High-Voice Standouts At XV International Tchaikovsky Competition

Elegance. Stamina. Distinction. Power. These are all elements that can set singers apart from each other in a competition, especially when at least three people are singing "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" from Dvořák's Rusalka. As the voice division of the International Tchaikovsky Competition began on June 23, several higher voices stood out in the crowd. Here is a small sampling of some unique talent from Round 1: 

Antonina Vesenina (Russia) Click here to watch performance	Yulia Matochkina (Russia) Click here to watch performance
Ewa Tracz (Poland) Click here to watch performance	Anastasia Fedorova (Russia) Click here to watch performance

Did any of these make it to Round 2 of the competition? Find out after the jump. 

Gramophone Magazine's Editor James Jolly interviews soprano Deborah Voigt who was the first prize winner 
in the 1990 Tchaikovsky Competition and is a jury member this year. See more after the jump.

Mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina was featured in the opening concert of the competition concert in Moscow.
Click here to watch the performance.

Joseph Colaneri And Francesca Zambello Talk 40th Anniversary

Opera Titan: Francesco Zambello leads the
Glimmerglass Festival into its 40th Season.
(Photo: Claire McAdams)

"The Glimmerglass Festival this year seems grander than ever before. The opera company, with its Alice Busch Theater and campus on the western shore of Otsego Lake north of Cooperstown, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Artistic and general director Francesca Zambello has put together a remarkable season of events and activities, running from July 10 through August 23. Scheduled for the opening and closing performances is the familiar and beloved Mozart masterpiece, The Magic Flute. Other mainstage productions are Verdi’s dark tragedy Macbeth and an amazing unknown opera by Antonio Vivaldi, Cato in Utica. The traditional American musical theater offering is Leonard Bernstein’s witty and clever take on Voltaire’s classic short novel, Candide. Voltaire ends his philosophical reflection on the meaning of life with Candide’s words, 'we must cultivate our garden.' This year the Glimmerglass 'campus' will have a three-part modern landscape installation for sharing stories and quiet person reflection. 'A beautiful garden has both unity and variety,' Zambello says, and the golden thread running through this season is the importance and beauty of our natural surroundings....The festival will also present a lecture by Supreme Court Justice Ruth

Tribute: Margaret Juntwait Interviewed By Deborah Voigt At The MET

Margaret Juntwait (left) gets interviewed by Deborah Voigt.

"As the Met’s beloved radio host for more than ten years, Margaret Juntwait interviewed countless operatic artists for the company’s Saturday Matinee Radio Broadcasts and for Metropolitan Opera Radio on Sirius XM. A few months before Juntwait died, soprano Deborah Voigt turned the tables on her, interviewing her about what it means to be the voice of the Met. Listen to the interview from December, 2014." Read the Metropolitan Opera's full statement on the passing of Margaret Juntwait, and see a video of her singing 'I Dreamed a Dream' from Les Miserables, after the jump. Funeral services for Margaret Juntwait will be held Saturday, June 6, 11:15 a.m. at Church of the Presentation (271 West Saddle River Road Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. A memorial service in New York will take place at a date TBD. The family requests in lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Save the Met Broadcast Fund, the Manhattan School of Music, or New York Public Radio.

Alumni Deborah Voigt Returns To California State University - Fullerton

CSUF Star Alumni: The School of Music turned opera stars
like Deborah Voigt, Rodney Gilfrey, Charles Castranovo,
and most recently Renée Tatum.

"Opera star and alumna Deborah Voigt will offer a 7 p.m. master class Monday, June 8, at Clayes Performing Arts Center's Meng Concert Hall. Participating School of Music students include: Trinidad Cano, Juliet Kidwell, James Lesu'i, Megan Ralston, Amanda Salmen and Joslyn Sarshad. A brief Q&A session with the soprano will follow. Cal State Fullerton students, faculty and staff can stop by the School of Music office in the CPAC 220 Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for a complimentary ticket. Tickets are also available for purchase online or at the door....After her June 8 master class at Cal State Fullerton, alumna Deborah Voigt will perform at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa June 11-13." [Source, Source]

Deborah Voigt "Today Show" Appearance Snowed Out. Watch Online!

 Although the media chose to air weather reports about the blizzard Juno that never really happened, Deborah Voigt still appeared on The Today Show to discuss her new book, Call Me Debbie. The video of that appearance is now streamed online. Watch it after the jump.

Deborah Voigt enjoyed music from an early age.

As a little girl, the soprano was spinning around the room to the music of My Fair Lady.

