Eve Klein is a mezzo who invites audiences to witness and experience the internal workings of the voice in her experimental project Vocal Womb. Part performance and installation, Klein wears a laryngoscope that captures footage of her vocal chords while she sings, as contact microphones pick up and enhance her inhalations and exhalations, amplifying the sense of bodily organs at work. With this project, Klein asks audience members to consider what having a voice means. Klein spoke to Limelight about the project.

Eve Klein, Vocal WombEve Klein

Where did the idea for Vocal Womb come from?

I have a background as a professional mezzo-soprano and have been training and working as an opera singer for the last 15 years. Opera singers train for a minimum of 10 years and, unlike other musicians, our instruments are hidden from view inside our bodies. At its best, opera is able to transport its audiences to the sublime heights and depths of human emotions, but only if the voice is perfectly rendered. For singers, performance can be a fight against the agency of our own bodies which are fallible, volatile, and highly responsive to our inner emotional state....