Just prior to our interview on a Friday afternoon, Alexandra Diessner sits in the Wild Boar Café sipping green tea, because it’s good for her vocal chords, as she studies a music book. The book’s corners are bent and worn down, as if she has carried it with her everywhere for a year. It’s Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” and Alexandra has it flipped to one of two arias sung by the Queen of the Night. The role is notorious for its difficulty and the 23-year-old senior, majoring in music education with a certificate in performance, has nabbed one of two spots to portray her in the upcoming Colorado State University opera production.

“These two arias are probably the hardest music I’ve ever had to sing,” Alexandra said. “I have to work on these arias every day.”

Fast forward to the following Tuesday, where the entire cast is meeting for one of their biweekly rehearsals in Runyan Hall, a recital hall in the University Center for the Arts, making their first attempt at a complete run-through of the performance, off-book. The cast is fairly upbeat, laughing at the occasional line error or blunder. Laughter is particularly present during one scene where Andrew Diessner, Alexandra’s husband, plays Monostatos, a character that Alexandra said is best described as “a total creeper.”

During scenes they are not involved in, the other cast members fiddle with their iPhones hidden carefully behind music stands, whisper to each other quietly or study their upcoming lines and music.

But when Alexandra and Rebekah Gray (the other soprano cast as the Queen of the Night) take their turns singing, everyone directs their eyes toward them. Alexandra silently sings along by mouthing the words as Gray makes her first attempt at the Queen’s second aria. The group responds well to her performance. Then it’s Alexandra’s turn.

The music is fast-paced and menacing. Everyone nods and makes surprised eyes at each other each time Alexandra hits the notes that “The Magic Flute” director David Malis refers to as “eye-poppingly high.” Afterward, Alexandra looks relieved and flashes a modest smile as everyone applauds.

“Alex has a beautiful voice,” Malis said. “She doesn’t seem scared to sing [the arias].”

Alexandra is a natural performer. At her photo shoot for College Avenue, she sits at the piano, playing random songs as they pop into her head, blending the transitions effortlessly. She also shows off her self-proclaimed “goofy” personality by improvising a song in an attempt to serenade the photographer. But, of course, Alexandra’s musical talent is most awe-inspiring when she sings. Using the piano to find the first note, she starts into the Queen of the Night’s first aria. Every word and note resonates within the recital hall, as if it was made for only her to perform in.

When you hear Alexandra sing it’s hard to believe that for years she did not want to sing opera.
And she wasn’t even a music major.

Alexandra is no stranger to music. At age 5, she began playing piano. Later on, she started singing in various choirs; gaining experience in jazz, pop, rock and Christian music, but prior to getting involved in the CSU music program, Alexandra had no training in classical music.

When college came around, Alexandra kept music as a hobby and pursued a career as an orthodontist instead. Meanwhile, her musically talented boyfriend Andrew, to whom she is now married, decided to pursue a career as a nutritionist. This didn’t last long, and Andrew soon changed his major to music education. At his first CSU performance Alexandra was reminded of her passion for performing.

“Seeing him on stage, I couldn’t stand it,” Alexandra said. “That was exactly where I wanted to be.”

Alexandra soon followed suit and changed her major. Although she was excited to be back on stage, she had to face what she had hoped to avoid – classical music.

“I saw that at one of [my] first recitals it was pretty much all classical [music] and it kind of freaked me out a little,” she said. “I didn’t want to sing opera.”

Alexandra admits that she had a lot of misconceptions about opera prior to her education in the music program. Those misconceptions existed because she hadn’t been exposed to the genre.

“[I assumed] that it’s for snooty people. That it’s boring to listen to. That it’s old school,” Alexandra said. “I thought it was just boring and stuffy, and it’s not.”

But the music that she was first forced to learn started to grow on her.

When Alexandra first experienced a professional performance of Puccini’s “Turandot” and heard the two arias, “Nessun Dorma,” sung by a tenor, and “Tu Che Di Gel Sei Cinta,” sung by a soprano, she was changed.

“I think that is when I fell in love,” Alexandra said. “The music in itself is just gorgeous.”

After just a few years in the music program, Alexandra has been in as many as 10 opera performances, and is taking on her most difficult role to date in “The Magic Flute.” The range required for her role is rare in opera. She must sing a high F6, the highest note within the standard female vocalist’s range.

“It’s one of those roles where if you can sing it, you can have a great career,” Malis said. “It is not easily done.”

After she finishes school, Alexandra hopes to become a professional performer. Of course, such great ambitions require hard work, serious commitment and a lot of passion.

As a performer and a student, music is intertwined with almost every aspect of Alexandra’s life, and she’ll be the first to tell you that being in the music program isn’t easy.

Music education majors are required to take more credits than veterinary science majors. Alexandra is required to take a variety of music classes, including diction classes for English, German, French and Italian, but the classes that take the most time are rehearsals. Her opera rehearsal class meets for six hours a week, but the class is only worth one credit, whereas the average university course meets for two and a half hours a week and is worth three credits.

“We need more classes in order to complete all of our credits,” she said. “It’s one of the toughest majors.”

Once performances are added into the mix, music students practically live at the University Center for the Arts, sometimes being there from early morning until late at night.

