BALCONY OPERA

HOW A PANDEMIC HELPED ME TO UNDERSTAND WHY I SING

I’ve always loved music.

I was surrounded by music from the moment I was born, growing up hearing my mum teach piano.

I remember becoming aware of my love for singing at age 7 when I was selected to sing in the school choir. I discovered that being involved in a group, creating music, was invigorating to me. The act of singing was a release. I felt free.

Singing is also about striving for excellence. Classical singing, in particular, feeds my continuous desire for improvement. As long as I practice effectively, I can get better and better. And that’s super exciting.

But unless you live on a property with loads of space or have a room with world-class sound proofing, it’s almost impossible to practice without your neighbours hearing every moment - including the uncontrollable expletives. Every time I move to a new place, there's a fear that my future neighbours will not accept the loud, crazy sounds that come with me (an unfortunate reality for some of my colleagues).

Prior to the pandemic, most of my practice was done in the rehearsal rooms at the Melbourne University Conservatorium as I was a student there. These rooms became unavailable when COVID-19 hit, so the little practice I did do at home suddenly became full time. This was a scary prospect and a lot to ask of the neighbours who were also stuck in lockdown. So my fellow opera singer housemate Lisette Bolton and I came up with the idea to hold a concert for them from the second storey of our unit, to say 'thank you for putting up with our loud annoying sounds’. We called it Balcony Opera.

That first concert was on 4 April 2020, 3 weeks after the first lockdown began in Australia. We continued performing almost every weekend for the rest of that year (only missing 2 or 3 shows) and in total Balcony Opera was performed live and live-streamed for 40 weeks, ending with two Christmas Eve concerts by fairy light. During that time, our music colleagues also participated by providing accompaniment tracks or singing on our balcony with us when restrictions eased enough to allow it.

Balcony Opera gave us the opportunity to connect socially at a time when we were most isolated from our friends and family. It gave us the opportunity to perform live at a time when the music stages and rehearsal rooms in the world were closed. It motivated us to keep practicing and learning new repertoire. It allowed me to capture the beautiful changing seasons, notice the light and shadows move and see the trees drop their leaves and grow again - things I’d never paid close attention to before. And most importantly it solidified human connection. Balcony Opera started with our little community of 7 units and grew to include the surrounding streets and suburbs, as well as a global online community. I will forever treasure the friendships we made. It made moments of the longest lockdown feel like a positive experience. 

I now understand that the deepest reason I sing is to connect with others and to connect others with others.