Deborah Voigt Launches Cross-Country Book Tour Extravaganza

With the official release of her new autobiography, Deborah Voigt will be making several appearances across the country beginning with The Today Show at 10 AM EST on January 27. From there she will travel to Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco. New York highlights of the tour include an appearance at 86th Street Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in conversation with Brian Kellow, the features editor for Opera News magazine, on January 28 and a stop at the Metropolitan Opera Gift Shop on February 5 to sign books. For complete information of appearances, click here. Other recent press for the book, Call Me Debbie, has included an article for People Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. After the book tour, the soprano will be seen on the stage in April for performances at the Michigan Opera Theatre as Hanna Glawari in Lehár's The Merry Widow.

You've Got To Know When To Hold 'Em: MET Playing Cards

Purchase the playing cards here.

"Kevin Rawlings has been a professional make-up artist and photographer for nearly three decades. Combining these skills with his knowledge and love of opera, Mr. Rawlings has created a collection of operatic images like no other in 'Stars of the Opera.' The product is composed of a double-deck of 'face-cards' featuring 108 famous opera singers from around the world. This one of a kind, High Quality set of cards was printed by USPlaying Card Co. on bicycle card stock and air cushion platic coating. Surprise your opera loving friends with these Special Edition playing cards! Included in the Deck: Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, James Morris, Dolora Zajick, Ben Heppner, Rene Pape and many, many more!!!" [Source] Find out more information by clicking here.

Deborah Voigt Confesses To People About Men, Wine, and Weight

I Am Woman: Deborah Voigt (Photo: Heidi Gutman)

"When Deborah Voigt was fired for being too fat to fit into a (size 12) little black dress for a production of Strauss's Ariadne aug [sic] Naxos at London's Royal Opera House in 2004, public outrage was immediate. 'It's incredible someone can get away with saying those words,' Voigt, 54, tells PEOPLE exclusively. 'It's still open season on overweight women.' Voigt details her lifelong struggles with food in a new memoir, Call Me Debbie (cowritten by former PEOPLE writer Natasha Stoynoff). She writes about her first binge at age 5 (when she slugged back a jar of olives), her late night fast food runs once she got her driver's license, stuffing herself with Pepperidge Farm coconut layer cakes 'until I passed out.' 'At first I'd say 'I'll never go over 180 lbs., then it was 200 lbs.,' she admits. 'It just went up and up and up.' At the same time, she was becoming one of the world's leading opera stars. In that world it was fine, even expected, to be large. But once she became obese, some directors started to comment. 'It was hard being Tosca at 300 lbs.,' she says. 'They're singing about her being so beautiful, and I'm feeling 'I am not and I will never be.'' While the 2004 firing was humiliating, she now understands the decision. 'There's a difference between being a larger-than-life opera singer and what I was, a poster child for food addiction,' she explains. Afterwards, Voigt took the money from the canceled performance and scheduled gastric bypass surgery. 'I had eaten everything there was to eat,' she says. 'How many more binges do you have to have?' She lost over 100 lbs. But soon, there was another struggle. 'My drinking just escalated,' she tells PEOPLE. 'It would be nothing for me to go through two bottles of wine, then my blackout would happen sometime around the third bottle.' Through therapy, she learned about how one addiction can lead to another. Men came next: for a brief time, she even frequented websites for men who wanted 'big gals.' 'The whole idea of being able to attract a man was so new to me,' notes Voigt. 'It was like, 'Could I?' Lo and behold, I could, and it was like feeding the monster.'" [Source]

Deborah Voigt And Mormon Tabernacle In Festive Holiday Mode

"Leading dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt and acclaimed British actor and voice artist John Rhys-Davies join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in a concert of holiday favorites.Among the highlights of the concert, conducted by Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy, are Voigt’s performances of the English carol 'The Holly and the Ivy' and the light-hearted 'The Twelve Days After Christmas' with the choir and orchestra. The program includes a new Mack Wilberg twist on the traditional song 'Christmas Is Coming (The Geese Are Getting Fat).' The Bells on Temple Square join the choir and orchestra for an upbeat rendition of 'Ring Those Christmas Bells.' The concert also includes Rhys-Davies’ dramatization of A Dickens Christmas with Robin Dick and the Christmas Players. The vignette features Rhys-Davies as the Ghost of Christmas Present soaring overhead at the LDS Conference Center in a dazzling scene of aerial choreography. Rhys-Davies also reads Luke 2: The Christmas Story with a fervor that moves audiences. Recognized as one of the world’s most versatile singers, Deborah Voigt is a leading dramatic soprano revered for her performances in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. She also has portrayed heroines of Italian opera to great acclaim. An active recitalist and performer of Broadway standards and popular songs, she appears regularly as both performer and host in the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series. Acclaimed British actor and voice artist John Rhys-Davies is one of modern cinema’s most recognizable character actors, best known to film audiences for his role as Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and more recently as the ax-wielding dwarf Gimli in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Together with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, Voigt and Rhys-Davies performed before a combined audience of 80,000 people in the annual concert taped in December of 2013 at the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah." [Source] Check your local listings for performance times this evening. You can also purchase the DVD and CD by clicking here.

