Pathos and Passion: Joyce Didonato’s Master Classes
In February 2015, renowned mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato led a series of master classes for young artists in Carnegie Hall’s Resnick Education Wing. The four singers selected to participate received coaching sessions over the course of three consecutive days that were open to the public and streamed online at medici.tv, giving audience members around the world a rare opportunity to share in the insights of one of opera’s greatest artists. Next month, four singers will again participate in a series of public master classes with Ms. DiDonato at Carnegie Hall. We recently caught up with the “Yankee Diva” to discuss her approach to these events and her work with young artists.
You’re a passionate advocate for opera as an art form. How do your master classes serve this mission?
I hope the classes work to serve the art form on a few different levels, but admittedly, it is incredibly challenging to achieve. Obviously, there is a student on hand who is looking for specific guidance, and he or she is my starting point. But it’s not a private coaching session—there are numerous people observing to learn more about singing, about performing. So my approach, while stemming entirely from the individual at hand, is to give concrete information that can help the student advance and grow as an individual, but to do it in a universal way so that other singers watching can also incorporate various techniques into their own preparation and performance. I find that this leads me to talk about the process quite a lot and in more sweeping terms.
Read the entire interview here.