Shelburne woman sings with youth opera group

Although she has been singing for most of her life, Lili Diemer of Shelburne never realized how important classical music is to learning technique until she joined the Youth Opera Company of Vermont.

The Rice Memorial High School sophomore has always had a passion for singing and theater performances and, according to her mother Jill Diemer, “she could literally sing before she could speak.”

She recounted a time when Lili was in kindergarten and “they were doing stations, and she was lost in the Legos just singing and singing. So, this is really in her deeply.”

Lili’s family lineage has strong roots in singing and performances, her mother said. Her grandfather was in the Philadelphia boys’ choir and her grandmother was in a choir with a high school that traveled all over Europe.

“I think she gets some of it from them,” she said.

Although she has been involved with musical performances since a young age, Lili Diemer only began singing classical music with the Youth Opera Company of Vermont last March.

“I just had never really done classical music before and I feel like that’s like the fundamental (part) of everything,” said Diemer. “I wanted to step out of my comfort zone.”

Youth Opera Company was founded in 2019 by Sarah Cullins with a mission to help young singers in the multidisciplinary art form with training in language, vocals, music and acting, Cullins said.

“Part of the mission is really helping in training and giving opportunities to our participants,” she said. “But the other half of our mission is really reaching out to the community and offering our talents, music and joy to members of the community.”

Diemer explained that opera differed from other forms of music and the practice has broadened a variety of new skill sets. From learning voice vibrato to utilizing the appropriate muscles while singing, Diemer explained that the company — specifically Cullins — has brought her performances to new heights.

“It goes hand-in-hand with strength training because we use a lot of muscles that a lot of singers don’t realize we use and Sarah really tries to focus on that while we’re singing,” said Diemer. “Sometimes when I wake up the next day certain muscles around my ribcage are sore. That’s how you know you’re singing properly.”

On top of training from classes with Youth Opera Company, she also has solo lessons with Cullins to perfect technique and learn Italian.

“​​There’s a lot of work that each singer needs to do on their own to prepare their voice to memorize Italian,” said Cullins. “We spend the first couple of weeks really focused on learning what’s called lyric diction in Italian. We learn the symbols for the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is really helpful for learning a symbol that represents a sound to help us remember how everything is pronounced.”

Although Diemer’s first performance was in kindergarten as a dragon in her class’s production of “Mulan,” she still feels the pressure before she performs in front of a big audience. One of her biggest opera performances was this year at the Burlington City Arts New Year’s Eve celebration, one of the only fully classical programs of the day.

“Our production was called ‘Opera 101: A Day in the Life’ and it was a collection of opera scenes in Italian and in English that we organized together in a story of a day in the life of a typical teenager,” Cullins said. “We told the story of a day at school and daydreaming in class, going to debate, going to the nail salon after school, helping a friend in need with some love advice.”

Diemer sang in the salon scene with a youthful twist to ‘Una donna a quindici anni, Così fan tutte’ by Mozart.

“I think one of the most rewarding things is when you’re so scared to do something,” she said. “You just feel so accomplished after, like, ‘wow, I did that.’”

Although opera is all about voice technique, it also encompasses acting skills in order to fully engage the audience. Diemer explained that opera can be hard for people to relate to, and it’s the job of the singer to portray emotions that make the audience feel the essence of the performance, even in another language.

“If you have emotion, people are like, ‘Oh, I get this. This makes sense. I can relate to this,’” she said. “You want to make it relatable, because opera can seem pretty daunting to some people, but we wanted to make it different. So, we made the songs our own.”

The high school student has big aspirations for college and plans to make music a large part of her future. “I definitely want to do it in college, and maybe pursue it as a career. I will definitely continue using the techniques that Sarah taught me. They just really have helped and have continued to make me a better singer,” she said.

The next Youth Opera Company performance will be “An American in Paris” on April 15 and 16 and will showcase opera scenes and songs in French and English.

For information visit youthoperavt.org.