The private lives of opera chorus singers: We’re not just ‘singing wallpaper’ but vocal athletes

In Book Takes, authors share three things that readers will gain from their books as well as give an insight into what they learned during the researching and writing. This week, opera singer Katherine Wiles discusses her autobiography No Autographs, Please!

A self-described shy girl from Hamilton, Katherine Wiles has gone from rural Waikato to singing on one of the world’s most famous stages, the Sydney Opera House.

In between, she’s shared the stage with the likes of country music legend Kenny Rogers and been directed by Dame Julie Andrews; performed as a soloist onboard the royal yacht Britannia, and toured Australia in a 60th-anniversary production of My Fair Lady. She’s had her costume eaten by a performing horse and slipped into some unscripted giggling on stage.

A permanent member of the Opera Australia Chorus since 2007, Wiles has performed and understudied principal roles with Opera Australia, State Opera South Australia, New Zealand Opera and companies throughout the United Kingdom.

But the spotlight follows the leads, meaning she’s almost used to being dismissed as “singing wallpaper” by those who think she’s an opera chorister because she “didn’t quite make it”. Not so, says Wiles. She and her chorus colleagues are exactly where they want to be.

In her autobiography No Autographs, Please! Wiles gives a first-hand account of what it takes to survive as a member of an opera chorus. Here, she shares three things that might surprise readers of her new book as well as an insight into what she learned through researching and writing it.

Working as a professional opera singer is different from what people might expect

Nowadays, you need to be a triple threat. No longer do we just “park and bark”. Of course, there are some scenes where that is required, but I’ve done everything from the can-can, the splits, jumping onto tables, lying on the stage floor in a bikini, riding a corrugated iron horse and performing an entire scene on my knees dressed as a fairy.

We sing in French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, Polish, Czechoslovakian and even Sanskrit. Working with our specialised language coaches, precise study is required to get each language correct.