CCM Alumni Yi Li and Amanda Woodbury Named Grand Finalist Winners of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2014 National Council Auditions

From left to right, CCM alumni Yi Li and Amanda Woodbury.

CCM alumni Yi Li (AD, ’13) and Amanda Woodbury (MM, ’12) have been named Grand Finals Winners of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2014 National Council Auditions.

A tenor, Li is a member of the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program.

Woodbury, a soprano, is in her second year at the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera.

Li and Woodbury were among nine singers competing in the Met’s prestigious and highly competitive Grand Finals Concert this past Sunday, March 30. The finalists were accompanied by the Met Orchestra led by Marco Armiliato. You can learn more about all of the 2014 National Council Winners here.

This marks the second consecutive year that CCM trained singers have won the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions: bass-baritone Thomas Richards was named a Grand Finals Winner in 2013.

WQXR, New York’s Classical Music Radio Station, will broadcast performances and interviews with all of this year’s winners at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1. Learn more by visiting www.wqxr.org/#!/story/video-webcast-metropolitan-opera-national-council-award-winners.

Learn more courtesy of the Cincinnati Enquirer here.

Young Singers Take Their First Crack At ‘Winning the Met’ on the CCM Stage on Saturday, Oct. 5

The Metropolitan Opera, New York City.

Hear the opera stars of tomorrow compete for a chance to “win the Met,” and kick-start a major career at the Metropolitan Opera District Council Auditions for the Southern Ohio district on Saturday, Oct. 5. CCM hosts these Southern Ohio Auditions from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. in CCM’s Robert J. Werner Recital Hall. Audiences have the opportunity to attend this event for free and sample operatic selections throughout the day.

Each year, North America’s most promising new opera talent begin their journey to the fabled stage of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York during these regional auditions. The Metropolitan Opera holds National Council Auditions throughout the country and Canada in order to discover promising young singers, give singers from around the country a chance to be heard by the major opera companies of the United States and Canada, and find potential participants for the Lindemann Young Artist Development program, an opera training program sponsored by the Met.

CCM Slideshows: The Magic Flute

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CCM’s acclaimed 2012-13 Mainstage Series comes to a close this week with a colorful new production of Mozart’s beloved comedic singspiel The Magic Flute. This production runs April 4–7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Janelle Gelfand recently visited CCM to take a behind-the-scenes look at The Magic Flute‘s costumes, wigs and make-up designs. Watch her exclusive video preview here.

CCM’s 2012-13 Mainstage Series Concludes With ‘The Magic Flute’

Jacqueline Echols as Pamina and Yi Li as Tamino in CCM’s ‘The Magic Flute.’ Photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM proudly presents Mozart’s beloved comedic singspiel The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, 1791) from April 4–7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. The fourth most frequently performed opera worldwide, this production will be sung in German with English dialogue (with supertitles displayed). Mark Gibson conducts with stage direction by Steven Goldstein.

Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, this beloved opera offers something for everyone: a hero and heroine questing for true love, evil villains, a comical sidekick and a whole range of beastly creatures. According to Goldstein, The Magic Flute is a sort of vaudeville variety show of the 18th century. However, this iteration isn’t all about the slapstick comedy. “My charge to the performers,” Goldstein explains, “is for the comedy to come from somewhere genuine. There is a real play back and forth between light-heartedness and deep morality in Flute and our goal is to find the truth inside of it.”

CCM Opera Scholarship Competition Brings Bright Young Stars to the Stage on March 16

CCM invites local audiences to hear tomorrow’s opera stars today, as CCM hosts its prestigious scholarship competition beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 16, in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. Admission to this event is free, and reservations are not required. Audience members may enter and exit Corbett Auditorium at appropriate times throughout the day.

Twenty-three current and incoming young artists will compete for approximately $100,000 in tuition grants and $62,500 in other named awards, including the Corbett Award, Italo Tajo Memorial Award, Andrew White Memorial Award, Seybold-Russell Award and John Alexander Memorial Award. Each contestant will be judged on the basis of voice, acting, language, musicianship and style in a complete dramatic performance of an aria.

