How do you get to the Met?<\/p>\n
Practice, says the old joke.<\/p>\n
But practice isn\u2019t always enough. It takes talent, dedication and a little bit of luck.<\/p>\n
And in the case of Noah Baetge, regional winner of the 2009 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, he has all three.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like this was a good year for me,\u201d said Baetge, 28.<\/p>\n
But even the day of the audition, Baetge, a Kent resident and Puget Sound native, was not entirely sure of his performance and almost left the auditions in Seattle early to get back to a rehearsal of an opera in Spokane.<\/p>\n
Opening with a \u201csolid\u201d song from \u201cLucia di Lammermoor,\u201d which he said was \u201cspot on,\u201d the judges next requested a number from a Mozart opera.<\/p>\n
Baetge said he felt good about it, but not 100 percent. However his teacher, Jane Eaglen, a British soprano who has performed in opera houses around the world, and several others in the building told him to hang around since competitors had to be in the building to win the contest.<\/p>\n
Turns out his extra-long stay was a good decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ended up going really well,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it did, but even the judges said it went well so I have to agree with what they said.\u201d<\/p>\n
What they said was that Baetge would be moving on to the semi-finals in New York City on Feb. 15.<\/p>\n
If he performs well then, Baetge will move onto the Grand Finals Concert, Feb. 22 on the stage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Up to five singers will be selected as National Council Audition Winners and will receive $15,000 and a chance at expanding their opera careers.<\/p>\n
According to Baetge, one of the 2007 winners, Angela Meade, made her Metropolitan debut just four months after the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to sing at the Met,\u201d he says, voice drifting a bit at the end.<\/p>\n
Baetge wasn\u2019t always an opera singer and finding himself here now may have surprised the kid who went off to college as an instrumentalist and became an operatic tenor \u201cby accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t even start singing until age 20, but soon after that, he changed his major to Vocal Performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinging was the last thing I thought I would do,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would actually get me anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when professors and others heard Baetge sing, they urged him into opera.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was certain people in the trade who were like \u2018He\u2019s got something here. Let\u2019s direct him this way,\u2019\u201d Baetge said.<\/p>\n
Baetge did some singing with a piano player, but hadn\u2019t even seen an opera until he was cast as the lead in Mozart\u2019s \u201cThe Magic Flute.\u201d It was the combination of singing and performance that started to hook him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was really the first time I thought \u2018Oh, this is what opera is,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI really, really liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learning to sing opera is difficult – much of it in the breathing. \u201cWe work very hard not to hurt ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But the real trick is doing it while acting and trying to connect with the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinging opera is kind of like the triathlon of singing,\u201d Baetge said. \u201cYou have the singing, you have the acting, but you have to connect it.\u201d<\/p>\n
People think it is about volume, he said, but it\u2019s really about \u201cfinding the colors that go along with the orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes that\u2019s made more difficult because he\u2019s singing in languages he doesn\u2019t understand, like Russian or Czech.<\/p>\n
But even more so, breaking through the cliches and misunderstandings that surround opera can be the most difficult part.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe horns, the fat lady and the braids? That\u2019s not what opera is about,\u201d he said, though he did admit that the Bugs Bunny cartoons that feature opera are \u201cbrilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baetge said it took him time to learn how to connect. In fact, he thinks it is what kept him out of being a finalist the last time he auditioned for the Met competition in 2006, in which he still received an honorable mention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look back and I know exactly why I got that: I wasn\u2019t connected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This year, however, it all came together and Baetge will be ready to go in New York next weekend.<\/p>\n
According to Eaglen, Baetge has a big career ahead of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a wonderful singer, a wonderful talent,\u201d she said in a phone interview from South America, where she was performing. \u201cI\u2019m extremely proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eaglen said several of the singers who auditioned could have won, but Baetge put it all together and was the best that day. Another day like that, and he could be soloing at the Met sooner than later (though she is sure he will make the world\u2019s great opera houses eventually).<\/p>\n
\u201cI have my fingers crossed and there\u2019s no reason he couldn\u2019t go on to win the whole thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Winning or not, Baetge is hooked on the power of opera and sees himself staying in the field for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it when opera can make a sound no one else can make,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
To hear Noah Baetge sing visit www.myspace.com\/noahbaetge<\/p>\n
To learn more about the MONC regional audition, visit www.nwauditions.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do you get to the Met?
\nPractice, says the old joke.
\nBut practice isn\u2019t always enough. It takes talent, dedication and a little bit of luck.
\nAnd in the case of Noah Baetge, regional winner of the 2009 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, he has all three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":12300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19400"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}