I’ve never been good at keeping secrets. But for six months now, I’ve been living with one that could sink my career.
I admit, saying that feels a bit dramatic. To be totally honest, I don’t have much of a career to sink. Despite my training as a classical singer, most of my early twenties have been spent doing anything but making music.
This hasn’t been for lack of trying. I’m talented, funny onstage, and I’ve impressed a few of the right people. But as with most artistic industries, career success in opera—especially early career success—is often less of a question of what you can do, and more of a question of the resources you have access to.
So what do you do when your possibilities are restricted by your resources? The prevailing wisdom is to be patient. To build a career slowly over decades, growing your network and your voice until you can finally pay off your student debt with gig work or, if you’re lucky, a European opera company offers you a job with healthcare. (Yes, the bar for success is in hell).
Don’t get me wrong, I love opera. It’s a velvet-wrapped fever dream of an art form. At its best, it’s a thrilling demonstration of creativity, collaboration, and humanity. But the crumbling North American arts funding landscape, combined with the conservative culture of classical music and the lack of workplace regulations in the performing arts, has led to an industry built on norms that benefit almost no one—not even singers who are succeeding.
How do I know this? Especially as someone who, by my own admission, isn’t really in the industry yet? Yes, well, back to my secret.
One night, after paying $150 to submit yet another prescreen (an online audition that determines if your talent warrants an in-person audition), I got angry. Why was I spending almost a week's worth of rent just to get into an audition room? I sat and thought about what else I could do with $150. I thought about calling my best friend to complain. Instead, I made an Instagram account.
I suppose it’s pithy to say I started @teatroallaflopera over $150. In truth, I started the account because I was tired of having conversations about industry malpractice behind closed doors. My friends and I, all barely scratching the surface of our careers, have already experienced so much at the hands of the opera industry: sexual harassment, verbal abuse, financial manipulation, body shaming—the list goes on. Worse yet, all of these experiences are expected to be kept a secret. If you speak up, you risk being labeled problematic. And if that label sticks, you risk losing auditions, opportunities, and by extension, income. In a post Me Too world, the threat of blacklisting may sound Victorian. But the opera industry is Victorian, and for the most part, Me Too hasn’t reached us yet.
So, enter Flopera. A Gossip Girl-style account devoted to the taboo; giving voice to the opinions that get singers blacklisted.
After a few posts, the account began to grow rapidly. I was delighted, but quickly realized that I hadn’t prepared for what this growth might bring. Practically overnight, friends were sending me the account, asking if I’d seen it. Classmates from my undergrad began sharing my content and messaging the account inquiring about my identity. I found myself lying constantly, in the hopes that people I had worked with, sung with, studied with, and in some cases, hung out with, wouldn’t see through my vague replies.
After years of being reduced to a resume that didn’t impress, suddenly people—opera people that is—were taking me seriously. Singers who had ignored me in real life settings, wanted my opinion, my advice and, even more shockingly, the chance to collaborate, all despite not knowing my identity. The more I posted, the more musicians, educators, and administrators began reaching out. They filled my inbox with the nightmarish experiences they had accrued navigating the opera industry, many akin to the horror stories I myself had been harboring.
“I was told that I was talented, but it wouldn’t mean anything, unless I lost weight.”
“I was harassed by a director. I tried to report the behavior and he found out. He said he would blacklist me and I haven’t been able to get an audition in the major city where he lives since.”
“My contract got cancelled the night before a show. That money was going to be a third of my annual income. I had no legal recourse.”
Six months into running Flopera, I’m struck by the fact that many singers seem more comfortable disclosing these experiences to a faceless account than they are to one another. While this saddens me, it also doesn’t come as a surprise. At 18, my undergraduate voice teacher began suggesting that my university had accepted me by accident, in lieu of another singer with the same first name. I was horrified. When comments like these became a pattern, I kept them to myself, terrified that she was right and that my university spot could be revoked. It took me almost four years of verbal abuse to overcome this shame and start asking for help. If an account like Flopera had existed, it’s possible that I too would have felt compelled to write in.
How odd, then, that people have begun to assume that I have some type of power in the industry; that I’m a disgruntled talent agent, or someone with a stable career who can risk speaking up. This assumption puts me in a strange position, because singers have begun asking me to take on the people, ideas, and institutions that they feel unable to confront as individuals. And while I want to help (I really do!), the reality is that, despite my anonymity, I’m scared too.
As frustrated as I am with my industry, I love opera and I want to make a career in the classical music world. I worry that the growth of the account will outpace the timeline of my growth as a singer. What happens if I get outed before I start to “make it”? Will anyone hire me? Will my opinions lose their value if people find out who I am?
In light of this, I often find myself wondering if the secret is worth it. After all, it’s just an Instagram account. Isn’t my actual career more important? I consider quitting and creating something less blacklist-worthy, or revealing my identity just to get it over with.
What gives me pause is the community of artists who have begun rallying around Flopera. They are passionate, creative and deeply invested in building a better opera industry. It feels important that they have a space to be together online, to embolden one another; to say the things that feel taboo, and to hold the industry accountable as they trailblaze their way through it.
Selfishly though, I’m running Flopera for myself too. It’s all of the things I’ve been waiting for someone else to say. It’s the permission I’ve been looking for, and the set of terms that I want to build my career on. Ironically, despite my anonymity, Flopera is helping me find my voice. So as much as I hate secrets, I keep finding this one worth keeping. At least, for a little while longer.
