Well, it's been a ride. The Pre-Covid days are long gone. Covid shutdowns came and went (fingers crossed) but a few things from that pivot have stuck: namely video audition submissions. But In-Person Auditions are back and going strong again so I thought I'd edit my regular auditions blog for 2023.
Here it is:
It's that time of year, a time that ramps up the anxiety and stress levels for many young singers:
Audition application and audition season has commenced!
All around North America, singers in undergraduate and graduate programs are finishing up their auditions for their schools' opera programs, hoping to get cast in a production, scenes program or opera classes. In addition, those singers who want to move beyond the pay-to-sing programs are feeling the avalanche of deadlines fast Glimmerglass, Merola, Canadian Opera Company, Santa Fe, Central City, etc. with their requisite YAP tracker accounts spouting reminders and checklists. As for the singers fresh out of school, the desperation factor starts to creep into place -- will this be my last audition season? What happens if I don't get any auditions? How am I going to pay for all the application fees, travel and hotel expenses?
Life was simpler ten to fifteen years ago. Really.
Time was when deadlines for summer programs were mid to late October (imagine!), not end of August. There's a huge difference between the two, especially for singers just starting a new grad program and/or starting in studying with a new teacher in a new city.
And yet, every year I get requests for recommendation letters as well as requests for "what should I sing for my 5 arias" from students I barely know.
I've often thought that first year masters students shouldn't try to do summer program auditions during their initial semester at a new school with new coaches and teachers. Maybe a better idea would be to FOCUS ON THAT FIRST SEMESTER. Work on technical issues, get the hard courses out of the way, get to know the city in a casual fashion, make friends, hear symphony concerts, etc. These are things one can't really do while preparing an audition packet (especially if there are new arias in it) or flying in and out to take summer program auditions from October to December. I know everyone feels rushed to be a success, but there are lots and lots of singers who make it without pushing themselves onto such a fast track.
Perhaps an even better idea might be to either take the summer "off" from singing, get a job or an internship, maybe focus on reading literature or researching new arias, visit museums, take in outdoor events/plays/symphonies, visit the Glimmerglasses of North America to see what the level actually is out there. Travel and explore!
But I don't think anyone will listen to my sage advice, so I'll put down my thoughts on AUDITIONS that I post most every fall, albeit with some modifications for 2023.
TEN THOUGHTS ON AUDITIONS:
1) A successful audition is a complicated thing. It has more to do with the day, who/what the panel is looking for and why, the needs of a given season, whether the panel's blood sugar is normal, if their attention span is fixed or waning, and/or their personal taste in practically everything. In short, little to do with the singer's talent. The sooner one accepts this, the better. It helps to remove the JUDGEMENT happening constantly inside one's mind.
2) Attitude counts for a lot. How a singer walks in the door, how they communicate with the panel and the pianist, the body language signals before singing, between arias, and at the close of the audition. It is vital that a singer present themselves in a heightened (I don't want to say exaggerated) version of whoever they want to "be" at an audition. You can't just quietly enter a room, whisper your aria to the panel, sing like Renee, exit like a mouse and expect that your Renee-esque tones will win the day. Most auditions nowadays take into account personalities and how a singer might fit in to a group of other singers. If there is a worry about confidence in how a singer presents themselves (and I mean their "self" as opposed to presenting a character from an opera), then there can easily be a worry about how that singer might function in a group of drama-filled opera singers all living and eating together for 6 to 12 weeks.
3) The panel has no imagination. Okay, maybe they have a little. But mostly, not much. This means the singer's imagination needs to come into play in a big, big way. You need to know who you are singing to and why you need to sing to them. You need to know if it's day or night, inside or outside, in a furnished room or a courtyard. Are there other people in the scene that the aria takes place in? You simply can not just stand there and make pretty tones. Not any more, my friends. There must be a strong connection to the text, a huge musical mind at work making decisions and taking stands in multiple areas (ornamentation is just one example.) And if someone is telling you that it's the voice, and only the voice, that'll get you into a young artist program, then they are telling you what we all want to believe is true, but actually isn't true. An opera singer has always been, and will always be, a human being who acts with their voice. So work on the human being part, the acting part, as well as the singing part. Work on it before the audition. You can't think for a moment that your gestures will just appear and make sense, or that fixating on the wall behind the panel will make anyone in the room think you're an operatic Viola Davis or Robert Downey, Jr. They work on their characters before the camera shoots, and so should you. Actors live in a broad, imaginative world, and so should you.
