Audition Stories and Taking Control

Since audition season will get started soon, I wanted to write a little about auditions and share something odd that happened to me a few years ago while playing auditions. One of the very real issues with auditions is that we feel out of control. We can’t control the piano, the space we’re singing in, the weather that day, or even what songs the judges will choose. 

When it comes to auditions, therefore, it can be very important to figure out what we can control—our clothes (are my shoes too high/too low/comfortable/pinching my feet?), our music (are the pages in the right order—and yes, you should always double check, I may not have time to—are they legible/are there any notes cut off from them?), our timing (arrive early enough to be calm and relaxed, but not so early that you freak yourself out by listening to other people sing or talk).

So here's my crazy story: 

First, I should say that that day was full of singers who broke all the rules of audition etiquette. I had one singer who brought in music where someone had crossed out every note of the piano part with an X. Literally. Every single note. There was another who wanted to sing the Queen of the Night, but was missing the last page of "Der Hölle Rache", so I had to download it onto my iPad (which I dislike intensely). Then there were two other singers there who left the prep area and wandered around the opera house rather than going over the tempi with me, even though they were there in plenty of time to do so and companies in Germany allow time for it. By the time they came back, it was time to head downstairs, and they tried to whisper tempi to me in the stairwell, which never works very well.

But the capper on the day was this: The auditions were being held in a large rehearsal room, and the piano was about 50 feet from the adjudicators. The singer came in and took the usual position in the hook of the piano, but with every line he sang, he took a step forward—until by the end of the aria he was only about 5 feet from the judges, and about 40 feet away from me... with his back to me, of course! The judges then asked him to move back to the piano, and I whispered to him that when he moves that far away I can’t hear him—but sure enough, during his second aria, he did the same thing!

This situation made it almost impossible for me to do a good job playing for him, and it made the people listening very uncomfortable to have someone singing directly in their faces. As you prepare for audition season, I would recommend adding into your checklist the awareness of your surroundings in the audition room:

Are you too close to the people listening?
Are you able to stay in contact with the pianist?

Are you moving around too much or too little?

Obviously the last question can be a matter of taste, but in general, less is more, and if some extreme movement causes you to lose contact with the pianist, it can have devastating results. These are all things that we can control with a little mental preparation.

--Ellen