Opera Scotland

Young Artists Singing Competition 2022Opera Festival Scotland

Read more about the opera Voice competition

This competition, the final event in the initial Opera Festival Scotland, was an opportunity for young professional singers to gain performance experience in collaboration with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Dundee's huge, but acoustically sympathetic, Caird Hall.

There were three finalists, all trained in London.  These were two sopranos - Susie Gibbons (from Ireland) and Julieth Lozano Rolong (from Colombia), and one baritone, Jacobo Ochoa, also from Colombia.

The five judges (all female) were Janis Kelly, Julia Lagahuzère (of Opera for Peace), Michelle Williams (of ENO), Linda Ormiston OBE and Sarah-Jane Davies (of Scottish Opera).

The RSNO was in excellent form, and played two short solo items, opening proceedings with Rossini's overture to The Barber of Seville.  When the competitors had done their stuff and while the judges were cogitating, the orchestra played the Johann Strauss overture to Die Fledermaus.

 

The competition items were as follows:

 

Susie Gibbons (soprano)

Smetana The Bartered Bride: 'Och, jaky zal....Ten lasky sen jak krasnybl'

Mozart Le nozze di Figaro 'Porgi amor'

Puccini La bohème: 'Quando m'en vo' Soletta' (Musetta's Waltz Song)

Gounod Faust: 'Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir' (Jewel Song)

 

Jacobo Ochoa (baritone)

Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin: 'Vy mne pisali....Kogda bu zhim domashnim krugan'

Mozart Così fan tutte: 'Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo'

Wagner Tannhäuser: 'Wie Todesahnung........O du mein holder Abendstern'

Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor: 'Cruda funesta smania.....La pietà del suo favore'.

 

Julieth Lozano Rolong

Rossini Le Comte Ory: 'En proie de la tristesse'

Mozart Die Zauberflöte: 'Ach, ich fühl's'

Bizet Carmen: 'Je dis que rien m'épouvante'

Puccini La bohème: 'Quando m'en vo' Soletta'

 

Susie Gibbons began with Smetana - beautifully lyrical and sweet-toned, if perhaps under-projected.  Her Mozart and Gounod were lovely, her Waltz Song beautiful but perhaps a little staid.

Jacobo Ochoa gave a good display of bel canto technique, with beautiful phrasing in his Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and, especially Wagner, with excellent diction.  His Lucia solo showed him in more dramatic form.

Julieth Lozano opened with a Rossini showcase, Adèle's big aria from Count Ory.  This was perhaps not ideally beautiful, but overflowed with character and dazzling coloratura.

The most unusual item was undoubtedly Guglielmo's rarely performed second aria from Così fan tutte 'Rivolgete a lui'.

An unexpected 'contrast and compare' opportunity became possible, with both sopranos singing Musetta's Waltz Song.  They were surprisingly different, with Julieth highly dramatic if musically less accurate than the sweeter-toned Susie.  Perhaps the judges were looking for that extra sense of drama that an opera performer should provide as a matter of course.

The winner, declared by Dame Judith Weir, was Juliette Lozano.