Auditions - Not Quite American Idol (But Sometimes It Feels Like It Is)

One of the hats I wear under at the opera under my official title of Patron & Community Services Manager is Audition Coordinator. In a nut shell, here are how auditions happen…

We have three separate types of auditions: mainstage – for the shows that you see on stage at The Bushnell or the Palace; resident artist – for the four singers that make up our Education and Outreach troupe, Opera Express; and chorus. Our mainstage auditions are held in New York City, usually over a three day period. Chorus auditions are held at our studios in Hartford, usually in early September. The Resident Artist auditions this year are actually spread out over three month period, with two days in New York City, one evening in Hartford and one day in Boston. If you think that’s a lot, as of writing this I have no slots open. That means that Willie, Linda and Chris will be hearing approximately 150 singers for 4 positions. Willie and Linda heard about 140 last weekend during mainstage auditions.

One of the first challenges in auditions is finding a venue. Luckily, over the past couple of years, we have not been doing our auditions when every other opera company does theirs. From late November to just before Christmas (seemingly) every opera company in the country comes to New York City and holds auditions for both their mainstage and Resident Artist programs. What ensues is general mayhem as singers (and pianists – mostly freelancers who make their living coaching singers, conducting and playing auditions) run all over town trying to get to their auditions on time. Add a little rain or snow to the (wintry) mix and you get bedraggled and dazed singers running from the lower east side to the west side and back to mid-town trying to land that coveted role (and their next paycheck). Then, if one company is running late –and there are several companies who are notorious for running hours behind schedule – it messes everything up. Singers dashing in at the last minute or long past their scheduled time apologizing profusely as skirts and pantyhose get hiked up and straightened and sensible shoes get tossed to the side as the spike heels are squeezed into all the while begging an idle pianist to play for them.

Even when we do our auditions in February, as we did last year and this year, sometimes it’s difficult to find an appropriate audition venue. Last year I was unable to secure some of our normal audition haunts so we had to go to a large studio complex which consisted of a long hallway with several dance-type studios lined up on either side. On the first day of auditions we were treated to a summer-stock open casting call complete with dancers. The second day was an open casting call for (gasp!) High School Musical 2. The final day was Salsa dance classes with booming music through the hallways. This year has been much more sedate thus far.

The process goes something like this: Once the repertoire is decided for the next season I send out a notice to a list of music agents and post the announcement in various musical publications and web-sites such as Classical Singer and YAP Tracker. I then sit back and wait. I am not exaggerating when I say that as soon as I hit send on my email I can expect to get resumes and headshots in less then 10 minutes. I will receive over 100 submissions over a weekend. There’s a reason that I state emphatically on the announcement, “NO PHONE CALLS!” I would never get any work done otherwise.

Often, Willie and Linda already have ideas about who they would like to cast in certain roles from singers that have performed with Connecticut opera before, those they have worked with elsewhere and some they have seen perform elsewhere. With those things in mind, they wade through all the submissions and decide who they would like to hear. I then call the agent or singer to set up times. Invariably the agent wants to know why we want to hear only one of their singers and not the other. It is quite amazing how many agents represent the next Ben Heppner or Maria Callas that we must absolutely hear! Then comes several weeks of agents canceling and changing times. Of course, every time we have auditions some sort of plague (or flu, or dengue fever etc.) ravages the New York singing community so we have plenty of last minute cancellations and no shows.

At last come the auditions themselves. My role is to sit outside the room and make sure that we run on time that people sing in the order they were assigned shush people like Marion the Librarian, and get Willie and Linda lunch. The best part of monitoring the auditions as I do is that you become invisible to the singers and their agents. This is how I see and hear singers upbraided by agents; singers break down in tears, singers’ declarations of quitting singing and lots of strange stretching exercises.

By the time the third straight day of auditions rolls around, the only thing I can think about is not having to have auditions anymore. Most of the singers are quite personable and the pianists are always great to catch up with, though it is not very glamorous when it comes right down to it. There are a lot of artists out there singing for very few positions; and when it comes right down to it, many of them should start thinking about that accounting degree they abandoned to pursue their dream of singing on the opera stage.