How Does Soprano Amelia Farrugia Like to Wet Her Whistle?

Amelia Farrugia likes to enjoy a celebratory
glass of chardonnay after a performance.
(Photo: Tamara Dean)

"Before a show, Farrugia indulges in nothing more toxic than a skinny flat white. At interval she soothes her vocal cords with a peppermint or chamomile tea and after a show she lets her hair down with a celebratory glass of chardonnay in the green room. 'Most opera singers are into herbal tea,' Farrugia says. 'Hydration is important for your voice. I also drink a ridiculous amount of water.' Private parties are another voice-preservation technique, says Farrugia, who is starring in Opera Australia's The Merry Widow at the Sydney Opera House with David Hobson, a fellow tea-lover. 'I have been doing a lot of entertaining; friends or family will come back up to the green room and have a glass of wine with me,' she says. 'My vocal cords are already tired from performing so I can't go anywhere too noisy or loud, anywhere I have to shout. You have to be a bit precious as a singer. Even at a private party, if it is noisy, I think 'Oh god, I can't stay very long because I can't bear to have to shout.' Celebrations at bars and restaurants for cast parties tend to be special occasions for me. Particularly in winter, the more exposure you have to people with coughs and colds the more susceptible you are to come down with something.'" [Source]

Diva From Down Under Once Wanted to Be Mariah Carey

"Amelia Farrugia is humming The Merry Widow Waltz as she (there’s no other word for it) waltzes around a dressing room beneath the soaring sails of the Sydney Opera House. Dressed in a figure-hugging black silk gown, black fur and carrying an enormous feathered fan, she looks every inch the opera diva about to take the lead opposite David Hobson in Opera Australia’s The Merry Widow. So it comes as a surprise when the Mosman mother-of-one says she nearly ended up in the gown and wig of a barrister instead of an opera star. 'I got into law at the University of Sydney and intended doing that, and it was Dad’s idea that I pursue singing instead,' she says. As a 16-year-old, the only musical member of a 'not really musical' family, she had been decidedly nonplussed when her teacher told her that her voice was more suited to the classical repertoire than that of a pop star. 'I was a bit ‘oh’, because at that stage you want to be Mariah Carey,' she says. 'But when I was in high school, a teacher played 'Summertime' from (Gershwin’s opera) Porgy and Bess and I loved it. I remember thinking ‘God if I could sing like that’.' Opera might seem like a fait accompli for the vocally-blessed Farrugia, but if you’re one of the many who would like to ‘know’ opera and throw around words like 'libretto' and 'contralto' without blushing, how do you learn to love what many consider to be the most refined art form?" [Source]

Watch a clip of Amelia as Musetta in La Bohème after the jump.