<p>The answer(s) to your questions vary widely from school to school. At many schools- and I can quite honestly name the few that don’t fall into this category ( which are the top, professional development programs)- VP Artist Diploma and/or Professional Studies certificates applicants fall into these categories:
A) Students who don’t have the academic qualification to gain acceptance into a Master’s Degree programs- they may have undergrad degrees in other subjects which have left them too many deficiencies to pick up and fit into the 2 year time frame, or they got poor grades in undergrad and the school is unwilling to take a chance on them not making it through the Master’s coursework.For VP majors looking for a Master’s degree, grades DO factor in because there is more coursework to come at that higher level.</p>
<p>B) Students who have a Master’s degree and either want to 1) study with a specific teacher and who may have particular vocal needs at this point in their study 2) need more time for their voice to mature 3) need/want more roles on their resume 4) want to delay paying back those student loans for as long as possible
Sometimes those categories may overlap!</p>
<p>C) Students who frankly, are not good enough to make a successful go of a career in opera and who are killing time or operating under the delusion that something will miraculously change. This is NOT the case with the top half-dozen or so programs.</p>
<p>There are far too many schools that will take on students who fit into the latter category because there are always students willing to pay. This is a result of the explosive proliferation of voice programs since the advent of “such and such’s Got Talent”, “Glee” and other such shows. Those also spawned an upsurge of high school musicals and teachers with nebulous qualifications stroking egos of students who are often not too talented but whose parents are willing to pay to encourage their kid’s dreams. Unlike instrumentalists, singers begin later and don’t have the measuring stick of youth orchestras. chamber groups and pre-college programs by way of comparison. Those with larger voices, such as Wagnerian singers, or those whose “tops” don’t come in until later need more time to mature and can’t be overworked because of the potential for vocal damage. The girls and tenors with those bright, high notes may gain early acclaim but that may be all- they just might not grow and develop further. The voice is a living instrument and is subject to all kinds of problems.
If I had a dollar for every kid that I’ve known who has been told , “I’ll hear you at the Met one day”,by small town voice teachers or well meaning family members, I could take my family out to dinner at Masa in NYC! Again, a lot of that is a function of the simple lack of the comparison opportunities that instrumentalists have.There are simply too many singers so programs have continued to open, from undergrad on up.</p>
<p>Yes, go right ahead and contact potential teachers, although by this point, the student should have a very good idea of the teacher he/she is looking for as well as the program.
Asking admissions offices about prospective openings at this level is pointless- they don’t know and don’t have any say in it anyway. Such questions can be directed to the program director or the teacher, but even then, it can be difficult to anticipate openings if the school has BOTH Artist Diploma AND Professional Studies, because students may decide late in the game to move from one to the other if they didn’t get in to another school or for various other reasons. I know of singers who have been at the same school for 5 years now, moving from an AD to PS, and that can wreak havoc on admissions and casting arrangements!
Academics don’t enter into AD admissions, so it’s all about the audition. In an ideal setting, the student’s abilities and potential for a successful career should be the determining factors. Pay attention to your repertoire; look up what pieces are being sung most frequently (yes, that info is out there) and try to stand out, but not make yourself too different. Unlike MT, where there is a “do not sing” list, VP/Opera panels don’t want really obscure rep- that can backfire as it did in this year’s Met Council Finals, when several of the baritones chose the exact same “unusual” piece and all ended up singing the same thing in the final round! If you’re a light lyric, the type who would be realistically hired to sing Gilda or Juliette, by all means do a knock out performance of "Caro nome’ or “Je veux vivre”- don’t show up with obscure Russian or Berg! When I say “realistically hired”, I mean for an actual opera production; there are arias that one can sing in concert but one would never be hired to sing the entire role in the opera, so don’t go by what you may have sung at a summer program in concert or even in a “scenes” segment. </p>
<p>I hope I’ve covered things for you, SimpleLife, but if not, PM me or ask away here!</p>
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