I left Washington on the 7.30 am train to Philadelphia for auditions at the Academy of Vocal Arts due to begin at 10am. All went smoothly and in spite of a public transportation strike in Philly there was no problem getting a cab from 30th Street Station to the AVA on Spruce Street. It was a tough 
morning. We were in a pretty but quite a small room (pictured here) since the stage was being used for rehearsals of their production of Don Giovanni which opens later this month. Many of the AVA singers appear to be conditioned to making themselves heard in a football stadium – or maybe just the Metropolitan Opera. They need to discover that the average opera house around the world might have around 1,500 seats. My ears were assaulted by the bawling singers and the thumping pianist. And then relief for my headache came with some really distinguished work from a handful of them. So some subtlety and detail in the dynamics in this room was possible for those who took the trouble. Ho hum.
Before going round the corner to the Curtis Institute I had a delightful but too short interlude with Lee Blakeley, an English stage director who is directing the above mentioned Don Giovanni. He is also artistic director of a new opera company whose first production will be Tobias Picker's THERESE RAQUIN in a specially commissioned orchestration for ROH2 (this is in Covent Garden’s Linbury Theatre) in March 2006. He shared my enthusiasm for the best singer of the morning who is in his Don Giovanni cast.
The Curtis Institute’s singers program is run by my old friend and colleague Mikael Eliasen whom I was delighted to see this afternoon. He has just returned from Moscow where he has been a guest professor at the Galina Vishnevskaya Center. We shared some information about the current state of young Russian singers and he was delighted to hear of the success of the two young Muscovites who took second and third places in Neue Stimmen two weeks ago. Amongst the current crop at Curtis (I only heard half of them) I particularly noted a couple of striking Israeli sopranos. Both had studied at the splendidly named Thelma Yellin High School, presumably in Tel Aviv. I am glad to report that they did not Yell. Curtis is pretty international in its sweep – there was also an excellent Mezzo from England and a Canadian soprano. And all these were impeccably supported by a distinguished faculty member at the piano. Another of my major gripes is when schools let their singers down by not providing first class authoratative and supportive accompaniment. This is never a problem at Curtis – nor at Yale where I am tomorrow.
I am writing the bulk of this post on the train between Philadelphia and New Haven where I expect to arrive at 8.15 this evening.
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