Canadian Takes Opera Prize

Canadian Takes Opera Prize
Music * Isabel Bayrakdarian, a young soprano with a
degree in biomedical engineering, wins first place in Placido
Domingo's Operalia 2000 contest.

By JOHN HENKEN, Special to The Times


A 26-year-old soprano from Canada took the top prize at
Operalia 2000 on Tuesday evening at UCLA's Royce Hall.
Isabel Bayrakdarian emerged from an astonishingly strong
field of 41 singers, ages 19 to 30, in sole possession of first
place and its $50,000 award in the world opera competition
organized by Placido Domingo.
Second place in the contest was shared by 28-year-old
Chinese soprano He Hui and 23-year-old Russian tenor Daniil
Shtoda. Each takes home $25,000. The third prize was also a
tie, with $15,000 going to 29-year-old Ukrainian tenor
Konstyantyn Andreyev and to Canadian bass Robert
Pomokov, at 19 the youngest entrant.
The eighth annual running of Operalia was held in Los
Angeles to coincide with Domingo's first season as artistic
director of Los Angeles Opera, which opened Wednesday
night at the Performing Arts Center. The competition is
underwritten by Alberto Vilar, the billionaire opera patron
who has recently joined the Los Angeles Opera board, and
the prizes are named for him.
"Amazing," Bayrakdarian said backstage. "I'm very
surprised. I have never seen this high a level in any
competition; each one of us had a chance to win. I'm an
engineer, so I'll be very logical about how I spend the
money--except on shoes!"
Born in Lebanon, raised in Toronto and holding a
degree in biomedical engineering, Bayrakdarian is also a
winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Award.
She has already performed with the Canada Opera Company
and Lyric Opera of Chicago, and she has forthcoming
engagements in Europe at the Opera de Montepellier and
the Aix-en-Provence Festival. A supremely elegant singer
with lyric agility and dramatic warmth, Bayrakdarian sang
the bel canto showpiece "Bel raggio lusinghier" from
Rossini's "Semiramide," with Domingo conducting the Los
Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as he did for all 14 finalists.
* * *
Bayrakdarian also shared in a five-way tie for zarzuela
singing, with each winner awarded $5,000. Zarzuela is the
Spanish national form of musical theater; Domingo's parents
ran a zarzuela company, and he has made the form its own
category at his competition from the outset. The other
four zarzuela winners are 26-year-old Armenian baritone
Arnold Kocharyan, 24-year-old Argentine soprano Virginia
Tola, 28-year-old Russian baritone Andrei Breous and
Ukrainian tenor Andreyev.
There was also a "People's Choice" award, voted on by
the audience at Royce Hall and listeners to the live radio
broadcast on KMZT-FM, who voted via e-mail on the
Operalia Web site. That $10,000 prize went to Tola, as did
an additional Operalia 2000 prize of $10,000, awarded by
local opera patron Lloyd Rigler to the singer of his choice.
Each of the 14 finalists not receiving one of the other
awards, including Americans baritone Kyle Ketelsen and L.A.
Opera resident-artist tenor Bruce Sledge, takes home a
$5,000 award just for making it into the finals.
All of the 41 contestants arrived in Los Angeles with
their expenses paid. They each prepared four arias for the
competition. During the preliminary rounds Thursday and
Friday, each singer began with an aria of his or her choice,
followed by one the 11-member jury requested. At the
semifinal round, Sunday, the panel asked the singers for
one of the other two arias. For the final round, the
repertory was chosen in consultation with Domingo, to
avoid duplication and ensure that music was available for
the rehearsal with the orchestra.
* * *
The judging was done on a point system, with Domingo
working as a sort of moderator. "We try to do it all on a
numerical basis to keep it objective, but there is some
subjective discussion in the case of ties and other factors,"
said one of the judges, Edward Purrington, artistic
administrator for Washington Opera, where Domingo is also
artistic director.
The process seems to favor consistency and to
eliminate extremes of voice type, production and
interpretation, although Purrington demurred on this issue,
pointing out that there were still some unique voices in the
finals. The judges considered the singers' performances in
the preliminaries while evaluating the semifinal round, and
Domingo said that the 14 who passed to the finals were the
same 14 who topped the preliminary scoring.
The other judges, in addition to Purrington, were
Jean-Pierre Brossman, general director of the Thea^tre du
Cha^telet in Paris; Juan Cambreleng Roca, general director
of the Teatro Real in Madrid; Thierry Fouquet, general
director of the Grand Thea^tre in Bordeaux; stage director
Michael Hampe, administrator of the Dresden Music
Festival; American diva Marilyn Horne; Peter Katona, artistic
administrator of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden;
Gerardo Kleinburg, general director of the National Opera
Company in Mexico; Canadian writer Harvey Sachs; Helga
Schmidt, director of the new Palacio de las Artes in
Valencia, Spain; and Eva Wagner Pasquier, artistic
consultant to the Metropolitan Opera and the
Aix-en-Provence Festival.
Representatives of other opera companies and
management agents were in the audience for the early
rounds as well. With this concentration of talent and
administrators, the competition between rounds also had
all the makings of a job fair, with deal-making and
discussions going on backstage, including some between
contestants and members of the jury.
"It should not have any effect on either the singers or
the judges," said Purrington, who was himself discussing
availability with two of the artists. Given the level of the
singers and the number of companies represented, it is
probably not surprising that there are already connections
between many contestants and judges. "I don't believe
there is any conflict, any impact on the judging," said
Purrington.
L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan made an appearance at the
end of the competition to proclaim Tuesday Placido
Domingo/Operalia 2000 Day. Operalia, UCLA and the city's
Department of Cultural Affairs, which gave $50,000 to the
competition this year, all have expressed interest in making
a permanent home for the event in Los Angeles.
American baritone Rodney Gilfry, who will star in Los
Angeles Opera's production of "La Cenerentola," opening
Friday at the Music Center, was the amiable master of
ceremonies, going so far as to tell stories of his own
competition days and to croon "Besame Mucho,"
unaccompanied, while filling time waiting for the award
announcements. At the end, all the contestants joined
Domingo and the audience in singing the chorus "Va,
pensiero" from Verdi's "Nabucco." A concert featuring all
the competition winners with Domingo is scheduled for
Dec. 15, in Royce Hall.