Finding the sweet spot between singing and acting
Have you ever heard a recording of a classically trained singer performing popular music? Sometimes they work. But often, the results are somewhere between awkward and painful.
So when Cincinnati Opera announced it would stage “Fiddler on the Roof” as part of its 2025 summer festival, I winced.
I like “Fiddler” a lot. It’s a deserving staple of the musical theater canon, filled with memorable characters, oodles of humor and an abundance of oh-so-hummable tunes. Was this really a show we should entrust to opera singers?
When I spoke with Cincinnati Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas, he immediately understood my skepticism.
“There are thousands of great opera singers who should never sing musical theater,” Mirageas said. “They don’t have the right temperament for it. Or the right type of voice. But in the case of this ‘Fiddler,’ you don’t need to worry because I choose my singers very carefully.”
Savvy casting has been one of the greatest strengths that Mirageas has brought to the Cincinnati Opera. He has been an exceptionally well-connected cog in the opera community for several decades and seems to have an almost photographic memory for the hundreds – even thousands – of performers he has seen along the way.
“For this production, I have chosen people who have had experience in musical theater, not just singers who want to try it,” he said. “It’s a little bit easier these days than it used to be. Younger performers are triple threats. They have not only trained in opera, but also from the great American songbook.”
Over the decades, some singers successfully managed to cross back and forth from opera to Broadway or cabarets. Besides being a mainstay of the Metropolitan Opera, Dorothy Kirsten was noted for her interpretations of the songs of George Gershwin and Jerome Kern. And the venerable Eileen Farrell was not only a memorable Brünnhilde but also, according to Mirageas, “one of the great blues singers of the second half of the 20th century.”
The one role for which Mirageas didn’t opt for an opera professional was Tevye, the impoverished milkman who is the musical’s central character.
“I cast Max Hopp,” he said. “He is the most celebrated Tevye alive in Europe.” He played the role in the groundbreaking 2017 production of “Fiddler” directed by Barrie Kosky at the Komische Oper Berlin.
But for the rest of the cast, Mirageas says he was guided by a philosophy the English call “horses for courses” – finding the right worker for the right job.
Rachel Blaustein plays Hodel, the second of Tevye’s five daughters. Look through her resume and you’ll find roles in one opera after another; “Rigoletto” and “The Rake’s Progress” and several productions of “The Magic Flute,” among others.
What you won’t find is her earliest role as a professional. Or what she calls her great passion.
“I started out doing musical theater,” Blaustein said. “I had a big dream. I had plans of going to Broadway.” And that first professional theater engagement? It was in a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Olney Theater Center in Maryland.
“I sang Shprintze,” another of Tevye’s daughters. “I was just 16. And I knew that musical theater was what I wanted to do.”
But she had a preternaturally mature voice, so musical theater roles slipped into the background as she was called on to perform more operas.
There is a difference in the physicality demanded of performers in the two art forms, as well. And they are differences that can be quite noticeable to audiences.
“In opera, we have this beautiful bel canto tradition,” said Sarah Folsom, assistant professor of musical theater voice at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music who will appear in “Fiddler” as Fruma Sarah. “We call the physical manifestation of that tradition ‘the noble posture.’ Usually, the singer is in a somewhat stationary position when they’re doing it.”
To an experienced operagoer, that stand-and-sing approach is familiar. There’s nothing odd about it. But for audiences more familiar with musical theater, it can look affected. There is nothing remotely natural about it. Opera singers themselves poke fun at it, calling it “park and bark.” It’s one of many elements that make traditional operas feel more formal. Some might say “stilted.”
Musical theater performers aren’t constrained by any of those traditions. Musicals are supposed to offer a more realistic representation of life. So they are often more free to move around the stage, perhaps even dance.
“In musical theater, acting can be more important than the singing,” said Folsom. “Storytelling ability becomes more important. But if you’re an opera singer moving into musical theater, you’re coming from a world where vocal production is regarded as the most important thing. Making that transition can be a challenge. But if you manage it, it can be liberating.”
Victoria Livengood, who plays Golde, Tevye’s wife, feels “blessed” by the musical upbringing she experienced.
“I was born into a family of musicians,” said Livengood. “But it had nothing to do with opera. I grew up singing a lot of gospel music and jazz. My parents were national champions. My dad was the bass in a barbershop quartet called the Dixie Colonels. And my mother was in a Sweet Adelines chorus called the Southern Charms. That was my whole experience before I came into opera.”
In fact, she didn’t hear an opera until she was an 18-year-old college freshman and traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to see “La Bohème” by Giacomo Puccini.
Puccini was probably an ideal first opera experience. “La Bohème” is the operatic equivalent of a Hollywood weepie. It’s about young, idealistic love. And death. Lots of tears.
“I’ll be honest. Up to that point, I thought opera was all about breastplates and armor,” Livengood said. “Or that it had to do with Jim Nabors. But when I saw ‘La Bohème,’ it was like a lightning bolt. After that, I started to assess my strongest attributes. I have an ear for language. I’m loud. I love to play dress-up. I’m overdramatic. What could I possibly do with all my talents? I knew I had what it takes to become an opera diva.”
For a latecomer to the opera world, her progress was as remarkable as it was rapid. Within seven years of seeing that first opera, she won the Metropolitan Opera auditions and was thrust onto stages around the world; Paris, Venice, Milan, Kiev, St. Petersburg. Recitals, operas, galas. She seemed to be everywhere. She performed Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” in an ice hockey arena in Grand Rapids. And then starred in The Met’s production opposite Placido Domingo.
“It was a very, very different experience for a little girl off a cow farm in North Carolina,” Livengood said. “And now here I am making my debut at Cincinnati Opera. I’m 65 now. This is my 105th role. It’s crazy.”
Besides performing regularly, the “Dixie Diva,” as she bills herself, has built a second career as a teacher and coach.
“I have nearly 100 students from China and Korea and Australia,” Livengood said. “And from the U.S., of course. We do a lot of it on Zoom. I’ve been so fortunate. There are still some roles I’d like to sing,” she added. “I never got around to doing Mistress Quickly in (Giuseppe Verdi’s) ‘Falstaff.’ I did Meg, but then I got sidetracked. And I’ve done a lot of (Gian Carlo) Menotti. I’d love to do some more.”
But for now, it’s back to musical theater. And Golde. And “Fiddler.”
“I really am living my best life.”
July 23, 25, 26 and 27 at Music Hall
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