Jitters and Joy

Performers making their company debuts navigate new environments, nervous anticipation and artistic pride.

By LIBBY SLATE

Lindy Mesmer

BEFORE SHE EVER hit her teens, Lindy Mesmer would look at dance company websites and dream of seeing her photo and bio onscreen as a member.

In July, that dream came true.

Mesmer joined the Joffrey Ballet as one of five new artists in the 2023-’24 season. In October, she danced several roles in a production of

Frankenstein. She will be in Anna Karenina when it plays at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown in June.

For Mesmer, her Joffrey debut means “the culmination of 17-plus years of training and work. It’s really emotional for me. I have gone through a lot, a lot of ups, a lot of downs. ‘Debut’ is just five little letters, but it’s a really, really big deal. It fills me with a lot of pride.”

Check out season announcements for just about any kind of arts company, and you’re apt to find notations about performers making their debuts, some newly minted professionals, others mainstage veterans. Los Angeles Opera goes further, spotlighting the season’s newcomers with an article at its website.

For the companies and performers alike, debuts are indeed a big deal.

“There’s a bit more weight here on a debut,” says LA Opera president and CEO Christopher Koelsch, “because you think about investments over time, not just how you get through a single performance, or how you get through a single run.

“We’re trying to have a mix of artists with whom we’ve developed a long-term interest and audiences have connected with, along with people we are excited about, who we believe have a very bright future.

“We want audiences to connect with their ... nascent artistry now, then feel a sense of pride as that relationship continues," Koelsch adds.

"In the best possible situation, you put together a group of people who are inspired by each other and who have each other and who have really chemistry both on and off stage."

Case in point: Soprano Kathleen O’Mara, who makes her LA Opera debut as housekeeper Berta in The Barber of Seville, at the Pavilion through Nov. 12.

O’Mara beat out hundreds of hopefuls for the one open spot in the company’s DomingoColburn-Stein Young Artist Program, which Koelsch says, “speaks pretty profoundly to our collective sense of faith in both where she is now and where she’s going.”

O’Mara arrived in Los Angeles in late August.

“For me, it’s not just my debut here, it’s my debut as a professional artist,” O’Mara says. “I’ve only been in school and training programs, and I was only covering roles. This is the first time I’m getting to use all these tools I’ve learned over the years.

“To be given the opportunity to sing a role on the stage for the first time is this huge beginning of a chapter in my life. I’ve been waiting for this for years, and here I am. I’m really lucky and grateful.”

O’Mara received coaching, delved deep into the role and its comic-relief aspects and prepared for it as she would any other—albeit with a more exciting payoff.

Working with the company’s high-level singers is intimidating, but also an exceptional learning opportunity, she notes.

“I can’t promise that I’m going to be perfect in this debut,” O’Mara says, “but I will have learned so much in a short time by getting to work with the people I get to work with.”

When preparing for her Joffrey debut, upcoming at press time, Mesmer says she had been “trying to be all business, mentally,” focusing on the usual studio work and rehearsals. “In the lead-up, you have so much to do, so much to learn, that you almost don’t think about what a big moment it is until it’s over,” she points out.

Before previous openings, she recalls, “I’d just take a minute backstage, breathe a little bit, have a moment to really think about all it took to get there, and feel that gratitude. I’m hoping I’ll have that emotional moment.”

For early-career performers who have now become more established, debuts can mean gaining the confidence to reach out to company leadership to discuss various matters—perhaps with a lunch invitation, says tenor Jamez McCorkle.

McCorkle made his LA Opera debut as the titular Omar a year ago. He had created the role of the real-life West African scholar forced into U.S. slavery, and he now makes his San Francisco Opera debut in the production Nov. 5-21.

For McCorkle, “debut” still means “stress.”

“This is a season of debuts for me, as is next season,” McCorkle says. “When you’re making [multiple] debuts, the stress of it is that you can’t ... make mistakes.

‘Debut’ is just five little letters, but it’s a really, really big deal,” says dancer Lindy Mesmer, new to the Joffrey Ballet. “It fills me with a lot of pride.”

“A slip-up could mean the difference between going to the top, or not having that career that would make you feel fulfilled. I have to tread carefully, making sure all my loose ends are tied.

“This pivotal stage of my career means being careful, being secure and being prepared.”

Those with longtime careers can’t help but see debuts differently, believes mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard.

Leonard made her LA Opera mainstage debut in September as the betrayed noblewoman Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and this month stars as the romantic lead Rosina in The Barber of Seville. She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2007.

“There are too many years of experience,” reflects Leonard, a threetime Grammy Award winner. She praises LA Opera for its “really supportive and incredibly kind” company culture and the inspirational creative approaches she discovered in Los Angeles.

Though she doesn’t think about debuting during an opening-night performance with a newto-her company, Leonard says, “Of course, I want to make a good impression.

“People have expectations of your work. When a company hires you, your desire is to meet those expectations—for them, but also for you. You want to make sure that you’re bringing that [anticipated] skill set with you.”

Debuts, Leonard points out, aren’t unique to the performing arts. “Debuts are a natural part of everybody’s lives,” she notes. “The first time you drive after getting your driver’s license, that’s a debut.

”It’s nice to take a moment to appreciate the newness of something,” she says, “and in 10 years’ time to appreciate that it is no longer new—that you now have a mastery of something that you didn’t know [that you would have], that you were going to get there.

“And now, all of a sudden, here you are.”