School of Music

Students in BYU Opera Program Gain Valuable Performance Skills

by Leah Hill

As a BYU sophomore and a talented singer, Annalise Belnap was unsure of what to study. Her exposure to opera before college was minimal, but she soon fell in love with the classical voice technique and the dynamic opportunities that the BYU opera program offers. As a senior, she has played two major roles in opera repertoire and has been recognized in prestigious summer singing conferences in Texas and Spain.

Belnap will graduate from the program next fall and start working on a master's degree in opera performance at Arizona State, one of the top ranked opera programs in the nation.

“The opportunities I have had at BYU, I wouldn’t have had at other places. My education here has been a really good foundation,” Belnap said. “I have been able to form a really good vocal technical foundation that I can go to other places and build on.”

Belnap recently played Beatrice in BYU’s spring opera Béatrice et Bénédict by Hector Berlioz, based on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and directed by Professor Arden Hopkin, coordinator of the BYU Vocal Division.

In the humorous and energetic opera, Beatrice and Benedict’s friends are scheming to make them fall in love.

Jubal Joslyn, a senior music performance major who played Benedict in the opera, said his favorite scene was when Benedict’s three friends pretend to have a private conversation about Beatrice’s love for Bendedict, all the while tricking Benedict to fall in love with her.

The three actors stood on a giant block above Benedict and made the audience laugh with their impressions of Beatrice and the telling of the fabricated story. But audience members were not the only ones who found the scene amusing.

“That scene was really fun to do because they were up there having this great time being silly,” Joslyn said. “I had to pretend like I didn’t think it was funny, that I was really buying the story and act like I was really falling in love with her. But especially during rehearsals at times it was hard to keep a straight face.”

In the program, students learn voice techniques, stage presence, interpretation of a role and how to incorporate music with acting.

“I feel like because of the educational setting the opera program is in, it’s given me the chance not just to learn a few operas that I have been in, but to learn how to hear and appreciate music,” Joselyn said.

Dr. Lawrence Vincent, director of the opera program, said many opera singers coming into the professional world don’t know the basic skills that are the focus of the BYU opera program.

“Consequently they allow the music to dictate what they are doing in their acting rather than doing the acting and having the music respond to their acting, always a little bit ahead of it,” Vincent said. “And that way it looks like what they are doing is making the music do what it does.”

Many students have contacted Vincent after graduation and said the classes in performance skills have helped them professionally. However, practicing these skills on stage is also an important part of the learning process.

Students can participate in a variety of performances throughout the year. Fall semester, singers can audition for a full-stage production, accompanied by an orchestra and stage crew, involving anywhere from 40 to 80 students. “I think we are the only school in Utah that does {a full-stage production} every year,” Vincent said.

During winter semester, singers can also audition for opera scenes, and perform different scenes or a one-act opera. Students are also required to hold two recitals during the program.

Although the program requires a great deal of time and energy from students, it also gives them a chance to interact with an audience and sing beautiful music.

Graduate student Shannon Fry, who played Hero in the recent production, said she enjoyed singing beautiful arias in such a positive environment.

“It was wonderful,” Fry said. “It has been so long since I have been in an opera at BYU, so it wonderful to be involved with that. BYU is such a unique experience anyway, but to be in an opera there, you can really feel the spirit that is at BYU. The way those rehearsals are run. The way we can start with prayer.”

Belnap attributed the unique experience of the opera program to the students and faculty involved. 

“The quality of people I have been able to interact with and learn from have had a huge influence on my life,” Belnap said. “I have so much respect for the full-time faculty. Students that really love music and really want to grow and to reach and touch other people through their music, they help them do that. I felt like my testimony has been strengthened by them and through the students that are in the program.”