In the Wings With Young Voices

It’s nearing midnight when Placido Domingo takes the stage in a ballroom on the top floor of a residence hall at UCLA. Guests, mingling over $500-a-plate salmon, have been bused here from Royce Hall, where Domingo and the top winners of Operalia, his eighth annual international contest for opera singers under 30, have just performed a program of arias, duets and a sextet.

Showing no signs of fatigue on this mid-December night, despite a cold that has been dogging him for the better part of his workweek, Domingo introduces each of the six young singers. Such is the headiness of the evening that one dainty soprano will later swoon in the anteroom, prompting calls of “Is there a doctor in the house?” from the stage.

Domingo is the Energizer Bunny of opera. Into the early morning hours, long after many a well-heeled well-wisher has retrieved her fur, he will still be there promoting his proteges. This despite the fact that he must conduct a matinee performance of Los Angeles Opera’s “La Boheme” in less than 12 hours--a “Boheme,” it should be noted, with no fewer than four Operalia veterans: Aquiles Machado, Inva Mula, Eric Owens and Malcolm MacKenzie.

Even before he founded Operalia, Domingo--recently installed artistic director of L.A. Opera, international singing star, conductor, one-third of the Three Tenors, artistic director of Washington Opera--made the cultivation of emerging artists a personal cause, watching for young talent, recommending singers to his colleagues, including them in projects where he could.

So it comes as little surprise that one of his first efforts here will be the creation here of a new opera training program. First announced in September, his plans are backed by a pledge of up to $1 million a year from philanthropist and Los Angeles Opera board member Alberto Vilar.

Not that L.A. Opera has been wholly without a program for emerging singers. The company has had a Resident Artists Program for most of its 15-year history and has nurtured many fine singers. Indeed, a number of current and past resident artists appear in the revival of Peter Hall’s production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” now at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Former resident artist Richard Bernstein, for example, sings Figaro, and former resident artist John Atkins is one of two singers performing the role of Count Almaviva.

“What has been established at this company is something slightly different from what is going to be happening,” says Domingo, several days before the Operalia gala, sitting in his office in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The room has a new look to go with its new inhabitant: Instead of chilly off-white, the walls have been freshly painted a warm spice brown--the color chosen by opera director Marta (Mrs. Placido) Domingo--and a vase of boldly hued flowers adorns the desk.

“The resident singers,” he continues, “were a group of young, talented singers who were used by the company to do small parts, covering parts and then, if they develop, to do bigger parts. What I want now is to do something a lot more elaborate.”

The new program will consist of an intensive course of formal music, language and dramatic study. Trainees may also understudy and possibly perform roles with the company and will participate in outreach programs. The program will serve as a kind of transition between university and professional life. Graduates might, for example, go on to become resident artists.

“Every day you see singers better prepared; they are better musicians, better prepared as actors, and this is very important,” says Domingo. “I am full of hope that this is going to create a lot more singers of great quality.”

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The development of American singers has long had its twists and turns. Usually singers complete college and possibly graduate school, only to find the next step in an opera career is a little hard to figure out.

Many seek their big break by entering competitions. Among these, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions is the most established in America. Created in the mid-1950s, it takes place in 17 regions in the U.S., as well as in Canada and Australia. It not only helps the Met identify new talent, but also serves as a prestigious credit on a young singer’s resume.

Domingo’s Operalia hasn’t been around nearly as long, but it’s fast becoming the competition of choice, in no small part because of the tenor’s imprimatur--and his follow-through.

“Other competitions just give the prize and that’s it,” he explains. “But here they do a concert, and then immediately I use them for something. And the judges [in Operalia’s case, many are opera administrators] also get interested in them too.”

Still, big breaks aren’t the rule. Many young singers need some sort of apprenticeship to get their careers started. Traditionally, they’ve found them in Europe, particularly Germany, where many cities have an opera house. American novices could develop their voices and professional chops at small companies, earn a living, and then return home better able to compete in the tighter American market.

When Briton Peter Hemmings, founding director of Los Angeles Opera, arrived in this country, he used the European system as a rough guideline for forming the basics of a company. The singers for the main roles would be experienced guest artists, but the Resident Artist Program would be an inexpensive way to fill lesser roles and provide something of a local alternative to a European sojourn. Singers would audition, perhaps five a year would be offered contracts for one or more seasons, and they would learn by doing.

