Rising star Carol Garcia makes American debut with Florentine
The Florentine Opera production of “The Barber of Seville” May 5 and 7 offers more than a famously funny, familiar opera onstage. It also offers a chance to see the American debut of one of the opera world’s rising stars: mezzo-soprano Carol Garcia.
The Spanish-born singer, who now makes her home in Paris, sat down for a conversation recently, speaking about her life as an opera singer with a bit of surprise in her voice.
“I started singing in choir in a small town near Barcelona, and sang in choirs for 12 years,” she said. She played piano and, she said with a grin, “bagpipes, a little.”
Garcia trained to be a music teacher and worked in schools for two years before deciding that was just not for her. A music teacher told her that she had a lovely voice and should find a voice teacher, but Garcia wasn’t so sure.
“I said, ‘I don’t like opera and I don’t like vibrato,’” she explained, laughing. Still, she did find a teacher, someone she still coaches with and who goes to hear most of Garcia’s European performances.
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Garcia began singing in vocal competitions and coming in as the winner, a finalist or a semifinalist in quite a few – and the opera world took notice.
She has done a little oratorio singing and has released a CD of music by Granados, but “People engage me more for opera than anything else,” she said.
“Singing opera, I have fun,” Garcia said. “I get to be someone else.”
Despite the fun and the wonder of her new career, Garcia said the hardest things about opera life are the instability of it, as well as the time spent away from home and the people she loves.
“But it’s fun too. I am always meeting new people, and every day is different, so I can’t get bored,” she said.
IF YOU GO
The Florentine Opera performs "The Barber of Seville" at 7:30 p.m. May 5 and 2:30 p.m. May 7 at the Marcus Center's Uihlein Hall, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, visit www.florentineopera.org or call (800) 32-OPERA. Timothy Sterner Miller will give a pre-show talk one hour before each performance.