Using social media to educate new audiences and create fans with social media star opera Anna

Michelle Lynne: Hey everybody and welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast. My name is Michelle Lynn, and today I am thrilled to have my new friend Anna Trombetta on. Welcome, Anna.

Anna Trombetta: Thank you, Michelle. It’s really, it’s really a pleasure to be here. I’m so excited.

Michelle Lynne: People might know you better as Opera Anna, which is how you built up your digital presence. You have, uh, 30k on Instagram, you’ve got 4k on YouTube, so you’ve just been building over the last number of years, this platform, which is initially how we connected. I found your content and I thought you were just doing an amazing job and we’ve gotten to know each other a little bit. So yeah, I wanted to have you on today to talk about your work and how you’ve used your digital presence to bring awareness to the opera industry, and also the role of you being a freelancer. The highs and lows of that. So, uh, yeah, really excited to dive in.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, absolutely.

Michelle Lynne: So we’re both expats, you’re American, you’re in the Netherlands, and, uh, I’m Canadian. So tell us a little bit about how you got here and the initiation of Opera Anna.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, I’ve been in the Netherlands for almost 15 years. In August, it’ll be 15. So that’s about half of my life coming up on it. Um, you can do the math for how old I am. I’m not going to say it out loud. Yeah, I moved not for singing specifically, but my mom had a job here, and I moved with her for a year. That was the, that was the original idea, um, coming from Houston, Texas. I really didn’t want to move cause I had just started at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston. Um, which for anyone who doesn’t know, that’s where Beyonce also only went for one year. So we’re basically twins.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, cool.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, um, and I really wanted to go back. I’d had a really rough time in middle school and this was high school now, and I loved it, but, um, I ended up loving Holland more. I stayed. I ended up going to the Royal Conservatory of The Hague for my bachelor and, uh, then the Conservatory of Amsterdam for my master. And it sort of just, you know, it was never a conscious decision of like, “Oh, I’m going to spend my life here now.” Or like, “I’m going to be here for a longer period of time.” It was just kind of like, “All right, well, I’ll finish high school.” And then after getting the quote for Boston Conservatory and what that would cost, I was like, “Uh, I think I’ll stay, you know, I think I’ll, I think I’ll go this route.” Um, and it just sort of snowballed from there. And now I’m engaged to a Dutch guy, so it’s going to be a couple more years, I think.

Michelle Lynne: Congrats, by the way.

Anna Trombetta: Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s only been like three weeks or something. We were on vacation and he popped the question. It was very, very nice. He puts up with me singing opera in this little studio that we have. So I think he’s a keeper.

Michelle Lynne: Well then he’s definitely a keeper.

Anna Trombetta: Um, and Opera Anna. Yeah. I mean, that sort of came out of COVID. It was something that I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time. I had this idea of like, you know, I don’t see a lot of things on YouTube specifically that even I, as an opera singer, want to watch. There are a lot of, you know, very, let’s say serious interview things or, things coming out of theaters where they’re explaining the music and all that type of thing, which is nice, but it’s actually quite geared towards people who are already in the industry, I feel. It’s not sort of reaching across this boundary, for lack of a better word, that people tend to have with classical music. So I thought, well, you know, why can’t I just make a channel about opera and how I experienced it and how I got into it and what I really like about it, which is not necessarily the famous singers because, you know, I’m not going to go interviewing everyone. And even though that’s quite interesting, I don’t really think that’s geared towards new opera lovers. I don’t think that’s how we’re going to grab people.

So, um, yeah. So I, I mean, it’s kind of cringe going back to my first videos. I did like a day in the life and, uh, I would love to do another day in the life, but it’s sort of like, my days are all so different. Um, one of the first, aria explained as I call them? Um, that’s sort of now what my content is geared towards the most is just like explaining an aria. And I try to do that with the help of any pop, pop culture references that I can find any sort of fun facts or something funny about it. And also trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who’s hearing about this story or, you know, this sort of, well, the story or these singers or whatever it is for the first time, and in that way, keep it a little bit more grounded because I think as opera singers and as classical musicians, we get so out of ourselves in terms of how amazing it all is. And then we start telling it to someone else. And you’re talking about this story that’s hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it sounds kind of ridiculous the very first time you hear it, it seems a bit ridiculous. So I try to bring that layer of self-reflection into it. Um, but at the same time bring this, you know, profound respect that we all have for the art form and for the singing and for the music. Um, and bring that across as well. So it’s this very sort of fine line of like, not taking myself and, and opera too seriously, but also trying to still give that to people.

