I was at the auditions for the Spring 2011 intake to the Lyric Opera's Ryan Center today.  But I had to leave before the announcement was made so this report on today's proceedings is just my opinion not the reporting of facts!

Once again there as a strong turnout and I have no doubt that there were some candidates that they would love to have taken had there only been room.  And those perhaps will be picked up by us at COT.  In fact we have a close working relationship with the Lyric management and it is now a regular matter for us to have Ryan Center artists in principal roles with our company.  And I hope this will continue.  It is a nice little bonus for everyone - our season does not clash with Lyric and they can continue with their off season work at Lyric while rehearsing and performing for COT.

I was struck again by David Govertsen about whom I commented from Santa Fe a few weeks ago.  And there was a delightful mezzo soprano, Cecelia Hall, whom I had noticed in audition a year or two ago at Juilliard as a singer of great promise.  The auspiciously named Kiri Deonarine was also a standout for me - and the excellent young baritone Jonathan Michie is of clear distinction.  Any, indeed all, of these young people would be an adornment to the Lyric roster.  And if there is not room for them all, as may very possibly be the case I suppose, then they will find employment with no difficulty elsewhere!

There were some other special voices too, in particular another baritone and another soprano of particular interest.  And it was a treat too to hear some current members of the troup, notably Evan Boyer and Emily Fons, both of whom demonstrate perfectly the extremely effective work that the Ryan Center does in advanced development of young opera singers.

There was a fine crowd of other colleagues from around the country present as well.  Darren Woods from Fort Worth and Laura Canning from Houston represented Texas.  And it was good to see Gayletha Nichols of the Met auditions, and Kevin Murphy of the New York City Opera. 

So this was altogether a well spent Sunday, tiresome though it is to work at the weekend!  But that's our life.  We are now back to full-time work at COT so we actually have a five day business week coming up, the first since Memorial Day!