Guild2

For every singer the journey to center stage began somewhere else. But one thing seems to remain constant; almost every one said they knew from an early age that this is what they wanted to do. “I was 17-years old,” recalled Donna Pimental, who resides in Wichita, Kansas “and I joined my high school choir. We were the type of choir that actually did classical choral music – Mozart, Mendelssohn, Handel. I remember falling in love with Mozart’s Requiem, and found myself not being able to get enough of the sound of the classical voice, particularly the soprano.” While Ms. Pimental didn’t take home one of the thirteen awards, her lively rendition of Bernstein’s “Glitter and Be Gay” was a show-stopper by any standard, demonstrating that she not only has a sound singing voice but a flare for the dramatic as well. “I took my clothes off,” she said later, jokingly, adding, “Well not exactly. I took a chance with my Cunegonde. I had a two-part dress that I wore and I simply had fun with it.”
“I can’t remember a time when I did not want to be a singer,” said soprano Sarah Callinan, a Hartford Ct., resident. “I began singing at a very young age in community musical theater productions. I didn’t get serious about singing until I got to high school. My first voice teacher encouraged me to try classical music and I fell in love with it.” Ms. Callinan was one of the top five winners for the day, walking away with the Sylvia E. & Martin A. Rothman Award and a check for $1,000. She sang, “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s Barber of Seville, and was asked to sing “Willow Song” from the Ballard of Baby Doe by Douglas Moore.
Susan Ruggiero-Mezzadri, who was born in Lansing, Michigan, but now resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, said her musical interest was a part of her upbringing. “My father is a composer, a music theory professor, and he is also a jazz drummer. So I grew up listening to jazz and classical music.” Her first instruction in music came when she was in the second grade. “I started piano lessons in second grade, and I begged for a flute in fourth grade. By middle school I knew I wanted to be a musician, but I thought I would be a flutist. It really wasn’t until two years ago when I was accepted into the masters program at the University of Michigan that I decided I would seriously pursue opera.” She sang only one aria on Saturday afternoon: “Oh! Quante Volte” from Bellini’s I Capuleti ei Montecchi”. And for her efforts she was awarded, the Joseph Frank Spada Award, and a check for $500.
Of the two male singers who responded to our questionnaire, Christopher Bolduc, baritone, and winner of the Maestro Willie Anthony Waters 25th Anniversary Award, along with a check for $1,000 said he knew at an early age he wanted to perform. “I’ve played the piano since age 7, and by the seventh grade singing became much more satisfying. It has always been an emotional output for me,” he said. Mr. Bolduc sang Mozart’s “Rivolgete a lui lo squardo” from Cosi fan Tuti, and Bellini’s “Ah per sempre io ti perdei” from I Puritani.
Countertenor, Jason Abrams, winner of the First Place Award, said he just came from a musical family. “My parents had music playing all the time. My mother came from a family where she and her siblings all took piano lessons. . . I was about 7 at which point I started piano lessons. . . I think I first realized that I wanted a career in music during high school. It provided an outlet for frustrations as well as a refuge from a cruel and sometimes hostile school environment.” Interestingly, Mr. Abrams who is a countertenor today began as a tenor, he said, and the decision over which style was best for him confused both him and his voice teachers. “The struggle was that I was [either] a tenor with really easy but light high notes, or a baritone with no low notes.” To figure things out, he attended the University of Arizona in Tucson and studied with tenor Robert Swensen, “who took an interest” in his singing. “It was in my second year of study,” he remembers, “that he and I came to the realization that I was, indeed, a countertenor.”
Actually, Abrams’ story on how this came about is an interesting one. “I’ll never forget the lesson in which we had that revelation,” he says. “As I remember it, I kept cracking as I approached the passaggio and was growing increasingly frustrated. Swensen stopped me and said: ‘Sing it up an octave and let me hear it.’ I proceeded to sing and he dialed his wife (a mezzo) up on the phone, and held out the phone while I sang. He stopped me again, and held the phone back up to his ear and asked his wife what she thought. She asked, ‘What sex is the singer?’ and he said, ‘That’s Jason Abrams’. She said, ‘That sounds like money in the bank.’” On Saturday afternoon, the "ka-ching"of success must have sounded sweet to this winning countertenor.

