Having spent seven months singing Garcia exercises with my teacher and training to be an opera singer, I'm now spending some quality time with songs by Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Who would have thought? I would have guessed that training in opera would take me further and further away from these composers, but I was wrong.

Singing in English is automatic and easy for me as an American. I play with the delivery, making some words longer, some words shorter, some more sung and some less. Right now, when I sing in English I make better use of my voice than when I sing in Italian.

Here's a great example of what I'm talking about: this is my favorite clip of Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Notice how freely he plays with the words and how he delivers the refrain a little differently each time.