Harvest of Singers

In Denver's Bonfils Memorial Theater one morning last week, 19 young men and women nervously shuffled their feet and cleared their throats. A piano plunked to the final inquiries of a piano tuner. Solicitous friends and parents were hustled off to a far part of the theater, and the Metropolitan Opera's brisk, soft-spoken John Gutman turned reassuringly to the tense group. "Please be easy," Gutman said. "Be a bit nervous if you like --you are supposed to be. You've probably heard of one of our singers, Miss Pons, who is sick all day before a performance. But I'm not suggesting you be sick. Take it easy. If you don't win this year," you have many years ahead of you."

The speech did little to ease the tension, for the 19 had come in search of fame. The winners of local singing contests held throughout Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, they gathered in Denver to compete in one of this year's seven regional eliminations for the Met's Auditions of the Air. The rewards for the winners are scholarships and for some contestants an eventual chance to sing at the Met. For its part the Met gets an annual look at the best talent in the U.S., has in the Auditions' 16 years panned such vocal gold as Soprano Eleanor Steber, Baritones Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill, Tenor Albert Da Costa.*

The Newcomer. At Gutman's signal the 19 singers performed one by one--a traditionally ample soprano, a baritone who is a sheet metal worker, a petite mezzo-soprano with long blonde hair, no fewer than six tenors (more tenors than Gutman had encountered in all his auditions in Seattle, Tulsa, the Twin Cities and Chicago put together). Almost every singer had got some of his or her basic experience singing in churches; some have sung with Denver's energetic young Greater Denver Opera Association. A few studied at Manhattan's Juilliard school.

One exceptional young fellow announced himself as a baritone, and proceeded to sing Verdi's Celeste Aida, one of the most famed arias for high tenor. Said Gutman with mild sarcasm: "Since you are a baritone, perhaps you would like to offer something from the baritone repertoire." "I have nothing from the baritone repertoire," the singer said. "I only started singing two weeks ago."

When each had sung two numbers, Gutman retired to study cryptic marks on his score papers, then came back with his decision. It had been a "very good audition," he said. He found some language weakness: most of the German and Italian was "atrocious," but to his surprise he found the French excellent.

The Most Demanding. He noted one failing that is so common he has an abbreviation for it. "Ltc" in Gutman's shorthand stands for "Liebestod complex," and refers to a tendency among contestants, particularly women, to choose the most demanding music. "They seem to think they haven't got a chance unless they sing something loud and dramatic," said Gutman. "These youngsters try to do things that shouldn't even be in their repertoire for another five or ten years."

The winner was William L. Black, 30, of Bel Air, Md., a husky, 6-ft. Army captain stationed at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. One of several considerations in Gutman's choice was the fact that Black is a tenor, "the hardest kind of singer to find." He took up music at college (Gettysburg), went to Juilliard for further study, made his first professional solo appearances with the Greater Denver Opera. His prize (provided by the Met's National Council) will be $300 and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to sing for Met and radio officials next year. If he survives that screening, he will sing on the Auditions of the Air (ABC, Mon. 8 p.m., E.S.T.). Said Captain Black: "This could change my entire life."

* The Met points with particular pride to its Da Costa, who entered the Auditions as a baritone, took the judges' advice, studied until he became a tenor, and won. This season he made a fine showing as Walther in Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

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