4) What you wear is less important nowadays. Pants on a soprano? Fine. Jeans on a tenor? Fine. Culottes on a bass? Fine. Glasses? If you need them absolutely! Formal dress or tux? Perhaps think that one over... Think about how you'll define yourself as a human being to a set of strangers who may never have met you. Define yourself boldly in order to make an impression -- do everything you can to not look like all those other people in the lobby waiting to sing. Color is important, absolutely. So is bling. Remember, the panel is made up of human beings who have been looking at hundreds of singers. It's impossible to remember everyone, particularly if twelve baritones all singing Malatesta's aria show up in a dark navy suit, with polished shoes, a blue shirt and variable ties to match. If your repertoire doesn't separate you from the pack, then your acting and singing skills need to come into play along with the rest of your "package" - which includes what you look like when you walk in the door. And if anyone tells you not to wear a dress above the knee, or to make sure you're wearing a tie, smile and ignore their advice. North Americans are WAY too uptight about how someone dresses for an opera audition and it's finally, finally changing with the younger generation of leaders. The Europeans got this totally right years ago: jeans, a smart shirt, maybe a leather jacket, and cool sneakers are all it takes for most auditions over there.
5) This is YOUR time slot. Use it, invest in the moment and enjoy sharing your talents. A ten-minute audition slot is not the time to fix your technique, make dramatic discoveries, or improvise some ornaments for your Rameau aria. The audition is about YOU. Share yourself, how you are at the PRESENT moment - not how you might be five years from now. If you have someone telling you you'll be the next great Tosca, well how lovely, but don't go taking "Vissi d'arte" around to auditions if you're some young 20ish soprano who really should be singing "V'adoro pupile". Sing the lightest literature possible. Take a step back, fach-wise; especially if you're being cast in school productions in heavier, or even, dramatic roles. This happens a lot -- getting confused over "what" you are because at your school you have the biggest voice, so you get cast as the Countess or Fiordiligi, but you really are a Susanna or Despina out there in the real world. For mezzo's, it's even trickier. Of course you're not a character mezzo, you're a high lyric soprano who just hasn't figured out her top, but you get cast as Miss Pinkerton instead of Laetitia... And then there are the tenors needing to walk around as lyric baritones while their voices evolve... Just be who you are. Every audition is only a snapshot of the singer you are at that moment, and this changes so quickly and dramatically. Be flexible in your early 20s. You don't have to present your future-illustrious-international career's best five arias during the fall of your senior year at college to an AGMA apprenticeship program. But you do have to present some version of YOURSELF, and be confident about it regardless of the fact that the arias might just be stepping stones to other arias in later years.
6) Prepare 5 to 15 arias for the audition season. Come on. Learn more than 5 arias. People who are pursuing other careers in the arts (just think about the hundreds of songs your musical theatre singer counter-parts have in their current rep!) make it a vital part of their training to learn AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE about their chosen fields. Walk into an audition and present the required 3-5 arias you had to put down in YAPTracker but then have a rep sheet with those plus "Additional Arias". It is a terrible, terrible thing that young singers - and the people who teach, train, and hire them - think that learning an aria should take months and months OR that having more than five arias running around your head is somehow difficult or confusing to both singer and panel. My thoughts on these arias?
Audition application and audition season has commenced!
All around North America, singers in undergraduate and graduate programs are finishing up their auditions for their schools' opera programs, hoping to get cast in a production, scenes program or opera classes. In addition, those singers who want to move beyond the pay-to-sing programs are feeling the avalanche of deadlines fast Glimmerglass, Merola, Canadian Opera Company, Santa Fe, Central City, etc. with their requisite YAP tracker accounts spouting reminders and checklists. As for the singers fresh out of school, the desperation factor starts to creep into place -- will this be my last audition season? What happens if I don't get any auditions? How am I going to pay for all the application fees, travel and hotel expenses?
Life was simpler ten to fifteen years ago. Really.
