What It's Like To … Be a Kenyan American Opera Singer

Opera still carries a certain mythology of velvet seats, European tradition, and a world that can feel sealed off from everyday life. For John Mburu, a Kenyan American bass building his voice in the U.S., that distance shows up in the reactions he hears all the time when they find out that he is a career opera singer. 

“Some people think it’s a little bit strange; others think it’s a really cool thing to do,” he tells OkayAfrica.

However, his path into the art form wasn’t a grand awakening in some gilded hall. It started in a high school musical theater class, when a teacher heard something in his voice and told him to consider opera. Back then, he couldn’t even imagine it as an option. Still, singing was the only thing he really loved, and eventually, he found his way to opera.

“Opera is too niche and too specific to really try to make a career out of it if you’re not going to try to be really, really good,” he says. “Because you’re competing against a lot of other people who want this a lot and are working really hard at it.”

His hard work over the years has paid off. Today, he is working as a resident artist with Minnesota Opera. And later this year, he is headed to San Francisco’s Merola Opera Program — widely regarded as one of the leading opera training programs in the world — while also carrying recognition rooted in Black operatic history as a winner of the Elizabeth Greenfield Award. The award honors Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, the first African American singer to achieve international recognition. Greenfield was the trailblazing 19th-century opera singer known as “The Black Swan.”

Mburu speaks to OkayAfrica about the long, unglamorous labor and cost of pursuing a career as an opera singer, what it takes to take ownership of your artistry, and how his Kenyan roots and the wider diaspora shape his sense of what’s possible as Black History Month invites deeper questions about legacy and access.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

John Mburu: When I tell people I’m an opera singer, many say that they didn’t even know that was something that you could do as a career. Some people think it’s a little bit strange; others think it’s a really cool thing to do.

I had a teacher in my high school musical theater class who heard something in my voice. That was the first time somebody told me I should consider opera. I was probably 15 or 16, and I wasn’t aware that opera was still being performed. In my mind, it was a couple of centuries old, probably studied in high-nose, snobby conservatories. The idea of pursuing it as a career felt a little outlandish to me.

But by the time I left high school, singing was the only thing I really felt like I enjoyed doing. So I went to college for music at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. There, I had a voice teacher who was really, really insistent — thankfully — about me joining the opera program. It seemed like a better fit in terms of genre.

There are certain qualities in a voice, like the timbre when you sing, that will sometimes imply a specific genre might suit you. And for me, I had teachers who thought my voice would work really well with opera, and that there was something there to foster and invest in. There are others who are not opera singers because their timbre pulls them toward other genres. 

In undergrad, we did a production of “The Consul” by Gian Carlo Menotti, and I sang Mr. Kofner. It was not too big a role, but it was enough material to feel like I was doing something. That was a key moment that flipped the switch for me.

There is this antiquated perception that an opera singer is a lady in a Viking hat with this big, bellowing voice. Opera puts a lot of emphasis on tradition and the right way to do things. That approach can lead to a sense of elitism or conservatism from an artistic standpoint. But there are a lot of very regular people in this field. And I think the best way to change that perception is just going out and watching it.

As a Black singer in a field that has historically excluded and marginalized Black voices, I feel that history most when I look at the big decision-makers. There is a presence of Black opera singers. There are Black operas being written. But where you do see the separation is who do the people who are making the final calls look like? What do a lot of the donors look like? What does the board of directors look like? What do a lot of the coaches look like? 

I’ve had to unlearn the voice in my head that says, “I don’t look like most of these people…do I really belong here?” When you spend your life in spaces where few people look like you, that can have an effect on self-esteem and on self-perception that can go unnoticed and unchecked for a long time.

It took until grad school for me to realize how deeply I carried that. Now I remind myself that to be in this space at all is a really, really big accomplishment. These programs are competitive, with hundreds or thousands auditioning for a handful of slots. If you are there, there is nothing that tells you that you don’t have the right to enjoy the fact that you earned your way into this space.

My parents have always been the most encouraging about my singing, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that they came to America from Kenya in the ’90s with an idea of what kind of life they wanted to make. They were willing to leave home and come to the States to build this idea of what American life is.

I think I’ve gotten particularly lucky that they’ve been really, really supportive — sometimes more supportive — than I might be in a particular moment. There was a time in their lives when there was something they wanted to go for, and you don’t always get 100% support from everyone around you. Despite that, they still took that risk, and they’ve been very solid about applying that principle to me as well.

Opera is a very front-load intensive job. There are a lot of auditions and a lot of traveling. If you get the job, there’s learning the role. And more often than not, it’s going to be in a different language. So you’re translating, making sure you understand everything, and working to pronounce the words as close to native as you can. Then there’s practicing at the piano and coaching with people. It’s quiet, unglamorous, front-heavy labor that happens at a desk, at a piano, alone in a practice room or a hotel room. Some people spend a year preparing a single role for a two-hour production.

Because it is a lifelong art form, it’s not something that you can necessarily just say, “Okay, I’ve been to rehearsals for six hours a day, and then I don’t have to think about it again.” You’re working when you’re not in rehearsals, going over things, refining, being honest about your technical or dramatic shortcomings, and putting in a lot of elbow grease.

Part of sustainability is asking, “Am I comfortable traveling so often? Am I okay with having a lot of alone time? Am I okay with feeling somewhat isolated or only being in places for three to six weeks at a time?”

You’re paying for flights, accommodation, clothes for auditions, voice lessons, coachings. Those expenses build up very quickly. There are times when I’ve had to cancel an audition because I could not afford to spend that kind of money at the moment.

That’s one reason certain programs mean so much. My residency gives me access to coaches so I don’t have to pay out of pocket. The Merola Opera Program, which I’ll be doing, not only trains you but gives you grants. What I like about Merola is that there’s a big emphasis on taking ownership over your own artistry and being honest about asking for what you need and really insisting on it. That self-honesty and capacity for self-examination are always going to take somebody very far, no matter what field they’re working in. 

You also hear a lot of no’s, and that can affect your confidence and tilt your focus toward all the things that you’re not really great at.

With my family and the church I grew up attending, there was a really big emphasis on being gifted. The idea that what you’re good at is a gift from God, and it’s something to invest in, because you wouldn’t have the gift if there wasn’t something to do with it. And whether or not someone believes in that system, I think it’s still a principle worth carrying: that being gifted isn’t accidental, and that what you’re good at isn’t for nothing.

Opera is too niche and too specific to really try to make a career out of it if you’re not going to try to be really, really good. Because you’re competing against a lot of other people who want this a lot and are working really hard at it.