English Alum - Sara Womble, Emerging Artist, Boston Lyric Opera

After graduating from Duke, I moved to Boston to pursue my MM in Voice Performance. Since finishing my masters, I've performed regionally quite a bit, and have recently landed probably the most exciting gig I've gotten to date: I'll be a 2016-2017 Emerging Artist at Boston Lyric Opera! 

A career in opera may not seem like the obvious choice for an English major, but the degree, and what I learned in the English Department at Duke has helped me immeasurably. The skill of deeply reading and analyzing a text is just as applicable to an opera libretto, and even to the notes on the page, as it is to a novel or poem. At the risk of sounding horribly arrogant, I'm often praised for my acting and nuanced character interpretation--I credit my Duke English experience directly. This one may seem obvious, but the work ethic that Duke helped shape for me has been possibly my greatest tool in forging a career in this crazy business. It sounds trite, but talent probably accounts for about 10% of success in this business--the rest is relentless hard work, imagination, creativity, and perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and a constant onslaught of rejection.