Georgina Furstenberg has been making a name for herself in some of Europe’s best known opera houses with her performances delivered in different languages.
She also speaks with a polished English accent, but holds firm to Bajan roots.
Born in Barbados, she lived here for the first three years of her life and attended kindergarten before moving to the United Kingdom with her parents, award-winning Barbadian poet and author, Dr Elizabeth Best and Dr David Melville. Although she has been gone for so many years, she is quick to stress: “I am a Bajan”.
Neither success as an opera singer in Europe, nor her marriage to German/Austrian Prince Vincenz of Furstenberg have clouded her vision of giving to back to the country where she was born.
Once yearly
“I always come back home. I have been coming home at least once a year since I left Barbados,” she said, while visiting last month on a mission to share her expertise with Barbadians.
“I have only ever done two concerts in Barbados, one small, semi-private at Codrington College and a big one at St Michael’s Cathedral with John Bryan and a recital at St James Parish Church with Dr Philip Forde,” she said.
This time around, however, she conducted a series of masterclasses with various interest groups.
“There is a reason behind not doing a concert on this occasion. It is easy to give a performance. People will come. They will clap and it’s great, but I would love that when I give a performance,
my audience is understanding where I am coming from; what I am talking about. This is the work I am putting in, so that when I do a performance there is that understanding there and the audience can appreciate it at a different level.”
In the masterclasses, one day she did an all-day session with the final year students at Codrington College.
“They are not professional musicians, so I was helping them with their singing, but also with their general presence – how they listen, how they communicate, how they use their voice, some simple vocal techniques and practices they can use every day.”
Another day, she worked with students at the Barbados Community College, “mainly singing pop and jazz musicians”. She also engaged past students and some classical musicians in a classical repertoire that also afforded the opportunity to hear the coloratura soprano’s powerful voice.
Some Barbadian opera singers with whom she worked privately, also benefited from her expertise. In addition, she spent one day doing “an open masterclass” together with Barbadian opera singer Darian Worrell who, like her, is performing abroad. She said it was “to show Bajans this is what we can do”.
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