Michelle Lynne: I think what you’re doing is so important because to me, I view your content as educational, and if we want to talk about bringing new audiences in, I think you’re functioning as a bridge to someone who has zero context, as you’re saying for the first time that they would experience this, they don’t know this little bubble that we are very familiar with. They didn’t study this. They don’t know the history. So when you can function as this bridge, this liaison between someone who’s completely new, um, this is what we do. This is how you can relate through these pop cultural references that they already know. That brings people in and they can feel more connected and then maybe more open to coming to a performance.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah. I mean, I would hope so the, the stuff on on Instagram as well, it’s only recently sort of just gotten completely crazy with the 20, what is it? 29.3 or something that I’m sort of stuck at now. But, um, it’s a, I mean, it’s an insane number, right? Like it’s just insanity.

Michelle Lynne: I was so excited because I started following you and you were, sorry, you were at 5k and then now, yeah, you’re saying 29.3 thousand followers for everyone listening. Yes.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah. I mean, I was, you know, I started out like anyone else on Instagram, you know, doing those sort of like trending audio things and trying to bring it into the niche and, interesting that you don’t really see so many of those anymore, which is kind of interesting to me, but, um, and the thing that just exploded my account was, um, this reaction video that I did and everyone can have their opinion on reaction videos. It’s, it’s all fine, but you know, I, I got like 25,000 followers from this one reel.

Michelle Lynne: Oh my gosh! That’s wild! Yeah, for everyone listening, can you, can you describe it?

Anna Trombetta: Right. So it’s this video of, uh, Sabine Devieilhe, I don’t know how to pronounce her last name really. Um, but coloratura soprano, she was singing the doll song. So Olympia’s doll song from, uh, Les Contes d’Hoffmann. And. I decided to, how did I do this? Um, one of the things that I hear a lot from people is like, “Oh, opera is so boring,” right? Like I can’t connect. It’s boring. And so I put that up above it and said, opera is boring. How can you listen to opera? It’s so boring. And then I just green screen myself into the video and had some little captions with it, um, as I was sort of reacting to it, which is interesting. Cause that’s also what I do on YouTube is react and then comment on it. You’re seeing something that you normally wouldn’t want to watch if you just saw it come on your feed, but because you have someone else who’s sort of literally forming this sort of reaction for you and like giving you some context. Um, you have more of a reason to watch it. And there are tons of comments of people being like, “Oh, who’s the singer? Like, I’m going to go listen.” And I always provide the link to the full aria in my stories. And I have a highlight to do that. Um, yeah. So like that was the first one. And, um, I don’t want to be one of those people who also like only starts posting that type of content. Cause I just want to get as big as possible. Like that’s also not what I want to do. I still try to also connect with singers in the field. I do a lot of like carousels about what I’m dealing with in the industry. Um, haven’t had maybe the time or the courage to just do a talking head video. I don’t know what it is about, that form of content that I just don’t want to do it yet. I think I’m a little bit nervous, but,

Michelle Lynne: Oh my gosh. And you’re like, so good on camera too.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah. So talking about, you know, like I didn’t, what are, what are some of the things I’ve done, the five things that I would change about the industry or like, anything that’s really more singer related. So it sort of has both of those, I’ll say tinges to my content.

Michelle Lynne: Well, I mean, if we view your content as educational, which is the kind of the category that came to mind when I was looking through, that is literally what an educator does. It takes a recording or an aria or whatever. And it says, this is what you should listen to. You are actively training your listeners what to listen to. And then. By default, they’re becoming more familiar. It’s the same thing as when you go to a museum, you get the audio guide. But no one would ever say that the audio guide guy is profiting off the museum. So people say all kinds of stupid things online and whatever, we can bless them and let them go. But why do you think that that video resonated with so many people other than the hook where you start with the controversy, opera’s boring. Do you think it kind of set people up to have this discussion in the comments or…

Anna Trombetta: Um, yeah, I mean, I definitely think so. I think that was a trigger for lack of a better word for people to sort of be like, “Oh, I don’t think it’s boring.” Or, “I do think it’s boring still.” There are a lot of those, like, I still think it’s boring after watching the video. People want to share their opinions. I think firstly, it’s just a hugely virtuosic video. I mean, it’s what she interpolates just going up to the high, I think it’s a high A flat, right? So above a high C, it’s just, yeah, it’s wild. Um, it’s completely otherworldly and inhuman. And she also has this costume that looks like that woman from Mars Attacks. It has this like wig that’s going like this. And I think that is actually the inspiration from it. Cause it’s just too close to actually to not have been. And so there’s all these different like visual, audio, and, uh, textual things to kind of grab people and give them a reason to want to comment. And all those things combined, that it’s sort of a perfect recipe for a viral video.

Michelle Lynne: You have 25,000 people who are suddenly interested in you explaining an aria. How did that change your mental state when you wake up and you’re like, “Wait, these people think that what I have to say is important.” Did it make you feel like you needed to show up? Did it give you an extra sense of responsibility to continue to educate? Or were you just overwhelmed at the attention? I know there was some also some negative stuff you had to deal with in there. Like what, what was that for you?

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, I mean, this is a great question. I think still recovering from this, from 4 million people seeing this video.

Michelle Lynne: Is it at 4 million?

Anna Trombetta: At first, it sort of is going in phases. I first thought like, “Whoa, this, I mean, this is amazing,” right? Like this crazy people, all these people following me, um, wanting to learn about opera. That was sort of my first thought. I thought like, “I’m an opera account. This is ridiculous.” Like, this is what I’ve been saying. It’s, it can work. And then of course, I engaged with the trolls because I had to learn my lesson, right? And I really thought, like, we can, you know, if you just use logic and try to be polite, like people will come around. No, it’s not. That’s not how it works. It’s just absolutely not. 

Anna Trombetta: Exactly. And I was so distraught at the thought of like, that someone didn’t like me online out of like 7 billion people in the world, 8 almost. And I was sitting on this couch and I started bawling my eyes out cause I was so, I was so upset and I thought I wish this had never happened. I wish I hadn’t gone viral. Like this sucks.

Michelle Lynne: Mm hmm.

Anna Trombetta: Right?

Michelle Lynne: I’m so sorry to hear that. Yeah.

Anna Trombetta: Well, I stopped looking at the comments after that because I was like, I don’t really need this in my life. You know, if I, I didn’t, I didn’t hide them or hide the comments or block it either. Cause I was like, what’s the point of this? Like it already had an effect on me. I gotta say I’m maybe I should join the Fearless Artist Mastermind because I’m a little nervous to post now. Um, because I’m like, nothing’s gonna top that. And it’s such a weird thing to think that you have to like constantly get more likes on all your videos. Cause it’s just, that’s, I mean, that’s just stupid actually, but I’m nervous to post because I think, “Oh, it’s not what people want to see,” or, “Oh, it’s not like, you know, or someone else will be a troll on one of my videos.”

Michelle Lynne: People can just be mean. You don’t need that. As you said, you don’t.

Anna Trombetta: Right. And at the same time I started this new job and I’ve, um, sort of actively trying to sing less but earn more money, which is just a sad fact at this point in my life. But anyway, um, yeah, so my posting got a little less consistent, but now when I do post it’s something that I’ve thought about for a while and thought like, “Okay, no, this is like worth it to make. And I hope that people will get something out of it.”

Michelle Lynne: I so feel for you, because we see this all the time with artists. Because we have to be vulnerable in a sense where we literally go on stage and perform, like we are putting ourselves out there all the time. And as we said earlier, already, like everyone has an opinion. Everyone’s a critic and these people sit on their couches and throw insults from their little screens. And have they ever posted a video? Have they ever put themselves out there? Have they ever shared an opinion online? No, because they’re there. They don’t have that bravery. They don’t have that motivation to educate audiences. I mean, you’re, I think your vision of the channel is so beautiful. And Brene Brown tells a very similar story. Probably you’ve heard it when she did her first viral TED Talk and she woke up to a ton of hate comments about her size and about her parenting. And she said she had this vulnerability hangover. And similarly to what you described, she went and ate like a jar of peanut butter on her couch and was like, “I’m never putting myself out there again.” And then she found this Theodore Roosevelt quote, “The Man in the Arena,” where it’s in, “The critic is not the one who counts, but the one who is face down, his face is marred with blood, sweat and tears. And he’s in the arena bleeding.” And when I first started working with my life coach, that was what we talked about a lot. Like every night that we put ourselves out there, we are in the arena and we’ve got eyes on us, whether it’s a live show, whether it’s putting a video online, like I’ve never had that type of virality. So I don’t know how you feel with 4 million views, but I can imagine that when you feel like all these eyes are on you, you’ve put your neck out and you were brave and now you have to kind of say like, okay, well, here I am and people are going to say what they want to say. And I can totally understand that it took some time to recover. And also like, what is real life and what’s not, those people have no. They should not have any bearing on your life because they have no relationship with you and you should be protected. But because we’re putting ourselves on these public platforms, unfortunately, anyone can comment anything. So, yeah, I have another friend of mine, HarpistKT, she went viral during COVID. She now has 2.5 million on Twitter. TikTok followers, and she discussed a lot about how to deal with these nasty comments, the trolls. I asked her, like, what are your strategies? Because people make comments on her playing face. They make comments on if she doesn’t look happy, or if she doesn’t do something, you know, it’s like, people forget that you’re human sometimes, I think, when you become, like, an online persona.

Anna Trombetta: So yeah, I just want to commend you for like putting yourself out there and I think the mission of what you’re doing is so beautiful and I can understand why you would be hesitant to like do it again because you’re like, well, what did that get me…

Michelle Lynne: Right. And I think, so a couple of things. First of all, I have that quote, that Theodore Roosevelt quote, in my wallet. I carry it around with me, because it was something that my brother, during Christmas or something, when I got to see him, I had sort of shared what I was going through and he showed me this quote and I just started crying, right? Like it’s just, it hits you right in the feels every time.

