Canadian soprano Lauren Margison will sing the title role in Gluck’s Alceste on January 12th with Voicebox Opera in Concert.

Lauren is a graduate of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble studio, the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal and a multi year alumna of the Highlands Opera Studio. In 2024 she was a first prize winner of the Sullivan Foundation and the recipient of a Sylva Gelber Foundation Grant. She was a first prize winner of the 2018 George London Competition, and was also the youngest finalist in the Meistersinger von Nürnberg competition in 2016. In 2020 she was a semi finalist in the Glyndebourne Cup, in 2021 a grand prize laureate Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques and in 2022 a semi finalist of the CMIM competition in Montreal, the recipient of a Sylva Gelber Foundation grant, and the first prize winner of Edmonton Opera’s inaugural Rumbold Vocal Prize. In 2023 Lauren was a semi finalist in the Paris Opera Competition.

Wow.

Her recent credits include Desdemona in Otello, Nedda in Pagliacci, Anna in Le Villi (Staatstheater Mainz); Micaëla in Carmen (Pacific Opera Victoria); the titular role in Vanessa (VoiceBox Opera); the titular role in the Csardas Princess (Toronto Operetta Theatre); Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, the titular role in Suor Angelica(Highlands Opera Studio) and as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth with the Quebec Symphony.

24/25 season highlights include the role of Mimi in La Boheme with Opera de Montreal and her titular role in Alceste with Voicebox Opera in Concert next week.

I asked her a few questions.

Barczablog: What is the best or worst thing about what you do?

Lauren Margison: The best thing about what I do is connecting with others. Whether it be my colleagues onstage, the audience, the composer, the orchestra, the director, the conductor, etc. Making music and sharing that music is by far my favourite aspect of this career. The capacity for vulnerability through music is immense, and without vulnerability true connection is impossible. I find that through music I am more ready to be vulnerable than I often feel in my daily life and I have really tried my best to learn to embrace vulnerability from the act of making music.

The worst thing about what I do is facing loneliness, rejection, and the general existential crises that so often accompany a life so steeped in instability. It’s worth it though. The pros far outweigh the cons in my mind.

BB: Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Lauren Margison: As far as music I must admit that I don’t frequently listen to classical music unless I am learning a piece. Some artists on my regular loop would be Joni Mitchell, Sufjan Stevens, the Beach Boys (in particular their album Pet Sounds), Fleetwood Mac, Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot… I could go on and for the most part the artists would be along these same lines. I discovered Chappell Roan this last year and am entirely enamoured of her energy and the music she makes. If I am listening to classical music I am most likely getting lost in some Strauss, Mozart, Britten, Barber, Verdi, Puccini, Mahler, Beethoven… some of the usual suspects!

I am also really enjoying spending a lot of time with Gluck as I prepare Alceste.

BB:What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

Lauren Margison: I would love to be a bit better at being kind to myself. Thankfully this is something I am working on with my fantastic therapist!

I’d also love to have the power of teleportation… airplane tickets are expensive!

BB: Ha, I’ve heard that one a few times before (Star Trek captures it beautifully).

So when you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?

Lauren Margison: I am a sucker for reading classic lit. If you ever find me out and about without a book in my bag then there has been an invasion of the body snatchers incident that should be looked into. I’m currently reading Anna Karenina and while I have some qualms with Tolstoy and his seeming need to write women as either homely and impossibly pure, or fallen vixens, I am quite enjoying it. I love a good crossword puzzle as well and tend to attach my self worth to how long it takes me to complete the daily NYT crossword.

Going for woods walks with my mother Valerie and our family dog Pippin is also high on my list of favourite activities, and family time in general. Finding time together as a family of artists is challenging to say the least, and every moment of it is deeply cherished.

BB: What was your first experience of music ?

Lauren Margison: I have spent a good while ruminating over this question because to be honest I don’t feel I have a first experience. I have it in the same way that I have a first experience taking a breath.

Music has been there at the formation of my cells as my mother played viola in the National Ballet and Canadian Opera Company orchestras while I was in utero, she even went into labour with me while playing Falstaff. Music has been there as a baby hearing my father warming up in the next room. Music has been there as a toddler singing “If I Only Had a Brain” ad nauseam. There was no first experience because it is as much a part of me as the air I breath.

BB: Like Eileen Farrell or Renee Fleming, you don’t just sing opera but also sing jazz and popular music. Will you be singing anywhere nearby sometime soon, that we can hear you sing something non-operatic?

Lauren Margison: As a matter of fact I will be. Highlands Opera Studio, the company that my parents cofounded and run is having a fundraising concert sponsored by one of our biggest donors Vanda Treiser which will feature superstar soprano Christine Goerke and four HOS alums (myself, Simona Genga, Scott Rumble, and Samuel Chan) on February 9th at the Jane Mallett Theatre.

I can’t divulge the program yet, but it will be an event not to be missed and on top of opera I will be singing some jazz and a piece that I wrote.

