Daily life for an opera singer can be surprisingly ordinary! Katarzyna takes us through it.
It could be that there's no rehearsals or performances, but that doesn't mean a day off! I sing every day, and can spend several hours working on the opera I'm involved in at the time, or preparing for future performances or auditions, or just learning more music to expand my repertoire.
Luckily there is a piano where I'm staying so this helps with my practising - I can easily check if I'm singing in tune. I do vocal exercises and scales a lot - it's particularly important as a coloratura soprano that I keep the voice very agile.
I'm staying in a private house rather than a hotel or apartment. It's nice to feel you're in a home with real people, especially if it's for long periods. I stayed here last time I was in Cardiff, and it's great to feel you're among friends. I do miss home and my husband, and it can be very lonely in an apartment or hotel on your own, for weeks on end.
When I have rehearsals I walk to and from the theatre. The new house is further than before, and it takes about an hour to walk. I could take two buses, but it's probably just as quick to walk, and it is good for me - except when it rains!
I'm also keeping fit by doing aerobics to a DVD. Not every day - it's too tiring if I have to sing a lot, either in rehearsals or a performance - but I try to do it a few times a week. It makes me feel better about eating pretzels, or chocolate...
Like everyone else, I have to do my food shopping, my washing, boring things like that. I've also bought some clothes while I've been here. I have a concert of film music coming up, and I had to find a suitable dress to wear. I was very pleased to find a dress shop in Cardiff that has lots of great concert dresses - I usually like them to be very dramatic, with very full skirts.
When I go home, there's always so much to do! Although my husband sorts out certain things, there are huge amounts of paperwork to sort out - there's one pile of bills, another of papers about work, another with things like visa applications and what tax has been paid in which country.
It's not all bad though - I also get fan mail. Some people have followed my career from the start, and as time goes on I'm hearing from more and more people. They may have seen me onstage, heard my CD or a broadcast, found my website - sometimes from the Cardiff Singer website!
You have to be careful with money - I come from a family of professional musicians and I'm married to one as well, so I'm used to this! People may think that opera singers are all rich and swan around in expensive clothes and limousines, and of course there are a few superstars that do, but it's an expensive career for most of us.
You may be away from home for two months at a time - but you still have to pay for it, as well as where you're staying. You travel a lot, not just for work but to have meetings and auditions to bring you more work.
If you're singing in a concert, you have to have the right clothes, and if like me you love big concert dresses, you need to have a decent reliable car to put them in, and somewhere with enough storage space. Then you have to pay a percentage to your agent, and you also need to pay a good accountant to make the money go as far as possible!
Very often when I tell people that I'm an opera singer, they say, "Really? So what do you do during the day?" I hope this glimpse into my life has answered some questions you might have had, and maybe some that you hadn't even thought of!
