Joyce El-Khoury is not a cookie cutter soprano. Neither is she one to back down from a challenge. I first heard El-Khoury singing in Carmen at Santa Fe Opera in 2014, while I was writing another article for CS (“Opera in ‘The City Different,’” Summer 2014). She was no shy-and-retiring Micaëla, as is often seen. Her performance was a commanding one in a role that can often take a back seat. A few months later, she and Michael Fabiano brought the house down at the Richard Tucker awards with a fiery duet from Manon that ended in a passionate kiss.
The next time I saw El-Khoury in person was in Cincinnati, where she stepped in for an ailing soprano at the dress rehearsal and sang Beethoven’s rarely performed Missa solemnis with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus. El-Khoury’s performance was thrilling, and she astounded everyone with the ease of her voice in the extremely challenging “Benedictus.”
This is just the kind of challenge El-Khoury thrives on. “It’s what gets me going,” she says. “It’s that chance to show courage and grit that energizes me and makes me do what I do.” This has been clear since El-Khoury’s childhood, when she was consistently bullied. This courage is clear in the roles she has taken on and the ways in which she has stepped in and made a name for herself. That love of a challenge is also evident in her recently released album, Écho, in which she sings everything from the well-known Lucia di Lammermoor to the obscure Robert le diable, in an ode to the ridiculously talented 1830s soprano Julie Dorus-Gras.
If you haven’t heard El-Khoury sing yet, you should. Two of her biggest recent debuts have been singing Violetta in La traviata, first at Covent Garden and then this last summer at Glyndebourne. Her Violetta displays a voice of velvet roundness, emotional power, and great facility, reminiscent of the unmatched Teresa Stratas. Again, El-Khoury’s voice has not been easy to classify, and it took a while to find her groove, but she has certainly done so.
Rising above Her Critics
Quite often, the strongest people we know are a product of the adversity through which they have struggled, and El-Khoury is no exception. As a child, she faced years of bullying that followed her into high school. “On Sunday night,” she describes, “Unbeknownst to my parents I would dread going back to school on Monday. It really affected my self-esteem, which is very common. I had to work on gaining my confidence back and accepting myself.”
In a line of work that requires the ability to consistently live with rejection and sometimes brutally honest feedback, a history of being bullied can take its toll. “As an artist, we’re always examining ourselves and we have to be able to look at ourselves objectively and be critical so we can grow,” El-Khoury shares. “At the same time, when you’ve been bullied, the criticism is not necessarily a good thing. You take it more personally. So, you have to draw the line of self-acceptance to be critical and always grow but still be confident in yourself. Looking back now, it’s made me into the person and performer that I am.
“It helped me to become an empath and put myself in other’s shoes because I’ve lived and felt so much from a very young age,” she continues. “I do think that’s what allows me to be so comfortable onstage, to be vulnerable and live in different characters. I’ve had such an intimate relationship with emotion and I’ve never blocked it. I’ve always enjoyed feeling emotion.”
This ability to feel and channel emotion has become a great strength for El-Khoury as an actress. In 2015, she sang Tobias Picker’s Emmeline, with Opera Theatre of St. Louis. In a modern setting of the Oedipus myth and based on a true story from the 1840s, Emmeline tells the tale of a 13-year-old mill worker in Massachusetts who is seduced by her foreman. She has the child, but it is taken away and she never sees it again. Twenty years later, she falls in love with a young man and marries him, only to discover too late that it is actually her son. The fallout is heart wrenching.
In a review of the performance, PLAYBACK:stl wrote, “From the moment Joyce El-Khoury sang her last note as the title character Emmeline and the lights went down, the audience was on its feet to applaud one of the most poignant two and a half hours I have ever spent in the theatre. . . . El-Khoury plays each stage of Emmeline perfectly: from the shy and innocent child, to the young mother trying desperately to do what’s right, to the older and guarded Emmeline who unexpectedly falls in love, and then to woman who loses everything. To go through that many emotions as an actor is emotionally draining, but it’s a journey El-Khoury didn’t take alone; she brought the whole audience with her to the bitter end.”
For someone so tuned in to giving and receiving emotion from the audience, these are the roles that she loves. “To this day, I still try to match that kind of all-encompassing artistic experience,” she says. It takes more than just an empathetic personality, however, to be a great actress.
There is a process to pairing great vocalism with moving drama, and El-Khoury’s practice regimen is intense. “In my prep time, when I’m studying a role, I divide up my time between hours on the piano working on the notes, working in the technique, and then a lot of time is spent quietly with the words,” she says.
“I have to understand why she’s saying what she’s saying. What do the words actually mean? Once I’ve done that, then I kind of let it go and trust the process. I try to be that character as much as I can—not from the outside in, but to find the character inside me and work my way out. What is she going through? How can I relate to that situation? If I can’t, how can I relate to the emotion that she’s going through?
“I’ve had moments where I’ve actually put my dad’s face on a character’s face, especially if I’m doing a loving father-daughter scene. That makes it so real to me. A lot of it is instinctive and cathartic. I’m feeling this, and so the audience needs to feel this. It’s expression without thought or agenda. It’s just raw.
