Opera is a meritocracy
So we learn from Susan Froemke’s Metropolitan Opera-commissioned documentary about the participants in the final round of the 2007 MetNational Council Auditions, which is out on DVD
Since you are all wondering whether to rush out with $20 in your hands, perhaps a few remarks on the DVD release are in order.
We only first glimpse the competitors in April of 2007, when they have already been invited to the semifinals in New York, having made it through fierce competition in regional auditions. Eleven are chosen for the finals. Why them? How did these get here? As one of the judges tells us, “Making a career in opera is not one in a hundred… It’s one in thousands.” They are looking for singers “who have what it takes, who will make an interesting artist one day.” In other words: why not them?
Froemke has given us a very sensitive and perceptive, but disinterested, film that reveals these young singers in tender and emotionally unpredictable moments, in a competition where the stakes could not be higher. She avoids overdramatizing their plight almost at the expense of her point-of view. The result is grandly-paced documentary, and a voyeuristic pleasure (if that is the word, since it is hard to feel either envy or Schadenfreude for their situation) that plays far above the reality TV bar.
Well, almost. Tenor Michael Fabiano, at 22 the youngest of the singers documented, indulges a cameraman with a diabtribe about the audition process, specifically the tricky business of putting on smiling faces with backstage buddies who are, after all, competitors. Defensive in posture and with something of a chip on his shoulder, he grinds the axe a bit. But it’s hard to hold this against him, since the self-doubt in his rambling is both palpable and understandable under such pressures. And it isn’t likely to detract much from his career either, since he happens to be a spectacularly gifted Verismo tenor, an intuitive artist with amazing power and ping.
But not all singers get to the Met Finals quite so fully formed. The judges are also laying down bets – about whose voices will mature and find a Fach, and who has the personal strength for this punishing career path – in short, who will have staying power. During a preliminary audition, Alek Shrader, a lyric-leggiero tenor in the Florez/Banks mould, already has the the high c’s and the character for a Nemorino or Almaviva incubating solidly. Alas, during a preliminary audition he has some trouble ending “Una furtiva lagrima” in tune, winding up a half-step flat at the end. Though his face betrays nothing as the accompanist sets down the final chords, it must have been crushing.
But, to tell the truth, in these early coachings, most of the singers are struggling. Many seem awkward displaying much more than the notes, mugging or gesticulating cheaply as they perform an aria out of context and lacking a director’s concept. Maybe it’s just auditions. Or maybe they’re not ready yet, but they’ve got It. How do the judges know?
“Someone who has something to say. Someone who is connected to the music –what the composer has to say. It’s about communication, not just about singing” is how Jonathan Friend, the Met’s Artistic Administrator, describes his ideal. Gina Lipinsky, a Met vocal coach, echoes him: “Opera is moving away from the idea that a voice is all that matters – everybody is looking for a package.”
One thing this film captures subtly, though vividly, is the extraordinary musical transformation that takes place during their time at the Met. The week spent at the Met preparing for the final audition is as much workshop as competition, because the Met supplies expert coaching, musical and repertoire guidance, and breathing classes. Ryan Smith, Kiera Duffy and Amber Wagner make particular strides.
In the final concert, all seem to have overcome many of the flaws in their earlier singing: voices have opened up; top notes, once crude, now have polish and gleam; music and text have connected; baritones know what to do with their hands. The experience has transformed them into artists, ready for whatever the future holds. Though, even after the winners are announced, that future remains a mystery.
Bonus features included in the DVD include a lively conversation with Renee Fleming, Susan Graham and Thomas Hampson, all once winners of the Met auditions. They reminisce about their experiences as young contestants, and offer advice to aspiring singers on repertoire and audition preparation. Also included is lengthy on-location footage from regional auditions in Texas, where we get a closer look at the weeding-out process, and eavesdrop on some very candid discussions between jury members Friend and Speight Jenkins. The DVD release is region-free, and lasts 157 minutes.
Postscript: One talented and genuine singer from Atlanta, Ryan Smith, sounds rather tight in “Che gelida manina” at the start of this film, but finishes with a triumphant performance that is mature, ardent, and crafty. Ryan was diagnosed with lymphoma not long after being named a winner in the 2007 auditions, and he died in 2008. Though we don’t learn too much about him from the film, his singing was a pleasure to witness, and his death is a tragedy.
i wonder why this dvd isn’t showing up on netflix?
I think it’s a slow roll-out for the national release. It is available through the Met Gift Shop
http://tinyurl.com/lkcoyl
Wide commercial release is… La Cieca, do you know?
“…everybody is looking for a package.”
..she’s been reading the Barihunks page!