But professional apprenticeships aren’t right for all emerging singers. There are many who require more intensive conservatory-style polishing. As far back as the 1950s, San Francisco Opera recognized a need for a finishing-school approach. Now its Merola Opera Program is the oldest of four U.S. company-based pre-professional training programs. The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Center for American Artists and the Houston Grand Opera Studio are similar programs. They range from 11 weeks to several years and accommodate anywhere from half a dozen to two dozen trainees each year. Among their graduates are Denyce Graves, Elizabeth Futral, Suzanne Mentzer and Carol Vaness.

Domingo’s decision to add L.A. Opera to the list of companies with training programs couldn’t come at a better time. Opera has grown tremendously in the U.S. in the past two decades. There are many more important companies than there used to be and, therefore, more of a need for polished talent. At the same time, those German entry-level apprenticeships are harder to come by. The fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, is one reason.

“There were suddenly a lot of Eastern Europeans who came to Europe who could work for far less than Westerners, because of currency exchange,” says baritone Atkins, who once considered Europe but took a contract with Los Angeles Opera instead. “Also, suddenly in Germany where huge amounts of tax money were going to the arts, that money was rerouted to revitalizing the East.”

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Back in 1988, Atkins, then in his second year as a resident artist, was cast in a small role in an L.A. Opera production of “The Tales of Hoffman,” starring Domingo. Filing out of the theater after the dress rehearsal, Atkins and his fellow cast members knew they were obliged to complete one more task before calling it a night. They had to go back upstairs to the rehearsal room to stage a mock work session so a television crew could shoot some footage for a story.

Atkins had had little experience in dealing with promotion and the press at that point, but he was about to get a singular lesson in what it means to be a professional artist, in the public eye.

“The cameras start rolling, and Michael Kaye, the guy who’d done the new musical edition, and Placido are sitting at the piano,” recalls Atkins. “Placido was playing and singing, and then he stopped and said, ‘Oh, Michael, should this be a B flat or a B natural?’ And Michael said, ‘Oh, that’s a B natural.’

“Well, Placido knew the score inside and out. He knew exactly what that note was. We’d just sung a dress rehearsal! But he was very gracious and deflected the spotlight from himself in such a deft way that no one would recognize it. The television people got what they needed in 10 seconds. And if I hadn’t been to rehearsals with him before that, I never would have known.”

Such is the kind of education that you can’t impart in a classroom. Nor in most company training programs. Which is why Domingo’s plans for L.A. Opera include not only the young artists program, but an expanded resident artists program as well.

“The general aim for the next season is that instead of five resident artists, we want to bring the number up to 10,” explains Edgar Baitzel, Los Angeles Opera’s artistic administrator. Where the funds will come from to fuel the expansion has yet to be determined. Currently, the resident artists program is financed by a grant from the Skirball Foundation, with additional funding from Opera Buffs Inc., a private support group.

Both Atkins and his co-star in “Figaro,” bass baritone Bernstein, thrived in the Resident Artists Program. Atkins, now 42, was a resident artist from 1987 to 1994. He came here following graduate study at Oklahoma City University, and time with Santa Fe Opera and the traveling Texas Opera Theater. Bernstein, now 34, came into the program straight from USC and was a resident artist from 1989 to 1994.

Over the years, the two singers have become familiar to L.A. audiences, appearing in nearly every season here. They both think of L.A. Opera as a kind of home, even though they have gone on to careers that have taken them far and wide, to a range of respected houses.

In the early years, the program consisted of half a dozen or so young artists who were kept on salary for 18 or more weeks each season, and that was about the extent of it. “In those days, it was not really a program,” says Bernstein, who made his Met debut in 1995 and is now based in New York. “It was a way of designating an artist who was paid by the week.”

Gradually, the company added some instruction. “Voice lessons came in the early ‘90s, and more coaching became available sometime after that,” recalls the L.A.-based Atkins, who recently debuted with Seattle Opera and Dallas Opera. “In the early years, I didn’t feel like there was enough of an emphasis in preparing the roles musically. But that has been addressed now, to a large extent.

Still, Atkins continues, the “idea was to have people who appeared in performances and honed their craft by doing.”

“I feel that the most I ever learned was while I was doing it onstage,” Bernstein says. “I believe it taught me the discipline needed for a career.” And, he adds, he “wouldn’t change a thing” about the experience.”

