that a lot, that a lot of young artists will take on child care roles and that kind of thing I mean. Obviously, from an income standpoint, it also is helpful to have an additional income when you're just starting out and in that kind of thing yeah well to be around it.
Simone Osborne:You know, I mean now that COVID rules have kind of relaxed a little bit, she can come to rehearsal sometimes and you know my sitters can be there with her, and for a young singer that's really interesting. I know Tracy Dahl used to take some of her students, some who have gone on to huge international careers. Just sort of being on the road with her and experiencing all that is pretty special. So I would love to do that and we might end up doing that in the spring when we're back and forth to Europe quite a bit. But airfare is no joke these days, so we're already paying three and paying four, or might just make my head explode. So we'll see how we make it work. But that's the motto, ma motto you just make it work.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, exactly those airfares are getting very expensive for the Europe trips. I was just looking ahead at this summer travel.
Simone Osborne:I know. It's got to be gas or something it's got to be.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, so this production runs February three to nine, and then I assume you'll go to Toronto for Gordon's final, I guess, three shows, or you'll be there, yeah, and where is home for you now that?
Simone Osborne:is a challenging question For all intents and purposes. I mean, to be honest, it's basically our suitcases, because the amount that we're on the road when he's not working he's with me, when I'm not working I'm with him. So we're on the road a lot. But Toronto, we were in Germany for six years and then just post pandemic, kind of shifted in or now based in Toronto in terms of like our apartment and we're there enough of the year that we're Canadian residents and all of that. But, if I'm honest, it feels like we live out of suitcases, which we do.
Simone Osborne:We have a storage container in Europe, we have a storage container here and you know, until she has to go to school. It feels like I don't know. To us it just felt like the most natural thing that we would try and get together. So that's what we're doing and it's wild. You go to the storage container in Germany and take out tiny baby clothes and exchange them for slightly less tiny baby clothes and switch out some toys and switch out the books and grab a gallon or two and a tux or tails, whatever he needs for the next gig, and then stop through on the way to the next place. I'll probably look back in 10 years and think what were we thinking? But works for us for now.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, Ben and I went through a period where we weren't living anywhere. We had a storage container in Toronto. It was really far out of Toronto too. It was sort of when I don't. I don't know where it was.
Simone Osborne:Yeah, See, I would have done that. And Gord was like, let's just splurge and do the downtown. You know, same in Frankfurt. It's very close to the airport and it's like, oh yeah, that's the right choice.
Elizabeth Bowman:Luxurious, luxurious Storage.
Simone Osborne:Yeah, exactly exactly.
Elizabeth Bowman:So Toronto is home. You spent a lot of time there before, obviously being an alumni of the Canadian Opera Company program, and you're going back to perform on their stage. I guess the Canadian Opera Company has somewhat transformed in the past little while, because now Alexander has gone to Paris and Perryn Leech has taken over. Have you met him, do you? I?
Simone Osborne:have met him and I mean it's tricky. The last contract that I did at CSC was literally the month before COVID. It was February of 2020. I did Hansel and Gretel and then the world shut down. I have been back the last two seasons with Gord when he was doing shows.
Simone Osborne:So I've met Perryn like after person, things like that, but we haven't had much time to connect. He's got a lot of people to see at those parties. You know how those parties can be. Yeah, it's interesting because when I came to the COC it was the same year as Alexander's first season, so I started at the company, sort of at the opening of a new chapter, and then this is such a new chapter for the COC post, I mean for everybody it feels like new chapter, post pandemic, but a lot of the old guard is still there, which is really nice. You know, you go back and you see Rob Mauro and Karen and Marg and everyone from the office. I mean our scheduling manager is the same person that I, you know, grew up with and had to deal with my hijinks. It's a 20 year old not being able to be on time for anything.
Simone Osborne:Yeah, Kat, she's still there, she deserves a medal for surviving my young artist years.
Simone Osborne:But yeah, it's nice. A lot of the crew that we knew back in the day is still there, but there's definitely a different energy to the place and there are a lot of young people in positions, in really kind of high positions there, which is so neat. Like there are people that I that were kind of interns or just starting at the company, in the press office or in donor relations and things, and now they're like running those departments, which seems so wild to me because they seem like the kids that they were when we were kids there in our 20s. And yet I realized, oh, I'm not a kid in my 20s anymore, so of course they would be, you know, running that floor. I've. You know, I've done 10 years or 15 years worth of singing since then too. So it's nice to see the company elevate people like that and it feels like a lot of people have a lot of history within that place and then there's lots of definitely some new faces and some new energy. So I'm excited to get back and I mean they just continue to put on such a high level of music making and artistry on their stage and it's always an honor to sing at the COC as a Canadian, it's just, I got really good advice when I was young and had done the competition circuit and there were a lot of sort of there was interest in and conversations happening with a lot of the American programs, and Matthew Epstein actually was the one who said to me you know, simone, you're young Canadian, I think you should train in Canada, stay in Canada and see what that does and then if you want to go and do an American program after that, it'll probably be open to you.
