By Naomi Tsuang
Staff Writer
Mira Costa freshman Maggie Weller has been singing opera for five years and she doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. In fact, she’s just getting warmed up.
Weller started taking lessons in third grade at the age of nine when she showed an interest in starting vocal lessons. Weller’s vocal teacher persuaded her to try singing opera because she thought it would go well with her voice.
“I had never heard anything like opera ever before so when I was introduced to it, I was immediately interested,” Weller said. “I knew that I wanted to continue learning about it and practicing it so that I could get better.”
Weller said she never did choir but she always enjoyed singing for fun. She especially enjoys singing opera because it makes her stand out from her other peers that sing. Despite this, she never expected singing opera to turn into an actual hobby that she would be doing in the future.
“Opera is unique and different and I thought it would be fun to try out,” Weller said. “Singing opera is like nothing that I’ve ever done before. I’m so glad that I continued with it.”
Weller normally sings in Italian, German, English, and French. Weller said that memorizing her songs is more difficult because she doesn’t speak any of the languages, but she would be willing to learn the languages for better pronunciation and so that acting out the songs is easier.
“It’s much different to do operas or any type of foreign language that you don’t hear very often,” Weller said. “I really like learning the language and it’s something different so I think that it makes me unique in that way.”
Weller sang at an AYSO Soccer Convention with over 500 people in attendance last year, but she mostly sings at school recitals and her voice instructor’s annual recitals. Weller plans to sing opera competitively beginning in February.
“I’m not scared of performing in front of a large audience, but I’m nervous to sing in front of the judges,” Weller said. “I think that I’ve been doing opera for long enough that now I’m ready to start performing and competing more.”
For over a year, Weller has been working on three songs for an upcoming opera competition that she plans to sing in. She has prepared a German art song which is a classical German piece called “Lachen Und Weinen.” Most recently, she has been practicing two Italian arias called “Batti Batti,” and “Se tu m’ami” which are solo songs from operas for the competition.
“The pieces that she would like to do in a competition really need to be prepared and need to be flawless and performance ready as far as technique, memorization, and stage presence,” Weller’s voice teacher, Michelle Collins said. “We spent a long time on the competition pieces.”
Weller practices the songs she plans to sing in future competitions four times a week by herself for half an hour to one hour. Once a week, she has a singing lesson with her vocal teacher where they work on strengthening her voice through different vocal techniques to perfect her songs.
“It has been so enjoyable to watch her voice grow,” Collins said. “To watch how much she has grown as a singer is incredible. That’s been so much fun for me.”
In the future Weller plans to go to a performing arts school where she can be more involved with actually performing the operas instead of just singing the songs. Weller said that it’s a path that she’s interested in taking to explore what opera has to offer.
“I’m excited for the new experiences that come with singing opera,” Weller said. “Once I get critiqued by the judges at the competition I can work on my weak spots and hopefully become a better singer and further my career in opera singing.”
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