I really enjoyed this film. Thanks for bringing it to our attention again. All of these talented competitors sing with passion and conviction. Plus you get to hear so many musical excerpts…from Handel to Cilea…from “Casta Diva” to “Hurr Hopp Hopp Hopp”! I hope it comes to Amazon soon.
I echo No Expert’s appreciation for highlighting this film, and I look forward to owning the DVD once it’s in wide release. I was hoping the added features might include entire arias rather than the excerpts featured in the movie — although admittedly some of the excerpts are fairly lengthy. Alek Shrader matriculated from the Denver-area Met Regionals into the finals, so I had the pleasure of hearing him sing four arias (two each in the Colorado/Wyoming Quarter-Finals and CO-WY-UTAH Semis), and it was apparent from the moment he opened his mouth that he deserved to go on to New York.
probably, though netflix does frequently let one “save” a film to one’s queue even when no release date has been announced (i have five such movies in my queue currently).
alek Schrader sang with Paulo Szot and Lisette Oropesa. Some fine moments and a lot of promise. And voyeurism requires neither schadenfreude nor envy. I thought your choice of words was perfect.
From descriptions of his voice, I have to wonder why Aleck Shrader
is cast by Santa Fe as Albert Herring next summer; it is hardly a
high leggiero voice, though it should be a young one — and I assume
Shrader is attractive in apperance. Santa Fe usually requires that.
Bingo! Alek is attractive in person. He also has a wonderful, warm voice, but then I’ve heard him at SF War Memorial and in a much smaller venue for a recital. I don’t know how he’d sound outside. Or is the SFe Opera space friendlier to voices than most open air theaters?
Is anyone supremely excited for Lisette Oropesa and Annette Dasch in Figaro next week? I sure am!
Next week?!
Man this season is flying by!
I didn’t completely understand why Ryan McKinny didn’t make the final cut — first of all, drool: http://www.ryanmckinny.com/ryanmckinny.com/Home.html
But beyond that, I remember him having a really big bass-baritone voice (barihunks indeed) in the movie.
Anyway, I picked up an extra nosebleed ticket for the matinee of Barbiere at LA Opera in December (I’m actually going to make up for the Di Donato-Florez-Gunn Chicago Lyric production I got cheated out of two years back when Florez conveniently claimed to have swallowed a bone and cancelled all his engagements the month before he got married) to hear his Basilio.
Because during the movie, when I figured out he was doing Ford’s (for me) thankless aria for the final, I thought “Why isn’t this guy singing ‘La calunnia’?” — you know, come un colpo di cannone and all….well, now he is. I’ll let y’all know how he does, as well as whether His Nasality decides to show up this time for the evening performance.
Odd to me that he is singing bass-baritone now. He certainly sounded like a baritone to me in the film. Whatever…
McKinney is currently singing the Heerrufer in “Lohengrin” in Houston right now with his bass partner on the Barihunks blog – Gunther Groissbock.
The Audition is now available on Met Player as well.
I liked the film’s behind the scenes information, but that’s about it.
What I found frustrating were the shifts and wild inconsistencies in style. For instance, they follow Mikey Fabs as he walks the Streets of Philadelphia a la Springsteen (although I don’t recall the Bruce wandering over to Spruce and into the AVA), while theres’ a voice-over narration of some kind from the kid. Does Froemke do it for anyone else? Nope.
I understand that the Fab was one of the stars of the movie, but is it really in the interest of a documentary filmmaker not only to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to one person (which isn’t a problem, really, if the kid’s so interesting, which he is, and others got a lot of camera time, also) but–and here’s the real crime–to treat that subject with a more attentive cinematic style and technique and tell his story differently than the others?
But I also acknowledge that Froemke’s directorial balls may have been squeezed by the Met, who probably bankrolled a good portion of it, and most definitely had say in how its process is portrayed. How does a filmmaker balance the demands of the money bags against those of her own artistic integrity?
No one was expecting it to be a revolution in documentary style in the vein of Leon Gast’s 1996 examination of the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and Foreman, the awesome, jaw-on-the-floor, mouth agape, incredible suspenseful and moving “When We Were Kings” (which was awesome because it interwove dictatorial politics in Zaire with the music of Miriam Makeba and the boxing storyline–sorry I love this movie), although Froemke could have explored the dictatorial politics of the Met–is Peter Gelb the opera world’s Mobutu Sese Seko? But, even though she had to deal with the fact that she was really making a fluff piece for the Met, she could have given us something a little less…blaah…
I’ve never been to Santa Fe, but if he can be heard in the Family Circle at the Met, I think he can sing Albert. Albert is a young man after all, so a light leggiero timbre is perfect, a la the Nemorino below.