20 Days in the Life of Ana Vieira Leite, Soprano

From January 14 to February 3, young Portuguese soprano Ana Vieira Leite was on the road. She shares her tour diary with us—an intimate glimpse into the daily life of a singer. Part one: Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Paris.

January 14, 2025

3:25 pm

Flight Lisbon – Amsterdam

Train Amsterdam – Utrecht

After a busy December filled with Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé at the Opéra Comique, I decided to take a few days off at the beginning of January to prepare myself for all the challenges of 2025. 

The first five months of the year will be extremely demanding, with concert programmes featuring entirely new repertoire, one opera production (Il Trionfo del Tempo – Handel – Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon), two debuts with two different orchestras and new repertoire (Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and Orquestra da Fundação Gulbenkian), four tours (À Chloris; William Christie 80th Birthday Tour; Clori, Tirsi e Fileno (Handel); Paradise Lost), among others. In other words, very little time to rest.

But I must admit I am really excited about this year, with the incredible opportunities ahead and the new places I will get to visit.

The first days of January were essential for planning my study sessions. I look at my schedule and determine when I already have a concert prepared and when I can start preparing another, even if it’s not a day off. I enjoy making lists of everything new I need to prepare, and checking things off as I go. 

I also organized all my free time, vocal lessons, coaching sessions, and checked all the remaining trips I needed to book. 

And I rested—a lot. Now, it’s time to work. 

The effect that flying has on me is something I still cannot explain. As soon as I sit down, whether the plane is flying or not, I feel completely relaxed, and most of the time, I end up falling asleep even before take-off. I usually sleep for about an hour without any trouble, then use the rest of the flight to study the repertoire for my next project. 

At the moment, I am preparing two projects entirely in French. 

Even though I am fluent in French, it is not my native language, and memorizing pages and pages of music in a short time is still a challenge. Despite that, it remains one of my favourite languages to sing in. 

I am travelling to Amsterdam and then taking a train to Utrecht, where I will stay for a few days to prepare a project with Holland Baroque and La Néréide (an ensemble I co-founded in 2019).

The programme will be a tribute to French music, from airs de cour to the great popular songs of Barbara, with Rameau, Offenbach, and Poulenc along the way. 

At the same time, I am preparing the program for the concert tour celebrating William Christie’s birthday, featuring the great hits of French Baroque opera. 

To memorize more easily, I record myself singing the lines and listen to them on repeat. I also write down the text multiple times until it becomes automatic in my mind. 

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