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By Paul Joseph Walkowski
OperaOnline.us

Hartford, CT – On Saturday, May 17th, the Connecticut Opera Guild invited over 30 talented young singers to compete for over $25,000 in scholarships. The winners were awarded scholarships, sponsored by various Connecticut Opera supporters, ranging from $500 to $10,000. Judges for the competition were Alan Mann, Artistic Director of Mississippi Opera and Opera Theatre of Connecticut, Robin Thompson, Producing Artistic Director of New York City Opera, and Connecticut Opera’s Artistic Director, Willie Anthony Waters.

For the second year in a row the Connecticut Opera Guild also offered a “People’s Choice Award” where audience members voted for their favorite. Surprising both the audience and judges, the people’s choice went to the same singer as the judges’ top choice, soprano Rachele Gilmore. Chosen from over 160 applicants, the young singers performed an aria of their choice and sang to an audience of Hartford community members.

That’s the short version.

For young singers who take center stage in competitions all around the world, the journey begins much earlier. For most, the journey starts in high school when a music teacher notices something special about their developing voice; for others it blossoms while attending college or a university, where their vocal abilities are encouraged and channeled toward classical. The fact is, it takes years before a singer even gets the opportunity to walk across the stage, place one’s sheet music on a piano, turn toward the judges and announce oneself and the aria of their choice. Daunting? Sure. But if you hope to be an opera singer, it kind of goes with the territory – a territory, surprisingly, most young singers actually enjoy.

As most singers will tell you a cash award at the end of the day and recognition is nice, but these are not always uppermost on their minds when they sing. Most competitors have already performed on the professional stage and many others earn at least part of their living expenses singing in concert, teaching etc. They may be early in their careers, but none are amateurs. So when they take center stage in a competition it’s not to learn or practice or experiment. It’s all very serious, all very important – and it’s not all about the money. What is on their minds, then? Their future, for one. While many enter competition, 160 for the Guild, only some thirty are chosen to compete, and then even fewer still will walk away with money and an award. All, however, enjoy the same chance to be recognized, usually by judges and others in the audience who might help launch their career. If you want to be recognized, you have to be prepared to compete. It’s the nature of the beast.

“I have done many competitions,” said this year’s top winner, soprano Rachele Gilmore, in an interview after the Guild’s grueling five hour vocal ordeal, “It’s imperative to get your name out there,” she said, adding “and nearly impossible, for an American singer in this day and age to launch a career without entering competitions.”

Gilmore, a native of Atlanta Georgia (and New York resident now) like most others, has made her mark singing in competitions. She was a winner of the “Operalia Opera Contest,” the “Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation Competition,” the “Gerda Lissner Competition” and a National Semi-Finalist in the “Met Competition.” This fall, she’ll be singing Zerlina for Connecticut Opera and has another opera engagement lined up next year to singe Mary Warren in Opera Orlando’s “The Crucible.”

This time around, Gilmore was more than pleased with her performance. “When you are at the beginning of your career, to have someone recognize and confirm everything that you work so hard for every day, is something very special.”

She chose “Par le rang . . . Salut a la France” from “La fille du Regiment,” because of its bel canto appeal, she said. “It shows every aspect of the voice,” she explained, “legato line, coloratura, range and style.” This wasn’t her first time at the Guild’s event; either, she competed the previous year as a semi-finalist, but didn’t walk away with an award. Last year, top honors went to Philadelphia-born Takesha Meshé Kizart. Undaunted, Gilmore came back, and this year scored big. This year, she said, she felt she “gave a very solid performance and was particularly happy with some of the dynamic contrasts I was able to make.” Others recognized this too, because she not only won “The Maestro Award,” of $10,000, but was picked by the audience as its favorite, as well, earning an additional $1,000 “People’s Choice Award.”

Gilmore says two big influences in her singing career are Carol Vanes who came into her life about seven years ago “and was the first person who really started to make me think that I could actually do this,” and her current teacher Michael Paul “who is the most dedicated teacher I know and without a doubt, the most talented.”

The future looks bright for this talented and fit singer.

Soprano Elizabeth Baldwin, a native of Sylvania, Ohio, whom we wrote about in last year’s competition scored high this year as well, placing second and winning the “Del Drummey/Connectiicut Opera Guild Award” and taking away $5,000 for her efforts. “I was just thrilled to try again this year,” she said after the competition, “because of the fact that I had such a great experience last year.” As she did last year, Baldwin still looks at competitions philosophically, speaking of her record thgus far this way: “I won some great awards, didn’t win others, and didn’t even get into a few.” Still, she said, “it was a very interesting season. You never know what’s going to happen, but you try anyway to see.”

This year, Baldwin chose as her first vocal, “Rusalka’s Aria” from Dvorak’s “Rusalka.” “It’s a piece that just moves me,” she said, “and takes me to that special place. Plus, I absolutely love to sing it. She is such an amazing character and I am drawn to her complex innocent nature.” Baldwin, a former mezzo, says she enjoys singing in the middle register, too, because “it’s just so liberating and fun.” The judges asked her to sing “Ah, fuggi il traditor,” from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” While she sang it well, she said she felt that for just a moment before taking center stage she began to drift and lose her focus. “I allowed myself to dwell on the choices and the dreaded should-a, would-a, could-a’s, but in the end I had to find my focus again and be positive.”