BB: Wow…! That’s very exciting. I’m happy to share the link for the event:

Fundraiser: Christine Goerke & HOS Alums In Concert

Next question…. As a child of a famous artist, do you think you experienced opera differently because
you knew your father was a singer. And did it mean you had more or less pressure when you
started to sing?

Lauren Margison: I didn’t think I had experienced it differently until well into my twenties listening to how friends had found their way to opera and the way they would talk about certain opera singers like they were talking about movie stars. As a child I grew up spending time around my parents various work colleagues and friends which is how I saw them.

Here is a fun little anecdote that still makes me smile many years later. At one point when I was around 8 or 9 years old my father was singing in Australia and my mother and I were joining him for the trip as it landed over my summer break from school. Richard Bonygne was conducting and his wife, Dame Joan Sutherland was there with him. My parents wedding anniversary fell on a day off from rehearsal and they were discussing how to go about finding a babysitter, at which point Dame Joan offered to babysit me while they had a lovely anniversary meal. As an adult this story still flabbergasts me, but as a child I simply thought “I want this woman to play with me, and all she is doing is sitting there knitting”.

Regarding the pressure that may or may not have been placed on me there was none from my parents in terms of my becoming a musician. They let me find it on my own and encouraged any and all interests that I had. I am very lucky to have had that level of trust and support from a young age.

I always felt a draw to performing but I also saw first hand the pain that accompanies this career choice. Most people would have seen my fathers busy schedule and thought “what a fabulous career he’s having” but all I thought was “why does dad always have to leave” through eyes blurry with tears. Even with that pain I couldn’t escape the inner pull to performance. I think the most pressure came from within. I wanted to make sure that I could make a name for myself in a genre where “Margison” meant nothing. I wanted to make sure that I was worthy on my own. I fell in love with jazz and had a wonderful time when I was working in that genre, especially my time with the Real Divas, a jazz group I was part of which was created by the wonderful Bill King. However, in due time I felt the unmistakable pull of opera and the rest is history.

BB: What is your favourite melody / piece of music?

Lauren Margison: This feels like an impossible question! The Strauss Four Last Songs are my classical desert island music, that is for sure.

They are just transcendental. I go through periods of being completely obsessed with a particular song and will just listen to it on repeat until I can’t stand it for a time. I remember Kathy’s Song by Simon & Garfunkel being on the top of my list for much of 2020 and it seems to be one of the only ones that I never tire of. I am also lucky enough to fall madly in love with whatever piece of music I am working on.

Special mention goes to the entire score of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy which never ceases making me weep.

BB: Talk a bit about your background training, and how you got here.

Lauren Margison: I have partially answered this a few questions above, but I will discuss it with a bit more detail. I really felt that I wanted to perform by the time I was about 6 or 7 years old and my parents gifted me with a karaoke machine for Christmas. I secretly prepared about an hours worth of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, N’Sync etc. to perform for them randomly one evening. I marched into the kitchen with this machine and said “ok I’m ready” and they were naturally confused about what exactly it was that I was ready for, “I’m ready to give you guys a concert”. And that is exactly what I did. They reacted the way any kind parents would react and gave me a standing ovation, they also had a lot of questions.

I demanded I be in voice lessons or choir or anything that would involve me singing. Shortly after that I auditioned for the Canadian Childrens Opera Company and met the effervescent Ann Cooper Gay without whom I don’t know that I would be a singer today.

The love that she has for this art form and the kindness and patience she has with children is unmatched. I loved my time in the CCOC and the highlight for me was being part of the Canadian Opera Company production of La Boheme and then twenty years later having the opportunity to sing Mimi in La Boheme with the Canadian Opera Company while I was a member of the ensemble, ( this remains one of my favourite full circle moments in my career thus far). From there I started taking voice lessons with Cydney London, and then Elaine Overholt who helped open my eyes to the jazz world where I met Bill King and joined the Real Divas singing group.

In my late teens I learned a great deal from working with Mary Morrison who really gave me a solid foundation along with working with my father and my mother as teacher and coach respectively before I started my time in the Atelier Lyrique with the Opera de Montreal working with their incredible faculty of teachers, coaches and guest mentors. After that I joined the COC Ensemble and worked with another incredible faculty of teachers, coaches and guest mentors. That is where I first started working with Rosemarie Landry who along with my father became my primary teacher when I went to the Universite de Montreal during the pandemic to do my Masters. In terms of summer programs I first started auditioning for my parents program Highlands Opera Studio when I was 19 years old and for the first few years of auditioning received very kind rejection letters from my mother while she was sitting mere feet away from me. It was a very exciting day when I finally got in.

I feel very proud and grateful to be a product of Canadian operatic training. It is amazing the resources that we have here.

BB: Yes. I don’t think people realize how good our singers are. 50 years ago the COC had no choice but to import because the foreign singers were so much better. I don’t think that’s true anymore, although it’s not commonly understood. You’re a perfect illustration of the excellence of our Canadian talent.

