Ryan Opera Center From Home: Ricardo José Rivera

The Puerto Rican baritone Ricardo José Rivera is a second-year Ryan Opera Center member. At Lyric, he has sung Schaunard in La bohème, Baron Douphol in La traviata, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly (in which he also went on as Sharpless for a few performances), and he appeared in concert with the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn). Ricardo is the recipient of a Richard F. Gold Career Grant and is a past participant in the Aspen Music Festival and VOICExperience programs. In the 2020/21 Season, Ricardo will perform the role of Silvio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

Keep reading to see how Ricardo has continued to work from home during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Throughout this quarantine, it has been a bit difficult to stay in vocal shape from home. A great part of what has helped me to strengthen my vocal muscles has been to sing roles, whether small or big, in the Lyric Opera House, but since that cannot happen right now I have to try as best I can to practice every day at my apartment. Thankfully for me, my wife is also an opera singer so she knows and understands the need to keep singing. We sometimes even coach each other and work on audition repertoire and roles together.

I am learning to use the app "Appcompanist," to which I was introduced by my wife, and it has been a fun and easy experience to figure out how to use all of its features. I usually like to practice for half an hour early in the afternoon, so I make sure that I am not intrusive all day to my neighbors. We are very grateful for our neighbors - they have actually told us in person that they love our voices and that they enjoy hearing us practice! I even remember one of them telling me: "If you were bad singers, you would bother us, but you are not so please keep singing!"

We are very grateful for our neighbors - they have actually told us in person that they love our voices and that they enjoy hearing us practice!

It has been a little challenging for everyone at the Ryan Opera Center to cope with the idea of not being able to partake in voice lessons, repertoire coachings, and language lessons in-person. However, I really appreciate what our leaders at the program have come up with to try to ease the complications that social distancing have brought to our work dynamic. We are taking voice lessons with Julia Faulkner and coachings with Craig Terry every week via Zoom, which has customizable audio options that aid in making our time more productive. If Julia can hear our voices and what we are doing with better quality, then she can cater her instructions more accurately.

It has been a new experience for me to learn music online. Thankfully, technology has advanced in such a way that it is almost as if one was with the other person in the same room sharing the music. Taking German lessons has been a very enjoyable part of my time in quarantine, as our teacher, Julia Klein, has been very creative in using the Zoom app to make good use of the time we get with her twice a week. We have been reading and translating from a book, and also practicing the great art that is German grammar. I feel very happy to still be learning new things!

Thankfully, technology has advanced in such a way that it is almost as if one was with the other person in the same room sharing the music. 

We do not know when this pandemic will reach its climactic point and when the storm will start to calm down, so all we can do is stay safe in our homes and continue to do what we love. We will become stronger people because of what we are going through right now and this experience will become part of who we are as people and as artists. Stay strong and stay safe.

-Ricardo Jose Rivera

Header photo: Todd Rosenberg