Surfacing

Apologies for the paucity of new entries. The post-season fatigue was significant, and right now I seem to only have enough energy to take care of essentials. But the blog is still getting about 5,000 readers a month ("unique" visitors as they're called in the world of internet statistics.... but then again, you opera folks are nothing if not unique...), so I'd better get back with the program.

Yes, this means that I'm not giving up, even though I fully expected to. Enough folks have urged me to consider continuing the blog, so I'll give it a go. Look for frequent and reasonably substantive posts during the height of the audition season (mid-October through Thanksgiving). Until then, I'll write weekly. There are a few entries that I began during this past season that I'd like to finish and post - important stuff that I hesitated to publish at the time for various reasons.

The photo above is from my mom's garden. She died suddenly last week, far too soon. Spend time today with someone you love.

I'll be back next week.

Looking for Audition Information?

Information on our fall auditions will be available soon (I promise!) at www.wolftrap.org/opera/audition.html.

Our new online application process is up and running at www.wolftrapopera.org/application.

The basic information, including audition tour dates and sites, may be found below.

APPLICATION & AUDITION SCHEDULE

Philadelphia - November 6 (Application Deadline October 6)
New York - November 8 through 12 (Application Deadline October 6)
Houston - November 13 (Application Deadline October 16)
San Francisco - November 15 (Application Deadline October 16)
Cincinnati - November 16 & 17 (Application Deadline October 16)
Chicago - November 18 (Application Deadline October 20)
Vienna, VA - November 20 & 21 (Application Deadline October 20)

APPLICATION PROCESS

1) TO APPLY ONLINE
The online application must be completed in a single browser session, so before you
begin, be sure that you have the following information:

• Which audition site you’d like to request.
• A list of young artist training programs in which you’ve participated.
• A list of any awards, grant or prizes you may have received.
• A list of up to 5 complete roles you’ve performed.
• Your 4 audition arias. (Comprising varied styles and languages, including one aria
  by either Mozart or Handel and one aria in English.)
• Credit card information in order to pay the non-refundable $25 application fee.
• Your résumé and headshot as files to upload. (You do have the option of sending
  the résumé and/or headshot by mail.)
• IMPORTANT: Even if you meet the online submission deadline, any
  accompanying materials sent by regular mail must meet the postmark
  deadline.

If you’d like to apply online, click go here to begin the online application process.

2) TO APPLY BY MAIL

If you’d like to apply by mail, go to www.wolftrap.org/opera/audition.html to navigate to the printable PDF application.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

1) APPLICATION CONFIRMATION

• We do not automatically confirm receipt of applications sent by mail.
• Applications that do not meet the deadline will not be considered.
• If you apply online, you will receive a confirmation email when you complete the
  application process.

2) AUDITION NOTIFICATION

• All applicants will be notified as to whether or not they have been scheduled for an
  audition approximately 2 weeks before the requested audition date.
• If you do not hear from us, and it is less than 2 weeks before your requested date,
  please contact us at wtocauditions@wolftrap.org.

3) AUDITION PROCESS

• An accompanist will be provided, but you may bring your own accompanist if you prefer.
• Singers may change audition repertoire. Please bring an updated list to the audition.
• Singers will begin their auditions with the aria of their choice. An additional aria may be
  requested.

OPTIONAL AUDIO RECORDING

Applicants may increase their chances of being scheduled for an audition by submitting an
audio CD. Please label your CD clearly with your name and the selections it contains. Include at least two arias, one of which must be in Italian.

INFO FOR APPRENTICE COACH & DIRECTOR APPLICANTS

• Fill out all fields except “Awards”, “Complete Roles” and “Audition Repertoire.”
• We will contact you to determine mutually agreeable audition repertoire.
• You must submit a résumé, but no headshot is necessary.
• In addition, apprentice coach and apprentice director candidates must submit two letters of recommendation.