Anna Trombetta: And it’s so profound. It’s such a profound quote. If anyone has not heard this quote, like, please go listen to it right now. or read it. Secondly, the dealing with the people who have no bearing on your life, like, are doing nothing and just spitting out vitriol, right? And for some reason, those are the ones that come in that hit you the hardest, right? You have like a thousand comments being like, this is great. Thank you so much. And like regular DMs from people would be like, I love what you do. Like anytime I’m sort of like, “Guys, I’m not feeling so great. Like someone said something mean to me.” I have a ton of DMs from people who were saying like, “No, this is, I love what you do. Like, please keep going. I love learning about singers from you. I love like, you know, all these things.” But then we fixate on the one negative thing and it’s, evolution really needs to fix this in our brains really quick because I’m sick of this. I’ve never done it myself, but I really love it when creators kind of embrace the negativity, right? So they’ll take a comment and they’ll sort of just lean into it, as a way to, I think a way to process it themselves, even at the other side of it, it could help the art because you’re not thinking about what it looks like. You’re only thinking of pouring your soul into it, um, to give people an example that’s not related to singing at all. I was watching a video of the guy who plays Gollum. So the actor that plays him and he came up with his voice, right? And he did the audition. With all the movements and the facial things and all this stuff. And the narrator was saying like, “Well, you know, you might wonder why he’s making all these faces, even though it’s just a voice, he was just auditioning for the voice.” And I was like, “I’m not wondering that at all, because that makes total sense.” Like you have to be in this, you have to be in it fully to be able to do it. Yes.

Michelle Lynne: Well, you know. Whenever I struggle with things like this, I always look at people who are ahead of me. And like Taylor Swift, I referenced her all the time, but you know, hello, like the reputation album came out of the whole Kanye mess. So, you know, there are other people who have faced horrible backlash like this, and it has made me extremely, like, I will now actively defend people on Instagram. Like one of my favorite comedians, Double Dutch, I’m sure you know him. Um, Derek Mitchell, um, somebody made a comment on his video and I was just like, “Oh yeah,” like I said, they were like, “Oh, you’re English. Your Dutch isn’t great.” And I was like, “Oh, how’s your English?” Cause they were, they were clearly a Dutch person. And then somebody else was like, “Oh, what’s with the snapback?” And I’m like, “Well, where’s your content? Where’s your video? Where are you going on a national sold out tour?” Like artists have to be vulnerable. And it is one of the parts of our job and we never talk about this. And so everyone has to learn how to kind of navigate it in their own way. And that’s why I just deeply appreciate the work of Brene Brown or other content creators who have kind of learned how to, create this hard shell. I think, and as you said, I mean, you coped by not reading the comments anymore. You know, you engaged until you saw that it was pointless. It sounds like you chose some really good strategies to kind of get yourself out of that negative headspace.

Anna Trombetta: I mean, someone also commented that like, “Wow, this Opera Anna is a saint because I would be going off on all these trolls.” And I was like, that is not how anyone has described me ever. Like I’m a quarter Italian and that comes out in like everything that I do. Especially like dealing with people. I mean, people say it’s because I live in Amsterdam, but I’m like, I was always like this when I go biking and stuff that I’m like yelling at people, my boyfriend’s like, “Anna, just like, no.”

Michelle Lynne: I get it…

Anna Trombetta: Yeah. And the thing about being vulnerable is I really had to learn what that meant for myself as a singer. Not even like before I had any type of presence on social media, I had to learn how to open myself up to the music and to an audience. Like before, I was the hugest people pleaser on stage, just gigantic. And. You know, you heard it in my singing. It was just not interesting. And I think this idea of being an artist and being vulnerable, it has nothing to do with technique, but it is technique, if that makes sense. So you’re not going to learn it by yawning more and getting your larynx to go down a little bit more, like, it has to be this, like, soul crushing vulnerability that you can only learn by, like, knowing exactly who you are, or at least doing the work to learn who you are.

Michelle Lynne: And what you want to say with the performance.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, I wish we did this more or we explored it more in conservatories or at least the conservatories that I went to explored it more. I was studying with someone outside of it and he really taught me what it meant to be an artist in that sense. Um, and it’s scary as hell, but like, not to make it scary or anything, I would try and sing a note, right. When I just started doing the work, because you start to access all these parts of yourself that, um, you didn’t know were there and like, maybe you’re touching on some, traumatic little pockets that are, that have been there for a while. And I would just, I tried to sing one note. I would just cry. I would just cry trying to work through it. And yeah, I mean, it’s a, it’s a lifelong, it’s a lifelong thing as well. So we never fully get there and being vulnerable is not a destination. Right. It’s continuously trying to be, just be yourself, which is for some reason so hard.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. I was about to say, it sounds a lot like you’re talking about being authentic on stage, and then also in your content. I think your content is very authentic, um, which is probably why I resonated with you, because I’ve just been allergic for years and years to the people who used socials as like the highlight reel, and here’s everything great about me, and here’s a big filter for my face, and you know, all this stuff. So I hear you talking about your target audience being, you know, you wanted to educate the average person, let’s say about introducing them to the world of opera. But then you also mentioned that you like to connect with other singers by writing about issues that you see in the industry, like one of your graphics five problems you see, do you want to share a bit about the idea behind that?

