Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 4 Dead Man Walking

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 80 Backstage life: Yin Shen WHAT IS YOUR ROLE AT LYRIC, AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU HELD THE POSITION? I am the second violin principal. I have been in the position for 12 years. WHAT LED YOU TO WORK AT LYRIC? I went to my very first live opera at Lyric – it was such a beautiful performance. I was a graduate student at Roosevelt University, and I came with my roommate, who is a soprano. We saw The Magic Flute . The staging and singing were great. The orchestra’s playing was first- class, with Sir Andrew Davis conducting. It was an unforgettable experience to watch a live performance. I thought it would be great to have a job in the Lyric Opera Orchestra. I took the audition a couple of years later, when I was a violinist in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. I have been privileged to serve in the Lyric Orchestra ever since. I started playing violin at age four, and had watched some opera videos with my father when I was a kid. I am from Zhejiang, on the east China coast, and came to the United States in 2002 after I graduated from Shanghai Conservatory of Music. WHAT’S A TYPICAL DAY LIKE FOR YOU? I wake up around 7 a. m. and take care of my two-year-old daughter. Around 10 a.m. I take the Orange line to work, just a couple of stops. Our rehearsals usually start at 11 a.m. I usually get to the pit a half hour before rehearsal, so I can warm up and practice a little bit. After the rehearsal starts, we work through the piece with the conductor. Some rehearsals go smoothly, while some can be very intense. After the singers join us, we need to pay more attention to the vocal parts. Following the conductor and listening to the singers while we are playing keeps us busy. After rehearsals, I go home and make dinner. I try to make simple, mostly Chinese dishes. I can’t say I enjoy cooking, but I do enjoy making food for my family. In the evening I practice one or two hours if there is no performance. After practicing, I have some relaxing time watching Chinese drama on TV before going to bed. WHAT’S THE MOST CHALLENGING ASPECT OF YOUR JOB? I have found trying to play perfectly is the most challenging. In my opinion, there are two types of orchestra parts. Some works, like Verdi’s La traviata , appear to be easy note-wise, yet stylistically, they are difficult to execute. Other works, like Wagner’s Siegfried , are technically hard. Those pieces require long hours of studying the score, listening to recordings, and practicing difficult passages diligently. To me, to achieve and maintain a high performance level and to keep fresh insight of the works is most challenging. WHAT KEEPS YOU COMMITTED TO THE WORK YOU DO? I like my job, and enjoy the music I play. In the beginning years of working in the Lyric Opera Orchestra, all the operas performed in the season were new to me. It could be challenging, but I enjoyed learning them. Through the years, the familiar works accumulated. And now, each season, I run into a few of them that I performed before. It’s like revisiting an old book. One is comforted by the familiar characters, and yet refreshed by some new discoveries along the way. I am sure that our paths will across again in the years to come, and this learning and relearning process is exciting and gratifying to me. I will say I enjoy any opera when we work with a good conductor and a good cast. WHAT’S SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR JOB THAT PEOPLE MIGHT NOT KNOW? I am responsible for all the second violin part’s bowings. I usually start to work on the bowing during the summer. It takes some readings, comparing the first violin part, and then trying out various bowings on the violin to figure out what are the best options. After the season starts, during the rehearsals, I need to listen closely if the rest of my section is playing cooperatively with other string sections so we can play together and phrase the same way. A FAVORITE LYRIC MOMENT? There are many. One of them is last year, when we played Strauss’s Elektra . It is an extremely beautiful piece. There were some moments when I imagined my colleagues and I were all big birds flying together in the wind up high in the sky. BEYOND OPERA, WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER PASSIONS? Right now, my passion is to spend time with my daughter. It is a priceless experience to watch her grow up every day. I like to take her to the playground. Recently she made a good friend. They like each other a lot. It is so much fun to watch them playing, running, laughing together and trying to copy each other’s movements.