Time was when deadlines for summer programs were mid to late October (imagine!), not end of August. There's a huge difference between the two, especially for singers just starting a new grad program and/or starting in studying with a new teacher in a new city.
And yet, every year I get requests for recommendation letters as well as requests for "what should I sing for my 5 arias" from students I barely know.
I've often thought that first year masters students shouldn't try to do summer program auditions during their initial semester at a new school with new coaches and teachers. Maybe a better idea would be to FOCUS ON THAT FIRST SEMESTER. Work on technical issues, get the hard courses out of the way, get to know the city in a casual fashion, make friends, hear symphony concerts, etc. These are things one can't really do while preparing an audition packet (especially if there are new arias in it) or flying in and out to take summer program auditions from October to December. I know everyone feels rushed to be a success, but there are lots and lots of singers who make it without pushing themselves onto such a fast track.
Perhaps an even better idea might be to either take the summer "off" from singing, get a job or an internship, maybe focus on reading literature or researching new arias, visit museums, take in outdoor events/plays/symphonies, visit the Glimmerglasses of North America to see what the level actually is out there. Travel and explore!
But I don't think anyone will listen to my sage advice, so I'll put down my thoughts on AUDITIONS that I post most every fall, albeit with some modifications for 2023.
TEN THOUGHTS ON AUDITIONS:
1) A successful audition is a complicated thing. It has more to do with the day, who/what the panel is looking for and why, the needs of a given season, whether the panel's blood sugar is normal, if their attention span is fixed or waning, and/or their personal taste in practically everything. In short, little to do with the singer's talent. The sooner one accepts this, the better. It helps to remove the JUDGEMENT happening constantly inside one's mind.
2) Attitude counts for a lot. How a singer walks in the door, how they communicate with the panel and the pianist, the body language signals before singing, between arias, and at the close of the audition. It is vital that a singer present themselves in a heightened (I don't want to say exaggerated) version of whoever they want to "be" at an audition. You can't just quietly enter a room, whisper your aria to the panel, sing like Renee, exit like a mouse and expect that your Renee-esque tones will win the day. Most auditions nowadays take into account personalities and how a singer might fit in to a group of other singers. If there is a worry about confidence in how a singer presents themselves (and I mean their "self" as opposed to presenting a character from an opera), then there can easily be a worry about how that singer might function in a group of drama-filled opera singers all living and eating together for 6 to 12 weeks.
3) The panel has no imagination. Okay, maybe they have a little. But mostly, not much. This means the singer's imagination needs to come into play in a big, big way. You need to know who you are singing to and why you need to sing to them. You need to know if it's day or night, inside or outside, in a furnished room or a courtyard. Are there other people in the scene that the aria takes place in? You simply can not just stand there and make pretty tones. Not any more, my friends. There must be a strong connection to the text, a huge musical mind at work making decisions and taking stands in multiple areas (ornamentation is just one example.) And if someone is telling you that it's the voice, and only the voice, that'll get you into a young artist program, then they are telling you what we all want to believe is true, but actually isn't true. An opera singer has always been, and will always be, a human being who acts with their voice. So work on the human being part, the acting part, as well as the singing part. Work on it before the audition. You can't think for a moment that your gestures will just appear and make sense, or that fixating on the wall behind the panel will make anyone in the room think you're an operatic Viola Davis or Robert Downey, Jr. They work on their characters before the camera shoots, and so should you. Actors live in a broad, imaginative world, and so should you.
4) What you wear is less important nowadays. Pants on a soprano? Fine. Jeans on a tenor? Fine. Culottes on a bass? Fine. Glasses? If you need them absolutely! Formal dress or tux? Perhaps think that one over... Think about how you'll define yourself as a human being to a set of strangers who may never have met you. Define yourself boldly in order to make an impression -- do everything you can to not look like all those other people in the lobby waiting to sing. Color is important, absolutely. So is bling. Remember, the panel is made up of human beings who have been looking at hundreds of singers. It's impossible to remember everyone, particularly if twelve baritones all singing Malatesta's aria show up in a dark navy suit, with polished shoes, a blue shirt and variable ties to match. If your repertoire doesn't separate you from the pack, then your acting and singing skills need to come into play along with the rest of your "package" - which includes what you look like when you walk in the door. And if anyone tells you not to wear a dress above the knee, or to make sure you're wearing a tie, smile and ignore their advice. North Americans are WAY too uptight about how someone dresses for an opera audition and it's finally, finally changing with the younger generation of leaders. The Europeans got this totally right years ago: jeans, a smart shirt, maybe a leather jacket, and cool sneakers are all it takes for most auditions over there.