2007 SEASON INFORMATION

• Repertoire for the 2007 season has not been chosen and will be determined based on the strengths of the various voice types heard during the audition tour.
• Approximate season dates for 2007 residencies are May 14 through August 18.
• Filene Young Artists receive a bi-weekly stipend, including the terms of a standard AGMA soloist contract for those artists cast in the opera presented at the Filene Center.
• Although housing expenses are not included in the compensation package, Wolf Trap Opera assists all incoming artists in locating housing with volunteer hosts within reasonable commuting distance. Access to a car is necessary since there is no public transportation convenient to Wolf Trap.

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

• The Wolf Trap Opera Company summer residency is intended for aspiring singers, coaches, and directors who are at an interim point between academic training and full-time professional careers.
• Exceptional talent and operatic career potential are the most important criteria for selection.
• Applicants should be able to present a secure technique, evidence of solid training, a distinctive vocal quality, a high level of personal artistry, and readiness to perform carefully selected solo roles.
• Most successful candidates are currently enrolled in or have recently completed graduate or professional degrees, and/or are not more than 2-3 years past completion of academic training.

La folle journée

Shame on me for not posting more often this week. Figaro opens tomorrow night, and we're terribly proud of it. It looks as if the weather just might cooperate, too. I'm not superstitious but still think it would be unwise to be too cocky. At this venue, the bottom line can be scarily dependent on barometric pressure.

If you're in the DC area, we're looking forward to seeing you at the Filene Center. Good tickets are still available in every price range for both Friday and Saturday. If you're here on Saturday, come to the pre-show talk at 7:00. I have yet to figure out what to say, but I'm sure it'll be just fine.

Pictures on today's entry are courtesy of Stan Barouh, and they come from last night's dress rehearsal.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. (Thomas Carlyle)

Opera tech weeks are never a walk in the park, but they're particularly punishing in an outdoor multi-use venue. I'm increasingly dependent on a decent night's sleep in order to be coherent, and there hasn't been a lot of that this week. We get to go home by around 2am (and we're the lucky ones... stage management and lighting staff stay until sunrise) and come back less than 8 hours later. They keep telling me that the older one gets, the less sleep one needs, but I have yet to see it kick in.

Audition Season Starts Next Month!

If you're looking for audition information for 2007, it should be up on the Wolf Trap website by September 1. We're hoping to roll out a completely online application experience - interactive application forms, opportunity to upload your resume and headshot, and a secure credit card payment page for the application fee. Should beat filling out forms, getting money orders, and paying for overnight mailing :)

Postscripts

I've had a love/hate relationship with this blog, and in many ways I've been looking forward to letting it go. Living the examined life has its assets, but I'm not sure I have the stamina to continue doing it.

I planned to type the final chapter as of closing night of this season, but I do have some postscripts. Things that have come up in these last few weeks that I really should write about, but I'm simply too tired. So I'll go against my better judgment (something at which I have a lot of practice), and I'll be back with a few afterthoughts in a couple of weeks.

Tech Week

Home Stretch

Beautiful music and great company last night at The Barns, with Steven Blier's Four Islands...













...and a terrific trip through Figaro yesterday afternoon during our designer run at the Center for Education.


Now we move into the theatre. Overnight lighting call just began about an hour ago. It's the main difficulty with producing in an open air theatre - the only time to work on lighting is between 11pm and sunrise.

Now just pray that the good weather holds until next weekend!

I'd say more, but my brain has turned to mush. Sorry.

$6,774.48

Thinking a lot about money. Waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-kind-of-thinking-about-money. We're going into the most expensive week of our entire season, as we move into our big theatre for Figaro. So it's good to find out ...

How Much Is My Blog Worth?

I visited the Business Opportunities Weblog today, and learned that this blog is worth $6,774.48. I figure that could buy us some costumes, pay for lighting time or orchestra overtime. If you come back here next week and I'm gone, it's because I've cashed in. :)

Negligence

Posting tonight from Figaro rehearsal because my stage managers have shamed me into doing so. Haven't written since Sunday. The days just all run together. Why is there so much to do?

