To most people the approach of fall signifies the harvest, that crispness in the air, perhaps the start of another school year and the breaking out of one’s cozy sweaters for walks through the foliage. For young classical singers, it marks the ensuing madness of audition season. Specifically, this means applications, letters of recommendation, headshot prints, extra coachings and recordings. For Boston singers this means a few local auditions combined with several bus rides New York or perhaps some other distant city where you are randomly granted an audition.

          The process works like this. The majority of all auditions for Young Artist Programs (or YAP’s) take place from November to December. Most of these are for summer seasons, but some are year-long appointments. These are mostly companies designated for young people or apprenticeship programs for larger companies. One could do a small role (known as a comprimario role), a large role, a cover (understudy) or you could end up doing educational outreach for a company in local schools. With any luck one would get a substantial role, a living stipend and a solo recital in a concert series. These auditions are for opera houses located throughout the States. Most travel to hear young artists in New York and Boston, so after all your hard-earned preparation you could end up spending anywhere from 2 months to a year in Binghamton or Des Moines. This does not deter us. We go where the opera is. I know that it is a tad strange that someone who has a Masters degree in the field and who is pushing 30 years old would be considered a “young artist”, but this is the way the opera world works. If I were a dancer, my career would be over, but as an opera singer, there is still much training and experience to be had to take on the large roles and hundreds of sopranos like myself who want a piece of the action.

          Two separate people have asked myself and a friend if we get paid to audition. These were both people at our respective day jobs. We each had to explain that if we got paid to audition we would not need our day jobs. I secretly wondered where they thought this mysterious money was coming from. There is not actually a government fund set aside to encourage singers to compete for paying gigs. On the contrary, we pay quite a bit to audition.

Headshots: $300

Headshot prints updated yearly: $100

Recording: $150

Pianist for recording: $50

Applications fees (!): $35-50

Audition dress: $100

Travel to auditions: Anywhere from $50-100

Knowing that all your year’s work culminates in the span of a month: Priceless

          Yes, you pay to apply and this does not guarantee you an audition time. This list does not even include the lessons and coachings for which we shell out year-round to prepare our ideal 5-aria package for the season. We expect to pay over a thousand each fall just for audition expenses. There are grants available of course, but perhaps if there were more government funding for outreach and arts education there would be more opportunities for singers. It is for this reason that many American singers end up in Germany and Austria. There are just more opera houses and government subsidies.

          There are other particular challenges involved with the audition season, like having to sing an aria in which you are portraying a queen, all while pretending you did not just ride the Fung-Wah and sleep on the floor of your friend’s tiny Manhattan apartment. Also, there is that small thing of being in the thick of it all and having to face cocktail conversation with singers who may have sent out more applications or are being granted more auditions than you. It’s like college applications all over again… every year. You can smell the anxiety as early as August.






I know that the whole process confuses the general public. My parents, for example, seem to forget about it every year. It has taken several fall seasons for them to understand why I suddenly become so stressed and broke. I am sure that they get it now though. I know because my dad has said really helpful things like “You know Kate, you won’t be considered a young artist forever”. Without my prompting he has figured out that I only have a few more years to get into one of these prestigious positions. I am writing this not only to fill in the non-singers about our routine, but also to hold myself accountable. I am declaring in the view of my blog-reading public that I will again send out 20 some odd applications to programs this year.






"No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing."


~T.S. Eliot