5) This is YOUR time slot. Use it, invest in the moment and enjoy sharing your talents. A ten-minute audition slot is not the time to fix your technique, make dramatic discoveries, or improvise some ornaments for your Rameau aria. The audition is about YOU. Share yourself, how you are at the PRESENT moment - not how you might be five years from now. If you have someone telling you you'll be the next great Tosca, well how lovely, but don't go taking "Vissi d'arte" around to auditions if you're some young 20ish soprano who really should be singing "V'adoro pupile". Sing the lightest literature possible. Take a step back, fach-wise; especially if you're being cast in school productions in heavier, or even, dramatic roles. This happens a lot -- getting confused over "what" you are because at your school you have the biggest voice, so you get cast as the Countess or Fiordiligi, but you really are a Susanna or Despina out there in the real world. For mezzo's, it's even trickier. Of course you're not a character mezzo, you're a high lyric soprano who just hasn't figured out her top, but you get cast as Miss Pinkerton instead of Laetitia... And then there are the tenors needing to walk around as lyric baritones while their voices evolve... Just be who you are. Every audition is only a snapshot of the singer you are at that moment, and this changes so quickly and dramatically. Be flexible in your early 20s. You don't have to present your future-illustrious-international career's best five arias during the fall of your senior year at college to an AGMA apprenticeship program. But you do have to present some version of YOURSELF, and be confident about it regardless of the fact that the arias might just be stepping stones to other arias in later years.
6) Prepare 5 to 15 arias for the audition season. Come on. Learn more than 5 arias. People who are pursuing other careers in the arts (just think about the hundreds of songs your musical theatre singer counter-parts have in their current rep!) make it a vital part of their training to learn AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE about their chosen fields. Walk into an audition and present the required 3-5 arias you had to put down in YAPTracker but then have a rep sheet with those plus "Additional Arias". It is a terrible, terrible thing that young singers - and the people who teach, train, and hire them - think that learning an aria should take months and months OR that having more than five arias running around your head is somehow difficult or confusing to both singer and panel. My thoughts on these arias?
1) Two contrasting baroque arias (one fast, one slow)
2) Two contrasting Mozart arias (either tempo or dramatic situation)
3) One aria by Rossini, Bellini, or Donizetti (or a composer like them)
4) A German, Czech, Russian, Polish, or Spanish aria of some sort
5) An aria from a verismo opera
6) An aria in French (either baroque or 19th century)
7) Two contrasting 20th century arias
8) Two contrasting musical theatre arias (literally tens of thousands to choose from!)
9) An aria from G&S or Offenbach or Lehar or Strauss, Jr.
10) An aria from an opera written since 2000, preferably by a woman and/or a BIPOC composer!
For those who were counting, that's 14 musical pieces. If most are about 4 minutes long, then we're talking about an hour's worth of repertoire. Make a commitment to learn literature, to explore beyond the Anthologies and canonic composers. The above 10 categories can easily fill the needed "5" for any young artist program and then you'll have extra arias to have wiggle room if you need to vary one or two, or offer a piece of musical theatre, or add a couple extra arias that represent a company's upcoming season. But if you walk around with barely 5, you are limiting your opportunities. I know singers who can learn an aria in a day, and rather well. How long does it really take to learn an aria? If you don't learn quickly, figure out how. Then use every coaching, every masterclass opportunity, every studio class opportunity (heck, sing for friends!) to role out these pieces and get feedback. A 2023 update: If you aren't someone who thinks they should audition with baroque arias, or have problems with bel canto or verismo rep, that's okay. Eliminate those categories. If you have strengths like contemporary music or musical theatre, then perhaps augment those categories with a few more choices. If you believe that opera rep needs to be more diverse, then make sure your own audition rep is diverse. This is not a prescriptive "rule", it's a nudge to go out there and learn more repertoire!