Pre-Order New Deborah Voigt Confessional Autobiography

Cover Girl: Pre-order a copy of the new book here.

"Internationally beloved opera star Deborah Voigt recounts her harrowing and ultimately successful private battles to overcome the addictions and self-destructive tendencies that nearly destroyed her life. Call Me Debbie is one of the most electrifying performances of Deborah Voigt’s life. The brilliantly gifted opera soprano takes us behind the velvet curtains to tell her compelling story—a tale of success, addiction, music, and faith as dramatic as any role she has performed. For the first time, she talks about the events that led to her dangerous gastric bypass surgery in 2004 and its shocking aftermath: her substantial weight loss coupled with the 'cross addiction' that led to severe alcoholism, frightening all-night blackouts, and suicide attempts. Ultimately, Voigt emerged from the darkness to achieve complete sobriety, thanks to a twelve-step program and a recommitment to her Christian faith. Colored by hilarious anecdotes and juicy gossip that illuminate what really goes on backstage, Voigt paints diverting portraits of the artists with whom she’s worked, her most memorable moments onstage, and her secrets to great singing. She also offers fascinating insight into the roles she’s played and the characters she loves, including Strauss’s Ariadne and Salome, Puccini’s Minnie, and Wagner’s Sieglinde, Isolde, and Brünnhilde, sharing her intense preparation for playing them. Filled with eight pages of color photos, Call Me Debbie is an inspirational story that offers a unique look into the life of a modern artist and a remarkable woman." [Source] And more from the soprano's official website: "In bookstores on January 27, Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva represents one of the most electrifying performances of Voigt’s career. In her strikingly honest memoir, she recounts – with characteristic candor, charisma, and wit – her harrowing and ultimately successful private battles to overcome the addictions and self-destructive tendencies that nearly cut short her life.....Enriched with hilarious anecdotes and juicy backstage gossip, she paints diverting portraits of the artists with whom she’s worked, her most memorable moments onstage, and the secrets of her singing. 'I never imagined myself becoming a world-famous dramatic soprano who’d share the stages of the biggest opera houses in the world with the most celebrated vocalists of our time,' Voigt explains. 'I didn’t yearn to meet presidents, princes, Pavarottis, and Plácidos. As a child, I only knew I loved to sing – I was singing before I was talking.' Voigt will discuss and read from the book in an extensive promotional tour in February (dates/locations TBA). Already known to Twitter fans as a 'dramatic soprano and down-to-earth diva,' Voigt was named as one of the top 25 cultural tweeters to follow by the Los Angeles Times. She offered something of a preview of her memoir in her confessional one-woman show, Voigt Lessons; boding well for Call Me Debbie, at its Glimmerglass Festival premiere, the show was pronounced 'chatty, witty, and sometimes painfully poignant' (New York Times)." [Source]

How Facebook Versus Drag Queens Will Affect Opera Singers

UPDATE (10/02/14): Chris Cox of Facebook has responded to the controversy and says that drag queens will be allowed to use their stage names on their accounts. No word on sopranos. Read more about it here.

==============================================================

If this Facebook debate were happening 40 years ago, this
 opera singer wouldn't even be able to go by Bubbles on
 her personal page, but rather Belle Silverman.

