Talk about a competitive event!

Sunday I went to the district tryouts for The Metropolitan Opera in Portland. Three are selected to go from here to the semi’s to the finals on the stage at the actual Met itself.

16 young singers in competition between the ages of 23 and 29, all in training which includes in addition to voice and musicology, getting your tonsils around French, German, and Italian. In addition, two also could sing in Russian and Czech. No contralto’s, still too young I guess. Sopranos, tenors, a baritone and a basso.

Now there was no white line painted on the stage as in “A Chorus Line” and no one stepped forward to sing “Tits and Ass”, “I can do that”, or “I really need this job”.

So here’s the deal:  each singer has five pieces prepared. The first sung is of their choosing. Then the three judges choose any one of the next four, pretty much depending on what the first aria was. If it was something with a strong vocal and dramatic line from la Boheme, the judges would want to hear something in an entirely different style from Handel or Donnezetti.

And speaking of composers. The big three for choices were Mozart, Puccini, and Handel , Modern composers were represented including Douglas Moore with ‘The Ballad of Baby Doe’ and John Adams, with a knock out performance of Madame Mao’s song from ‘Nixon in China’.

The field of sixteen performed with various degrees of skill and professionalism. I kept my own score card and got two out of three. I see my problem is being a sucker for that old presence thing (thank you Dave Bryant and Nikos P). The three winners to go on were all members of the Portland Opera’s Intern program. The interns are not from Portand. They are selected from national applications and auditions. And the judges weren’t from Portland either. They were from San Jose, Santa Fe, and Utah Opera.

If you live anywhere near one of these competitions, go to see it! The aplomb and skill of these young people is reassuring to see. And, to think they still have years of training ahead of them.