This summer I was chosen to be the first of two high school students to be accepted in this summer opera program(I won this region wide solo singing competition and my friend placed second in state solo acting(now i sound braggy again)). The program is basically and internship with the opera and 11 talented students to aspire to be in the music profession were chosen. My friend and I, along with some college students who I thought just had amazing voices are this years interns. I honestly think they have some of the most beautiful voices out there and have a bright future out there; there's even a guy from the Boston Conservatory(a really really good music school). However the people who have coordinated this are not doing a good job of making use of our talent and moving us closer to our goals.
We're basically everbody's "errand boys" where we're told by different people to help out with this and help out with that. From 12-5pm we're teaching a musical to 50+ elementary kids with extremely short attention spans that they have to learn in a week and then from 6-10pm we're helping with set changes by placing and striking props during blackouts. Apparently the opera didn't have enough money to hire other people to do that stuff; but oh there are these interns who are really on here to do x and y, lets have them do z and make it a requirement. No one thought that just maybe that'd be a bit too much for us, especially the college kids that need to maintain jobs. We do get a pretty nice scholarship thats paid in three instalments of $500, so that's good. But most of this stuff nobody really signed up for. The most we've had to further out careers is a masterclass with some guy who's supposed to be really famous in the opera buisness but I've never heard of him, and a two day class on how to market yourself as an artist. Speaking of that we're also being used as a marketing tool. Everywhere we go we're as to act as banners for the opera company and blah blah blah. Yeah we're promoting this the opera buisness and "inspiring" people to look into it but what about us?! What about our future and career? Work with children and props/sets knowledge is great and all but these college kids need professional things on their resume like performances and accolades, not this stuff.
Why do I see a trend of people using talented people to promote whatever their apart of not doing anything promote the career of these talented people. It's so annoying. I have a long way to go with this stuff, I know. But I rather someone help me along the way in that struggle rather than them wasting my talent and time with stuff that won't get me any farther in my career. I'm in highschool and I've been taking a good, hard look at how I'm gonna surivive in the adult world and what I'm going to do in college. I'll continue the program for the service hours and the scholarship, but I won't be doing this stuff again. 10 hour work days are not good for my acne, my already high stress levels and my mothers gas bill. Yeah, who do you think has to drive me back and forth.