Competition is a strenuous undertaking. You know you’re good; you’ve been selected as a finalist. But there are 32 of you, and only 14 will walk away with an award. What goes through one’s mind? Surprisingly, winning was never mentioned. Each respondent, who has already performed before audiences in live productions, recitals, or in other competitions, said they were concerned mostly about their performance and how they would sound, and little else. “When I was introducing myself to the judges and the audience,” said Sarah Callinan, “I was a little concerned that my voice would have trouble carrying in that hall, but shortly after I began the first aria, I just got into the character and tried to have fun.” Callinan said that whenever she has opted to play it safe, “I have found that my performance suffers for it.”
Donna Pimental agreed. “I was worried that the hall was a bit dead acoustically. However once I got up there I was fine. Looks are deceiving.” Like Callinan, she, too, said that once in character, she is fine. “I like the rafters,” she said, alluding to her comfort singing soubrette roles as well as the lighter lyric coloratura, “plus they show all that I can do as an actress and a singer.”
Meredith Ziegler agreed. “I try not to be concerned while singing especially in competition/audition situations. My main goal is to sing the best that I can and be committed to the text that I am singing.” As for taking chances, her answer was simple: “Nope!”
Susan Ruggiero-Mezzadri did say that the long wait to sing affected her, somewhat. “After waiting pretty much all day, I had a long period of time to get nervous. Also, the aria is a fairly long one, so sometimes the judges don’t have the time to listen to another aria.” As for taking chances, she said she played it by ear. “I think any time singers perform, we have to take chances to keep ourselves interested and to keep the audience engaged. When I am extremely comfortable with an aria,” she added, “I am more likely to take bigger chances.”
Interestingly, the men seemed a bit more cautious. In answer to the question: did you take any chances, Christopher Bolduc answered, “Nope! I take chances in the practice room; in performance, I stick to what I know works.” As for what concerned him, Bolduc said he was confident in the pieces he chose and “was concerned with normal singer things: hoping the high notes come out the way I wanted them to, that I would not get vocally tired by the end of the second aria, etc.” Like Bolduc, Jason Abrams expressed caution, too. Did you take any chances, he was asked? “Not really,” he answered. To the extent he took any chances they were not with his singing, but with his movement on stage. “I’ve been experimenting with using more of the stage during auditions which can be a challenge.” But as for vocal gymnastics, don’t expect any. The only concern he expressed for the day was the affect the tiring three hour ride to the competition might have had on his voice. If he was tired, he said, the presence of an audience revived him. “The fact that there was an audience present really helped. I feel I perform much better before an audience.”

Each singer expressed the same hopes and aspirations, even if in different ways. They come from all parts of the country to compete and be seen, and they accept travel as a natural and necessary part of their business. Some pay their own way, others, like Donna Pimental, expressed gratitude for organizations such as the Kansas Cultural Trust, "which allows me to to be able to afford travel, food, lodging etc. for competitions and auditions." Interestingly, while seasoned singers almost uniformly express a desire to settle in and perform closer to home, those entering the profession seem to uniformly express an interest in traveling and seeing the world in the process. It seems to be an evolutionary process that sustains itself and the profession and provides a continuing source of new talent that is the future of opera. This competition, as all competitions, bring out the best and demand from each singer a personal commitment that, as surely as anything else, will determine whether a future in opera is possible, or whether they are just passing through. Only time will tell.
For these young artists, the adjudicators may judge their voices, but it is the competition that will test their mettle. They persevere, they move on, they compete; they seek a place in a competitive business that recognizes talent, but requires nothing less than obeisance to its grueling demands to succeed.