"Years ago, Lil Miss Hot Mess created a Facebook profile. 'The way that I move through the world as a drag queen is different than how I move through the world every day,' she says. With her stage name, she has a different social circle, a different way of being online. Her page was shut down early last week, and she wasn't the only one whose account was deactivated. Facebook also closed the pages of other queens after they were reported for not using their 'real' names on Facebook. Now, drag queens around the U.S. are gaining allies in a fight against Facebook's real name policy. Activists argue that 'real' is a complicated term, and that for some, using birth names on profiles can actually put them at risk instead of keep them safe. But Facebook contends this protocol prevents anonymous bullying. In an emailed statement, a Facebook spokesperson said: 'Having people use their real names on Facebook makes them more accountable, and also helps us root out accounts created for malicious purposes, like harassment, fraud, impersonation and hate speech. While real names help keep Facebook safe, we also recognize that a person's real identity is not necessarily the

Bianca Del Rio is one of the drag queens in danger of
 having to change her profile name to Roy Haylock.
(Photo: Santiago Felipe)

name that appears on their legal documentation, and that is why we accept other forms of identification that verifies the name a person uses in everyday life.' The policy isn't new, so why is it getting attention now? Within the last couple weeks, dozens of drag queens' Facebook profiles were reported as not having 'real' names (Facebook says it does not seek out fake profiles). Those flagged accounts were deactivated. Drag queens started organizing and, along with San Francisco City Supervisor David Campos, met with Facebook on Sept. 17. Facebook said it would reactivate approximately 200 accounts and that at the end of two weeks, queens would have to either change their names or lose their profiles. Next week, there's another meeting scheduled at Facebook — and a protest planned in San Francisco. In the midst of the back-and-forth, a number of questions about identity and safety online have come up. Here are a few of them. Facebook has said that drag queens can use their stage names if they switch over to pages in place of profiles. The way people engage is similar — except we're talking about 'fans' rather than 'friends.' Facebook also says it offered to help anyone who was interested in turning a friend list into fans. Here comes the issue: Pages are intended for 'businesses, brands and organizations.' As Lil Miss Hot Mess puts it, 'We're not Lady Gaga; we're not Coca-Cola.' For her, inviting people to a show is 'much closer to inviting people to a dinner party.' She adds, 'These names are not just marketing tools.' She says her name is another part of her identity — not a separate persona." [Source] What does this mean in terms of the opera world? If you log onto Facebook and try searching for one of your favorite singers, chances are you will get a fan page or Wikipedia produced page. Many opera singers don't want to deal with people they are not truly connected with in the offstage world sending friend requests to their private accounts. The solution? Make a variation on your name or truncate it so that no one searching actually could find it. But once they become friends with another singer,

Citizen Leah Joanne may have to become
 public figure Leah Crocetto if Facebook
 has their way. (Photo: Facebook)

for example, their identity becomes pretty obvious. For example, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton goes by the moniker Jam Barto; soprano Sondra Radvanovsky goes by her married name Sondra Lear; soprano Alyson Cambridge goes by Aly Cam (which might soon change, since she is recently engaged); soprano Leah Crocetto has taken the name Leah Joanne for her personal page (possibly her middle name as the surname?); and Deborah Voigt created two pages using her casual nickname Debbie Voigt. Will Facebook take these singers to task, along with the drag queens, and force them to either change their personal pages to the names reported on government issued IDs? Luckily Facebook wasn't around for the entire last century or we would have to search Facebook for the real names of famous singers like Alice Pons, Roberta Peterman, Mary Price, Belle Silverman, Helen Porter Mitchell, and Sophia Kalos.

Deborah Voigt Joins Rufus Wainwright For BBC Proms Performance

Operatic soprano Deborah Voigt joined pop star Rufus Wainwright at the 2014 BBC Proms. Watch the two sing "If I Loved You" from the musical Carousel and Ms. Voigt sing "Quand j'étais jeune étudiante" from Wainwright's opera Prima Donna, after the jump.

Opera Crowd Taking ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Around The World

Deborah Voigt Recognized By Casita Maria Center For Arts

Honoree Deborah Voigt is seen at far right.

"Casita Maria Center honored Deborah Voigt for her outstanding contributions to music at its Musicale benefit on Tuesday, May 13th at 6:00 pm at the home of Maria Eugenia and William Haseltine in Manhattan. The Musicale featured performances by the acclaimed pianist Alexander Romanovsky and the students of the Casita Maria Music Program. The proceeds from the Musicale will benefit Casita Maria’s Music Program, founded by Gaetana Enders, a board member of the organization." [Source] Also check out a video of Ms. Voigt, performing with soprano Kristin Chenoweth for "The Evolution of the Soprano" at Carnegie Hall that took place on May 3, 2014, after the jump.

