Tuesday evening in the RBA members of the COC Ensemble Studio competed for the biannual Christina and Louis Quilico Awards.  These days every time I attend a singing competition, which I have been doing much less of, I ask myself why.  There are really three reasons:

• The music to faffing about ratio is pretty low,
• If one knows the contestants one has a pretty good idea what they are going to sing and one has probably heard it before,
• The judges give no reasons for their decisions which are as often as not inscrutable.

To be fair, last night there was far less faffing about than at Centre Stage (or whatever it’s called these days) but, still, twelve arias in an hour and a half isn’t a lot of music.  The chosen rep however was quite predictable.  And why wouldn’t it be?  The singers know which material is going to show them at best advantage.  So eight of the twelve arias (I think) were ones I had heard the singer perform before.

They were all somewhere from good to excellent; which is exactly what one expects at this stage in the ES cycle.  And they were all predictable.  Korin Thomas-Smith showed he has comedic flair and great moves.  Karoline Podolak was technically spot on if perhaps looking a bit like she wondered why she was doing this over for the nth time.  Duncan Stenhouse was utterly solid but did reveal a previously unseen comic side with Britten’s “Bottom’s Dream”

Emily Rocha was stylish, polished and paid close attention to the text.  Queen Hezumuryango sang with power and passion but not a lot of nuance.  And Wesley Harrison showed that he is a very fine tenor in the lighter rep.  Mattia Senesi and Brian Cho at the piano weren’t up for prizes but perhaps they should have been.

Steven Philcox, Morgan Reid and Roberto Mauro decided the top three as Stenhouse, Thomas-Smith and Rocha.  Joseph So and I largely agreed with each other but we weren’t judging.  And so it goes…

Photo credit: Gaetz photography