Heidi Skok thinks she got a little sleep between 2 and 4 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21.
The Mentor resident, who’d spent years as a soprano with New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera and in recent years has become a contralto, had gotten a call two days earlier from the Tulsa Opera in Oklahoma. The company was one day away from launching its 2023-24 season with a production of Gian Carlo Meriotti’s “The Medium,” and one of its leads was ill.
Skok, who spends much of her time providing in-person and virtual lessons through her Mentor-based Skokstudio Vocal Instruction, had performed the role in question — Madame Flora, aka “Baba” — early this year with First Coast Opera in St. Augustine, Florida, for a handful of shows and was recommended to the folks in Tulsa looking for a possible last-minute fill-in, she says.
Skokstudio Vocal Instruction in Mentor enjoying success with in-person, online instruction
The performer in the role decided she could go on opening night, and Skok admits she was a little disappointed while being happy for the other person. Late that evening, however, Skok got the call that she would be needed in Tulsa the next day — for two performances.
She revisited the score. She got that little bit of sleep.
“I got up and threw things into a suitcase and ran to the airport, got on the 6 a.m. flight to Tulsa and flew for six hours,” Skok says during a recent phone interview. “I got off the plane, and three hours later I was on stage.”
Skok — who grew up in Concord Township, a daughter of the late Frederick V. Skok, a longtime Lake County probate judge — is no stranger to quick trips.
Not long after graduating from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University in 1990, she was accepted into Pittsburgh Opera’s Resident Artist Program. From there, it was onto New York and the Met’s young artist program before singing for the famed outfit for 12 years.
Certainly sounds like a fast rise for an opera singer, whose experiences would include singing in Israel and South America.
“It is very fair to say that, and people always remind me of that — because when I was in it, it felt like torture,” she says.
The torture was due, at least in part, to persisting vocal issues that she managed and worked to conceal.
“The times have changed,” she says. “Now you can really say if you’re in pain or what’s going on, but in those times … I always thought it was going to be kind of a stigma or a problem to tell anybody that I was in vocal pain.
“I tried my hardest to get through it, and I finally crashed and burned in 2006 during a gig while I was singing with the Albany Symphony.”
Sounds like a professional athlete desperate to hide an injury, doesn’t it?
“I do believe that singers are professional athletes,” Skok says. “They really are, but, unfortunately, we don’t recognize ourselves as that, and when we get injured, we don’t give ourselves the OK to say that we’ve been injured.”
She followed a suggestion to go down a vocal range, to mezzo-soprano, and while she did perform at times, she became busy being a mother.
She credits getting back into the world of professional singing in recent years to two things.
First, Skok made the move to being a contralto, the lowest female voice, after consulting with famed singer Jane Eaglen. She’s so happy she did, she says.
“My whole care was kind of a — I don’t want to say a mistake. But it was really kind of a longer road to get to the right road.”
Second, she had surgery at Cleveland Clinic to remove a polyp from a vocal chord almost exactly a year ago.
“I’m telling you, it changed my life,” she says. “I’m singing with such ease now. And I’m in the right range.
“I’m back out having a second career as a contralto, which hardly ever happens for anybody. It’s really remarkable.”
The first of six performances in Florida in February arrived nearly 30 years after her last major role, which came with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, but a colleague and the folks from First Coast were very intriguing.
“I stepped out, and it was like I had never been off the stage,” Skok says. “It was amazing.”
Fast-forwarding to the fall and Tulsa, the decision was made that for the afternoon performance, the regular lead would take the stage while Skok provided the vocals from off-stage. That, she says, provided her with a sense of the production given that there was no time for her to have more than a quick walk-through before the evening performance.
“I just said to everybody, ‘Look, I know this role inside and out. I’m just gonna give you a performance — and just pull me around the stage where you need me,’” she says. “And, you know, it was the best performance of my life. It really was. I was so in the character. I had no nerves.”
And the pinch-hitting was, as you’d imagine, appreciated.
“To me, Heidi Skok is the very definition of professionalism and artistry,” says Aaron Beck, Tulsa Opera’s artistic director, in an email. “Tulsa Opera, like many opera companies throughout the world, is indebted to Heidi Skok.”
While she will continue to teach near and far — she says she’s slated to start working in December via the web with a student in Estonia — but would love to perform four to six times per year.
“The main message I like to get across to everybody — and singers — is ‘don’t quit,’” Skok says. “No matter what it is, just keep hanging in there because not every day is going to be rosy. I mean, my journey has been anything but roses, but roses are starting to come up. You just hang in on the tough times and you don’t let people tell you you can’t do it because you’re that one that decides.”
For more information about Skokstudio Vocal Instruction, 8789 Mentor Ave., Mentor, call 440-290-8893 or visit SkokStudio.org.