You’ll sing the title role in Gluck’s ALCESTE in January. Talk about the challenges of the role.

Lauren Margison: It is an immense and sweeping role with many technical challenges. It goes from high to low to middle to low again to high and all around. I have really fallen in love with the piece as a whole. It is a massive undertaking but one that I am feeling very excited about. The satisfaction that comes with working hard and seeing the results is unmatched. There is just something so intoxicating about the act of learning music. I have spoken to a good number of friends and colleagues about their processes and it really seems to be a unique experience for each artist. There is no one size fits all approach to learning music and with each new piece I undertake to learn there comes a deeper understanding of my own artistic process and a deeper trust that I build with myself as an artist. This piece took a lot of work and a lot of trust, but I’m really looking forward to getting it on its feet with VOICEBOX Opera in Concert and the amazing team they have assembled.

BB: Gluck is sometimes seen as an austere serious composer, a reformer and influence to later composers such as Berlioz & Wagner, but not as much fun as Rossini. Do we get him wrong, and if so, what would you suggest to producers / directors, as to how we should produce Gluck?

Lauren Margison: Austerity is such a great word and one that I’d say is somewhat accurate in describing Alceste. I’d say it is also triumphant, sensual, melodic, exciting, bombastic and at times understated. There are certain sections of this piece that have skyrocketed to the top of my “goosebumps” list, there are also certain sections that make me understand why it isn’t often performed.

Mozart clearly enjoyed Alceste enough to be influenced by some of the music. Keep an ear out and keep in mind the Commendatore in Don Giovanni. Wink, wink!

As far as how to go about directing the piece I wouldn’t venture to guess. My job as a singer in this context is to show up with my music learned and an open mind. If I were preparing to direct this piece myself, I would certainly have more to say. My job is to bring to life the vision of the director and that is what I plan to do within the context of who I am as an artist. I have worked with Guillermo Silva more than once and I trust him as a director, so I know that I am in good hands which will make the entire process all the more fulfilling. Colin Ainsworth who is singing King Admete is also a good friend which is an added bonus!

BB: Besides Alceste, what’s coming up in the new year for you?

Lauren Margison: I am so excited to be returning to Opera de Montreal later this season to sing Mimi in La Boheme. I am a graduate of the Atelier Lyrique and it was such an incredibly formative time for me that I am over the moon to be returning in such a fabulous role to a company that feels like home.

I’ll also be revisiting Gluck this summer singing Euridice in a special performance of Orfeo ed Euridice with Highlands Opera Studio alongside my dear friend Nils Wanderer singing Orfeo with my mother Valerie Kuinka directing.

And of course I’m looking very much forward to the fundraiser for Highlands that I mentioned a few questions back.

BB: If you could tell the institutions how to train future artists, what would you change?

Lauren Margison: I’m not sure that there are things I would necessarily change, but I think that there needs to be quite a bit more open discussion about success and what that means. I’d also say that it wouldn’t hurt to have more training in fields that are adjacent to being a performing artist. There is no shame in having more than one stream of income, in fact I think it is quite realistic and something that needs to be more widely discussed.

It can be so challenging to find your “team” in this business because inevitably where there are people there are egos and where there are egos there are politics and it can be very stressful for young artists to feel that they are making the right connections and doing so with honesty and authenticity. I’m not sure there is anything viable that I would change because the existence of politics is ever present so long as humans co-exist. My advice to future artists would be to lead with love. Lead with the love of this art form and the love you have for it. That energy is contagious and you will be much more likely to find your people with that energy. However, don’t be naive. Not everyone will want the best for you and that is no reflection on you.

BB: Do you have a favourite teacher or influence you’d like to mention?

Lauren Margison: The voice teachers that I have had in my life have all imparted things that I still carry today. From Cydney London, to Elaine Overholt, to Mary Morrison, to Wendy Nielsen, to Rosemarie Landry to the teachers that have been my primary mentors and educators for my entire life my father Richard Margison and my mother Valerie Kuinka. These are all voice teachers that I have spent at least one year working consistently with and I have learned a great deal from each and every one of them.

The fact is there is no end to the list of influences I have had in this business because the wisdom is there if you are open to it. I discussed the importance of vulnerability earlier in this interview and I really feel I need to come back to it because that is the crux of being an artist. This business at its best is about connecting, creating, and sharing. One of the most challenging aspects of it is opening yourself up to the threat of being hurt or rejected but holding fast to the hope of being seen and understood. There is no end to the list of individuals from whom we can all learn and find guidance.

Every human that we encounter can impart wisdom (even if that wisdom is simply witnessing how we don’t want to conduct ourselves) and we can do the same in turn.

*******

Here’s a reminder of what’s upcoming for Lauren Margison.

Sunday January 12: title role in Alceste with Voicebox Opera in Concert.
Sunday February 9: taking part in the Fundraiser: Christine Goerke & HOS Alums In Concert