There’s been a fair amount of buzz about what competitions are for going on both on-line and here in Montreal. Lydia at Definitely the Opera raised the question in comments and it came up in conversation at the Salle Bourgie a couple of times last night. I suppose the basic question is are competitions a way for younger, less well known, singers to get notice, attract an agent etc or are they a way for more established young singers to cement their reputation (and maybe make some money)? It’s a reasonable thing to ask because it’s asking a lot to expect a 25 year old in a young artists program to compete with a thirty something who has sung significant roles on major stages.
Both types of singer are evident in Montreal this week. The singers range in age from 24 to 35 with a median age of 29.5. Experience ranges from “left the conservatory last year” to “has sung at the Met”. It really stands out in the hall too. There’s a world of difference between an established and polished performer like John Brancy or Rihab Chaieb and someone new to the limelight like Olga Rudyk. (The frighteningly mature and confident Emily D’Angelo being the exception that proves the rule!).
It’s also been suggested that there is almost becoming something of a competition “circuit”. Many of the CMIM competitors (and judges) also featured at the last Wigmore Hall competition. It’s an interesting thought, especially for art song. Maybe a competition format would drum up more interest than conventional recitals (though rules severely restricting the use of certain songs would surely be necessary).
Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony were in town last night for a one night stand at Roy Thomson Hall. My reason for going was primarily to see Marion Newman sing Ancestral Voices; a work composed for her by Tovey. It’s the composer’s contribution to the sesqui and it deals with the Dominion of Canada’s troubled relationship with the original peoples of this land. The four movements trace an arc from an imagined pre colonial “Arkady” cleverly using a Keats text that deals with a clearly not Canadian imagined state of nature through to Charles Mair’s The Last Bison; a very early warning of what happens when Man and Nature get out of balance. Then comes the most chilling part; an excerpt from a letter in the government archives about residential schools”…separate, isolate, educate; dominate, assimilate; Sow the seeds and forcibly, effectively; Kill the Indian in the child.” It concludes with fragments of letters from Harper and Trudeau cut with parts of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.
operaramblings 