KATHERINE WILES No Autographs Please. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
Katherine Wiles’ life as a professional opera singer seems glossed with sunshine in this memoir.
You will sing and it will work out. You will find your place in the world. Just keep knocking on all those doors.
Katherine Wiles has always had this voice in her head, assuring her of ultimate success in a notoriously difficult profession. In No Autographs Please she details her life-long career as a chorister, proving the voice right as she becomes one of the lucky few able to forge a professional career from her creative talents. No Autographs Please takes us through that process, moving from a simple childhood in Hamilton, New Zealand, singing the national anthem under her teacher’s desk, to studying under a leading vocalist in the UK, to becoming one of the few sopranos in Australia to have secured a permanent job.
At times less a memoir than a passionate defence of an ensemble career – and it is a career, she repeatedly assures us, there is no such thing as ‘just’ being in the chorus – Wiles outlines what it really takes to appear so effortlessly ethereal onstage, or not even appear at all, but to support the much more visible principals as a disembodied background voice.
The world of a professional operatic production is not one many of us will ever access. Perhaps the most obvious analogy is that of the gliding swan, beautiful and serene above the water line, legs paddling furiously in the currents below. What we see when we relax into the upholstered chairs facing the stage is very different to the often frantic activity going on behind it, much of it – for the performers, at least – while half clothed and squinting through the dark. Rather like a magician prepared to reveal their secrets, Wiles seems to promise an inside look at the realities of life as a professional chorister in the rarefied environment of grand opera – a life far removed from those of us whose careers involve toiling over a desk during daylight hours.
No Autographs Please launches straight into this world as the curtain rises on our heroine ‘standing, swaying, gliding, kneeling, dancing, leaning, singing and bowing for nearly two hours’ in the third act of Turandot.
As I stand backstage, dressed in a long cotton undergarment, three layers of floor-length silk organza, a massive and very uncomfortable hat secured under my chin, canvas shoes that offer no support, and a black fan hidden up my right arm … my lower back is already screaming.
And certainly the story that unfolds touches on such unedifying moments in an externally glamorous career, from negotiating the differences between musical theatre and opera; being called on as an understudy at short notice when the diva is unable to go on; to the tribulations of COVID when theatres went dark. This is an unfamiliar world that most of us – hopefully – will never need to traverse, where the normal rules of job searching do not apply, where feedback can be personal as well as professional, and where you have to ‘Grow that thick skin, survive the knockbacks, get back up again and hold fast to your determination to succeed.’
The narrative, though undeniably interesting, would benefit from leaning more into incidents like these. Similar to the social media phenomenon of only ever sharing the highlights reel of reality, the journey that Wiles shows us is – despite protestations of failed auditions, of hated, soul-sucking temping jobs, of desperate phone calls back home to the bank of mum and dad – is one in which she seems to find success with relative ease. What she shows us is a young singer who goes from securing a spot at the Royale Conservatoire of Scotland, to getting an anonymous sponsor to cover her Scottish tuition fees, to obtaining a role as Adina in The Elixir of Love at the State Opera of South Australia, to gaining a concurrent offer of a chorus position at Opera Australia, a role actually adjusted to fit in with her other schedules. Even COVID and the assurance that bullying also exists in the operatic world are glossed over with relative ease.
This is not exactly a tale of struggle. I don’t doubt for one moment that the reality did not play out like this. Performance is a notoriously cut-throat world and we have all heard stories of the ruthless gatekeeping that happens when the supply of workers vastly exceeds the available roles. But it might have made for a more interesting narrative had we been allowed to peek behind the curtain of these less edifying – but inevitable – moments of even a successful singer’s career.
Perhaps it’s best to give Katherine herself the final words:
When I take my final bow and look back on my singing career, success for me will not be calculated by the number of roles I performed, or how many times my headshot and biography appeared inside a glossy programme. I will look back on my life and be proud that I sang nearly every night for a living; that I walked out onto the stage, surrounded by colleagues making beautiful music, and helping to provide an escape to an audience ready and willing to take the journey.
Katherine Wiles No Autographs Please Echo Publishing 2024 PB 288pp $34.99
Sally Nimon once graduated from university with an Honours degree majoring in English literature and has hung around higher education ever since. She is also an avid reader and keen devourer of stories, whatever the genre.
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