Anna Trombetta: Yeah. I mean, that’s sort of, that’s a kind of a good segue because I started, I think I, the first thing I posted where I was like, “I’m really sick of this and I want to just talk about it on social media.” I think came from probably seeing an influencer and or seeing like a thrill to announce thing. And I was like, or seeing a thrill to announce and then talking to someone the next day, like talking to the person and they’re like, “Ah, it’s a shit thing.” Like, I don’t even, you know, like I’m, I’m not that excited about it, blah, blah. And I was like, you made me feel bad about myself. When that’s like, the only thing that I see from artists, it kind of goes against what we do. Like, if you’re just putting out these like, it’s an amazing, glamorous life that I have when everyone, like everyone in the industry knows that that’s not 98 percent of what we do. I was like, I hate this. I hate this. I’m going to do it differently. Also because I had no concerts to be thrilled to announce about. So it was like, you gotta, you gotta pick one. Right. What did I, what was the first one I did that I was like, “Oh, people actually resonate with this.” I think,

Michelle Lynne: Maybe the audition process, I know you’ve talked about it.

Anna Trombetta: Uh, five things that conservatories don’t teach you. That one did pretty well. It has like a hundred likes or something. And after that, it sort of gave me more courage to post about stuff like that, because there were all these things that are going wrong or just sort of don’t sit right with anyone in the industry really. And yet no one talks about them on social media, like ever.

Michelle Lynne: Okay, why is that?

Anna Trombetta: Well, I think, I think that there’s a lot of fear around, you know, biting the hand that feeds you. And I completely get that. I completely understand that you don’t want to sort of go against and maybe make some generalizations. Like, I come down on YAP sometimes about like, I don’t want to do a YAP because like, you don’t earn any money or whatever. But at the same time, they’re also, they can be under. Good management and in the right hands, like a very good opportunity for young artists. The fact that I could talk to people about this or that people also, resonated with people and that they shared my perspective on it was also funnily enough, one of the reasons that I started Opera Anna, I thought I need to show people perspective about being in the industry. Um, because during my first year, my master, I didn’t know anyone like, oh, there were quite a few Canadians and they sort of knew each other. But they weren’t my best friends right away type of thing. So, I felt really alone and I was going through the things you go through in your conservatory. You have a bad week and then the world is ending type of idea. And that was what made me also want to start Opera Anna cause I wanted to show like, this is what it’s like. Like it’s not glamorous, but it is super fun. Right. and it’s very confronting and uncomfortable sometimes, but it’s because we’re in pursuit of. something bigger than ourselves. I hope that the more vulnerable things sort of come over and I’m trying to figure out more ways to talk about stuff like that than just on carousels. I would love to do, you know, you do a lot of talking head content and I, I don’t, I’m not really sure why, why I’m like kind of afraid of it. I think just cause I’ve never done it and I’m like, Oh, well people like it. That’s stupid.

Michelle Lynne: You know what? It was the same thing with starting this podcast. I overthought it for three months. And then only thanks to my podcast producer, shout out Poki, who was texting me like, “Where is your next episode?” Then I was like, “Oh man, I got to bite the bullet.” And then, do you know something that I do is, every positive message that I get about the podcast that is screenshotted and in a folder on my phone. So whenever I’m starting to feel those negative voices pop up and kind of torment me, I’m like, hang on a second, I’ve got evidence and this is how we can rewire our brains. Like what you were sharing earlier, you get a thousand positive comments and you zero in on that negative one. That was explained to me as being the spotlight effect, which is something that I always like to do. As do after a concert, I come off stage and I talk about like that one bar that I missed the entrance instead of like, wow, we just pulled off this huge quintet. Like, you know, so, um, yeah, now I’m going through that folder and I’m, I’m swiping through all of these people who are saying, “Hey, I listened to the podcast. It helped me so much. Nobody talks about this. Thank you for what you’re doing.” And I’m like, see what I do matters. See Michelle, like this little inner critic. And I kind of talk myself off the cliff, you know, so, um, I was going to ask with your vulnerability and, you know, I know you talked once on your stories about like the audition process and stuff and how that can be so difficult traumatizing all that stuff. Do you have things in place like boundaries wise where you think like, okay, this is for the public and this is for my inner circle is there a way that you differentiate between what to share and whatnot? When we think about the average opera singer might think, “I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me,” like you said.