“We always joke that they need to have a napping room,” Alexandra said with a laugh.

But she noted that the time commitment, while at times overwhelming, forms a bond between the music students. Being married to a fellow music student has its advantages, too.

“I think it’s really nice because if [Andrew] wasn’t a music major, I would never see him,” Alexandra said.

The music program consumes Alexandra’s life during the week, but she also performs outside of school on weekends, often traveling to Denver for private events such as weddings. She sings at church, performing at three masses every weekend. Although it’s difficult, Alexandra wants to perform as much as possible.

“It’s my whole day and all my weekends, but I love it,” she said.

Beyond the issue of time, there are many things Alexandra must constantly consider as a musician. Her voice is her instrument, and in order to succeed as a student and as a performer, she must maintain her health and protect her vocal chords at all times.

Sleep is one of the most important parts of staying healthy, according to CSU assistant professor of voice Tiffany Blake. Considering the aforementioned hectic schedule, it’s surprising that Alexandra ever manages to get eight hours of sleep.

“Last year I paid for it,” Alexandra said. “I was so stressed out and when I was in ‘A Little Night Music.’ I was so overworked and I got laryngitis. I could talk, and I sounded like a 10-year-old girl, but I couldn’t sing. My teacher had to sing over me … I learned my lesson.”

Keeping healthy vocal chords means being aware of how she uses her voice at all times. Alexandra avoids yelling or using her voice in a way that could strain her vocal chords. This means avoiding cheering at football games and steering clear of loud bars that require you to talk over a crowd. And forget about drinking too much alcohol or coffee.

“It dries out the vocal folds and mucus membranes,” Blake said.

Alexandra’s role as an opera singer even follows her into the gym. Contrary to the common stereotype of an opera singer being large, Alexandra is expected to stay in shape.

According to Blake, this emphasis on health is because singing opera requires strength from the abdominal muscles and excellent lung capacity. After all, an opera singer has to project over an entire orchestra without the aid of a microphone.

“The music we sing can be physically taxing and we need to have good endurance,” Blake added.

But Alexandra said that the reason opera singers are slimming down is in order to appeal to audiences, as opera’s popularity within the nation is starting to fade. This issue received significant national attention when professional soprano Deborah Voigt was fired from the London Royal Opera House in 2004 because of her weigh. She returned after losing weight with the aid of gastric bypass surgery.

“If you have two singers [where] one is 300 pounds and one is of average weight and both sound [good], they’re going to take the one that looks better, the one that is more appealing to the audience’s eye,” Alexandra said.

Still, she said that the focus is more so on the singer being healthy rather than being a “size two,” and that weight does not necessarily play a role in the quality of a singer’s voice. One’s body structure may affect the tone of their voice, but not his or her ability to sing.

“I’m very petite, so I’m not going to sound like [a larger singer],” she said. “It’s just two different voices.”

The general public’s disinterest in opera goes far beyond issues of body image and appearance. It seems as though opera is an art form that the American youth has deemed irrelevant. When Alexandra went to Europe this past summer, she saw a very different type of audience response.

“In Europe, [opera] is still huge,” she said. “It was astounding how much they respect music out there, and all types of music. In America we get so closed in and don’t accept it.”

And Alexandra knows first-hand about young people’s apathy toward opera because she once shared the same sentiment. Until she started to learn more about it and listen with an open mind, Alexandra assumed the same things that a lot of the younger generation did – that opera is boring.

Alexandra, along with cast members and directors of “The Magic Flute,” would argue that this opera, one of Mozart’s last works, is far from boring.

Alexandra said that one thing that turns a lot of people away is the language barrier. “The Magic Flute” is a German opera, and the music will be sung in German, but English subtitles are displayed above the stage, a practice that is common in many professional theaters, according to Malis.

The opera is comparable to an American musical because there is both spoken dialogue and song. The dialogue will be performed in English and has been trimmed down to make the performance more audience-friendly. But what’s most appealing about the opera is its whimsical feel.

“‘The Magic Flute’ is an enchanting opera with a lot of fairy tale elements,” Blake explained.

Indeed, Alexandra drew a lot of inspiration for her role as the Queen of the Night straight from fairy-tale-esque characters that most Americans are familiar with, like Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty” and the White Witch from “The Chronicles of Narnia,” to name a few. She described the queen as dark, clever and deceiving – the type of mother that is “fake nice” and loves power more than her own daughter.

“Her opening line [in second aria] is ‘the wrath of hell in my breast, I love you never more,’” Alexandra said. “That is so awful to say. Can you imagine your mother saying that to you?”

The storyline plays with the themes of dark versus light, includes a love story, provides plenty of comic relief and, according to Alexandra, is playful in comparison to other operas.

“The writing is gorgeous,” she said. “The symphony is so beautiful. The characters in this opera are great. It’s totally magical.”

Although the magic only lasts four nights, it will affect members of the audience and production alike.

“Take a date or a friend and do something different,” Alexandra said. “It’s something that cannot be lost. I can say that because I was so against it. I started learning and listening. Open your mind. Open your heart … just listen.”

Tags: Volume 5 Issue 1

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