“You have to sort of have that third eye, at the same time. So, I may be balling my eyes out but is the audience feeling anything? Does it look ridiculous? You also have to check in with your sound. Is my emotion affecting the quality of my sound? I’ve been guilty of that and it’s something I always have to work on.”
“Don’t Look for the Shortcuts in Your Work”
As I have gotten to know fellow singers over the years, I have realized two things. First, the ideal path to an opera career that we imagine is almost never the one that people take. Second, no one has a singing career without stubbornness, determination, hard work, and sheer willpower.
El-Khoury started her path to being an opera star by first wanting to be a pop star. “I was in high school and I knew I wanted to sing,” she recounts, “but I was never exposed to classical and opera growing up. I listened to pop music, Lebanese music, and church music.” Her dreams of being a pop star, however, were derailed by debilitating stage fright, and she instead followed a path towards nursing, including working and interning at a children’s hospital.
Her mother allowed her to start singing lessons at 15 years old, and the teacher was a classically trained soprano. El-Khoury thought, “I don’t want to sing opera, but I guess this will help me with my singing technique when I’m a pop star.” After a few years of lessons, her parents encouraged her to audition for the music program at the University of Ottawa. She got in, and during her first year she was cast to sing Carmen’s “Habanera” in the opera program.
“When you’re new to opera, what’s cooler than that?” she says. “From then on, I was hooked. I fell in love with opera at 19.”
After graduating, El-Khoury applied to all of the big opera programs for graduate schools and was accepted at only one, but without scholarships. At that point she thought, “What am I going to do now?” El-Khoury decided to move to Philadelphia for a year, even though she couldn’t work because of her Canadian citizenship.
If there was a year that defined her future, this was probably it. Without the resources to enlist anyone’s help, she fixed her eyes on her goal. “I could only afford two voice lessons that whole year, which I took with Bill Schuman. The administration at the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) graciously let me go up in the studios on the top floor of the building to practice since I lived across the street. I would just go there and practice from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, and I taught myself five roles. That’s when my technique really improved and I worked on myself and taught myself. It was really about grit. That’s what I did that whole year and then the time came for auditions again. I decided then to audition for AVA and only for AVA and I thought, ‘I’m going to get in this time.’ And I did.”
What changed during that year? Part of it was figuring out what repertoire fit her voice. In her undergrad, El-Khoury sang a lot of zwischen repertoire, going between Carmen, Dorabella, and Mimì, but nothing that really remained high in tessitura. She has always possessed a lower speaking voice and a darker color in her singing voice, so she had to commit to working the top of her voice. Eventually, El-Khoury started to gain clarity and ease in the top notes.
She also learned a lesson that she continues to apply every day and preaches to young singers: “Don’t look for the shortcuts in your work,” she says. “Don’t try to become a star overnight. Don’t try to skip the steps that take you from point A to point B. Part of becoming the artist that you want to be is dealing with all of the nitty-gritty on the way. You would miss out if you didn’t. I was never sprinkled with fairy dust. I had to build everything. It’s been challenging, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve had to learn about myself, look for my weaknesses, and question everything. I’ve also had to look for my strengths and capitalize on them.”
From Point A to Point B
So, how does a soprano go from graduate school auditions to singing Violetta at Covent Garden and recording a solo album? “It’s like building brick by brick, working for every little thing,” explains El-Khoury. “I had to strategically plan everything and build little by little. One job led to another job. One contact led to another contact. It’s amazing because everything can be traced from point to point.”
After two years at AVA, El-Khoury was offered a spot in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. While there, she made contacts with people in the opera industry. She met managers and auditioned for companies. This was a huge boost, but she credits Lorin Maazel for helping her score her breakthrough performance. El-Khoury was cast to sing in Maazel’s Castleton Festival as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi and covering Suor Angelica. On opening night, the soprano singing Suor Angelica was ill and El-Khoury sang both roles. The positive press she received from that night accelerated her career.
Another connection from the Met was renowned coach John Fisher, with whom she worked on Traviata and other Bel Canto repertoire. At the time, Fisher was casting for Welsh National Opera and he cast El-Khoury as Violetta for 17 performances on tour. “That was pretty cool!” she says. “Then, he recommended me to sing the role of Antonina in Donizetti’s Belisario, which I recorded with Opera Rara in London. That’s what put me on the Bel Canto map.” After that, she recorded Donizetti’s Les martyrs with Opera Rara, and she just recently finished her first solo album, Écho. In November she will sing Bellini’s Il pirata in Bordeaux (a concert commemorating Maria Callas) and then in St. Gallen, Switzerland, next spring. To round out her Bel Canto tour de force, El-Khoury will go back to Covent Garden in July 2018 to debut a Donizetti opera, L’ange de Nisida.
