Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 4, Money

1 Commentsingers, travel

 

It’s time to talk about money. But let’s not get our knickers in twist about whether or not we should. We should. We are professionals after all. This is how we earn a living and anyone who does it because they think it’s a lark, and that a fee is some kind of fun bonus, will probably end up on the scrap head faster than a soprano can flutter her eyelashes (albeit in vain) at a casting director.
When I was young no-one told me about tax. When you sing abroad, with very very few exceptions, you will have tax deducted from your gross fee at source. The only places that don’t, off the top of my head, are the Netherlands and Monaco, though don’t ask me why. The tax rate varies wildly from nation to nation. Last time I was there, Italy and Spain took 25%. That’s about the going rate you should expect, and as I said in Gob 1, they will usually take it off your airfare too. …

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Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 3, The Work

conductors, directors, opera, singers, travel
So how come you have landed this fancy job in a far-off land? Well, as often as not you discover that they really wanted someone else but ended up with you instead. Don’t worry. Get over it. It’s how the world works. You’ll be amazed once you step onto mainland Europe just how many singers there are in the business, most of whom you have never heard of, all singing away and scratching a living.
Don’t let it daunt you. Just be thankful for the job you have and realise that it’s OK to be a small fish (that no-one has heard of) in a very big sea. You’re in good company and you must have done something right or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.

Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 2, Logistics

conductors, directors, opera, singers, travel
Whenever I’m heading off on a foreign job, my friend Stan, a writer, asks me if I am being met with a limo at the airport and transported to a five star hotel.
Ha!
Okay, okay, if the job is some concerts with a nice orchestra then there is a good chance you’ll be met and driven to a decent hotel (though, curiously, never in Berlin…) but opera is almost always a different beast and before you arrive in a new and unfamiliar city all most companies will do for you is tell you when and where your first rehearsal takes place. The rest is up to you.…

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Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 1, Getting Started Abroad

conductors, directors, opera, singers, travel
I’ve promised to hand out of gobs of knowledge to the young singers who attended British Youth Opera’s career advice day (and also to those who didn’t) so if you’ve come to the blog today hoping to read about, say, barmy tenors, pancakes or train journeys you’ll be bitterly disappointed. You might learn a thing or two though. Some of this is stuff I said at the seminar, some of it is new.