A Library Where You Don't Get Shushed

Annika Donnen on her role as Managing Librarian

By Neil Kimel

You may wonder how so many singers, musicians, and a conductor all stay “on the same page.” It’s not as simple as it sounds. Managing Librarian Annika Donnen will shed some light behind the scenes on how it all comes together and about her journey to Lyric Opera.

How did your life transition from being a violist to becoming the Managing Librarian at Lyric Opera?

I was very lucky to have a great career in Dallas as a freelance violist, and I fell in love with opera during that time. I subbed a lot with Dallas Opera and spent five summers playing opera repertoire at AIMS in Graz, Austria. I eventually wound up working as an assistant in the libraries at both the Dallas Symphony and the Dallas Opera with wonderful mentors.

When I started thinking about switching careers, I knew I wanted to work in opera. I was Opera Librarian for a summer at Aspen, then went to the Phoenix Symphony as Assistant Librarian, and when I saw the Lyric job posting, I had a feeling it was the right spot for me.

What was it about library work that appealed to you?

It felt exciting to learn new things as an adult – I loved that I could go to work for a couple of hours and leave with a brand new skill, be it Photoshop, the correct way to mark cuts, how to research instrumentation for an aria concert or basset horn transposition. As someone who had played in orchestras my entire life, it was eye-opening to see everything that went on for months behind the scenes. I also started to realize that I liked both the “research side” and the “working with people side" of library work, and that this career would be a way to combine a lot of things I enjoyed doing.

What interested you specifically about opera?

When I played with Dallas Opera, I would always go watch the piano dress rehearsals because I loved seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff. I always wanted to know about the production design, the performance traditions, and how the stageband logistics worked. I always think it’s so interesting to work on opera because it feels like a huge puzzle. Why is it illegal to add dancers to this piece without permission from the publisher? Is the 1976 Bärenreiter Figaro vocal score compatible with the 2001 printing? I think a lot of librarians prefer not to work with opera because it’s so complicated, but I think it makes it more fun.

How do you and Principal Librarian John Rosenkrans “divide and conquer” the work, and do you have any “superpowers” as a librarian that you like to show off?

I primarily research and prepare music for everyone other than the orchestra - pianists, prompters, chorus, principal artists, stage management, cover conductors, etc. I also work a lot with licensing and everything that goes into legally performing music, (which involves a lot of copyright knowledge and research), and I’m often very involved with workshops of newly commissioned works.

If I do have a superpower, I’d like to think that it’s having played a huge amount of opera rep in the pit. I’m constantly learning new things about the other disciplines in opera, so I’m grateful every day to have had that background.

Are there any major differences between being an opera orchestra librarian and a symphony orchestra librarian…besides the length of the parts?

It’s quite different, especially in my particular role here at Lyric. One example is that in opera, almost no one is thinking about the full orchestra score, aside from the conductor and music staff. It’s really the piano-vocal score that is the source of truth for almost everything related to the production, and a huge amount of work often goes into determining what edition will serve everyone’s needs the best. The one that works best for stage management is not always the best for the chorus, for example. Part of our job is to figure out how to make this all work for all of our “constituents,” which often takes months of research and planning. (And sometimes you can mix and match….but this requires even more planning.) There are very few dull moments!