AMMANN: “Every day I work to make sure I’m using His gift in the right way.” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 “What I learned is that my main job as a performer is not to feel the emotions myself, but to make sure that every single person sitting in the audience feels the emotion. It’s to make sure they’re feeling what I’m portraying. That’s a very powerful thing. It’s beautiful.” She also learned the real magic of live performances. “The reason someone should go to a live performance is because it’s alive. You never know what could happen. It changes for us, the performers, every single night. You never know what the ingredients will be that night that could totally change the show. We rehearse until we’re blue in the face, but every night’s a new opportunity to have a transcendent experience for someone in the audience. I love that.” While still a student, Ammann also served as a young artist with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for two seasons where she performed the roles of Kate Pinkerton in “Madame Butterfly,” Page of Heriodas in “Salome,” and covered Samira in “The Ghosts of Versailles” and Antonia’s Mother in “The Tales of Hoffman.” In 2009, Ammann began her Resident Artist program with the Pittsburgh Opera where she sang the roles of Olga in “Eugene Onegin,” Dame Quickly in “Falstaff,” Lucretia in “The Rape of Lucretia,” Marcellina in “Le Nozze di Figaro,” Alisa in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” Goffredo in “Rinaldo,” and covered the title role of Carmen.
While in Pittsburgh, she got the call every hopeful opera singer dreams about. “I got a phone call from the artistic director at the Pittsburgh Opera who said I was being released from the program in order to make my Met debut.” At just 26, Ammann sang in Robert LePage’s “Ring Cycle” as Rossweisse in “Die Walküre” under the baton of Maestro James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. According to research done by the Met, when Ammann was a national semi-finalist in their competition in 2007, she was only the third South Dakotan to sing on the Met stage in its 128-year history. The experience, she remembers, seemed surreal. “I was the little kid at the Met. I was in a room with some of Opera’s biggest superstars. I got to sing the music that I love with people who are amazing. That changed everything. It put everything on a totally different level.” Ammann’s Met debut was chronicled on the “Die Walküre” DVD from the Metropolitan Opera’s “Ring Cycle” and the documentary DVD “Wagner’s Dream,” which has been shown nationally on PBS and around the world. The CD from the production, “Twilight of the Gods,” won a Grammy award last month. The Language of Opera Ammann admits singing mostly in German, Russian and Italian is “a little crazy.” “At any given time, I can be
working on an English piece, a German piece and a Russian piece. It’s not uncommon for three or four languages to be running through my head. It gets a little messy,” she says. “I do have a French minor from Augie, so that helps a little. We’re learning German now that we live here. There are books out there that have phonetic transliterations of the text so I can know what sound I’m supposed to be creating. I also work with native-speaking coaches as well. I do get asked a lot, ‘do you know what you’re singing about?’” “The answer is, ‘of course.’ It’s my job to make sure I know the story so I can portray the character accurately and send out the correct emotions and feelings for the audience.” Whatever the language, Ammann admits that balancing life as a professional opera singer can be challenging. “My job is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Part of my job is making sure I’m healthy all the time. If I’m not healthy, I can’t sing. Singing is my job. Part of my job is learning new music, perfecting notes, learning new roles and perfecting existing roles. On a typical day of a show, I’ll end up at the opera house 90 minutes before the curtain opens. From there, I get my make-up done, get my wig fastened, find my costume, warm-up, do some stretches and focus my mind so I can really be there — be ready to sing all the right words, with all the right notes, portraying
all the right emotions for the audience.” Looking Ahead Now 29, Ammann’s resume reads far beyond her years. In 2011, she was the Alto Soloist in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s fully staged production of “Handel’s Messiah” and covered the role of Goffredo in “Rinaldo” with Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called her voice “capable of sinister low chest tones and robust high notes that can express a gamut of emotions” while Opera News describes her stage presence as “a force to be dealt with.” As for what her future holds, Ammann says right now, she’s enjoying her time living in Germany with her husband, Linas Tamulionis. She’s singing Third Lady in “Die Zauberflöte” and Flosshilde in “Götterdämmerung”, while covering Waltraute in her debut with Stuttgart Opera. This spring, she’ll make her Casals Festival debut in Puerto Rico as Brangäne in a concert version of “Tristan und Isolde,” followed by a reprisal of her role with the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Rossweisse in “Die Walküre” under Maestro Fabio Luisi. No matter what the future holds, Ammann says she’s confident her faith will guide her. “All this ... it’s not about me. My voice isn’t mine, it’s from God. Every day I work to make sure I’m using His gift in the right way.”
Cancer Research by Augustana Grad Featured in National Journal A study on therapeutic targets for breast cancer co-authored by an Augustana alumna is featured on the cover of a national scientific research journal. The project, “Multiple Functions of Sushi Domain Containing 2 (SUSD2) in Breast Tumorigenesis,” part of the thesis project by Allison (Eslinger) Watson, class of 2007, is the cover story of the February 2013 issue of Molecular Cancer Research, a monthly journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research. Watson, now a student at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine’s PhysicianScientist (MD/PhD) Program, says her interest in medical research was sparked during her time at Augustana as a Biology major. “I owe much of my current success to the Biology department at Augustana. My interest in science and medicine was fueled by the enthusiasm and excitement for research I experienced while part of
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the Biology department. The devotion to development of student researchers at Augustana is absolutely unmatched. I had the opportunity to connect with world-class scientists [and] was encouraged and supported throughout my journey. I owe much of my success to many wonderful mentors in the Biology department. Dr. Maureen Diggins [professor emerita of Biology] played a large role in encouraging me, even as a young student, to explore options for scientific research in Sioux Falls through the Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN). After realizing my dreams for pursuing a career that would allow me to influence both clinical and research aspects of breast cancer, Dr. Paul Egland [associate professor of Biology and chief health professions adviser] and Dr. Michael Wanous [professor of Biology and associate academic Dean] helped me get into the Physician Scientist program at the Sanford School of Medicine,” Watson said. “The Biology department at Augustana has mastered the perfect balance between nurturing and pushing
The AUGUSTANA
students to succeed, which fosters the development of some outstanding young scientists that will inevitably remain emotionally and academically attached to the department for years!” After graduating from Augustana in 2007, Watson entered the MD/PhD program at USD, a program in which students complete two years of medical school curriculum, followed by three years to complete a Ph.D. in the Basic Biomedical Science department. The final two years of the program are designated for completion of the third and fourth years of the medical school curriculum. Watson successfully defended her thesis dissertation in May of 2012 and then re-entered the medical school curriculum in Sioux Falls. “My thesis focused on breast cancer, specifically the identification and characterization of a gene involved in the immune system’s recognition and response to breast tumors. I was under the direction of Dr. Kristi Egland of Sanford Research.” “I feel very passionately about the impact the Augustana Biology department has had on my own development as a PhysicianScientist!”