Thank goodness the curtain has to go up. Otherwise all of this drivel would just expand until it suffocates us. Right now it's all about the *@&$^$ supertitles.

Instead of listening to me whine, visit this great new blog by one of our singers.

A Mini-Vacation

It's really very exciting, what with a terrific concert with Steven Blier on the horizon this weekend, and Figaro going into the theatre next week. There are tickets remaining for Four Islands (Steve's concert on Saturday) at The Barns. Program will include:

Britten's arrangements of songs from Moore's Irish Melodies

L’île heureuse (Chabrier)
Youkali (Weill)

Chansons madécasses (Ravel)
Lamento cubano (Grenet)
La cleptómana (Luna)
Island in the West Indies (Duke)
Enchanted Train (Kern)
What a Movie! (Bernstein)
Manhattan Madness (Berlin)

Manhattan (Rodgers)

Steve is brilliant, and our singers respond to him in unique, surprising, and marvelous ways. Audiences are the beneficiaries of their collaboration, as well as Steve's beautiful innate musicianship and his easy charm. I can't think of a better place to be this Saturday evening.

See, just writing about it has made me less cranky!

Dangerous Dukas

It was a symphonic weekend, starting with guest soloist Renee Fleming on Thursday evening. The concert opener was Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice, and in the 12 minutes that elapsed from downbeat to cutoff, we went from stagnant 95-degree heat to a full-blown meteorological event. As the final notes died away, the storm reached its peak and we were plunged into darkness.

Well, it wasn't really that dramatic, but continuing the show with backup power was a challenge. Emil entertained the crowd for a few minutes (including a plug for the upcoming Wizard of Oz that encouraged folks to come and enjoy "If I Only Had a Brain - a song you wish you'd hear more often in Washington, DC."

Friday night brought a "Video Game Symphony" - about 6,000 concert-goers, many many of them first-timers. My son's a gamer, so this stuff isn't all new to me. And some of the scores aren't bad at all. It's film music for a new generation and it certainly has a fighting chance to re-invent the Symphonic Pops audience. I'm not one of those folks who believes that the Pops audience will ever migrate to mainstream symphony in any significant numbers, but I'm still all for this. (A scene from Mario Bros. on the giant screen above)

Last Songs

I did appreciate Tim Page's article in yesterday's Post about the passing of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. Most particularly this paragraph:

The best evaluation of Schwarzkopf remains that of the English critic J.B. Steane in his invaluable book "The Great Tradition": "The thought and art are so marvelously exact that one wants to call them calculated, which immediately suggests something unfeeling and insincere; yet this is self-evidently absurd, for insincerity, like sentimentality, betrays itself by inexactness and distortion. What one has in Schwarzkopf is a high degree of awareness -- of colors and styles, and of the existence of choice."

Indeed, that's something that we're too often willing to overlook when we work with aspiring singers. We could do worse than to cultivate a high degree of awareness of the power of choice.

(Postscript: I must confess, though, that I was among those young musicians terrified during a master class with Miss Schwarzkopf in the 80's.)

Passing It On

Speaking of such things, I've forgotten to report that three of our singers did a Non-Master Class a few weeks ago with some aspiring high school and undergraduate singers. The idea is to allow the younger singers to ask questions of artists who are just a few steps beyond them in their career paths. And who are likely to have more detailed, current answers to their burning career questions than the teachers/coaches/parents. Things like whether or not it's essential to go to a big name conservatory for undergraduate study (emphatically no), whether it's OK to move your arms at all in an audition (yes), and how critical it is to develop a full character in order to sing an excerpted aria (very).

Other topics included language fluency and study, the difficulty in performing baroque da capo arias, ways to deal with preludes/postludes/interludes, and how important it is to keep one's perspective in this wacky industry.

Flowers 8.06.06

Doing remarkably well in spite of the neglect.