Singing Lieder can be a nervous business for Opera Singers

Lieder singing is a lot more nerve-racking than opera. I perform a lot of opera these days and I feel that I am getting better and better at getting on stage, getting in a pretty good state, and rolling off the show.
There is a slight adrenaline release, especially in the premiere performance, and first few shows, but after that it becomes very easy.

Why then is it so nerve-racking to get up on stage with a pianist and sing lieder instead? Today I sang four Brahms lieder at a musical afternoon event at the London Buddhist Arts Centre in Bethnal Green in London. My nerves were at fever pitch beforehand for about half an hour, heart pounding, hands sweating, and although I got through the pieces with only one small text-blip in the first song ("Wie bist du, meine Königin"), which is strangely the one I know better than virtually any other song in the repertoire.

 I didn't really enjoy performing them in the same way that I enjoy performing Figaro or Germont, due to the nerves, but at the same time, the songs I chose gave me such scope to play with dynamics, colours and emotions that I felt I should have been enjoying it far more.

Part of it is of course that I had only one short rehearsal with the pianist a couple of hours before the gig, he and I both knew the songs beforehand, but we weren't really 'in sync' in the same way one is when working more regularly with one pianist on the song repertoire. On the other hand, one tends to have rehearsed opera for weeks beforehand. Another part is that lieder is utterly exposed compared with opera. You stand there, interpret and perform without a character to hide behind. It's you, the pianist and the audience. It shouldn't be underestimated just how much stage direction, movement, costumes and scenery help to dissipate nervous energy too through their spreading of focus.

Then, there's the fact that each Lied is only a few minutes long, so it's like starting a new mini-opera every couple of minutes. You also don't have other singers to share the load with, banter with backstage etc.

Interestingly I sang a lot of lieder in my student days, and it's a matter of being out of practice with it now. I don't feel at home on the concert platform in the same way as on the operatic stage because I do it so seldom now.

But lieder is such a wonderfully rich art form. I love the repertoire, especially Brahms and Schumann. Great poetry, magical intense and compact musical settings. Real interplay of piano and voice, intimacy and subtlety. It is a harder art to master the further into your opera career you go, as you get used to working in grand gesture and broad strokes in opera. But some great opera singers maintain their gift for lieder and the concert platform.

Time to change things for myself, create a new familiarity and renew my confidence for performing lieder (with ample rehearsals beforehand, please, to create a more relaxed experience).

That can only be done by doing it much more regularly.