7) Don't wear an all black anything to an audition. 2023 update: This really is my only non-negotiable piece of advice, and particular to me (so go ahead and ignore it if you look wonderful in all black). There was one audition season at Glimmerglass when we saw over a dozen sopranos in one day wearing a black dress with a set of pearls. It was impossible to keep them straight.
8) Keep an audition journal. Go crazy -- keep a journal everyday. Write down how the audition went, later write down if you got the contract or not, or any kind of feedback given. Describe the venue's acoustic or the pianists' abilities. A journal can really be a wonderful thing!
9) Figure out how to breathe in stressful situations. One of the first things that can evaporate in an audition is the BREATH. Getting it past your collarbone, for instance, can sometimes be a challenge during an important audition. Work on breathing outside of an audition. Ask your voice teacher about the breath. Their answers might surprise you. Seek out places to practice breathing: swimming pools, yoga, mediation, hiking up steep inclines, walking... Before your audition, have a breathing plan. Make space and time to center yourself outside of the room with your breath. Breathe in the audition room, too! Breathe between arias. Breathe!
10) Try, as best as you can, to not place too much importance on any audition. Even at the Met finals, if you listen to what many of the winners say, they'll talk about how they tried to make it "just" another opportunity to sing. If you walk into a room thinking that your whole future career (and therefore life) depends on the outcome, you are setting yourself up for failure. How about a "I don't care what you think" attitude? If you're walking into an audition believing that what the panel thinks of you is more important than what you think of yourself, then you should turn around and walk away.
A Bonus Thought: Remember that what you do -- singing opera -- is something quite special. It's something that billions of other human beings on this planet can not do. It's a crazy, joyous thing to put yourself into the head-space of an 18th century peasant or a Greek God or a famous character from Shakespeare. Who gets to do that and try to make a living at it? It's a transcendental experience to channel the genius of a Mozart, Rossini, Stravinsky, or Saariaho. While you sing their music, they live again. Their minds come alive once more from beyond the grave through your vocal cords, face, and body. Most people can't even imagine what that must be like! So live it! Do it!
And learn an aria or two...
Best of luck to all of you out there!
7) Don't wear an all black anything to an audition. 2023 update: This really is my only non-negotiable piece of advice, and particular to me (so go ahead and ignore it if you look wonderful in all black). There was one audition season at Glimmerglass when we saw over a dozen sopranos in one day wearing a black dress with a set of pearls. It was impossible to keep them straight.
8) Keep an audition journal. Go crazy -- keep a journal everyday. Write down how the audition went, later write down if you got the contract or not, or any kind of feedback given. Describe the venue's acoustic or the pianists' abilities. A journal can really be a wonderful thing!
9) Figure out how to breathe in stressful situations. One of the first things that can evaporate in an audition is the BREATH. Getting it past your collarbone, for instance, can sometimes be a challenge during an important audition. Work on breathing outside of an audition. Ask your voice teacher about the breath. Their answers might surprise you. Seek out places to practice breathing: swimming pools, yoga, mediation, hiking up steep inclines, walking... Before your audition, have a breathing plan. Make space and time to center yourself outside of the room with your breath. Breathe in the audition room, too! Breathe between arias. Breathe!
10) Try, as best as you can, to not place too much importance on any audition. Even at the Met finals, if you listen to what many of the winners say, they'll talk about how they tried to make it "just" another opportunity to sing. If you walk into a room thinking that your whole future career (and therefore life) depends on the outcome, you are setting yourself up for failure. How about a "I don't care what you think" attitude? If you're walking into an audition believing that what the panel thinks of you is more important than what you think of yourself, then you should turn around and walk away.
A Bonus Thought: Remember that what you do -- singing opera -- is something quite special. It's something that billions of other human beings on this planet can not do. It's a crazy, joyous thing to put yourself into the head-space of an 18th century peasant or a Greek God or a famous character from Shakespeare. Who gets to do that and try to make a living at it? It's a transcendental experience to channel the genius of a Mozart, Rossini, Stravinsky, or Saariaho. While you sing their music, they live again. Their minds come alive once more from beyond the grave through your vocal cords, face, and body. Most people can't even imagine what that must be like! So live it! Do it!
And learn an aria or two...
Best of luck to all of you out there!
