When Opera Canada put out a call for stories from artists of colour in Canada’s opera scene, Judith Yan was among the first to respond. Yan, who was born in Hong Kong, and who was nine when she immigrated to Canada with her family, had things she wanted to say publicly about her life as an Asian-Canadian woman who conducts opera, ballet, and symphony orchestras.
Certainly, Opera Canada’s call for submissions—for tales of IBPoC (Indigenous, Black, and Person of Colour) opera artists—came under the larger context of talking about race in 2020. Opera is among the industries facing renewed pressure to prove its accessibility to IBPoC; particularly among the younger generation of artists. Opera’s denizens are crying foul about a systematic exclusion of people of colour, be it onstage or in company leadership positions. And though it’s true that she knows more than most about carving out a conducting career as an Asian woman, Yan was more keen on telling the story of how she got utterly wrapped up in her craft.
I took in Yan’s story over several engaging, wide-ranging phone conversations, where we spoke about everything from Beethoven to blind dates with an orchestra. Afterwards, she kept me abreast as she headed out to her first gig in months, conducting Ludwig Minkus’s Don Quixote for Hong Kong Ballet. Photos, videos, and email anecdotes all come to my inbox, logging her requisite 14-day quarantine in a Hong Kong hotel room: the sprawling view of the harbour outside her window, the quaint reality of Zoom-rehearsing ballet, and the government-issued tracking bracelet she wore to prove that this was all serious business indeed.
It doesn’t take long to realize that Yan is a glass-half-full kind in Hong Kong. Even from hotel room isolation, Yan’s prep work still involves knowing the music better than anyone, learning the dancers’ choreography (at least in spirit), and spicing up the pages of her score with cryptic, scrawling notes—indeed, she sent photos of those, too. Be it conducting ballet, opera, or a Beethoven symphony, “I’m there to make the best out of whatever material is in front of me, from the music to my colleagues.” Yan adds, “It is my job to make them look great, to get maximum applause, to enable a promotion, or to prolong a career.”
