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Opera News:

Nine rising young opera singers who survived a competition as daunting as "American Idol" got their first chance Sunday to perform on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House accompanied by full orchestra.

If history is any guide, some of them will be back there soon.

The nine were the best among more than 1,500 would-be stars who entered the Met National Council's 51st annual auditions. Those who made it through district-level competitions went on to regional auditions, and 22 semifinalists were then invited to New York, where they sang to piano accompaniment last week.

On Sunday, each of the nine finalists had a chance to sing two arias, and when they were through, emcee Susan Graham - a celebrated mezzo-soprano who herself once competed in the auditions - announced the four winners chosen by a panel of judges:

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The rules state that contestants must be between the ages of 20 and 30 when they enter, and Rosel just made it under the wire, having turned 29 last year. The others are all in their early 20s.

Rosel also was the most unusual of the contestants, a diminutive figure who bills himself as a "character tenor" and uses his compact body expertly to magnify the effect of his robust singing. In his first selection, "Jour et nuit" from Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann," he played the part of Frantz, a deaf and doddering servant, complete with well-timed pratfalls. His second choice was the sinister Worm Aria from Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles," which had its world premiere at the Met.

Bisch has a bass voice of only modest size, but it goes remarkably deep and he uses it with focus and intelligence. He threw himself heartily into the comic villain Osmin's aria, "O wie will ich triumphieren" from Mozart's "Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail," and then changed mood radically for the gloomy cavatina "Ves' tabor spit" from Rachmaninoff's "Aleko."

The two sopranos displayed voices of very different character. Phillips has a generous lyric soprano that reveled in "Je veux vivre," the waltz song from Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette," drawing explosive applause from the audience. She followed with a moving rendition, complete with floated high notes, of Pamina's "Ach, ich fuehls," from Mozart's "Die Zauberfloete." Oropesa's voice is small but pure, and she etched a lovely line in "Ruhe sanft" from Mozart's "Zaide." She followed with a perky and polished performance of Rosina's "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia."

The four winners each get $15,000 toward their studies; the five others receive $5,000 each. All nine are eligible for consideration by the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and several are likely to go on to noteworthy careers.

As Graham pointed out, the current Met roster carries the names of 95 singers who took part in the auditions early in their careers. Besides herself, they include superstar sopranos Renee Fleming and Deborah Voigt, mezzos Stephanie Blythe and Dolora Zajick, tenor Ben Heppner, baritone Thomas Hampson, and bass Samuel Ramey.

The five finalists who didn't make it to the winner's circle Sunday were sopranos Mari Moriya from Japan, Elona Ceno from Albania, and Ellie Dehn from Philadelphia; and mezzo Michelle Losier and tenor Joseph Kaiser, both from Canada.

The judges were Sarah Billinghurst, an assistant manager of the Met; Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Met; Christopher Hahn, artistic director of the Pittsburgh Opera; Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera; Gayletha Nichols, executive director of the Met's National Council Auditions; Lenore Rosenberg, director of the Lindemann program; and Stephen Steiner, director of productions at the Boston Lyric Opera.

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More Opera News:

Charles Garnier was relatively unknown when he won the competition to build the Opera in 1861. Construction was constantly delayed due to unstable soil (the myth of the Phantom is linked to the discovery of a lake under the Opera) and the Prussian War. It was finally inaugurated in 1875. As dictated by the original program, the Opera included a foyer where people would not come to sit but to stroll. It therefore should be as long as possible. Garnier went one step further in making his 195-foot long foyer accessible to all floors and people of all classes. The grandeur of the space drew some criticism but, Garnier had saved money by using oil paint, with nuances of gold applied only to visible surfaces. He also mass-produced some of the decorative bronze elements coating re-usable molds by electrolysis. While every inch of wall appears carved in gold, the sub-structure is made up of wood and plaster.

Opera Tickets

Online Ticket Information. We buy and sell Opera Tickets. Not only do we provide ticket prices, but updated news reports.

Online Ticket Information.
We buy and sell Opera Tickets.
Not only do we provide ticket prices, but updated news reports.