Deborah Voigt Entertains Mormon Tabernacle For Holidays

"The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square welcomed American soprano Deborah Voigt and British actor John Rhys-Davies for their annual Christmas concerts this past weekend in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. The guest artists also joined the choir and orchestra for the weekly Music and the Spoken Word broadcast and a mini-concert on Sunday, 15 December. About 700 cast and crew are involved in the annual production, including dancers and the Bells on Temple Square. This is the first time Voigt and Rhys-Davies have made appearances with the choir. 'These are two such great additions for all that is happening on stage,' says Ronald B. Jarrett, president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, who spoke during a news conference Friday at the Conference Center, which seats 21,000 people. 'It has been an absolute thrill to be here,' says Voigt, a leading dramatic soprano revered for her performances in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. The Chicago native raised in California has also portrayed heroines of Italian opera to great acclaim. 'I have been a fan of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for a long time because I myself grew up in a church environment in the choir, where you will find a lot of opera singers have their first opportunity to sing,' explains Voigt. 'I have been blessed to sing in a lot of venues, but this was something really unique. The first time I walked in here and saw the vastness of this center, I couldn’t believe it. It feels much more intimate once it’s full of people.'" [Source]

Deborah Voigt Coaches Professor Wigglesworth On "Beautiful Dreamer"

Opera Manager Andrea Anson Opens The Doors To His Townhouse

"A New York townhouse filled with family heirlooms and antique treasures. In his 1830s Manhattan home, music-world consultant Andrea Anson lives amid colorful rooms layered with African artifacts, European accents, and fond memories. Most people prefer clarity over confusion: crisp thoughts, unequivocal conversations, and perfectly precise rooms where just enough is quite enough. Manhattanite Andrea Anson is not one of those people. Stepping inside the transitional Federal/Greek Revival townhouse of this classical-music power broker—he is a consultant to Columbia Artists Management, where he has guided the careers of superstars such as Deborah Voigt and Angela Gheorghiu—is like walking into another place and time. The front door closes, muffling the touristy clamor of SoHo just outside, and a virtual English country house suddenly comes into view. Gilt-framed portraits and landscapes punctuate the colorful walls, portly delft vessels march across the top of a doorway, and every floor is spread with a Turkish carpet or two. 'Believe it or not, this place started out very clean and spartan,' Anson says. Some 30 years ago, though, his mother and father—a widowed Italian duchess and a British Army officer who crashed into each other on a ski slope during World War II and fell in love—gave up their enormous apartment in Rome, along with the king’s ransom of antiques and art it contained. Anson flew over to see what he could take back to the U.S. Accompanying him was his partner, Gordon McCollum, a commercial real-estate executive with an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City architecture. (McCollum died in 2000.)....Decorative exuberance wasn’t McCollum’s

plan in 1970, when he acquired the then-derelict property. One of the city’s grand merchant’s houses, the 1834 structure had been ill-served by the passage of time. At some point it had been divided into apartments, and in the 1920s a speakeasy took over the parlor floor. (Repairs to the basement boiler uncovered evidence of a secret corridor through which tipsy flappers fled during police raids.) A fire escape had been added to the redbrick façade, and the home’s stone mantels had vanished. Enough charm remained, though, to entice McCollum to purchase the building, for about $17,000, settle into one of the cramped flats, and begin a restoration that expanded into the other spaces as tenants gradually departed. McCollum retrieved period architectural details from demolition sites in New York and transplanted an 1830s staircase from a condemned house in Connecticut. Off came the fire escape, and beige and white paints were brushed onto the plaster walls—a neutral background for a few sinewy American Colonial antiques. Then, in 1978, along came Anson. The couple’s meeting was as much a thunderbolt as the ski-slope collision that brought together Anson’s parents. As he recounts, 'A friend invited me to a dinner party here, and when Gordon opened the door, I was done for.' The alliance changed not only their lives but also their surroundings, as the pared-down decor swiftly evolved into an Anglophilic layer cake of styles and eras. As Anson explains, 'Gordon allowed himself to become much more playful after we met.'" [Source] More photos of the interior after the jump.

New York on Sundays with Wagnerian Soprano Deborah Voigt

Soprano, and "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" fan, Deborah Voigt at Cafe Luxembourg.
(Photo: James Estrin/The New York Times)

Read a wonderful capsule of soprano Deborah Voigt's typical Sunday in New York City, as featured in The New York Times, by clicking here.

Eine Wagner-Film Komplimente des Metropolitan Oper

For more information about locations to catch the film, as well as the story about the making of the piece, click here.

Harvey "Van" Cliburn Jr. Most Certainly Approved This Photo

It appears that Nathan Gunn is very excited to be replacing Deborah Voigt for the Cliburn concerts. Special thanks to M Sharkey for such detailed photography.