Studio Artist Lindsey Weissman, shown Thursday, returned to Chautauqua for her second season at Chautauqua Opera Company.
LAYLA VINSON
Staff Writer
In her returning season of rediscovery, Chautauqua Opera Company Studio Artist and mezzo-soprano Lindsey Weissman pulls back the curtain on her journey of navigating the opera stage and beyond. Trading in pointe shoes for arias, Weissman first dipped her toes in the operatic waters, entering Ithaca College as a voice major with an extensive background in dance and storytelling.
“I was really playing catch-up, and I remember feeling like [storytelling] was all I had to give. And I was really proud of it, my storytelling abilities,” Weissman recalled, having harbored no technical or singing training whatsoever upon entering the vocal landscape. “But I think — and I’m sure everyone can relate to this, even if you’re not an artist — it became this thing. It was almost this thing that I was super proud of that I felt was a very natural way of connecting me with this art; (storytelling) became almost, I don’t know if a crutch is the right word, but it became the only thing I had.”
As her storytelling abilities slowly faded from a point of pride to a hurdle she felt she needed to overcome, Weissman said she began to grow “weirdly invalidated” when receiving praise for her acting skills rather than for the vocal technique she was working tirelessly to develop. Regardless, she began to amass appreciation for her low voice and identifiable timbre.
“With dance and with musical theater-style singing, I do feel like I was trying to fit into this box of what it should be … It wasn’t until I found, when I joined my choir in high school, I didn’t feel I had to do anything to my voice to be able to do it,” Weissman said. Her innate sense of belonging and authenticity in the opera world was her primary motivator in stepping away from more familiar artforms. “… I’m having this epiphany now, that I think because I wasn’t just freely being me in those spaces.”
That emotional connection to her work shines particularly bright in what Weissman said are some of her favorite roles: Jo March in Mark Adamo’s Little Women and Minkswoman in Jonathan Dove’s Flight, the latter of which she will offer an excerpted aria to audiences in the Opera Invasion at 6:45 p.m. today on Odland Plaza.
“As a singer and as a woman who wants a career, any career, sometimes having a family doesn’t line up easily,” Weissman explained, reflecting on the chosen aria that tackles the female experience and motherhood. “… That was one of those moments where it was like I didn’t have to talk to someone to know that they felt that. You could feel it in the theater when those words were said really freely and authentically.”
Weissman graduated from the University of Houston with her master’s in 2025 before her initial season with the Chautauqua Opera Company last summer. The faculty she has worked with at Chautauqua Institution and beyond have been integral to navigating what style of singing works for her and rediscovering her storytelling roots.
“The thing that’s magical that I just treasure so much about getting to work here [Chautauqua] is that I do feel like when I bring ideas into the room, people ‘Yes, and’ them. They take those ideas and they’re not saying, ‘Well, this is what I had in my mind,’” Weissman explained. “… It took me a long time and studying with a lot of different teachers because I found my people that really were able to connect with me about what we wanted to do with my voice and how I could get there.”
Since the 2025 Summer Season, Weissman has begun working with Associate Professor of Voice at Boston University Lynn Eustis. According to Weissman, Eustis uses old-school Italian bel canto singing that has helped further solidify in Weissman’s mind that individuality and storytelling are what stand out as the most impactful for her.
“I actually feel so much pride in knowing that, in a way, I was kind of right all along that the storytelling that comes through is what really matters. It’s just that the technique is just a vehicle for that,” Weissman explained, highlighting the overwhelming support and validation of the Company faculty in welcoming her back for a second season.
“The technique is not something that you have to build and then emote on top of that; having that free technique that supports your voice and your singing is the thing that gets the important stuff across,” Weissman continued. “And I feel so much pride in being like, ‘That does matter, and that thing I was drawn to and I felt had a really genuine connection and ability to do, that wasn’t for naught. That really is the thing that speaks.’”
