A handful of Southeastern music students had the opportunity to be a part of a master class with popular soprano singer, Lisette Oropesa.   Students Karista Filopoulos, Kimberly Dupre, BriAnna Dewar, Angela Joy Clark and Bethany Putman performed a selected song in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium on Monday, Nov. 26 as Oropesa gave professional advice ranging from techniques to broaden ones voice to stage presence.
“For her to come here is just a very big honor,” said Jarred Frey, president of FORTISSIMO, the music student organization hosting the event.  “For the students to be able to work with someone who has made it onto the world stage is an incredible opportunity.”
Sopranos Filopoulos, Dupre, Dewar, Clark and Putman received specific advice personal to them but one thing Oropesa said remained constant for all five girls.  Breath, she explained, is one of the most important things for a singer to control.
“If you could boil down to one word of everything that will always help you, the key to your singing is your breath,” declared Oropesa after the master class.  “The connection to your breath is everything.”
Oropesa was chosen not only because of her experience but because she is from the area.  She has already been in opera’s in Europe and North America and will soon play part in Michael Mayer’s Rigoletto and Robert Lepage’s Siegfried.
Oropesa won The Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition in 2005, a 2008 Sullivan Foundation award, a Richard Tucker Career Grant, a Sara Tucker Study Grant and numerous more.
Oropesa’s experience has led her to Southeastern to teach a master class but the experience also brought back memories from when she was in the same place the student’s are in now.
“We were told the sacrifices you have to make in order to have an international vibrato career are very, very, very hard,” recalls Oropesa.  “She was very real with us.  She was telling us look, if you’re serious about this, be prepared.  It is not easy.”   
Local businesses Delta College, Doors of Elegance, First Presbyterian Church of Hammond, Solid Gold Jewelry Story, David and Carol Campo, Stephen and Erika Cangiamilla, Chuck Effler,Perry and Patrice Frey and David and Terese Manders contributed to the class financially and helped make it possible.