Anna Trombetta:I think when I first started this like more vulnerable sort of digging into the industry content, I didn’t have a lot of work and there wasn’t a lot of work on the horizon. And I think that sounds really scary of course, but it’s not my only income stream. And I decided a long time ago that I’m not going to let singing be my only income stream because COVID. And… I sort of thought, you know what, whoever in the industry is going to not like what I’m saying is not somebody that I want to work with. 

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, these kind of conversations are tricky because in the audition process, of course, there’s like so much that we don’t know going on behind the scenes. There’s all these relationships, there’s past history, there’s a jury, there’s, they’re looking for something specific. We don’t know why some people get the role and some people don’t. And when you put your heart on the line, and coming back to this authenticity vulnerability, it can really sting when these things don’t pan out the way that you might’ve hoped.

Anna Trombetta: Right. And I, auditions are so tricky as well. I saw a reel about, it was a musical theater singer. I mean, completely different, but also not that she had gone on like 60, different auditions or something and gotten none of them, like got absolutely none of these auditions. And then the one job she did get was because of something. She didn’t audition for it. She got it because of something else because she’d been in this other thing and they wanted her to do it. It’s like 60 plus auditions. Maybe it was even more, but this is mind blowing. It’s mind blowing. You hear that more often from people. I knew a guy in the studio and he was like, “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a job from an audition. It’s only because I network like crazy.”

Michelle Lynne: So how do you see your role as someone who is open to speaking about these things and, what kind of change can you activate with Opera Anna?

Anna Trombetta: Well, I mean, I just hope that there’s some sort of awareness. I don’t understand how we can get there any other way. It has to be about the singers also standing up for what they’re worth and for what they want to see in the industry. Like if no one else says it, then like, it’s just going to keep happening.

Michelle Lynne: It’s kind of like the elephant in the room and these things happen and like, yeah, if some people have knowledge, the others don’t. And yeah, it can be confusing for someone trying to navigate this. So looking at the positive, like influence that you’ve had with your socials, what are some, are there any stories that come to mind? Or you’ve already mentioned people thank you in your DMS for what you’re sharing.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, I mean, the things that really, make me go, “Oh, okay, people are appreciating it. People get what I’m trying to do,” is also on YouTube when people, you know, first of all, they thank me for what I’m doing and like the way that I’m doing it, which is not for everyone. Of course, but for a specific demographic, maybe. But if someone discovers a singer, I’ve had people who are like, “Oh, I’ve never listened to opera, but this kind of makes me want to go watch it.” I’m like, “Here’s the link, babe.” Like, you know, like that type of thing. I’m like, “Oh my God, like a new opera lover potentially.” Right. And I even have, like a family friend who, I mean, he knew I was an opera singer, but that wasn’t enough. He saw my stuff and then he started messaging me. It was like, “Oh, I’m going to go see whatever it was.” I forget what they were doing. He, he, went and saw it and he wanted to like, tell me about it, that he went to see it. And I was like, amazing, amazing. And the furthest person from opera that you could think of. And both knowing me and my content got them to go see it. And I see just a lot of instances of that, of people like in my DMs, either just wanting to go discover a new singer. Um, like it’s not just new opera lovers. It’s also about these singers that have sort of been forgotten as well. I try to when I can get singers that are not in the industry right now because they do their own promoting in a sense, you know, like they don’t really need me to do that for them. And I can, if I really want to, but I would love to also know where we came from type of thing. Right. And we have like Callas and Pavarotti and Corelli and, a couple of other people that are like straight off the top of the head names that we can go through. But, you know, there’s a lot of other singers that we can discover and I’m constantly discovering them. Right. Like there’s just countless, countless names, that have something and had something to offer to the opera world and to just forget them, even though they’re laid out for us on the internet is such a shame.