A panel of judges composed of world-renowned opera-industry professionals will select the winners. The judges’ panel for this year’s competition includes:

• Peter Kazaras, Director of Opera at UCLA, Professor of Music at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and Artistic Director of the Seattle Young Artists Program
• Kevin Murphy, Professor of Practice and Head Opera Coach at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater and director of music administration at the New York City Opera
• Lenore Rosenberg, Associate Artistic Administrator of the Metropolitan Opera

The winners will be announced on Saturday afternoon, March 16, following the conclusion of the competition.

CCM Student Named Grand Finalist Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2013 National Council Auditions

Artist Diploma student Thomas Richards, bass-baritone.

CCM Artist Diploma candidate Thomas Richards, bass-baritone, has been named a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2013 National Council Auditions.

A student of CCM Professor of Voice William McGraw, Richards was one of 10 singers competing in the Met’s prestigious and highly competitive Grand Finals Concert this past Sunday, March 10. The finalists were accompanied by the Met Orchestra led by Marco Armiliato. Richards and five other young artists were named the winners of this year’s National Council Auditions.

WQXR, New York’s Classical Music Radio Station, will broadcast performances and interviews with all of this year’s winners at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 11. Visit www.wqxr.org to listen online or watch a live video stream of the performances and interviews.

The Cincinnati Enquirer also published an interview with Richards on the eve of his Grand Finals-winning performance this weekend. You can read that interview online at news.cincinnati.com/article/20130310/ENT07/303100029/CCM-student-finals-Met-contest.

Local audiences can next see Richards in CCM’s Mainstage Series production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, running April 4-7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

CCM Student Among 10 Finalists in Met Opera National Council Auditions

We are pleased to report that bass-baritone Thomas Richards, a student of William McGraw at CCM, will be singing onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in the Grand Finals Concert of the Metropolitan Opera District Council Auditions this Sunday!

The public concert will be accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and will be broadcast nationwide on the Metropolitan Opera Radio Network.

Learn more courtesy of Janelle Gelfand and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jackie Demaline Reviews CCM’s ‘Street Scene’

‘Street Scene’ photography by Mark Lyons.

Jackie Demaline reviews CCM’s first-ever production of Street Scene for the Cincinnati Enquirer, proclaiming: “It’s a glorious synthesis by composer Kurt Weill and the artistic team and their company of singers and musicians deliver a production that will stand as a high point of the Cincinnati stage season.” Running tonight through Nov. 18 in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater, Street Scene is part of CCM’s year-long Kurt Weill Festival.

You can read the full review here.

CCM Slideshows: Street Scene

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CCM proudly presents Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice’s Tony-Award winning opera Street Scene tonight through Nov. 18 in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. Mark Gibson conducts with stage direction by Steven Goldstein.

Jackie Demaline previewed the American opera in last Sunday’s Cincinnati Enquirer. You can read the full story here.

Anne Arenstein also previewed Street Scene, along with the rest of CCM’s groundbreaking Kurt Weill Festival, in this week’s issue of CityBeat. You can read the feature here.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Scenic Design of ‘Street Scene’

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CCM’s history-making production of Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice’s Tony-Award winning opera Street Scene opens tomorrow evening (Nov. 15) and runs through Sunday, Nov. 18 in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater.

With its mammoth cast, this highly theatrical opera has something for everyone: rising melodic lines, lively American jazz phrases and even a few Broadway style dance numbers. It is a story of love, passion, greed and death – all set in front of a tenement building in 1946 Manhattan.

Today, we provide a behind-the-scenes look at how this tenement building came to life, courtesy of Scenic Designer Brian Ruggaber and the rest of Street Scene‘s production staff.

Street Scene is the latest installment in CCM’s 2012-13 Kurt Weill Festival, which is funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. Mark Gibson conducts with stage direction by Steven Goldstein. Street Scene will be sung in English without supertitles.