The Road to 2017: LA to San Fran

We had a really strong series of auditions in Los Angeles yesterday. Our first 30 singers of the tour brought arias spanning 6 languages (Italian, French, German, English, Russian and Czech) and 5 centuries (from Monteverdi to Heggie)!

From Behind the Table

Introductions: A word to younger singers (typically in our Studio Artist pool) who are just starting to audition. Although the convention of completely announcing your selection (“I’d like to sing Aria Name from Opera by Composer”) may be proper for juries or other academic auditions, it’s just unnecessary once you get out into the real world. And more important than that, it’s actually kind of hard to do, and we’ve seen really good singers get unnerved by their introductions. Don’t bother.

Focal Point: Please don’t look at the floor unless you have a good reason. I know it’s hard to sort out where to put your visual focus in an audition space, but the floor is almost never a good option…

Fashion Police

There’s been lots of good discussion lately on the topic of audition attire. We saw some typical jewel tone wrap dresses on the ladies today, but they were joined by a few really stunning fit and flare numbers, one in a gorgeous hot pink!

A few guys looked particularly sharp in a 3-piece suit with vest. We also had a couple of gents audition without suit coats (one inadvertently because of a coffee spill… ah, travel :)) Bothers me not at all if rest of the the look is crisp and classy. But I may be alone…

#SFOPasquale

We flew to San Francisco this morning, and we were privileged to hear WTO alums Larry Brownlee and Heidi Stober tear it up this afternoon at San Francisco Opera as Ernesto and Norina in Don Pasquale.

Sopranos who audition with Norina: Be warned that Heidi has just set the bar pretty high for “So anch’io”. (Just kidding. Well, not really…)

And tenors: I would really love to hear “Com’è gentil” more often in the audition room. Could you arrange that?

Above: Former WTO Studio Artist Liv Redpath in audition with pianist Jeremy Frank

Left: Heidi Stober and Lawrence Brownlee – Credit: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera