Caroline’s smile looked bigger than her face as she stood in a small room at the Nottingham Playhouse. She was singing beautifully high notes with a confidence and a strength that she did not know was possible. “It’s amazing because I’m going out of my comfort zone, but I’m really enjoying it,” she would tell me later.
I visited our Nottingham session this week to catch a glimpse of a new iteration of Opera:Skills, a project we launched last year that allows Streetwise participants to develop their technical proficiency as artists. In 2022, participants voted to focus on acting skills; now, the focus is operatic singing.
Streetwisers already receive lots of singing guidance in our regular sessions, but Opera:Skills is allowing them to work in groups of 2 or 3 people at a time with specialist teachers in London, Nottingham and Manchester during the month of May.
“We are excited to be working with a range of singers and vocal coaches on exercises and approaches to support the development of their singing voices”, explains Martin Constantine, our Artistic director.
In Nottingham, these small group sessions are being led by Victoria Gray, a brilliant mezzo soprano that often works with young people. This is the third of four sessions she’ll have with the group, most of whom have lived experience of homelessness, and seeing her work with them is a real pleasure.
She demonstrates the parts that each person will sing with a powerful voice and a joyous personality. She is patient, she makes them laugh to ensure they are relaxed, and she has a great way of helping them get into “the real nitty-gritty of vocal technique.”
“They are discovering that performing is not about them, it’s about the music and the audience,” she tells me. “If they take themselves out of it, they find they are a vessel for music. And then it becomes a way of escaping and letting go of emotion.”
The progress is astonishingly fast. A participant can walk into the room feeling shy and insecure, and 10 minutes later they are singing their hearts out. With renewed confidence they then go into the Neville Studio at the Playhouse, where Associate Artist Tim Lole has been introducing them to early operas by Monteverdi, Cavalli and Handel.
At the end of the session, Neil, a performer from the Nottingham group, explains why this kind of work is important: “It’s a challenge, and that pushes us up. We overcome insecurities, we become more confident. When you are pushed into an area that is a little bit challenging you will come up against your vulnerabilities. That helps us develop as actors, singers and human beings.”
