Guest post by Lee Anne Myslewski
“I’ll always love you, though, New York” is the final line of one of my favorite pop songs (The singer is Ryan Adams, for the record.) And now that we’re here, that line rings through my head at intervals – pushing through a crowded street, looking out of the hotel room window, paying for a bag because I don’t have a reusable one with me. This suburban girl relishes the opportunity to play ‘city slicker!’
We’re in town for seven days, listening to auditions. It’s the longest one-site stand that we have; most other places we’ll hear one or two days, at the very most a three-day run. But we’ve settled here for the next little while. We’ve bartered with the hotel staff for mini-fridges, made runs to Whole Foods and Duane Reade, met with an aspiring opera director, and kvetched at the out-of-service internet. (People, if Southwest Airline can do it IN THE AIR, y’all have no excuse. Hotels and airlines, get it together.)
In the last seven years that I’ve sat on the audition panel, we’ve heard singers in a multitude of spaces: The Rose Room; Nola; Rehearsal rooms at NYCO; Carroll Music; the Dimenna Center. Each space has its positives and negatives. (The bongo interludes at Carroll! The Optical Illusion sound baffling at Dimenna, pictured at left!) I’m terribly excited this fall to be hearing auditions at the National Opera Center at Opera America. We toured the mostly-finished facility when I was part of the Leadership Seminar this summer, and that walk-through made me even more excited at the prospect of hearing singers in a space dedicated to our art form and our people. (Although a word of warning – if you say that you have a piece prepared but just forgot to bring it with you? I hear they have an extensive library onsite…prepare accordingly.)
Singing begins this morning at 10am. Sending best wishes to all of the folks who’ll cross our paths over the next week – we can’t wait to hear you!
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