Louisa Waycott rises in the rarified world of opera
BY DANA DUGAN
She can sing in four languages: French, Italian English and French. And in her line of work this is not unusual.
Louisa Waycott, who graduated from Community School less than a decade ago, is a mezzo-soprano. This summer she will sing in Prague with the Prague Summer Nights Young Artists Music Festival, which runs June 26-July 10.
The festival’s staff includes Joseph Špaček of the Czech Philharmonic and Walter Seyfarth of the Berlin Philharmonic. It will feature a production of “Gianni Schicchi” with Waycott in the lead as Zita, and four fully-staged productions of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at the historic Estates Theatre, where it premiered in 1787. The Estates is the only theater remaining in the world where Mozart conducted.
“Doing ‘Don Giovanni’ where it actually premiered is going to be pretty neat,” Waycott said. She will cover the lead, or understudy, the role of Donna Elvira.
Waycott came to opera circuitously. She was a cello player in high school, though she did sing with the Caritas Chorale, studied at the Sun Valley School of Music and participated in St. Thomas Playhouse. She was also a youth board member for Camp Little Laugh and performed in Sun Valley Shakespeare Co.
But it wasn’t until she interned for a couple of months at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City that she changed her tune, and headed to the University of Mississippi, more commonly referred to as Ole Miss.
“I wanted to play cello in a pit, but then I heard opera. That was it,” she said. “Dick Brown was a mentor of mine and he knew a good voice teacher at Ole Miss. It’s rare to find opera as an undergraduate. It was amazing. I was getting roles and experience.”
After graduation, she moved to New York City for three years and worked for the Gotham Chamber Opera, sang for a lot of companies and churches and took lessons with different teachers to see if opera was where she should be.
“It’s grueling,” she said. “I needed to see if it was worth it for me. I did some back stage work and other administration stuff but wanted to continue performing.”
Waycott studied with Opera in the Ozarks where she performed Despina in “Cosi Fan Tutte,” The International Lyric Academy, The American Institute of Musical Studies, The Neil Semer Vocal Institute, and Songfest. She eventually moved to Washington, D.C., where she attended graduate school at the Maryland Opera Studio, which has strong ties with the Kennedy Center.
“It’s very intense. I just graduated a week ago with a Master’s in Music,” she said. “My head vocal coach recommended I apply to Prague Summer Nights. I sent an audio audition and then they select people they want to hear live.”
This is where the four languages come in. All applicants must send audio tapes of themselves singing arias in the above-mentioned languages. Waycott said singers translate entire operas so they actually know what they are singing but that they use the International Phonetic Alphabet. Opera singers study it for years learning diction and sounds specific in each language.
Rising opera stars such as Waycott apply to many festivals for the summer season. Out of the 250 applicants from all over the world to Prague Summer Nights, 90 were chosen. As well as the the lead in “Gianni Schicchi,” and covering the lead in “Don Giovanni,” Waycott has other roles, and is in the chorus of other pieces. She will also perform in three concerts.
Also this summer, Waycott will be a featured vocalist with Livermore Valley Opera’s “Opera in the Vineyard” concert at the Retzlaff Vineyard in California. Then she prepares herself for more opera auditions in the fall.