CORe Inspired This Opera Singer to Trade Her Gowns in for Suits

When Carla Dirlikov Canales started her professional opera career at age 23, she considered herself purely a singer. She soon discovered she was a business without the necessary skills to run it.

Canales needed to start operating like a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). She realized it would have been easier if she understood some business concepts, like what a unique selling proposition is or how to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.

"Business acumen is fundamental to being an artist, and there's a huge lack of business understanding," Canales says. "Artists and entrepreneurs are two sides of the same coin. Both have a vision and a dream, and you work hard to make them a reality. Both also hope they'll have a social impact. The difference is, there's an enormous lack of business understanding and entrepreneurial skills among artists."

In the U.S., operatic soloists are independent practitioners. It's up to the singer to find a steady income and secure benefits. They typically have an agent who helps book engagements, but they run the rest of the business—and most are unprepared.

Being an opera singer isn't as glamourous as it sounds. Canales explains it's not unusual to have 20 auditions to land one part. You must learn to accept rejection and constantly audition to fill your calendar. With each audition, the earnings whittle away to pay the agent 10 to 20 percent, the pianist or coach 10 to 20 percent, a vocal trainer 10 to 20 percent, plus taxes.

Canales grew up in a culturally diverse and highly educated family. Yet, business was not their focus. Her father is a retired Ph.D. in chemistry from Bulgaria, and her mother is a lawyer from Mexico. They wanted a better life with more opportunities for their family, so they immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Michigan. Canales grew up speaking Spanish and Bulgarian. She learned to speak English in school and helped her parents refine their own.

"Because I was born into a state of cultural confusion with no clear ethnicity in my family, I gravitated to music," Canales says. "I grew up listening to opera and found it was a great place to celebrate my cultural diversity."

She started singing at age 14. She says she had a "big voice but not a good voice," so she needed to undergo a lot of training to become the refined mezzo-soprano she is today. She was fortunate to have early breaks as a teenager, singing at the White House and the Vatican.

She was most inspired and heavily trained by Shirley Verrett, a renowned soprano who had an illustrious career and made tremendous inroads for Black opera singers. Canales earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan, where Verrett was her teacher and mentor.

Canales made her professional debut in 2003, between her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan and graduate school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her first professional part was singing the lead role in Carmen in Toronto. It became her favorite role and the one she performed most.

She's celebrated nearly 20 years of singing worldwide and has won several awards. Since 2005, she has been an Arts Envoy to the U.S. State Department, a program that sends professional U.S. artists overseas to share their talent with communities that might not otherwise have access to the arts.

When the art world was forced to shut down in March 2020 due to COVID-19, it brought Canales's career to a screeching halt. It was a difficult adjustment to have no income suddenly. Yet, the time off allowed her to consider what she wanted to do after the pandemic.

"I realized I wanted to wear fewer gowns and more suits," Canales says. "I had started a nonprofit, The Canales Project, in 2016 to help form connections between organizations and artists to promote social and cultural change. I wanted to focus more on that."

Canales received help from individuals at Harvard Business School and the Harvard i-lab, which was her first exposure to Harvard. Those contacts helped her understand the value of formal business education and how entrepreneurial endeavors could have a social impact.

Canales was entrepreneurial from an early age, organizing a "Halloween in July" event and lemonade stands. With her newfound free time, she decided to explore that interest and take courses. She started with Harvard Business School Online's Disruptive Strategy program.

"I loved it so much, I applied to take CORe," Canales says. "I never studied accounting, economics, or analytics, so I decided to challenge myself. It was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I've ever done. The academic rigor was thrilling. What made it extra special was the people I met through the experience. That community stays with me every day."

She believes CORe should be required for every art student, encouraging the schools she's affiliated with in that direction "to open doors for other artists."

CORe motivated Canales to apply for a Harvard fellowship with the Advanced Leadership Initiative. She developed a project for social impact called "The Future of Cultural Diplomacy," focused on fostering community and bringing people together worldwide to collaborate. She says her inspiration came from HBS Online.

She's slowed down her opera career, now only performing four to five shows annually. She's also starting a second fellowship; this time, at the Social Impact and Change Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"I feel there's something else I need to do," she says. "I want to make a social impact by making arts play a central role in addressing cultural issues. Traveling around the world opened my eyes to different cultures. I'd like to connect business and the arts by building trust and teaching collaboration to make the world a better place."

So, what does the future hold for Canales?

"I don't want to know what I'll be doing in 10 years," Canales says. "I know I'll always be learning because there's always something new to explore. I've been offered a professorship recently and am looking forward to teaching. I'd also like to write a book someday, but embracing the unknown really excites me."

If you're interested in building your business acumen, learning the language of business, and possibly pivoting your career, explore HBS Online's CORe program.