They’ll also probably show Carmen from the Met in a couple of months. I think if any opera could change your mind about opera (in addition to La Traviata), it’s Carmen, especially with this cast.

Also, in spite of the title, Met auditions is a competition for young singers not auditions for a job at the Met: all that is promised is a prize, a chance to perform in concert at the Met for paying public, to add to one”s resume, and to show oneself to theater directors and agents. The judges look for two types of people – those who can perform at the Met tomorrow (rare) and those with potential to be able to do so in future. Some of the latter may get an invitation to a young artist development program in some opera theater in the US: there are directors among judges and the audience. If you are curious as to the requirements and prizes, check here: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/auditions/national/
So in terms for looking for potential, opera competitions are very indicative of what potential means at least when we talk about adults, not teenagers.

For an example of a young not-yet-fully-trained opera singer, Nadine Sierra – you can look her up on YouTube – who won Met Council Auditions in 2009 was only 20 years old at the time, still an undergrad student.

Back to AGT: most of us including the judges aren’t really qualified to judge which people really have potential only where they are now. This applies to everything, not just opera. In this case, though, shouldn’t they at least be pretty close to the level of professionals competing for similar jobs especially given their age?

This applies, of course, to real opera. In POPera – pretty much anything goes given how even some of the best selling stars wouldn’t be able to get a job in a chorus of any reputable opera theater, and this is really the only career an AGT participation can help with. But then let’s stop calling them “opera singers”.
I think it’d be nice if people appreciated the difference at least in terms of the difference between singing an aria with a mike and singing without microphones in a 3800 seat theater with an orchestra between the singer and the audience. At the very least, it would avoid a bunch of heated arguments… So many people think that after Pavarotti has died, all opera theaters were closed until Paul Potts came along…. I find it sad really that more people today know Paul Potts or Neal Boyd than Roberto Alagna or Juan-Diego Florez. Or Lawrence Brownlee or Stephen Costello or (check out La Scala or Met programs…) I think I once mentioned the names of about half of today tenors singing leading roles in opera houses, and somebody who just claimed how Neal Boyd was the next Pavarotti, told that she is well-rounded in music and she’s never heard of any of the tenors I mentioned. I also read how someone claimed he “loved opera” and who also couldn’t say what his favorite opera is or recognize any of the names of top opera stars. This is by the way what really frustrates both opera fans and opera professionals and is the reason why we are so critical of POPera.

At the very least, the exposure to some real opera singers would make people aware of the difference. Maybe AGT should invite say Roberto Alagna or Renee Fleming as a guest artist to show how some arias should really be sung. Yes, some people simply prefer pop sounding voices to operatic voices, and it’s fine. But there are many people who get a very wrong idea about both the standards of opera, the level of talent in opera.

BTW – Phantom of the Opera is not opera, and even though Emma Rossum sang in children opera chorus as a child she is a Broadway, not an opera singer. I actually like Sarah Brightman in Broadway/pop, but she is no opera singer. Could she have been if she had trained for it? Maybe, but “could have” doesn’t really count.

But this is kind of the inversion of the “Ukrainian ballet kids” discussion. I mean, these are people who’ve spent their *whole lives* practicing and learning. Isn’t that the point of the Cowell franchises: to find the diamonds in the rough who somehow didn’t make it? It’s one thing to day, “If they were any good, they’d be at the Met,” but what about, “Their basic talent is as good as anyone at the Met, but their life circumstances have gotten in the way of their ability to formally study music.

Look at Sarah Brightman. People always said, “She isn’t that great. She just got successful because Andrew Lloyd Webber pushed her career.” There’s a certain extent to which that’s true. She was classically trained growing up. She did have a decent entry-level career before ALW discovered her in the _Cats_ auditions. She’s beome increasingly successful with each decade since.

But when she did _Phantom_, she was young, with basic training (though not as advanced as those who’d spent their whole lives in the opera and/or ballet), and her voice was basically pure talent. She really *was* Christine. Contrast to Emmy Rossum, who grew up at the Met and was fully trained in opera and dance by the time she reached adulthood.

