Auditions are funny things. You never know quite what to expect, because the auditions are really just extensions of the companies themselves, each with their own flavor and personality. Sometimes you will be singing in front of a panel of several professional-looking, stone-faced auditors, and other times you will be alone in a room with one guy who is hopping around wildly and making faces at you. True story. And most frustratingly of all, you never really know what they want. As my agent says, sometimes they want the red dress, and you wore the blue dress. So if I ever wear a dress to an audition, I will make sure it is two-toned.
So when I said that you never know what they really want, that is only mostly true. Every once in a while you do know what they want, or do not want, and I had such an audition last week. I’m not sure what they wanted, but I know what they didn’t want. Me. I was in New York for several auditions, and generally I think they went well. I don’t know if I was exactly what anyone was looking for, but I sang the best that I could, and I put myself into every piece. I put it all out there, and that’s really all anyone can do. But the audition that I would like to gripe about is not one of those that went well. It was the one with the case of mistaken identity.
Now, I have to assure you up front that none of this was my fault. It was not my agent’s fault either, no matter what that guy running the auditions says to you. You see, very recently my agency added another singer to their roster with the same last name as me! Yes, Tenor Dad is no longer the only “Dad” on the roster. There is now a Soprano Dad. So we both have the same last name, and when this particular company asked to hear singers, they only sent a list of last names. Now, my agent showed me the e-mail she sent back to confirm, and it definitely said “Tenor Dad” right there on the list. She wrote out my full name, and they confirmed it, so we were very surprised to hear them calling out “Soprano…Is Soprano here? Ms. Dad?”
We told them that Soprano Dad was not there, and in fact it was Tenor Dad who had come to sing for them, and they were not happy. In fact, they were a little rude. When I told them the arias that I was prepared to sing, they said they did not want to hear them. They asked if I knew any soprano arias. Ha ha. Yes, very funny, I understand that there was a mix-up, however I have just paid you an audition fee, and I am here with the accompanist that I have hired, and I don’t think either of us wants to waste our time, so how’s about you just hear me sing and see if you like me, okay?
Well, the guy finally decided that I could sing one of my arias if I started in the middle, even though he made it clear that he really didn’t want to hear me, and so that’s what I did. For those of you who are not singers, starting in the middle of one of your arias is not always the easiest thing to do. I mean, you have rehearsed it and rehearsed it a certain way, and suddenly you have to do it differently. Of course I had no choice, so I did it, and he didn’t really pay attention to my singing at all, preferring to scowl and mope instead. And when I finished, he asked for another half of an aria which he also couldn’t have cared less about.
As a side note, when people are running behind their audition schedule, they sometimes do ask to hear abbreviated versions of your pieces. It’s not that unusual actually, except that this guy was running ahead of schedule and heard full arias from the 6 people before me and the 4 after me (and probably everyone else), so this was definitely just directed at me.
Anyway, I sang and I left, knowing that I was not going to be hired by this company, because they were angry that I was not Soprano Dad. I can control a lot of things in an audition setting, but I’m sorry Maestro, my gender and my voice type are not two of them. You don’t have to hire me. You didn’t even really have to hear me at all if you were so mightily offended. But I want my audition fee back.