She couldn’t find her voice until she lost it first.
Linda Baird was a teacher at Cameron Elementary in Burnaby when the physical demands of her job caused nodes to form on the vocal folds of her throat.
“It’s a common thing that school teachers get,” Baird told the NOW.
It was so bad that she couldn’t speak. She had to go to the Pacific Voice Clinic at Vancouver General.
Baird, who was a North Vancouver mother of two, was going through a divorce and dealing with a lot of stress. As part of the treatment for her vocal nodes, she saw the clinic’s psychiatrist.
“One day he said to me, ‘So what are you doing for fun?’ I honestly couldn’t answer the question,” she said. “He said, ‘This is a prescription, and I want you to treat it like anything you take to the pharmacy.’ He said, ‘I want you to go and audition for the Vancouver Opera. You talk about it all the time, I want you to start training and do it.’”
Baird was a singer with a degree in voice, and she had taken part in a program with the Vancouver Opera to teach kids how to create their own operas. The program came with the opportunity to be a supernumerary – an extra – in a Vancouver Opera production. But Baird wanted more.
“I got a coach and voice teacher, and I auditioned,” she said. “And I got into Vancouver Opera chorus, which is quite amazing because most people who do their first professional gig, it’s not with a company. So I felt very blessed.”
Rather than distracting her from her job as a teacher, her work with the opera invigorated her.
“It was very authentic for me. I think I was going through my own crisis in a way, and I loved that these stories of opera are transcendent. They are emotional, heart-wrenching stories,” she said. “I lost my voice to these vocal nodes, and I gained it back through the clinic, but also through empowerment.”
Her passion was infectious and soon led to the students working on librettos with her and putting on their own operas.
“I would go to rehearsals in the evening for Vancouver Opera,” she said, “and then I’d come to school and tell these students all about the rehearsal and the opera we were doing.”
Baird had the opportunity to take an educational leave, and she auditioned for the master of music program at the University of British Columbia. She was one of a handful of voice students who got in.
“So that’s how I got into opera, which is not your normal route,” she said.
Baird went on to teach at Gilpin Elementary, working on opera projects with the students there, as well. But then she moved to the United States with her daughters and second husband.
They first lived in Seattle. Soon after she was hired to sing with the Seattle Opera chorus, they moved to San Francisco.
Now, Baird works as a teaching artist for the San Francisco Opera, working with George Peabody Elementary School to create librettos with the students, librettos which a composer puts to music. The opera helps with set building, as well.
“It’s pretty fun,” she said. “It’s a perfect combination of the opera that I love and teaching.”
And Baird also continues on with her own career in opera, opting for larger roles with smaller companies.
Tomorrow (April 27), she debuts in the role of Suzuki in Townsend Opera’s Madama Butterfly in Modesto, California.
She was given the role after playing Kate Pinkerton, a smaller role, and standing in as Suzuki’s understudy, in the San Luis Obispo Opera’s Madama Butterfly earlier this season.
Suzuki is the servant of the main character, Ciocio-San (also known as Butterfly).
“She has known Butterfly her whole life,” Baird said. “She plays the role of being fiercely loyal, and she also plays another important role, which is the voice of reason.”
For more on Baird, go to lindabairdmezzo.com.
