Santa Fe Opera Auditions

Well, one piece of advice for anyone out there that has any more common sense than I do - Don't Drive in Downtown Chicago.  Luckily for me, it was Sunday and the business district wasn't as bad as it could have been, and my dad let me use his Garmin GPS to get around.  I will forever endorse this product; it not only got me to where I needed to go, but also found a hotel for me.  Anyway, I had a lot of fun today.  Chicago is a beautiful city, the public transportation needs an update, but other than that it is a wonderful place. 

So, I stayed at a Super 8 Motel in Aurora, woke up at 5:45 to start warming up.  I drank two coffee pots full of hot water because I was having some phlegm problems.  Anyway, that eventually went away, and I got in the car and started driving to my audition.  Believe it or not, but Chicago is difficult to drive in.  I made it safe everywhere, but you have to think three dimensionally instead of just forward, back, left, and right.  The road I should be on might actually be below the road I'm on, or the next exit I should take actually goes to a road that is two levels of roads above me.  Anyway, I got eventually got to where I needed to go.

My audition was in the middle of Downtown in a very impressive building.  I sort of had to zone out and not let the magestic architecture, size, and beauty of everything get to me so I didn't hype myself up.  If my adrenaline gets going too much, it can really effect my voice, which is a really fickle thing, it can be effected by humidity, food, air temperature, etc.  Well, I got there with plenty of time to spare - which if you know me, I am always sure to be prepared for anything, and usually arrive earlier than I need to just in case.  Well, I got there an hour and a half before my audition and the building wasn't open.  There were several other singers just standing outside as well, but I decided to go around and see if there were any other doors open.  I eventually found a security guard who let me in.  The others left by the time I got back, so for about thirty minutes I had the whole auditorium to myself!  It really was a great thing for me, because I was pretty nervous, I know I don't show it on the outside but on the inside I was shaking a bit. The architecture and all was so overwhelming that it was hard to shut my brain off to that and just focus on what I needed to do.  Being there without anyone, I was just able to look around, sing a bit, look out over the millenium square and lake michigan, and just relax and enjoy where I was and how I got here.

Shortly thereafter, people showed up and the auditions began.  I was the third audition of the day.  I walked in, gave them my headshot and information, walked to the piano, and presented my music.  I selected Dies Bildniss to sing, we only had a very short time to sing, and I chose to sing Dies Bildniss because it is from an Opera that Santa Fe is planning on doing this coming season.  After I sang, they thanked me and asked me to tell Mr. Ganz hello, however I do not know who my auditors were, but at any rate, I will pass the word along.  And, that was it; short and sweet.  Now, I originally thought that they had callbacks, but I got one of the long distance regional auditions and only later Sunday night did I find online that they do not have callbacks for long distance auditions, so I will find out sometime after Nov. 24th what they have decided.  I personally felt that I did just about what I expected myself to do, not the best I have ever sung, but honestly that can only be one time and if I have sung that aria several hundred times, it is pretty long odds to beat your best every time.  But, I thought they had a good representation of how I sound, and now I have to turn my attention to the St. Louis auditions on Tuesday.

Sunday evening, I did some touristy things.  I went to the top of the Sears Tower, Chicago Lyric Opera, went to Millenium Park, met up with one of my friends that lives in Chicago, Mai Shibahara, and went to a hole-in-the-wall Chicago style pizza place.  It was great.  Chicago is a great place - a little cold in November - but otherwise definitely worthy of the Olympics (shame on you IOC).