Young Soprano Wins MIM Vocal Scholarship

”Soprano Crisia Regalado is the 2023 winner of the Lucy Becker Memorial Scholarship, awarded annually by Music in the Mountains.”

Special to The Union

Crisia Regalado made up her mind when she was 10. She was going to be an opera singer when she grew up. No doubt. She’d never taken a singing lesson and couldn’t read music, but she’d find a way. According to Crisia, “I say ‘Yes’ to everything and then figure it out.”

Crisia always loved to sing; that was a given. But at the magical age of 10, her voice and her love of music burst forth when she joined a community girls choir through her church. The group was led by Antonio Espinal, former voice coach and piano accompanist for the National Opera Company of Mexico. When he moved to California, he established the Harmonies Girls Choir to represent the Hispanic community at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral.

“I went to the choir and they gave me a score, but I couldn’t read the music,” Crisia recounts. But that didn’t stop her. She followed the notes on the staff, noticing intervals and ups and downs, managing to follow along while also relying on her good ear and ability to memorize. She felt completely in her element, enjoying Mariachi, Mayan, Peruvian, classical and sacred music, all in the choir’s rich repertoire.

The exposure to classical vocal music convinced the 10-year-old Crisia that she wanted to sing opera. She also wanted to take private lessons from Antonio Espinal, but her family was unable to afford the cost. So as a determined kid, she worked out an arrangement with Espinal to be a sitter for his 7-year-old daughter in lieu of payment. Within a year or so, she was proud to sing her very first aria: Caro Nome (Sweet Name) sung by Gilda in Verdi’s opera Rigoletto.

Fast forward to the spring of 2023 when Crisia, a junior at UC Davis, was selected as the winner of Music in the Mountains Lucy Becker Memorial Scholarship, a $2,000 award presented annually to a talented young singer. The judges were impressed by the beauty of her soprano voice and her ability to inhabit her characters as she sang arias by Puccini and Rossini on her audition tape. They also made note of her comfort on stage and the way she presented her songs to the audience.

This stage presence developed naturally through the years, thanks to numerous performances with the Harmonies Girls Choir. Since the choir sang a diverse selection of music, the group was invited to sing programs in galleries, for dance companies and at other events in Los Angeles, as well as in churches.

A major highlight for Crisia came in 2009. The Los Angeles Philharmonic had recently hired a young Gustavo Dudamel as music director of the orchestra, and a welcoming event was held in his honor when he conducted his first concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

The program culminated in a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony, calling for a massive 200-voice community choir to sing the famous Ode to Joy. Joining the esteemed Los Angeles Master Chorale in the choir were selected singers from local ensembles across the city, including Crisia and a few other members of the Harmonies Girls Choir. Certainly a heady experience for a 12-year-old.

Another big opportunity came in 2011 when Crisia, then 14, learned about the Los Angeles Opera Summer Camp, an intensive two-week program focusing on singing, acting and movement for kids 9 to 17. After auditioning for the camp, she was granted a full scholarship, and at the end of the session, she sang the role of the sparrow in the camp’s production of Brundibar, a children’s opera composed in 1938 and originally performed by Jewish children in a Czech Concentration Camp known as Terezin.

During this time period, she auditioned for the tuition-free Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where she spent four years, enabling her to learn about music theory, hone up on her music reading skills, and sing in more productions. In addition to her study of opera, she took a liking to vocal jazz and had the chance to sing with her ensemble at both the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Playboy Jazz Festival in 2015.

After high school, she couldn’t yet foresee a route to college. But she kept on singing, not only classical music but also something completely different. She sang in a band (and later in a solo act) under the name Sin Color (without color). Music without borders—not attached to any color, genre or style—a combination of Latin folk, jazz rock and electronic pop.

She appeared in several music videos: wearing platform shoes and blue and yellow wigs in one; wearing a black lacy dress and a gaudy sunflower hat, singing a love song in another; and on roller skates in a third—her voice and range different in every number, displaying remarkable versatility. A seismic shift from formal singing on stage to a Spanish-speaking Lady Gaga.

In a 2017 review of Sin Color in Music Junkie Press, Patrick O’Heffernan offered her high praise. “Crisia’s opera-trained voice soars and swoops and soothes,” he wrote, and later added. “Crisia weaves gut-grabbing arias among the beats and riffs in a fusion of classical and popular that is hypnotic. It is cool and hot, progressive and comforting, edgy and charming.”

In 2020, several years after leaving the School for the Arts, Crisia, by then 23, found a way to enter college. In 2016, trumpeter Herb Alpert set up a $10 million endowment fund at Los Angeles City College, offering two-year free tuition to full-time music majors. Crisia auditioned for a scholarship, and once accepted she dove into the curriculum.

She relished her private lessons with teacher Lori Stinson, who helped her move from her chest voice to her head voice in a smooth, seamless manner. Crisia laughs when she recalls Stinson firmly telling her, “It’s not ‘belting’ canto, it’s bel canto,”—literally meaning “beautiful singing,’ ‘ calling for lovely flowing lines.

In September of 2022, she transferred to UC Davis and began taking lessons with mezzo soprano Zoila Muñoz. According to Crisia, “When I came here, she told me to let go of whatever idea I had of opera.” And she especially helped her with interpretation, asking her early on, “What are you doing? Why are you singing everything the same?”—which got Crisia more in touch with her characters.

In her letter of reference, Zoila Muñoz wrote of Crisia, “From the first class, I realized she was a very serious and gifted student.” And after a year of intensive work, she went on to write, “Her voice has become even more beautiful and her musicality has become refined. She has a special flair for interpreting both opera arias and Lieder with profound emotion.”

Crisia is the eleventh recipient of the scholarship that honors the memory of lyric soprano Lucy Becker, who was a featured soloist with Music in the Mountains for many years. She will be officially recognized at MIM’s Happy Birthday USA concert on Monday, July 3rd at Western Gateway Park in Penn Valley, and by tradition, she will sing a number with the orchestra. In her case, Chi il bel sogno di Doretta (Doretta’s Dream Song) from Puccini’s opera La Rondine. An added spark to a fun and festive evening.

Julie Becker is the sister of Lucy Becker and oversees the annual scholarship.

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