Opera's American Idol

Here's a great article in Newsday on how opera competitions keep the talent pool fresh and channel stars to the world's preeminent stages.

I liked this quote from 29-year-old Stephen Hartley, who won in a regional phase of the New York Metropolitan Opera auditions:

While the prize money helps defray the $1,200 that he and his wife, also a singer, spend on voice lessons and coaching sessions every month, even winning one of the $15,000 grand prizes might not liberate him from his day job. Nor, he says, would getting cut be enough to derail him. "I want to put every ounce of my being and drive and focus into becoming a success. For me to stop for financial reasons - that's a long way off."

In a world where even success can mean living in airports, postponing children, choosing which bills to pay and absorbing avalanches of rejection, that kind of doggedness matters at least as much as a natural vocal gift. "If you don't have the determination, you'll give up on yourself before others do on you," says Nichols. "You just have to be more miserable not singing than you are going through it."