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WorkflowOne director pursues singing passion through opera
Clockwise from top left: Williamson, left, as a witch in MacBeth, as a courtier, and a Scottish refugee.
Williamson at work.
Every company has one person whose implicit job it is to lead the “Happy Birthday” song, usually accompanied by a crowd of adults uncomfortable singing aloud. WorkflowOne, however, has Sharon Williamson—professional opera performer, chorale singer and accomplished Birthday-song leader.
“I’ve been singing an awfully long time,” Williamson says, “So I’m definitely that person. Everyone thinks it’s cool that I sing.” At WorkflowOne, based in Dayton, Ohio, she’s the director of strategic communications. But at night, Williamson is a singer with the Dayton Opera and performs with the Dayton Philharmonic Chorus as well.
“Some people think it’s funny that I sing opera, but it’s the only way someone my age gets to play dress-up. We often wear wigs and very elaborate costumes,” Williamson says. Recently, she performed in Macbeth, which required a latex mask of wrinkles. “It really is a lot of fun. People sometimes think that because I sing now, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s not true. It was something I stumbled upon later.”
Like many amateur singers, Williamson sang in school and in church, but it wasn’t until grad school that she took her talent to another level. While studying for an MBA, she began considering a career in arts management. “To be part of the workshop, you have to go through an audition,” she says. She auditioned well and was told she should be studying music, so she enrolled in a voice class. “Honestly, I’m not sure where it comes from,” she says. “My family is not musical at all.”
When Williamson first auditioned for the Dayton Opera in 1982, chorus members were not paid. Although they make a mere token now, all the performers dedicate tremendous time and energy to put on three grand operas per season. To audition, each performer must sing one piece in a foreign language and one piece from an opera repertoire. “We’re in final production week right now, and it’s pretty intense,” she says. “It’s a professional company and the standards are fairly high.”
Typically performers rehearse six to eight weeks to work on the music and staging for a few hours in the evenings. As the performance nears, the company goes through a dry run, practice with the orchestra four days the final week, and finally a night off. The shows open to a 3,000-seat theater.
Over the years, Williamson has done 75 operas, operettas and musicals. “We’ve gotten to do all kinds of things, although some of those are repeats,” she says, such as her four-time performance in Madame Butterfly. Williamson, a mezzo-soprano, has sung in Italian and French, which tend to be the most popular operas in America. She likes to joke that she “pronounces in foreign languages,” due to her opera experience, although isn’t fluent. One of her favorite performances is The Merry Widow.
Several years ago, Williamson flew to Canterbury, England to prepare a choral masterwork. “I met a bunch of people who sing with their local philharmonic orchestras. I thought, ‘Oh, that would be good.’” She auditioned successfully and has been singing with the philharmonic group about three years. Along the way, she’s encouraged Workflow’s VP of Operations, John Hartwell, to renew his passion for singing and audition as well.
“I think I have a pretty good work/life balance with a great creative outlet,” Williamson says. “It’s great to meet all those people—policemen, teachers, anyone—of all different ages who can sing and put a lot of energy into it.” She also likes to go to the theater and watch opera and musicals, but she knows it’s not for everyone.
“Subtitles have helped people understand opera a great deal, but sometimes you’re better off not knowing exactly what they’re saying because the writing can be very archaic,” she says. Carmen, another favorite opera of hers, is a great story for beginning patrons. “It’s got a more modern love story and very familiar music, the kind of stuff you might hear at the grocery story and you wouldn’t even know it’s opera.” Funny operas, such as The Marriage of Figaro, are also good choices. “That song you think of from Bugs Bunny cartoons, ‘Figaro,’ is actually from The Barber of Seville, but it’s about the same character as the one in The Marriage of Figaro, written by Mozart. There’s a lot of death in opera, but he writes about men and women and amusing mix-ups.”
Williamson herself had never been to an opera before performing in one. “It isn’t any high falutin’ kind of thing,” she assures. “It’s just like a Broadway musical, but in a foreign language, a few hundred years ago.”
—Rebecca Trela