How does one debut a Donizetti opera in 2018? “L’ange de Nisida has literally never been heard, and the score is being worked on right now,” El-Khoury says. “Donizetti gave it up and took some of the music from it and put it in La favorite, but it’s going to be a Donizetti world premiere and will also be recorded for our label. People ask why I do all of this Bel Canto and rare work. It just happened, and I didn’t plan it, but it came my way and I realized that’s what I’m good at. That’s what people respond to. The quality of my voice puzzled people and they didn’t know how to advise what roles to sing. But when I sing this rep, it’s obvious that it’s what my voice is supposed to do, and my purpose is to bring these works to light and share them with others. It’s so rewarding to sing this rep because it gives me back everything I put into it.”
Bel Canto
Two names that came up in our interview were sopranos Julie Dorus-Gras and Maria Callas. “I’m not saying that I’m Callas!” exclaims El-Khoury. “But, when I listen to Callas, I feel like my mechanism can relate to hers. She was successful in Bel Canto because of how she could color the voice and what she was able to do.” El-Khoury feels the same way about Dorus-Gras. “We don’t know what she sounded like. We have no idea of her vocal quality. But I look at the arias and roles that she sang, and they could have been written for me.”
This makes the title of El-Khoury’s newest album, Écho, appropriate indeed. Dorus-Gras was influential in the birth of grand opera, the predecessor to Verdi’s Aida and Otello. Dorus-Gras sang the leading roles in the operas of Donizetti, Webern, Meyerbeer, and Bellini and she was the originator of roles in Robert le diable, La juive, and Les Huguenots, among many others. Though no recordings exist of her voice, we can guess when we hear a voice like El-Khoury’s that fits the music so well that we are hearing an echo of the great diva, Dorus-Gras. Those who purchase the album will recognize a few titles, such as arias from Lucia di Lammermoor and William Tell, but others may be new.
Reaching New Audiences
I ask El-Khoury about how we move forward in a time of decreasing arts funding. “People say all the time now, ‘Is opera dying?’ It’s not dying, but it’s definitely in transition. We are experiencing opera differently, just as we’re experiencing life differently. I like to get on tour buses when I’m in different cities and I watch the people around me. We’ll pass by this gorgeous church in Bordeaux and people glance at it, grab their phone, and take a photo before they’ve even really seen the thing with their eyes. We put these memories in our devices before we’ve put them in our mind. That’s the age we’re in. Everything is fast and we’ve stopped just experiencing. Even when we go to the opera, intermission comes and we take out our phone! We can’t help it. We have to acknowledge that times are changing. I don’t think there’s one solution to this big problem. There are so many different angles and it’s a symptom of a bigger disease.
“I can tell you what I want to do personally, though. We have to educate our kids now. So much of it is intimidation and lack of knowing. My parents had never gone to an opera before I introduced them to it. I had never been to one before my teacher introduced me. Once the ice is broken, though, it’s an art form that many people fall in love with. I’m developing a program where I can go and talk to kids at schools about bullying and the effects of bullying and I can share my experience. Then, I have them come to the opera, and there’s a familiarity for them already. It’s much easier for someone to come to the opera for the first time if they know someone who’s in it. It becomes personalized, and then they’ll go again because they associate a happy memory with it. Start with music education.
“We talked in the beginning about how singing is a parallel to life. For kids to experience art in that way and for me to discuss it with them is a gift. I see my singing as an extension of who I am. It’s a larger whole. If kids can see someone that they can relate to and feel that they’re not alone, you can then say, ‘Look what you can turn problems or bullying into.’ They can turn all the negative things that have happened to them into positives. In the face of bullying, I always felt a strong purpose that I knew no one could take away. That’s what has shaped me and influences who I am every day as an artist.”
Life on the Road
For singers who haven’t experienced a full-time performing career, often the most difficult part can be the constant travel. It’s not a glamorous life. “On the other hand,” El-Khoury says, “it’s a privilege that we get to do what we do. We get to travel the world, meet new people, and do what we love—but it comes with a price. I just have to find balance, time to exercise, time to study, time to practice, and time to talk with my loved ones. It takes commitment and discipline.”
El-Khoury elaborates on some of the challenges of being on the road. “I’m good being alone and actually enjoy it. I’m fine with my own company, but I have a lot of colleagues who really struggle with that. That’s not to say that I don’t miss my family and I’m sad when I miss birthdays and anniversaries. That’s hard. But for me, once I’m settled in a place and my suitcase is unpacked, I’m super happy.
“What I don’t love is the travel itself: lugging a suitcase, getting visas, and all of that. It’s not an easy life, but I have great support from my coach Laurent Philippe, and my voice teacher, Julia Faulkner, who often travel with me. My first five years were totally dedicated to the profession. I’m a workaholic. When I’m alone, I can work 10 a.m. until midnight, no problem. I’m now beginning to introduce a little more balance. I’ve gotten my Reiki attunement and I’m starting to tick some things off of the bucket list.
“Things are going well, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t challenges still. You have to keep working, keep your eye on the ball, get rejected, and then get back in the practice room. It’s the grit and the fire in the belly that you have to have. For no singer has it happened overnight and stayed there without a significant amount of work and perseverance.”
If anything is clear, it’s that El-Khoury has found her groove. She is a soprano who is already contributing uniquely to the world of music and is also using her success to influence and uplift a rising generation. El-Khoury is the consummate example of perseverance, determination, and humanity.
