Christine S. TakeLessons Instructor Classical Voice San Francisco, CA

Christine brings a wealth of musical experience to her students.  As a performer, she has sung extensively throughout the United States and Europe.  She received much of her early training in New York, where she performed a variety of dramatic coloratura roles, including Marguerite in Faust, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute.  After an important period of study in Munich, Germany, Christine moved into the dramatic soprano repertoire, and has been heard as Tosca, Kostelnicka in Jenůfa, Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, and Ortrud in Lohengrin under the baton of Maestro Kent Nagano.  In critically acclaimed performances, she sang all three Brünnhildes in Berkeley Opera’s Legend of the Ring.  As soprano soloist with orchestra, she has sung Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria, Aïda with the Oakland Youth Symphony, Die Fledermaus and Schubert’s Mass in E‑flat with the Solano Symphony, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Redwood Symphony.  Christine is the winner of numerous competitions and awards, among them the Meistersinger Competition in Graz, Austria and The Wagner Society of Northern California’s Career Encouragement Grant.

While Christine maintains an active performance schedule, she loves sharing her experience and vocal expertise with her students.  She began teaching in 1980, while she was completing a Master’s Degree in Voice and Vocal Pedagogy at State University of New York at Stony Brook.  She continued teaching and performing in New York, all the while studying with the best teachers and coaches available.  Then, a fortuitous encounter in Graz, Austria at the American Institute of Musical Studies brought her into the studio of Professor Ena Theissen, one of the most respected and revered teachers in Europe.  There she began a relationship that continues to this day, and was privileged to learn a technique that was passed down to Professor Thiessen from Vittorino Moratti and famed bel canto teacher Giovanni Battista Lamperti.  Christine believes this technique is the greatest gift she has ever been given, and she feels a great responsibility to pass on this valuable knowledge to those who wish to learn it.

Christine teaches the time-honored bel canto technique with patience, humor and clarity, just as it was taught to her.  There are certain exercises that compel any voice to function at its most natural and optimal level.  With practice and repetition of these exercises, producing sound in this way becomes second nature, so that every note then becomes the servant of the singer.  Students learn to sing with their voice, expressing what they want to say with the music.  They become artists.

Lamperti method

State University of New York at Stony Brook - Voice - 1980-1982
University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA - Voice - 1976-1980
Mark Morris High School, Longview, WA - - 1973-1976

Classical Voice

San Francisco Chronicle:  “Christine S.’s Brünnhilde!  Precise soprano, with strong, pure high notes.”

San Francisco Classical Voice:  “Christine S. … had plenty of shine and volume for the heroic phrases, but she was especially moving and beautiful in the intimate moments…”

Contra Costa Times:  “Christine S.’s strong, focused Brünnhilde is a standout…”

Berkeley Daily Planet:  “…the revelation of the evening was Christine S.  Here is a singer born to sing Wagnerian heroines—commanding presence, authoritative sound, and trumpeting high voice.”

Daily Republic:  “But the laughs belonged to Ms. S. … There’s sometimes a moment in a performance that is so captivating that even a critic forgets to be critical.  This concert came alive in just that way with Christine's Rosalinde … she [was] hilarious.”

Kleine Zeitung, Graz, Austria:  “Christine S.’s opulent, supple and clear-worded soprano wove perfectly into the orchestra’s dense tonal shadings so typical of Wagner’s music…”