It is so perfect to start my Neue Stimmen year in Izmir, a jewel of a place populated by a wonderful team of warm hearted enthusiastic music and opera lovers, who work tirelessly to support and promote the gifted young Turkish singers who come from all over Turkey to participate in Izmir's on competition in February each year. And many of them have auditioned for me yesterday in the very pretty Izmir Opera House.
However, being the first stop on a tour undertaken by me and other colleagues over the coming weeks and months, there are special problems presented. The fact is that we do not yet know what the overall standard will be. Between us we will hear more than a thousand singers and have to select just 44 to come to Gütersloh for the finals in October. My next stops are in Berlin, Amsterdam, Gothenburg and Frankfurt - closely followed by Madrid, London, and Dublin. There should be clarity by this point. Let's hope!
Meanwhile we have a "wait list" - and there will be six on that list from Izmir. I feel sure that two, or even three, of these will make it - but it all depends.......by the time I finish up in London I will have heard 500 of the 1,000 candidates so ought to have a good feel for what is going on. But we have to leave spaces for the South Africans I hear in Cape Town and Pretoria in July, as well as for those from Japan and China that Evamaria Wieser will be hearing in September. It will be getting late!!
This may very well be my last Neue Stimmen - I will be doing less this year, leaving out Asia and North America where my dear colleagues Alexander Neef, Sophie Joyce, and Evamaria Wieser will be taking the decisions. It is 20 years since I first embarked on this great adventure - and I managed to combine it with my 13 years in Chicago.
Speaking of which, I am off to Chicago on Saturday to meet old friends and colleagues, see Jake Heggie's Moby Dick, and attend the Chicago Opera Theater fund raiser on Sunday evening. I'll report from there - and will be back in London on the evening of May 1.
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