Opera star Yvonne Kenny leads a masterclass in Canberra

Admission $30, concession $25, full-time students $15. Tickets: Here or at the door. Enquiries: Wesley Music Centre: 02 6232 7248

Imagine you're standing on a stage in Canberra, ready to perform in front of Yvonne Kenny, one of Australia's most accomplished opera singers.

She has a formidable pedigree – this year marks 40 years since her first appearance at the Royal Opera House in London. Kenny is here to listen to you and, from her wealth of experience, to offer advice and guidance.

And there's an audience. You are ready, with your accompanist, to perform your piece. You feel the flutter of anticipation and nervous energy. What will you gain from this opportunity?

Kenny will hold a masterclass for a select group of carefully chosen music students at the Wesley Centre in Forrest in August. It's for Art Song Canberra. Kenny is the patron of the group and says she was delighted to accept their invitation.

"I always try to support groups that exist to pursue the interests of singing – art song, lieder, French chanson – and give artists the opportunity to perform and, for people who clearly love the genre, to listen," she says.

Although she no longer performs in opera productions herself, Kenny still gives recitals and symphonic concerts.

She's currently preparing for four Australian concerts in August and September before she returns to London, where she's professor of voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

In London she has a constant stream of students from across the world and she has just returned from Melbourne where she has been mentoring students from the Melba Foundation and Opera Scholars Australia.

And what advice might she offer to these aspiring singers gathered here in the Wesley Uniting Church on a late winter afternoon?

"There are so many elements involved in succeeding in a singing career," she says. "First, having a beautiful voice and maintaining freedom and beauty of tone; on the other side, a great deal of study, particularly language study, attention to detail and really hard work so that the excellence of performance comes from all the very fine nuances in the language.

"It's a lifetime study, continually refining and refining. And then having the courage to keep going through disappointments."

Voice quality and production, exhaustive preparation (which may combat nervousness), presentation and interpretation of chosen repertoire, poise and confidence are all vital elements of a performance but is there some other ingredient that makes an outstanding performer?

"Oh yes. It's something that's hard to qualify," Kenny says. "It's that personal communication or charisma – that thing when someone walks on the stage and you can't stop looking at them as opposed to other people who don't make that connection.

"I think it's about having a vulnerability and an honesty, actually allowing people in and touching the heart of the listener, allowing people into your being.

"Often it's the most gentle and softest pieces of music that are the most touching."

Kenny believes the audience plays a part too: whether they can tune in to something that's quite sensitive and elusive.

Great singers have the ability to be still and not overload the singing with gestures and movement, "to strip it back to the essence of communication from soul to soul, I suppose you could say."

The accompanist is an inseparable part of a performance.

"I think the key to the relationship is being able to respond to each other, an empathy between you where you both have similar ideas about how to shape phrases and you don't have to talk too much.

"The accompanist needs to have tremendous technical skill because not only does he have to focus on his own part but he has to listen to the singer and know the poetry. He has to be able to adjust if things are not exactly as planned.

"I was so fortunate at the beginning of my career to have been mentored and nurtured by the great Australian accompanist, Geoffrey Parsons.

"I remember with Geoffrey the sound of the piano was like a Rolls Royce version, not overwhelming in volume but it had tremendous warmth. It felt as though you were sitting on a cushion of sound, almost an orchestral texture in a way."

What was it that most helped this noted soprano to reach the height of her career?

She answers without hesitation. "My ability to work incredibly hard and to be prepared to try all sorts of varied repertoire. At the beginning of my career I did a lot of projects with a group called Opera Rara; in fact they started my career by giving me an opportunity as an understudy."

She relates how she had the chance to sing a role in a rarely performed Donizetti opera, Rosmonda d'Inghilterra, and someone from the Royal Opera House heard her. "That's how I started at the House."

"And I've always been prepared to pick myself up and keep going after disappointments," she goes on, "and I'm a perfectionist, which drives me crazy at times, and I'm always striving to improve no matter what."

Kenny has great affection for the late Sir Charles Mackerras.

"He was a perfect accompanist and I think the best opera conductor I ever worked with."

If she could choose a dream setting for a performance she would revisit her performance as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss with Mackerras conducting the Royal Opera House orchestra.

"And I can't forget singing Cleopatra in Handels' Guilio Cesare with Opera Australia. It's very hard to resist being on stage as a character.".

Of all types of performance this is what she really loves most.

At the masterclass on August 23, Kenny and the audience will hear the following musicians: Evan Kirby and Lachlan McIntyre, both accompanied by Alan Hicks; Louise Keast accompanied by Colleen Rae-Gerrard; Chloe Lankshear and Jade McFaul, both accompanied by Calvin Bowman and Jessica Harper accompanied by Lucus Allerton.