The way I see it, there are two points to a competition like this: a) find those who *did* have the training early on and got sidelined by life’s circumstances, or b) find those who have the natural, unrefined talent–*and train them*. I think the big mistake is saying, “I won this competition” and going right into a career, versus using the competition as a means to get the formal training one has always put off. (That would certainly be my objective if I were selected and won).

In terms of a story, I don’t see much of a problem. First of all, every opera theater gives you the “program” – similar to Playbill you get when you go to Broadway – and it contains a page-long synopsis. You usually get there 15-30 minutes in advance which is more than enough time to sit down and read the story. This is customary for both opera and ballet as the words are often in a foreign language in former and not there in the latter. Second, there are supertitles. At the Met they are normally on the back of a chair in front of you and you can turn them on or off. In other theaters which cannot afford I guess to install complex system Met uses, they are usually broadcast above the stage. BTW – Indiana University’s school of music broadcasts it’s complete opera production of Lucia di Lammermoor over the internet tonight. Completely free, no registration, and with subtitles. It’s a pretty tuneful opera and a very proferssional production; not Met level singing but pretty good nevertheless and the sets are beautiful. There is a link there for live streaming if you want to check it out out of curiosity. http://www.music.indiana.edu/opera/lucia/

Oh yes, I like that quite a bit. The song has been made mainstream by TV I think.

One thing about Opera is you really need to know the story before going. Kind of like when I went to Les Miserable. My friend told me just enough story so that I could really enjoy it. Without that, I would have enjoyed the singing, but missed some of the details. I think Opera is the same.

Operetta is a bit European and for some reason not as popular in the US except for some older musicals (Show Boat, My fair lady) are very similar to operettas. Occasionally an opera theater would produce Lehar’s The Merry Window or Johann’ Strauss’ Die Fledermaus but that’s it.

Operetta combines features of musical and opera:
- spoken dialog, dancing, singing
- classical style of singing
- songs are called arias
- performers able to sing, dance, act, and look the part.
- usually translated into the language of the country where it is produced (except when arias are performed in concert by opera singers). In the link above, in my previous post, the original language should be German (Hungarian composer but living in Vienna), but as it is produced by Moscow Operetta Theater, it’s translated into Russian.
- Vienna is considered the “capital” of operetta; though there are versions in other countries e.g. Spanish zarzuela.

If you are interested, I could find more operetta links or you could just search for “operetta” on YouTube or simply click on some other links from the one above.

This is one in English from movie based on a famous operetta where two leads were performed by famous opera singers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZWF6yjcFLY

I actually have a DVD of this movie from amazon, but the one I have is in German with subtitles (this was an “international” movie with mixed cast, I didn’t even know they also filmed an English version…)

I also think I may have posted in the past the link to opera star Anna Netrebko singing an aria from operetta (subtitled) while dancing, walking around the hall and throwing flowers in to the male members of the audience and orchestra.

I’ve never really seen Carmen. So, I guess no. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a live opera. The most opera I’ve seen lately was a show on PBS before “The Audition” with some people in England or something. That was fantastic and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

One thing to keep in mind is that operas are all different much like songs. You may like one pop song and not like another; you may like one opera and dislike another. I am an opera fan, but there are operas and composers I totally don’t care about, there are operas I adore in their entirety, and there are operas in which I like some parts but not everything. And some are aquired taste. There are specific “operas for beginners”, I think, like La Traviata or Carmen, but some one might not like right away but like at some later point. Initially, I didn’t like Wagner (have you seen Anna Russell’s comic overview?), but when I got back to his music after many years – I shared an office with the guy who was a fan – I started to enjoy his music. My friend though still doesn’t and she is an opera fan.

Personally, my parents simply took me to opera when I was young. I didn’t appreciate first two that much, but was really hooked after the third. In the meantime I learned to love operetta which is a genre which is a bit in-between opera and musical: kind of a flightly funny musical but with operatic style of singing. Like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz_aqefpfuI&feature=related

BTW – so do you like Antonacci’s Carmen?

My only wonder is if someone could bring out the subtleties in the various singers/operas that could change my mind. Not the best example, but Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, took crocodiles to another level of entertainment for me. I wonder if someone with the right passion and knowledge could do the same for opera.