Posts Categorized: Auditions

Blogging has had to take a back seat to screening as we topped 1,000 applications. I truly hate this part of our process – not just because it means saying no (something I struggle with in all its guises), but because it means saying no in a very unsatisfying and incomplete fashion. We used to

Catching up with some more questions from the comments section of previous posts – answers from yours truly and my colleague CameraMan: Recently in an audition (where I offered Tu che di gel, Je veux vivre, Ach ich fuhl’s, and Sul fil d’un soffio etesio), I was chastised for offering both the Juliette and the

This is my least favorite part of our annual cycle, bar none. We’ve received about 1,000 applications for next month’s audition tour, and we need to pick fewer than half of those singers for our audition tour. Why? First (and least controversial), it’s sheerly mathematical. We (I) can only really hear about 30 people a

More questions via the comments section: Do you have any advice about how to enter the audition room, greet the panel, and set myself up to sing? This always feels so awkward. Are there any things singers do as they’re making their entrances and exits that are turn-offs? First of all, there’s no reason to

Sorry for the silence. The combination of fatigue from the 30-day July blogging blitz and the predictable end-of-season brain drain seems to have defeated me. Ariadne is yet to come, but first, it’s the onset of audition season! FILENE YOUNG ARTISTS APPLICATION DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 30 Houston, TX – November 6 Los Angeles, CA – November

I spent today revising the web pages for the 2009 audition tour applications. Official links and details will follow soon, but it looks as if all auditions will take place between November 6-22. The first deadline will be September 30. We’ll be in Houston, LA, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and, of course,

I’ve been enthusiastically following the posts and comments on the discussion of Historically Informed Performance (I do love that it’s called HIP… I need someone working on some awe-inspiring abbreviations for me…). Thanks to Brian Dickie for bringing this up, then following up. And hats off to Tim Nelson for his thoughtful and detailed explanation.

It’s that time of year… when a phrase is not a satisfying arc of pitch and dynamic, but a collection of well-chosen words. Seductive adjectives, strong verbs, and lots of punctuation!! January and February bring vast wastelands of nothing but words. Or rather, big ol’ blank computer screens mocking me for lack of words. You

Today’s guest blogger is Joshua Winograde, head of our own Wolf Trap Opera Studio and Planning Manager of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera. This is a wonky time of the blog year for me – I’m working nonstop on the upcoming operas, and because we haven’t announced our season yet,

Not raw in the way you think. Just unedited. Excerpted from the database just the way they were spewed forth during the audition tour. Stream of consciousness and all. The good, the bad, and the ugly, sometimes all within the same aria. Why do I post these, and why would you read them? 1. To