Michelle Lynne: So, and this way I really see you as like an advocate for the opera industry. You know, you’re advocating for the art. You’re bringing awareness, you’re educating people, you’re educating new audiences. And if we think about, the typical influencer these days where they’re like selling beauty products and this is what theaters should be hiring people to do, like hiring content creators in, in a serious way to like, we’re going to pay you to make content about opera, not even promoting necessarily the theater, but just in general to get people. And then you can always tie it in with a strategy to like, what’s coming up at that local theater or whatever. But you really do have examples of people who have gone to see a show because of you. Like you are influencing people, you are changing minds, you’re bringing this, and this is how we can use the power of socials and YouTube to educate people. And I’ve, been learning more over the last year as part of our role as classical musicians is also education. And we can’t keep complaining about how classical music is dying and everybody in the hall has gray hair. It’s like, well, where is your responsibility to go and tell people and introduce them to what you’re doing? I mean, I know little to nothing about cycling and I have a really good friend and he’s racing in the national trials of the Netherlands and every time I follow his content I get really excited and I pay a little bit of attention. That’s the same kind of example as people who have no idea about opera, classical music, and we can introduce them through our content, lower the bar, and say, this is what it would be like if you came to a theater. This is what you would experience. Here’s the story. I love that you’re, you mentioned that, you know, telling the story of the artists, bringing pop culture references. Like let’s make it relatable so that we can introduce a new audience and then we can stop worrying about ticket sales because people will just wanna go ’cause they’re actually interested.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I fully agree. the role of theaters or the strategy that theaters could start to think about, on social media is definitely a much more, let’s say interactive one with society for lack of a better word. Like getting people involved in and hiring influencers or hiring people like me or like you or someone has more experience with that so you see also people who can, who know exactly what they’re talking about and who are willing to put in the research necessary because I also don’t know everything, right? And can bring that relatability factor. Yeah, I mean, I would love to see it more. I haven’t reached out to any theaters or anything. Um, although I have thought about it to see if, you know, maybe we could do some UGC type of thing. Or whatever it may be, I think of a main problem or issue or something like that, that I see a lot of organizations, a lot of classical music organizations, doing or having or whatever the verb is to fix to end that sentence that I just said, is that they’re not willing to experiment on social media. They’re not willing. Go outside of their sort of the brand lines that they’ve already established as a classical music or organization. And the one thing that all classical music is sort of stereotypes for being is that we’re all super stiff and that it’s kind of elitist and it’s not relatable and. Then they’re like, “Oh, we have to be on social media.” I’m like, “Yes, of course you do. How?” It’s not a sort of one, two, three of, “We’re just going to post a picture of our last concert,” or “We’re just going to upload a video that’s 10 minutes long and in landscape mode for a reel that someone’s just going to scroll past right away.” Like, I’m like, no, why? Because I know multiple instances of smaller organizations. They don’t really have the budget to really like hire an entire media marketing team. And you know, they’re doing the best they can. Like the intention is good, but it’s just not, executed correctly. And it’s also way too safe. It kind of makes sense to me that that’s what happens on social media because I think it’s also what happens in the industry itself, that we’re super safe. You know, we make programming decisions because we have to fill the hall.

Michelle Lynne: Right. And we know that that’s going to do it. Not that that’s wrong, but like the 8 millionth performance of Carmen is, you know, it’s a great opera, but I was so psyched when I saw that the Met Opera had, um, Fire Shut Up In My Bones. And they had the Malcolm X and they had The Hours, like regardless of what actually did well. And by the way, Fire Shut Up In My Bones like, killed it with ticket sales. And so did Malcolm X. I think we’re so scared to experiment and I think that’s also so great about what you do with the Fearless Artist Mastermind. And what I was listening to one of your, one of your episodes the other day, we’re so like trained to make it perfect or so trained to take it seriously and, and, and, you know, respect the art form and all these things, which is totally valid. But allowing ourselves to, to be artists and to be messy and to be creative and like also put that out there. Yeah. But, you know, you’re being an example for a lot of people who see you, so, um, I agree with you completely. I think the fear is that we don’t want to dumb it down. And that’s what you started this conversation with as well. You’re bringing arias, you’re bringing them in a relatable way, but you’re also not diminishing the importance of it. But at the same time, we’re giving people bite sized views of an aria on an Instagram reel with a iPhone microphone. We can’t at all possibly recreate, but the whole idea is that you’re functioning as a bridge. You’re introducing people and you’re saying, “Why don’t you come check out a show?” I think it would be amazing if you were on like, staff at three or four theaters and you look at their upcoming 2024–25 season and you say, “Okay, you’ve got three, five productions coming up. I’m going to create a series of content reels about this show. Educate people, talk about the characters,” talk, you know, and then bring in the views and then send DM every single person a ticket link with 10 percent off to their very first opera. You know, I mean, there’s like so many strategies you could put behind getting content creators out there, educating in a way that’s relatable to people and introducing new audiences.

Anna Trombetta: Absolutely.

Michelle Lynne: We’ve covered so much. I mean, this has been so great. I, I hear the future of Opera Anna, do you have any couple quick thoughts about how you would like your platform to grow or evolve?

Anna Trombetta: I have so many thoughts. Yeah, I mean, well, first off, I would love to, get Opera Anna on YouTube and Instagram much more consistent. I mean, I’m, it’s a woman, one woman show back here. And there’s not a lot of money coming in from it or something. So it can’t really sustain itself. So like I said, I have, this other job that I started that I in social media, by the way, helping, organizations figure out their social media. Um, yeah, I would love to get like once a week. Videos up, love to be more consistent. I would love to also branch out from the aria explained and talk about more, let’s say things in the industry. So exactly what we’ve sort of been talking about like, get that into video form on my channel. I flirted with the idea of starting a podcast, with a friend of mine. And then that was before I had the job. Um, I would still love to do it, this would be like opera Anna is basically full time. If not, I don’t know. I have a few days to commit to it, if not full time. I would also love to collab with theaters. I think it would be such a great opportunity to be able to like go to theaters and possibly do a full, a longer form video plus little small ones to either talk about the theater, talk about their program and, just bring an opera Anna spin to it if they’re open to that.

