SATURDAY SPOTLIGHT! Natalie Polito
Saturday Spotlight will highlight a singer-artist in the studio each week. Some of these singer-artists might be familiar to you, and some may not. No matter what, each singer-artist is someone that you should get to know!
It is an honor and a privilege for me to work with each of these singer-artists and introduce them to you!
This week, it is such an honor to introduce you to soprano, Natalie Polito.
Natalie is an opera singer. She is far more than that though. She is a unicorn in every way. She is uniquely, one of a kind. Her magic reveals itself in her verve for life and artistry. She lives that daily. She brings it into the studio and changes the molecules wherever she is. Her light is rare and burns long and hot. I hope you take the time to experience her artistry and humanness. She is one of the real ones. Fully artist, fully human, fully unicorn, and just a flair of mermaid!
NATALIE POLITO
SPACE. I just looked back and found this as my answer to one of Susan’s posts in our studio group asking us to share our word, or talisman, to focus and meditate on for the week. In this week of gratitude, I am so happy to reflect on what this word has meant on our journey together in the voice studio – to find more space not just in my singing, but in my body, mind, and spirit.
I grew up in the Chicago area and sang in my first opera at age 13 as a children’s chorister in Tosca at the Ravinia Festival, and from there I was hooked! I went on to study voice at Northwestern University (fun fact: I was a bass drummer on the Northwestern University Marching Band Drumline!) and then on to Boston for my Masters at The Boston Conservatory. While in Boston, I helped create and run Boston Opera Collaborative, one of the first small opera companies of its kind which is still growing and thriving today. New York had been my dream since singing at Carnegie Hall as a member of the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus (coincidentally, also at 13 – a formative year for me!) and in 2014 I finally got to call it home.
I just returned home this week from my first live, in-person rescheduled pandemic opera gig – my role debut as Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore at Houston’s Opera in the Heights! Keep an eye on www.operaintheheights.org, where our production will be streaming FOR FREE during the month of December! It was a thrill to connect with audiences again, to feel the energy of my colleagues onstage, and to lay onstage post-death scene in the final moments of the opera feeling the epic vibration of the orchestra through the stage underneath me!
At the start of the pandemic, I was in L.A. starting rehearsals for my first Fiordiligi at Pacific Opera Project. While we never had the chance to bring the full production of Cosi to the stage before the world screeched to a halt, on our final day of rehearsals we performed a very meaningful sing-through with our fearless leader Kristin Roach at the piano, and I’m happy to be able to share a piece of that with you here: https://youtu.be/x0fTi938DlM and here: https://youtu.be/kqloaEYM3EE
Next year, I am looking forward to returning to Resonance Works Pittsburgh for the second production of White Snake Projects’s poignant new immigration opera, I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, by Cerise Lim Jacobs and Jorge Sosa.
One of my favorite career milestones so far was my 2018 Carnegie Hall debut as Soprano soloist in the Beethoven Choral Fantasy, presented by Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY). Over the course of my career, I have been lucky enough to call the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute one of my signature roles – at Opera Saratoga, Opera in the Heights, the Erie Chamber Orchestra, and under the baton of Martin Katz with the Master Players Concert Series in Delaware, to name a few. Some of my other favorite career highlights so far include Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Opera Columbus, First Lady in The Magic Flute at Virginia Opera, Nedda in I Pagliacci with Boheme Opera New Jersey, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka with Resonance Works Pittsburgh, and engagements at the Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera Fayetteville, the Colorado Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, and at the National Academy of Music in Hanoi, Vietnam.
One of my pandemic hopes is that our industry will begin to talk more freely about how musicians are often MORE THAN ONE THING. I always knew that there were other important facets to me as a person and an artist, namely my interests in arts administration, social policy, and the law. Throughout my performance career, I have also had several extremely fulfilling dual careers that feed a different part of my brain and spirit – often working late nights after rehearsals or backstage in full Queen of the Night garb! While in Boston, I was a founding staff member of the Free for All Concert Fund, a grantmaking organization tasked with bringing free, high quality classical music to the people of Boston. I was privileged to help create the Charles Ansbacher Music For All Award, honoring international musicians using music as a catalyst for social change and reconciliation, including Armand Diangienda of the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the first all-black symphony orchestra in the world) and Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, founder of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. The Award also brought me on a life changing trip to Vietnam, where I collaborated with Vietnamese opera singers to perform and teach, breaking the barriers of language and cultural differences.
After moving to New York in 2014, I followed my interest in law to a career in music copyright law at one of the country’s top entertainment law firms, Alter, Kendrick & Baron, LLP (www.akbllp.com). Under the mentorship of two powerhouse women attorneys, I have become an expert in copyright recapture and am honored to work on behalf of a number of A-list songwriters and artists. Our firm specializes in complex acquisitions and sales of music assets, and plays an important role in ensuring the music and legacy of these artists continues well into the future.
In recent months, I joined fellow SEY Voice studio member Erin Brittain as Co-Managing Diva of Opera on Tap’s newest chapter – Opera on Tap New Jersey! We are busy planning innovative performances in the Jersey City area and beyond – and NJ based singers, please reach out if you are interested in joining our roster! (https://www.facebook.com/OOTNJ) I am also an active member of the board of directors of both Resonance Works Pittsburgh (www.resonanceworks.org) and the Indie Opera Podcast (www.indieopera.com), two organizations that I believe in deeply and appreciate being given the opportunity to help guide.
Two more online performances that are available to view:
Bare Opera/Resonance Works recital collab (I'm in Part 3, Buyer Beware: Songs from the Grocery Store Bulletin Board by Peter Hilliard & Matt Boresi)
https://resonanceworks.ticketspice.com/resworks-bare-midsummer-music-2021
Verdi by Vegetables by Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi (I play Giuseppina Strepponi)
https://www.resonanceworks.org/verdi-by-vegetables
My website: www.nataliepolito.com
Facebook: facebook.com/nataliepolitosoprano
Instagram: @nataliepolito
Email: polito.natalie@gmail.com
