Monster in the Maze from a Young Person's Perspective

'Monster in the Maze' is the opera that I (Samuella Carroll) became apart of through Concordia Voices. It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to perform on the Crucible stage and to work with all the amazing people that made it happen! I have no experience acting before, nor have I performed opera before so it was all very new to me.

Firstly, we started rehearsals in the Crucible on the Tuesday, it was our first time seeing the space we were performing in and seeing how it all came together on the stage. It was quite daunting at first to see how big an audience there was going to be and it all started to feel very real very fast!

The first Tuesday was a lot of focus on staging and the way in which we express our characters emotions, which the director (Rosie Kat) was leading. She did an utterly amazing job, teaching us how to properly bring out all of our inner actors. She was very engaging and listened to all of our ideas and opinions on what the final result would look like. For example, Riya (one of the students from concordia voices) ended up getting eaten (and later saved) from the Minotaur. This was initially one of the students ideas but Rosie took that and brought it to life in a very professional manner, whilst also keeping it fun and engaging for the cast. Furthermore, on a personal note, Rosie is just a nice person to work with in general and has really been key in helping me tackle my own anxiety and stage fright, I couldn't have performed even half as well as I did if it wasn't for her support and directing.

The Wednesday was our second day in the Crucible and was our first time putting our staging and singing together with the Orchestra. Leading this was John Lyon, the conductor and musical director of the production. Up to this point him (and Rosie) had been attending the majority of our rehearsals to help us get our singing and performing to a level I can only describe as beyond confident. John has such a natural musical talent and with his help it was nowhere near as daunting putting our singing together with the orchestra. He made sure all the instruments and voices had the right balance whilst also making sure throughout our rehearsals everyone got the help they needed to hit their notes and get their timings/rhythms correct. He helps create such a positive atmosphere between all the different groups and really acts as someone to bring everyone together to achieve our goal.

Alongside him was our leader at Concordia Voices, Emma Ward, who also helped us really excel our singing to a near professional level. Emma is very experienced in operatic music so was the perfect person to lead us through the week. She has such an energy and positivity about her and really acts as a role model to me and the rest of the group. I really look up to her in her level of singing whilst still keeping such a joyous and engaging personality. She makes it very clear how much we are valued at Concordia Voices and I don't think this production would have been nearly as successful without her. Additionally, throughout my time knowing Emma she has helped me through a lot of my highs and lows and has really helped me develop as a person so having her lead us into this production was really comforting.

Throughout the day we took regular breaks to keep us focused and really nailed down on the technical mishaps we were making but by the end of the day we had it all sorted!

Thursday was our final day of rehearsals in which we had our first dress rehearsal and full run through of the Opera. This was an emotional day as it was the first day we felt we all could say "We did it!" in that we had learnt the entire piece and felt a sense of accomplishment before the shows started on Friday.

Finally, the Friday came around and we arrived at 2pm with our first performance starting in an hour. That hour gave us plenty of time to get into costume and get in the right mindset. This was greatly helped as both Rosie and Emma went through grounding exercises beforehand to make sure we were in the right mindset.

Going into the final performance we were all in a very positive mindset which helped ease the nerves we were all experiencing. Especially as for me and a few others it was our first proper production on stage. The feeling that I got when we walked out on stage was a feeling of surrealism and a feeling of "I can't believe we're finally here and finally doing this", especially as being on the Crucible stage was a huge deal for all of us. We were really pleased with the performance, we felt we had lived up to our potential and thought we couldn't have done it better. Backstage it was such a supportive environment with everyone congratulating each other and making sure we all felt proud of ourselves.

We then had our next 3 performances across the rest of Friday and the Saturday in which each one we seemed to just get more confident and each one felt like it went better than the last.

After the final show it was a very emotional experience. A lot of people were in tears because it was over and we all had such a wonderful time! We're all really happy with how it turned out and can't wait to see what more opportunities the Music Hub has in store. I would really recommend getting involved with the music hub if you get the chance as I have made friends for life and I really feel like I've found my group of people, let alone these absolutely awesome opportunities we get!

Finally, I'd really like to thank the community that have made me feel welcome during this production! Emma Livingstone, the stage manager was there for us the whole time making sure we knew what we were doing and being really supportive. The opera singers: Anthony Flaum; Camille Maalawy and Rob Gildon for attending a lot of Concordia's rehearsals and making sure we were all comfortable with singing in this new environment. And everyone else that was involved made a really positive environmental and I can comfortably say the best working environment I have experienced as a trans woman.

Samuella Tyas Carroll
Aged 18 - Concordia Voices