Soprano Tracy Cox and bass Matthew Anchel have advanced to the final round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, one of the most prestigious voice competitions in the world. The last stage of the competition will take place in New York on Sunday, March 10, 2013, at a Grand Finals Concert where the finalists will perform with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Tracy is in her third season as a member of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program. She made her LA Opera debut in 2010 as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro and most recently performed the role of Pisana in the season-opening production of Verdi's The Two Foscari.
While spending the summer at the Music Academy of the West, she was named the 2012 winner of the Marilyn Horne Song Competition, and in 2012, she sang the role of the Second Lady in The Secret Kingdom, conducted by James Conlon at the Colburn School. A former member of the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, she will return to Wolf Trap later this year to sing the role of Alice Ford in Falstaff.
Matthew Anchel was a member of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program during the 2010/11 season. He made his LA Opera debut as the Fourth Noble in Lohengrin and went on to perform the role of Count Ceprano in Rigoletto, while also covering leading roles in The Marriage of Figaro and The Turk in Italy.
During his season in Los Angeles, he created the role of Dr. Chasuble in the world premiere of Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest at the LA Philharmonic. He subsequently joined the ensemble of the Leipzig Opera, where he performed numerous roles. Earlier this year, he made his debut with Opera San Jose as Ferrando in Il Trovatore. In April, he will debut with Knoxville Opera as Alidoro in Cinderella (La Cenerentola), and he will return to Opera San Jose next season as Leporello in Don Giovanni and as the Bonze in Madama Butterfly.
The Grand Finals Concert will be hosted by soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, a past National Council Auditions winner is returning to LA Opera in May in the title role of Tosca. Last year, soprano Janai Brugger, who was a member of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program at the time, was one of the winners of the finals.
The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which are celebrating their 60th anniversary this year, have been an important stepping stone in the career of many of the opera world’s leading artists. Twenty gifted young singers from around the country arrived in New York on February 28 to prepare for a March 3 semi-final round, in which they sang on the Met stage for the first time in their careers before a panel of judges. After deliberations, the panel narrowed the field to ten singers who move to the final phase of the competition on Sunday.
This year’s finalists, all between the ages of 20 and 30 years old, will compete for individual cash prizes of $15,000 each. The finalists were chosen from nearly 1500 singers who participated in the auditions held in 40 districts and 13 regions throughout the United States and Canada, sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council. Given the reach of the auditions, the number of applicants, and the long tradition associated with them, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions are considered the most prestigious in North America for singers seeking to launch an operatic career.