At first glance, almost nothing. Except for that old neighborhood saying: “You play football like a cow does ballet.” An even better question is, what does sports psychology have to do with opera?
The connection is stronger than it seems
On the surface, art and sports do not have that many similarities; one could say that more things separate them than bring them together. However, that is only at first glance. If you think about it a bit more, both artists and athletes require painstaking work to perfect their performance. Both groups “train” every day, and then they have the opportunity to show their work to the audience or fans. Both have those who guide them—the coach and the conductor. In one team you have teammates, and in the other, fellow singers. Not to mention all the other similarities between two branches that are fundamentally concerned with performance. A performance that is very strictly and regularly evaluated.
“We are all flesh and blood under the skin.” – a proverb regularly used to emphasize that we are all very similar once we take off our armor… jerseys or premiere costumes.
Cooperation with an opera singer
Well, it was precisely this thought that guided us when we ventured into working with a new client—an opera singer. Honestly, to our shame, we are not exactly big connoisseurs of opera. Aside from a sparse knowledge lingering somewhere in the back of our minds, memories of high school classes where we had to know how to list the operas of Verdi and other greats.
However, we are all flesh and blood under the skin… in our terms, this means that stress = stress, no matter the context. Concentration is something needed by athletes but also by opera singers… confidence, motivation… these are all concepts that unite us more than they separate us.
When the client contacted us, we ventured to try everything we do with athletes in a completely different field. Fortunately, the client also saw many more connections than differences. And so we started… goal setting, agreeing on monitoring the “training” i.e., rehearsals, psychoeducation about negative automatic thoughts, shallow relaxation exercises, visualization practice, adopting routines… many things that we regularly do with athletes matched opera singing perfectly.
Breaking Free from Stereotypes
Often, our examples would be sports-related (due to a lack of knowledge about opera), but with the help of our expert client, we quickly translated them into opera terms 🙂 The similarities grew day by day, and it was incredible how many things overlapped—and then again, why wouldn’t they… we are all flesh and blood after all… Sometimes it seems to us that we are too enslaved by stereotypes, narrow, predefined boxes that constrict us and fit us into a certain mold. For us, a client is a client. A person is a person, no matter what they do. Of course, the mental preparation of athletes is something we specialized in, but many aspects of our work are equally applicable to a multitude of other professions.
But let’s finish the story about the opera. Like any job where performance is evaluated, there are some days when it is important, and some days when it is very important to be good. In opera, those are the premiere days. That is the moment when everything needs to be as perfect as possible, everything in its place, everything functioning…ostumes, hair, stage, lighting, orchestra, conductor, singers…it is always D-day for everyone present. Well, it was precisely for such a day that we were preparing our client. Actually, better said, we accompanied her on that journey, because she had already been through many similar “D-days” in her career.
And yes, as usual, not everything went according to plan; there were always unexpected situations, ups and downs, doubts and pride, questioning and believing. But that’s life. That’s opera, too 🙂
Given that this article was written after everything was already over, we can proudly boast that our client absolutely crushed her role, gathered excellent reviews, and was genuinely happy and satisfied with her performance. This time, made easier with our support 😉