“Certainly my being in Los Angeles for as long as I have has been a very beneficial thing,” concurs Atkins. “I’ve gotten to do what American singers don’t usually get to do, which is live at home and sing.”

Indeed, Atkins found the experience of being a resident artist so valuable that it has inspired him to consider the possibility of working in a young artists program. “Some come out of the university ready to fly,” he acknowledges, “but for the vast majority, it’s a transition, and a struggle.”

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A young artists program should serve not only the needs of its singers and opera as a whole, but also the company. And, says Domingo, L.A. will definitely be in the market for more good singers soon.

“Once the orchestra goes to Disney Hall, we have to do more opera here in Los Angeles,” says Domingo, referring to 2003, when the Los Angeles Philharmonic crosses the street to its new home and the opera becomes the sole resident company in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. “We have 10 “Boheme” [performances] now,” he says. “So what will be wrong with having 20, with two or three casts of the same quality that you can trust? Then you can really have a lot more of the public coming.”

Clearly Domingo has made his case successfully. Vilar, founder and president of high-tech-oriented Amerindo Investment Advisors--who has reportedly given more than $150 million to the classical performing arts--has committed $6 million for new productions at L.A. Opera over three years, as well as up to $1 million (per season, over three seasons) for the education program.

“It was a very clever announcement by Alberto,” says Baitzel. “He said up to $1 million. So that is our aim, to put together a very strong program as soon as possible so he sends the whole $1 million.”

Plans are well underway. The Colburn School, just down the street from the Pavilion, will provide classroom space. “My goal is that we can start with the opening of next season in September, to have the teachers and the first group of singers,” says Domingo. “We need vocal teachers, language coaches, dramatic coaches and movement coaches. Probably we will have between six and eight teachers, and the group will be eight, 10, 12 singers, depending. We will bring also people to teach master classes.”

The program will have its own artistic director, an appointment Los Angeles Opera hopes to announce by this spring. “Overall, the major [emphasis of] such a program depends on its artistic director,” says Baitzel. “It depends on whether you find a person who is more education-related or more related to the performing side.

“We don’t want to get into competition with universities. Our aim is to find out what we can do that they cannot do.”

Young artists will be selected by an application and audition process, and may include singers Domingo has found through Operalia. And “young” may be relative.

“Our criteria should not be dependent on age, but only on talent,” says Baitzel.

“The people we will take wouldn’t be beginners,” says Domingo. “Our goal will be just like other schools of this kind in San Francisco, Chicago, Houston or the Met. These people are at a certain level already, so we just really polish them and prepare them.”

San Francisco’s Merola is an 11-week summer program that culminates in the performance of two fully staged operas and a concert. Chicago Lyric Opera Center for American Artists offers a one-year residency that includes concert performances at various Chicago-area venues in spring and summer. The Houston Grand Opera Studio invites young artists for an initial nine-month training residency, culminating in a production as well as the opportunity to continue studying. At the Met, the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program selects participants for a one-year period, with the Met having the option to offer second and third years.

All of these programs share an emphasis on musical, linguistic and dramatic training by staff and in master class settings. Although they don’t all include roles in regular company productions, they all have a performance component of one sort or another.

Here in L.A., the curriculum will be similar--but Domingo foresees a two-year course of study and professional stage appearances for the trainees as well.

“They will be prepared by the teachers,” explains Domingo. “Then they could be part of our company, doing small parts or bigger parts, according to their vocal state. And the third thing is I want to use them also as part of the education and outreach programs more and more--so that at the same time they are growing, they can also go and make a great service to the city.”

And Domingo envisions even more possibilities. Depending on the applicant pool, he may also use the young artists program as a training ground for singers for a separate company dedicated to zarzuela, the Spanish operetta form sung by his parents, which Domingo has promoted in his usual tireless manner.

“When I see the quality of the voices from around the world, some of them will be of Hispanic origin,” he notes. “It could be that we could establish a fixed zarzuela company, not necessarily at the Music Center, but at a separate theater.”

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Writing in his 1983 autobiography, “My First Forty Years,” Domingo titled the final section “Preface to My Next Forty Years.” In it, he devoted pages to one of his fondest dreams: founding a school, developing new talent.

Will the young artists program at L.A. Opera fulfill the dream and accomplish the goal?

“We are trying to do the best that can be done,” says Domingo. “The results we will see after two years. It’s exciting.”