MARCIA OZDOBA, soprano
Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, on 20 August 1955, Marcia Ozdoba began her music career as a pianist, obtaining her Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Cape Town Music College in 1979.
In her second year of study, she began private singing lessons with Adelheid Armhold and made her debut performance as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah in March 1977. She was asked by Professor Fiasconaro of the U.C.T. Opera School to sing the role of Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmelites by Francis Poulenc for the opening of the Baxter Theatre in August of that year.
Marcia’s gift of perfect pitch led to performances of 20th century vocal compositions by Bartok, Schoenberg and Berio as well as compositions by young South African composers.
Highlights of her career have included Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for soprano and 8 celli, Aaron Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson with Lamar Crowson as accompanist, as well as a wide variety of oratorio and solo concert performances. She has sung in nine languages and speaks German fluently.
In 1980 Marcia began working for the South African Broadcasting Corporation in Johannesburg, where she made recordings for radio and television of two chamber works by Franz Schubert - Der Hirt auf dem Felsen for soprano, clarinet and piano, and Auf dem Strom for soprano, French horn and piano, as well as recording the first South African performance of the Messiaen song cycle Chants de Terre et de Ciel.
She also did several performances with the Opera School in Johannesburg, under the guidance of Emma Renzi, and worked with a Jewish vocal group known as “Take Six”, writing vocal arrangements of popular melodies for vocal quintet and piano.
In 1982 Marcia was the first musician to be awarded the Rotary Scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, England, where she studied for two years with Rudolf Piernay, obtaining a Post-Graduate Diploma in Singing. After auditioning for agents in Germany in 1984, she took up her first professional overseas engagement as a member of the Bern Opera Chorus in Switzerland.
In 1987, Marcia was accepted into the Zurich Opera Company, where she sang for six years, doing chorus work as well as small solo roles, in addition to an extensive concert career, and had the opportunity to sing on the same stage with world-renowned singers such as Thomas Hampson, Francesco Araiza, Edita Gruberova, Agnes Baltsa, Gösta Winbergh and Ruggero Raimondi, to name but a few.
In 1993 Marcia left the opera profession and immigrated to California. She developed a strong interest in the works of American painters and sculptors and spent two years composing piano, vocal and orchestral compositions inspired by their work. From 1996-98 she gave performances of these original compositions, with the artwork on display, throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. This work, which she calls “musical painting”, was an attempt to “paint in sound” what she saw on the canvas.
Marcia’s creative process has led her into different creative fields, including art therapy and the study of images. She is also in the process of writing the “story behind the story” of her life and her musical career.
Her autobiography is entitled “The Truth Behind My Image”.
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MARCIA OZDOBA'S PERSONAL STATEMENT
In addition to my biography, I wanted to write something more personal about my experience of my career, which I hope will help young singers who are starting out.
I have had a full and wonderful 17-year career. It was fraught with many difficulties, both physically and emotionally, but I never allowed those obstacles to stand in the way of my dream of becoming a great singer.
I have learned something from everyone I came into contact with, and am grateful for the many wonderful people I met.
If I were to give a young singer any advice, it would be this: Be relentless about finding the best teachers and don’t settle for anything less than the best.
In South Africa, Adelheid Armhold gave me the foundation for my spiritual life and my career, but I also had the wonderful good fortune to work with people like Werner Nel and the extraordinary Emma Renzi. When I went to Europe, I found other wonderful teachers and vocal coaches, but every step of the way, I searched and searched until I found the best people to teach me what I needed to learn.
My desire as a singer was not to become rich and famous. I was on a mission and my goal was to get my voice out there. I felt I had a message and wanted to deliver that message through the most dramatic medium I could find – that of opera.
But there came a defining moment in my life, where I was forced to leave the profession I had loved for 17 years, and go on a deeper, spiritual journey. It took several years for me to realize that I had gone as far as I could as an opera singer.
It is important to be honest with yourself about your own abilities – soloists in Europe have to live out of hotels, cope with exhausting travel on trains, planes and buses, and deal with all the difficulties of working in a foreign language and a foreign culture.
The sheer mental and physical demands of that kind of life would have worn me out physically and emotionally. As an operatic soloist, you need two things, which I unfortunately did not possess – extraordinary good health and stamina, and an excellent longterm memory.
I was extremely lucky to be stationed at one opera house at a time, where I could have a daily structure, a home, and a life. I took my gift as far and as high as I could, and then it was time to leave.
It is important to follow your heart and go with the fire in your gut, and when that creativity needs to go in a new direction, you simply have to follow it and see where it takes you. But you can never stop being creative – you cannot stop the fire.
There is a quote that was attributed to Jesus Christ in The Gospel of Thomas – “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you”.
I feel this quote applies to all creative artists.
Find a way to express what is inside of you, be it through song, dance, painting, sculpture, writing – whatever the medium - because, believe me, if you are an artist, your life depends on it…”
I was privileged to work with many wonderful musicians throughout the course of my career. I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, and extend to you my best wishes.