Simone Osborne:But it might be interesting if, as a Canadian artist, you you train there and you really, you know, learn the fundamentals there. And I'm kind of deeply proud that I did that, you know, and that that I didn't need to do one of those big American programs. After the fact they sent me off and I was kind of ready to go and yeah. So it's a lot of history in those walls.
Elizabeth Bowman:Obviously, when we met, I was Alexander Neef's executive assistant, so yeah, it's been a career journey for me too. Speaking of which, you're now more established yourself as a singer. What advice would you have for young artists just starting out now? Do you have sort of three things you would advise?
Simone Osborne:It's so interesting, definitely kind of at the top of my mind right now these days, because the young artists are in all of the rehearsals with us and it just is such a reminder of exactly the kind of format that I grew up in musically, you know, being in those rehearsals watching Isabel Bayrakdarian, watching Jane Archibald and learning from them and stealing all their tricks and using them. I would say that for most people the young artists years are really challenging, whether you're in a young artist program and you're fortunate enough to have been chosen as one of those young singers, or if you didn't receive an invitation right after a master's program and you kind of feel like you're in a little bit of no where land, you don't have anywhere that a direct path, or you're not, you know, monday to Friday, a young artist at this company. It's challenging and I think the landscape right now is extremely challenging for young artists coming out of COVID Probably better now than it was obviously a year or two ago. A lot of things are still in flux. It feels like a lot of budgets, proper companies and plans are happening a lot shorter term than they used to. It's really hard to do, but the fundamental thing that I think a young artist needs to do is be open to suggestions, advice, technical ideas, all of it.
Simone Osborne:Be open to it, but don't just take all of it as gospel and don't just assume that someone else has to say will work for you. You have to be open but you also have to kind of filter what works for you, what doesn't work for you, and you can't be so open and so not so open but you can't be so eager for all of the opinions and all of the thoughts that you get kind of lost in the stuff that happens outside the practice room or outside the rehearsal space. There's a lot of politics and drama and challenges that come with this work and I see a lot of young singers worrying about what people think of them. You know they're up there and they're trying to do the staging and they're worried about what the head of the program thinks or the head coach thinks, or the conductor or the director or the. Then the intendant walks in or the general director walks in. Here in North America you got to quiet all of that. You kind of can't see all of that. You have to be in it. You have to be thinking about yourself and your vocalism and your performance and your craft and not worry about what anybody else is thinking in the moment.
Simone Osborne:That, at least for me, paralyzed me as a young singer, and I think it was maybe made worse by the fact that I had done a lot of competitions before and had been successful in them, and so I felt maybe that there was an expectation that I was or wasn't living up to, and that was hard. But I think it's really hard to know your own worth as a young singer. Like everything in singing, it's a balance, right. It's knowing your own worth, being open to advice and criticism and changes, but not getting lost in that and forgetting who you are, forgetting what you have to say, forgetting what makes you special or different or what feels good. Even that would be a very long winded way of saying don't lose the forest through the trees. Remember who you are, be open, but be judicious in where you send your energy. Does that make any sense?
Elizabeth Bowman:Yep, I was just listening to a Rich Roll podcast. You know Rich Roll, yeah, and the guest was Dr Michael Gervais, and it's funnily enough on how to stop worrying about what other people think.
Simone Osborne:Oh, my God can you? Send me that link immediately. It's a great episode.
Elizabeth Bowman:It's all about this fear of what other people think of what you're doing, and it's not to not worry at all about what other people think, but it's about executing exactly, singing and being the artist that you are, without the fear of what other people think, and then to process what other people think after you've actually executed the fate. It can be paralyzing to anyone at any stage, but particularly for, yes, younger people who are less grounded in who they are.
Simone Osborne:Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting. Sometimes you come across a young artist who just seems totally grounded and confident in who they are. There are a couple that I have met and, funny enough, they always go on to either major success in opera or they completely switch and do something totally different and have major success in that. That fear will paralyze you and the like, the paralysis by analysis of what anybody else is thinking. I know so many good artists who are overthinkers, overanalyzers, perfectionists. The striving for perfection to a point will get you only so far and then it's a cliff because it's never going to be perfect.
Simone Osborne:The beauty of what we do is the fact that it we're human and it's not going to sound the same every night. It shouldn't. It's not going to look the same every night, it shouldn't. It's a living, breathing art and we're a part of it. And so to try and compartmentalize and analyze everything you do or every sound you make, first of all it'll just physically shut you down and second of all it's totally boring and uninteresting. I mean, there are recordings that I've heard of myself 10 years ago that I think why does that all sound the same? Having an even instrument is great and obviously you strive for that, but you strive for that so that you can do anything you want and express with that, so that you don't have technical issues that prevent you from singing this phrase. 15 different ways.
Simone Osborne:What I struggled with was trying to please everybody, including myself, and then kind of becoming tofu, because you can't please everybody and if you're pleasing everybody you're probably pretty uninteresting. So I've had to get really good with the fact that and it helps in audition. So much these. I would prefer for someone to either love me or hate me, not like oh yeah, she's a good singer, she's a fine singer, she's a good technician, but that, to me, has. I'm not interested in that anymore. I could not care less. There is no one right way to sing.
