Welcome to Pure America's Got Talent

Ok, I had to use that special title with the word “opera” since I know long time reader Kitty will love it. I’ll start out by saying that Cindy Chang is not an opera singer. Plus, I don’t know why they were acting like they were blown away. Seriously? I thought she was one of the worst “operatic” sounding voices that I’ve heard on the show. At least ones that they put through to Vegas. Was I missing something? In case you didn’t catch it, her audition video is below.

Cindy Chang’s Operatic Audition

Turns out she’s also a bit of a fake. AGT News wrote an article talking about Cindy Chang’s real background. Turns out there might be more to Cindy Chang’s story than what she let on. She’s been singing for quite a while and has an agent.

Of course, this isn’t really news for anyone that’s been reading this site for a while. Many past contestants had stories told for them (I give the producers credit for not telling the full story) on America’s Got Talent that weren’t completely true. It’s not really that big of a deal to me. Although, some people won’t like the fakeness of it all.

Either way, I didn’t like Cindy Chang’s singing before I knew that she had more experience than she let on, so I don’t like her any more or less now. Although, her random laughing was pretty funny to watch.

We’ve had a number of VERY lively discussions in the comments of previous posts about the Opera that’s being sung on America’s Got Talent. The most famous one being winner Neal E. Boyd, but also joining the discussion is Donald Braswell and last season’s Barbara Padilla.

The discussion really centers around how good the opera singers are that sing on America’s Got Talent. Many reasonably say that if they had ‘real’ opera talent they’d be singing in other places. The discussion also usually leads to pop opera versus traditional opera.

One of those opera fans pointed out to me that there will be a documentary called “The Audition” on PBS. The movie is about the semi finals and finals of the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions – the most prestigious professional opera competition in North America. In Northern Westchester, NY (Cablevision) it’ll be on PBS on Jan 20th at 9pm.

Seeing this type of hard core opera competition might be a way for people to become more educated on the quality of the opera singers that are trying out for places like the Met. I’ll be keeping an eye out for this. It won’t have the same entertainment value as something like America’s Got Talent I’m sure, but it will have much more educational value. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it myself.