Opera students move one step closer to Met

Met Regional Audition Winners:
Jacqueline Brecheen, 27, soprano
Andres Kroes, 23, bass-baritone
Abigail Mitchell, 25, soprano
Laura Wilde, 23, mezzo-soprano
Ljubomir Puskaric, 28, baritone

The stage of the Musical Arts Center is empty except for a lone piano. The purple curtain behind that piano stretches from the ceiling to where it grazes the stage, swaying with an invisible wind.

Tension builds from the audience, which wavers when Lucy Sauter and her accompanist walk across the stage. After an introduction there is a pause as the tension mounts again.

It finally breaks when the Jacobs School of Music student begins to sing.

The performance Saturday on the stage of the MAC was the annual Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions  for the Indiana District.

The auditions, which occur annually in 15 regions of the United States and Canada, included 23 total performers who sang one to five arias in their respective voice parts.

Although Sauter was not chosen to advance, five other competitors will sing Saturday
at Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall for Tri-State Regional auditions.

“Our five representatives are all Jacobs School graduate students,” said Maria Levy, Indiana district director for the auditions. “They’re very good.”

Saturday’s regional auditions lasted until 5:30 p.m., after which the finalists were announced and judges gave many of the competitors individual feedback in the lobby of the MAC.

“It’s the best part for many of the singers,” Levy said. “They give very detailed feedback. We were there until about 8 p.m.”

Levy said Saturday’s auditions also drew a great, albeit small, crowd.

“They stuck through the whole thing,” she said.

Lindsay Flowers, assistant house manager for the MAC, said she agreed with Levy that the audience was a decent size for the kind of event.

Each of the five winners chosen from the Indiana district auditions will go on to perform in Indianapolis against the Ohio and Kentucky regional winners.

Levy said the Jacobs School of Music is unsure what its competition will be like come next Saturday.

“We don’t know how we’re going to do. We don’t know who we’re auditioning against,” Levy said.

Kentucky, she said, will be represented by three singers, but Ohio’s representatives have not yet been announced.

Any singer, from any part of the United States and Canada, Levy said, was allowed to participate in the regional audition of their choice, which made the Indiana audition more interesting.

“On Saturday we had someone audition from California, another from Ohio,” Levy said. “It was wonderful. There are many paths for your career, and these auditions are just one of them.”

Some previous winners include Jacob School alumnus Jamie Barton in 2007, Jordan Bisch in 2005, Christina Pier in 2003 and Twyla Robinson in 2002.

The five winners of this weekend’s district auditions will go on to sing for the Tri-State Regional judges: John Churchwell, Metropolitan Opera coach; Gayletha Nichols, Metropolitan Opera National Council executive director; and Jim Ireland, general director of Orlando Opera.