Michelle Lynne: Well, they’re going to be open to it. if you can show that you’ll bring in new audiences and ticket sales, right? So yeah, I mean, I see you having, you have so many strengths, you know, you’ve got like, of course you’re singing training, but you’re a communicator. You’ve got the video editing, you’ve got the social media. I mean, this is the kind of full package deal that we want our musicians to know about too, like developing your other skill sets and strengths, because then by default, you position yourself in the market. You’re not just another singer. You’re a singer who has some ideas. You have thoughts, you know how to articulate yourself. I mean, for sure, podcast is a great, great future avenue for you too. I’m, I know so many singers are probably listening to this whole episode, feeling like cathartic, you know, and they’re like, “Oh, this has been a release for me.” Yeah, I see a lot of, a lot of big things coming for you.

Anna Trombetta: Yeah, I would love to just say to anyone listening, It took me a really long time to start Opera Anna because I was so scared. I was so scared that people were going to judge me or think that I was less of a singer because I was doing something not related to singing. And I think. It’s changing now. I think that’s not necessarily the sort of gray cloud hanging above conservatory students as I felt it. And I hope if you do feel that, that cloud hanging above your head that you take Opera Anna’s advice and, just ignore it and do it anyway. Um, it’s brought me a lot of new friends. It’s brought me a lot of joy. It’s brought me a lot of skills. I had to learn how to video edit, which if you met me before I was Opera Anna and I started Opera Anna, like not a chance, not a chance in hell. It was not a thing. I’m the most technically ridiculously stupid person ever. So really just go for it. And I have gotten jobs from it. I’m sure I have, because after I’d had Opera Anna for a while and they knew that I had Opera Anna, they asked me to do presenting for competition. And I just did a presenting job. Two days ago for the opera sing along in Den Bosch. It was like a sing along thing and they needed a presenter and, um, it’s sort of this like newfound, love. And I hate that I keep finding new things that I love to do. I’m like, “Oh, let me just do this and this and this and this,” like, just pick one.

Michelle Lynne: But yeah, so you never know what’s going to resonate with you and what’s going to bring you just more joy. And I think as artists, we have to find these different things that bring us joy and that feed our artistry. Just being a singer is sort of not even viable anymore. I know like three people in my circle who do that. And there was that great statistic from SCA artists that came out that said in the States that 3 percent of singers make their full time income from singing. And first I was like, “What the fuck? Like, three percent?” And then I, at first I got scared and then it sort of set me free to do all these other things and I, now I’m perhaps overextended myself but, you know, we’ll find the balance one day.

Anna Trombetta: That’s a life, lifelong journey. Good for you. I love, I love hearing this. It resonates so deeply with me because we really do teach a lot about portfolio careers. I teach at Code Arts. It’s year one. We tell them there are multiple ways to make money in the music industry and you wouldn’t have any of the opportunities without your musical training. So I don’t think you can ever separate yourself. Like even when you’re doing social media, it’s coming from your training as a singer and you understand the ins and outs and you are coming from your experience and your authority. And I mean, I think we’re always going to be our instruments. Even no matter what role we play. I mean, I’m doing this podcast on behalf of Michelle, the pianist, you know, Michelle, the pianist who needs to know how to be fearless. So yeah, I think everything ties together and I love that you’re, you’re being an example for so many. So, um, if you had one thought to leave people with one action point, we love teaching our fearless artists to take action. Do you know what it would be?

Michelle Lynne: To take action. Oh my goodness. Just go for it. Like really just go for it and figure out who you are and what you want to say. Because it’s just not interesting without it and without Opera Anna and sort of this, you know, persona, I guess it’s not really a persona is who I am, but it’s not fully who I am, of course, um, without this, this sort of armor, Opera Anna armor, I don’t think I would have ever dared to be vulnerable, um, with other people on social media.

Anna Trombetta: You know, be authentic, find what you want to say and go say it. I mean, put yourself out there, post the video. You know, have the, have the 4 million people see it and keep going. I know we’re going to be looking forward to a lot of your upcoming content. Yes. Everyone go follow Opera Anna on Instagram and YouTube. And, this podcast will also be on both her channel and mine. So anyway, I just want to say thank you so much for all of your thoughts and how well you articulated your ideas today. It’s been a pleasure…

Michelle Lynne: Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun. And I’m no longer a podcast virgin.

Anna Trombetta: Was this your first podcast?

Michelle Lynne: Right?

Anna Trombetta: Oh, I’m honored. I’m honored. Great. Well, everybody, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you screenshot and share it to your stories and tag the Fearless Artist Mastermind and Opera Anna. And remember you have what it takes to build the career of your dreams. So we’ll leave you and say, be fearless.

Michelle Lynne and Anna Trombetta: Be fearless, you guys.