Simone Osborne:Sure, there are fundamental building blocks that have to be there and, yes, you have to support and you have to resonate and edit. There are these things that are so simple in theory and so difficult to execute, but partly and mostly for me, because we get in our own way, and so it has taken me you know from the I mean, I started when I was 21. So that's 15 years ago. It's taken me almost that long, plus a pandemic and having a child, to realize that actually, if you just do the work, if you the only things that you can control yourself, so if you do the work, you know what you're talking about, you understand what you have to say, as an artist, you understand how you're going to say it technically. And then you've got to be in the moment and you've got to just listen in scenes and really be there, not be there with an eye looking to make sure that you know whoever's the director's happy or the conductor's happy or whatever. It's being inside yourself a lot more than it is being outside yourself, and I think a lot of us are good at being outside ourselves, because that's how you become a good singer. You got to, you have to sort of feel it and listen and and judge it all the time. But then you've got to turn that analytical side off and just be a performer in the moment and, like you say, analyze after the fact.
Simone Osborne:And, funny enough, being a mom, I have the time that, like leaving the rehearsal door until I get home to analyze, and then it's bedtime or it's nap time or it's nap time. So I don't have I don't have the luxury which is like golden handcuffs of overanalyzing. It's like, oh yeah, that that high note didn't work, why, maybe I should try this next time. Okay, great. And oh, cheerios. Okay great, do you want milk or not?
Simone Osborne:And that has been a lifesaver for me because I I don't have time to think about the things that don't matter, I don't have time to worry about what anybody might be thinking of me, and that is so incredibly freeing. So incredibly freeing and genuinely, I don't think I've ever done better work. You know, I get less sleep. I have way less time to sit down and just look at a score and take it in. I make time for practice because that's a non negotiable, but somehow the work is, I think, better than it's ever been and feels better than it's ever been. Feels freer Because also, at the end of the day like if a conductor doesn't like me or a director doesn't like me as long as I come home and my daughter is happy and she's okay and you know well, fed and read to and played with and she goes to bed happy, my cup is full. But it takes time and ends All those young artists out there. Yeah, like, keep growing, but remember who you are.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, I think it's difficult, in the classical music realm in particular, because the music is written down on a page. There it is, those are the notes that you will sing, and then there are these epic recordings that that, oh, unfortunately, we compare ourselves to, or it's like it has to be this way, and I see these notes and I got to do it this way, but it's it's. I mean, it's just not that it is, it's about taking that off the page and making it yours. But, yes, very psychologically difficult to get your head wrapped around.
Simone Osborne:Oh, totally. And as a young artist, I mean, you know, I remember when I used to study with Marilyn Horne, she would tell me don't listen to anything. She said you can listen to the great recordings of that, when you knew in this instance I was singing Rigoletto for the first time. She said you can listen to all those great women do it one time. But she said you're a mimic, so if you hear, if you hear the same recording too many times, it will be in your head and you won't be able to get it out. And she said that she knew that about me because she's the same way.
Simone Osborne:And you know that can be sort of oppressive. As a young singer you fall in love with the way that Anariah's sung and of course you listen to it a million times because you're obsessive and perfectionist and, like we all, most of the good singers were in their early twenties. And then you go up and try and sing the Prédu jour and your throat is completely closed up Because all you can hear is like Lientine Price, like I'm never going to be Leontyne Price. You know what I mean and I shouldn't want to be, because we also have to remember that a lot of those recordings and things were done in the best possible circumstances in a studio with a conductor who was also one of the best in the world. They're not, you know, trying to cartwheel on stage and and bring in an audience and put that piece of the puzzle together too, which is so much more active and involved now that it was back in the day.
Simone Osborne:I mean those amazing Rossini operas that Marilyn sang. She could sit stand down stage and sing the bejesus out of them and frankly, I don't need or want to see her do any, you know, hand gestures while she's doing that. I just want to hear that because that's mind blowing. But the paradigm has shifted and the world has shifted and putting on a show is important, not to the detriment of the music, but to go hand in hand. But that takes a lot of work and perfecting. You know the amount of scampering around I'm doing on this show while trying to, you know, pump out high notes and low notes is a lot and it's not the same as standing right in front of a microphone, feet on the ground, probably in flats. So, yeah, you know the Scotto version of this piece, not to take anything away from them or those recordings, but these young artists can't expect that of themselves when they're doing cartwheels up there.
Elizabeth Bowman:Definitely Well listen. Thanks so much for all these insights and really great to connect with you after so long and so long. Yeah, really can't wait to hear you perform soon.
Simone Osborne:Oh, thanks. Well, I'm so nice to see you, Lizzie, and I'm sure we'll see each other in Toronto. It's congratulations on everything with the magazine. It's just so exciting what you're doing. It's so. It was so nice when we were away you know, living in Europe all those years to just have a little piece of home. Now that so much is online, it makes a huge difference. So thanks for all you do for the next gen.