Spotlight on Yulia Levin
Part of the Life of the Opera Pianist series
General Information
Education
Glenn Gould School of Music, Toronto, Canada
Manhattan School of Music, New York, USA
Current opera house and position(s)
Opernhaus Zürich, Solo-Repetitorin
Other or former affiliations
Los Angeles Opera, pianist/répétiteur/prompter
Salzburg Festival, pianist/répétiteur/prompter
Opéra du Lyon, pianist/répétiteur/assistant conductor
Festival Aix-en-Provence, pianist/répétiteur/assistant conductor
Contact or Connect
email: yulia@levin.ca
11 Questions
Many people do not know the many roles and responsibilities a répétiteur has in the opera house. How do you explain your job to non-musicians, or even other musicians?
It is a multi-faceted profession: a répétiteur is a pianist who works in an opera house, assisting the musical side of the great “maschine”. For me, there are three main aspects of the job. One is learning the parts with the singers. That means coaching them, sometimes teaching them the rhythm, the notes, the words, the context of their roles within an opera. The second one is essentially “replacing” the orchestra during the musical and staging rehearsals. Musical rehearsals involve a conductor and the singers and a répétiteur is the transmitter in-between. We “follow” the conductor while accompanying the singers. We play music on the piano that is created from a reduction of the whole orchestra with the idea of orchestral sound and how an orchestra would react to the gestures of both the conductor and the singers. During staging rehearsals, we are there to assist the staging process, i.e. the director “directing” the singers. Both the musical and the staging rehearsals usually require many stops and repeating of the same passages. That’s why a “live” pianist is so important to bring an opera to “life”. The third main aspect of the job is assisting during the performances. This may include playing a keyboard instrument in the orchestra, for example a harpsichord, celesta, organ, hammerklavier or a glockenspiel. During performances, there is sometimes music heard from backstage. That means a répétiteur is there, conducting or cuing various ensembles or instruments which play behind the stage. Sometimes it a banda (an ensemble or a small orchestra) playing a “party” or a “funeral”, or bells coming from “the church” or indicating “midnight”, or percussion instruments, or trumpets sounding a fanfare, just to name a few examples. If there is “solo” singing happening from behind the stage - a ghost, or somebody arriving from afar, we conduct them too.
What do you find to be one of the most challenging aspects of your job?
One: Disagreeing with the musical vision of the conductor and/or dealing with their lack of preparation/experience/knowledge of the music.
Two: Making something not written for the piano (orchestral reduction/ piano-vocal score/Klavierauszug) sound beautiful or good. Sometimes these scores are several hundred pages long and are often uncomfortable, awkward to play or are extremely complex. Learning an opera score to the level of being able to play it through “in one go” is a sort of musical “giving birth”.
Do you have a favorite part of the preparation (rehearsal or learning an opera) process? If so, what is it and why?
I love it when I am making progress in my preparation — when my practicing is paying off and things are becoming easy to play.
What is your favorite opera?
Don’t have one, there are so many.
What is your favorite opera score to play and why?
One which I have studied well — mastered technically/pianistically, listened to many times with the orchestra and understand what the orchestra will sound like and have gone-through with the orchestra full score and ‘edited’ it accordingly.
As a répétiteur, we are expected to prepare music quickly (sometimes having to sightread or transpose or play music from the orchestra full score), manage multiple opera productions at the same time, play rehearsals for last minute cast changes, conduct last minute rehearsals or performances and sometimes even sing roles in these rehearsals or performances. Do you have any advice on how to deal with the excitement of the job?
One of the best pieces of advice I have personally heard was and remains to be: “It is just opera”. As stressful as it can be and as much pressure as we often experience on the job, at the end of the day, it is just opera.
Fortunately, with experience comes a sense of calm and resistance to the stresses and pressures.
We also wear many hats as a répétiteur. We are often asked to assist conductors by taking notes, provide backstage conducting for performances, prompt the singers, conduct staging rehearsals, accompany chorus rehearsals, manage sound effects or major musical cues for performances, perform a keyboard instrument (or two) in the orchestra pit and give notes to singers about language and diction. Do you have a favorite aspect of the career? Have you branched out in other directions related to our field?
I love all of the three aspects which I mentioned above. I love learning roles with the singers and discovering their characters along with them. There is a lot of psychology involved in helping somebody learn and it can be tremendously rewarding in and of itself when seeing and hearing the singers succeed and feel good about their performances.
I also love to play rehearsals. It is so fun to be able to “tell” the opera through playing the piano. For me, both musical and staging rehearsals are a form of performing. It is such a joy to be able to express myself through music. It is also so nice to collaborate with a good conductor, to be ‘carried’ by them while playing and to realize new ways to hear the music.
I also love to be a part, even if mostly invisible, of the performances themselves, to “be there” with the conductor and the singers.
I have quite a bit of experience as a prompter and have a lot of respect for that profession. A prompter is also somebody assisting the musical part of an opera. For me it is an important element of the operatic “eco-system."
What was your first experience as a répétiteur? And your most recent experience as a répétiteur?
My first: accompanying the many, many voice lessons during my studies as a pianist.
My current: “Das Rheingold” at the wonderful Opernhaus Zürich.
How do you manage playing an opera (or opera aria) for the nth time?
It actually never gets old. The singers change, the conductors change, but mostly, music is always changing, flowing and revealing itself in new ways.
Do you have any advice for pianists interested in a career at an opera house?
Practice with a metronome. Metronome is God.
Listen to other pianists play rehearsals. It can be very inspirational.
Any additional memories, thoughts or comments?
My eyes were opened, musically/operatically speaking, after working on Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen for the first time. The magnitude of the work and its magic changed my life. It is like a sweet poison that you cannot escape. The second life- changing experience - again, musically speaking- was ‘living’ through Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten. After working on that piece, nothing has been as difficult to learn. The amount of metronome hours spent ‘digesting’ it and the patience that it took to learn it myself and then with the singers was epic. At some point, we formed a “Soldaten Moral Support” group with the singers for some solace. However, like any genius work, it transformed my view on modern music forever and now I approach it with joy.
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