Bringing Opera Singers To Television Shows At What Cost?

Future popera star: Bradley Wisk

"Maybe the production team for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette has a newly acquired taste for high Cs and Wagnerian levels of personality conflict, but this reality-show franchise has suddenly made a habit of casting aspiring opera singers. The newest edition of The Bachelorette premieres Monday night, with tenor Bradley Wisk included among the initial 25 contestants vying for a rose from 'bachelorette' Andi Dorfman. On Wisk's website, the 32-year-old singer says that he was a student of Giorgio Tozzi at Indiana University and then received his master's degree at Manhattan School of Music. But over the past few years, he's been shopping himself around as more of a aspiring 'popera' performer, complete with backup dancers. If you're curious to hear Wisk in action in pure classical mode, we've dug up a video of him singing the ever-popular 'Che gelida manina' aria from Puccini's La Bohème. Maybe Wisk's turn on The Bachelorette — regardless of how many roses he accepts along

Pursuing opera over roses: Sharleen Joynt

the way — will provide just the kind of media exposure that he seems to be seeking for his own, not-so-highbrow career. But he might also want to heed the words of Sharleen Joynt, the young soprano who recently, and famously, decided to leave The Bachelor of her own accord partway through taping. Joynt is no Miss America talent-competition-level dilettante, and, unlike Wisk, she's a hardcore opera singer. This past season, she's been covering Strauss' Arabella at the Met. Her teacher in New York, Ruth Falcon, has also taught heavy hitters like Deborah Voigt, Sondra Radvanovsky and Danielle de Niese. A shakily recorded video of Joynt singing 'Grossmächtige Prinzessin' from Strauss' opera Ariadne auf Naxos in Heidelberg, Germany, is just stunning." [Source] Read the full story here.

MET Soprano Sharleen Joynt Receives First Rose On "The Bachelor"

Basking in the Sun: TV contestant on America's most popular dating television show (Photo: Andrea Joynt) 

"It’s a long way from the Metropolitian Opera in New York and European opera houses to TV’s The Bachelor but Ottawa singer Sharleen Joynt has made the journey. The 29 year-old soprano is taking it all in stride after appearing in the premiere episode of the ABC-TV reality series Monday night and attracting the attention of Juan Pablo Galavis, the hunk who is this season’s single man. In the beginning of the season, 27 women are hoping to win the heart of the 32-year-old former soccer player and single dad originally from Venezuela. Joynt was one of 18 women handed a rose by Juan Pablo on Monday. But by most accounts the exchange was a little forced. 'I guess I thought I would feel more of this instant chemistry than I did. I guess I feel a little distraught,' she is reported to have said after laying eyes on Juan Pablo." [Source

Juan Pablo Galavis seems under the spell of soprano Sharleen Joynt (Photo: Rick Rowell/ABC)

"'Silvery'-voiced coloratura soprano Sharleen Joynt has been 'sparking audience enthusiasm' with her 'special and unexpected amber timbre', 'a vocal range that is second to none', her 'scintillating stage presence', and her 'love for taking risks'. Sharleen's 2013/14 Season includes rejoining the Metropolitan Opera roster to cover Fiakermilli in R. Strauss' Arabella. She also appears with the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland, and makes her France debut. For the 2012/13 Season Sharleen spent her second year as an ensemble member of the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, performing Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and receiving critical acclaim for her 'stratospheric' Soprano 1/Ariadne in Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysos. She also made both a role and house debut with the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe as Marie in La Fille du Régiment. Her uncommonly honest embodiment of characters and fearless