I’ve been hearing auditions in Cincinnati for 18 years now, and happily so. But in recent seasons, Ohio has been the victim of overzealous, tight audition tour scheduling. We’ve blown in and out of here, sometimes arriving at dawn and flying out before bedtime, often squeezing in over 40 singers in between. When you tempt
Read MorePosts Tagged: auditions
New York: Done, done and done
Approximately 43 hours of singing, including some Bernstein and Strauss at NYCO. A fabulous week of auditions, with some outstanding singing, both from folks who are contenders for this year’s roster and from others that we’ve flagged to watch for next year. We just fought our way down 8th Avenue with our irritatingly large amount
Read MoreCatching Up
We try to get together with Wolf Trappers in our various cities across the country during the audition tour. Last night: The Delta Grill in New York City. A lovely gathering of folks across the last 10 years’ rosters, with a special visit by an outlier from the previous decade :) (We sorely missed
Read MoreShoes!
It’s not much of a secret that my colleague Rahree is all about the shoes. Of course, we are in search of fabulous singing on this audition tour. But not inconsistent with that quest is Rahree’s lookout for classy and distinctive ladies’ footwear. It’s a hobby and a passion. She was sporting a pretty amazing
Read MoreSopranos: Who’s Singing What
If you want to know what the popular YAP audition rep is this fall, this is the place to be. Sopranos, you’re first in line. My completely unscientific conclusions? Well, I have no idea why so many of you feel compelled to sing Pamina’s breathtakingly-beautiful-and-supernaturally-difficult aria. And I’m alternately pleasantly surprised and relieved (I won’t
Read MoreWTOC Does Times Square
And so here we are, with all of the Times Square tourists, right across the street from Madame Tussaud’s (which seems to be doing gangbusters business on Halloween week). We’re at the New 42, one of the most pleasant places we’ve used for auditions in New York. Abundant natural light, clean space, and acoustics both
Read MoreBehind the Screen Door
We’ve finally finished reviewing all of the applications for next summer, and we’re only going to be able to hear a little fewer than half of the 1,028 folks who applied. We have 19 days of auditions scheduled over the next month, the most ever in our history, but there’s still not enough time to
Read MoreOptimism
A grab-bag of left-over quotes, here at the end of the series. Don’t expect too much continuity. “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.” Oscar Wilde I never knew exactly where Wilde was going with this, so I’ve adopted my own interpretation. The “sheer terror” is universal; we only get ourselves into trouble when we
Read MoreImagination
“Phantasie ist wichtiger als Wissen.” (“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”) Albert Einstein Ah, Albert. You’re right up there with Martha Graham as my favorite muse. And surprisingly so, because I thought you were a scientist… Yes, I know that the great scientists and mathematicians are artists. I can’t say I understand how, for the
Read MoreCreativity
“Probleme kann man niemals mit derselben Denkweise lösen, durch die sie entstanden sind.” (“Problems cannot be solved with the same kind of thinking in which they were created.”) Albert Einstein Of course, this is all looping around on itself, and that’s good. Two weeks ago, we considered our toolkits, and how it makes a tremendous
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