Mozart Conducting Workshop

This past week, I had the unique opportunity to sing for a seminar for student conductors led by Professor Donald Schleicher, who is retiring at the end of this year. This workshop was centered around arias from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and I was lucky that Dr. Julie Gunn recommended me for it. I am always happy to sing anything from this opera, as it is one of my favorites, and the role of Count Almaviva is a staple of lyric baritone repertoire (my voice type). I agreed instantly to help out with this and was eager for the opportunity to sing with a reduced orchestra! I love singing with strings, and it always provides a welcome variety because even in non-pandemic times, rehearsals are typically with piano. Moreover, the aria I was designated to sing at the workshop was “Hai già vinta la causa,” Count Almaviva’s aria from Nozze, and this was an aria I sang many times throughout my audition season. I was eager to use my skills with the aria in this real-world application. ​

     After singing this aria so many times throughout my musical life and the current audition season, I was quite confident and did not use music in the workshop. Instead, I was able to focus squarely on the student conductors who were exercising their opera conducting skills with this essential repertoire. Niccolo Muti was the first student conductor, and I ended up singing for Tomás Dueñas and Todd Craven as well. These conductors were all excellent and had wonderful instincts about conducting opera. I also knew each of these conductors from past musical experiences: Niccolo from an orchestra concert in which I narrated a piece, Thomás from UI Chamber Singers, and Todd from class and our concert production of Vanessa. Professor Schleicher provided excellent insights to the conductors and I with his experience in opera showing. He also provided some welcome humor about conductors and singers. This experience was very illuminating for me as well as for the conductors. I was able to learn a lot about how to sing these arias with an orchestra, and about interacting with conductors both musically and personally. I was very happy to help out with this, and I think the conductors gained some valuable instincts about working with singers on operatic repertoire. This also served as one of Professor Schleicher’s last activities as the director of orchestras at UIUC, so it was wonderful to get to work with him one last time. 

Geoffrey Schmelzer