The Bay Area Reporter lauded rising mezzo-soprano Cynthia Hanna, exclaiming that, “her command of runs, trills, emotional commitment, and huge solid range delivered thrills.” Her engagements in the 2007-08 season include her first performances of Maddalena in Rigoletto (with Commonwealth Opera of Western Massachusetts), Flora in La traviata with the Long Bay Symphony (the Carolinas), and a return to Opera North (New Hampshire) as both Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte.
Hanna joined San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program for the summer of 2007. She also sang a concert of opera favorites at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and worked with the New York City Ballet, covering the demanding solo role in Leonid Desyatnikov’s Russian Seasons.
In the 2008-09 season, Hanna will join Washington National Opera as a member of the company’s prestigious Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, where she will be featured as Mercedes in Carmen and Flora in the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Production of La traviata. She will also join the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra for the complete Handel’s Messiah and the Utah Symphony for Mozart’s Requiem.
Hanna is a district winner from the South Carolina region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions and is third-place winner of the Palmetto Opera Competition.
What were some influential experiences in your youth that led you to a career in music?
I actually didn’t sing at all (at least not classically) until halfway through my freshman year of college. I was involved in instrumental music from 6th grade through my first year of college. I decided to audition for an opera workshop class because I liked listening to operas on NPR and the teacher convinced me to look into switching my major.
Who are some of your role models, mentors, or other influential people in your life? Do you have a “support team”?
I have a team of people I call before I make any important decision or start on a new work. I use my voice teacher, Mark Oswald; my mentor, Ellen Douglas Schlaefer; my former voice teacher (who still talks to Mark about my progress), Donald Gray; and my management team at Guy Barzilay.
What has been your greatest success?
Proving to myself and others that I am meant to do this for a living.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Learning that I have to wait for things.
If you have a degree, how much do you feel your university experience helped you? Hindered you?
I have two degrees: a BA in music and theater from Charleston Southern University and an MM in opera theater from the University of South Carolina. I think my schooling helped me greatly in understanding how many things worked before I was thrown into the fire, so to speak. I think most music programs hinder singers today because they teach their students that they somehow deserve the success, that they don’t really have to work to succeed as an opera singer. Both my degrees pushed me in ways that still dictate how I learn things today, and I would never change that.
How did you obtain management and have you found it beneficial?
I was scouted out by a couple of people and was offered some promising work from one manager who gave me a lot of audition opportunities last fall. It has been a lot easier having someone else to take on a lot of the pressure of this business.
What is the best non-singing, singer-friendly job you’ve ever had?
I worked as a personal assistant for an art dealer. He was very understanding of my career and allowed me to take any days off that I needed.
What is the worst non-singing job you’ve ever had?
In college I cleaned dorm rooms in the summer, and in high school I worked at Chick-fil-A. I would say the eight-hour days of cleaning trumped working in a fast food restaurant.
Hailed by the New Yorker as “captivating,” versatile soprano Melissa Fogarty has been enjoying a banner year in both opera and concert. In March, she made an auspicious debut at New York City Opera in the leading role of Soprano I (Cupid/Venus/Honor) in Purcell’s King Arthur. April brought a return engagement with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, where Fogarty starred as Serpina in Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and was cited by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for her “bright attractive soprano and ample technique.” In May, Fogarty impressed public and critics alike in VOX, City Opera’s annual showcase of new American operas, performing Dice Thrown, a virtuosic one-woman “aleatoric soundscape” by John King.
A favorite of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici, she also premiered a new song cycle, A Field Manual, performed at Symphony Space with the Fireworks Ensemble. This summer, Fogarty showed off her crossover abilities, performing Yiddish swing numbers with Isle of Klezbos at the Michigan Womyns’ Music Festival and singing standards in “From Broadway to Gorky Park” at the Bard Music Festival. She wrapped up the summer appearing as Ottavia in The Coronation of Poppea at New York City’s new club, Le Poisson Rouge, in the debut production of Opera Omnia.
What were some influential experiences in your youth that led you to a career in music?
At age 6, I discovered the album Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. I learned every note and nuance and sang them at the top of my lungs to anyone who would listen: my family, neighbors, my first-grade class. I would ask the teacher if I could sing for the class at least once a week, and she let me. That experience changed me from a very shy reserved child to a spunky, rambunctious one. I knew then I wanted to be singer.
My mother was an opera singer so I was exposed to opera in the womb and always loved it. She encouraged me to pursue it. At age 11, I started singing professionally with the Met Children’s Chorus.
What has happened in your career that made you feel like you’ve “made it”? Or what needs to happen in your career for you to feel that you’ve finally made it?
Every time I have the opportunity to sing in front of an audience and know that I’ve done everything I can to be the best I can be in that moment, I have made it. I haven’t always felt that way. I only realized that truth . . . in 2004 [when] I decided to stop singing professionally because I felt I hadn’t “made it” and that it was too late for me to try. In 2006, I decided that I would sing for the sheer love of it without expectations of professional success. A funny thing happened then. I realized that my love of singing meant that I had to get back out there in the ring. I got my audition package together and just went for it.
Shortly thereafter, NYCO contacted me for a VOX audition and I was ready to show them that I could do much more than just sing the piece they had in mind for me. I ended up making my debut there last season as a result, and that’s just part of the story of the amazing opportunities I have received these past two seasons. None of these things would have happened without a profound shift in perspective on precisely what “making it” is all about—for me.
What impact has your success at the AudComps had on you and your career?
It has reinforced the fact that I need to keep putting myself out there. It also brought to light how to make myself a better singer and a stronger performer and that these efforts will be worth the hard work and expense.
Do you find a lot of opportunities where you live to sing, or do you travel a lot? Do you feel you need to live in New York City to make the most of your career?
I live in New York and mostly sing here as well. I can’t imagine living anywhere else to have the same job opportunities and access to such fine resources.
How do you feel about performance reviews? Do you read them?
Reviews are a funny thing. I do read them and I have been lucky, as they have been either positive or neutral. It’s thrilling when an important publication says something good about you and you can use it in your press kit. But reviews are just an opinion and are highly subjective.
