Just two Brits in Covent Garden’s training programme
OperaThe Royal Opera has selected seven artists for its Jette Parker two-year training programme.
They are:
Mezzo-soprano Jingwen Cai (China)
Soprano Marianna Hovanisyan (Armenia)
Bass-baritone Ossian Huskinson (UK)
Baritone Siphe Kwani (South Africa)
Pianist Richard Fu (China)
Director Sophie Gilpin (UK)
and conductor Peggy Wu (Hong Kong, pictured).
The ROH seems to regard itself as some kind of offshore talent haven.
Yes, you write the same thing every year. Can I just ask a few questions. Is the ROH somehow an outlier in this regard? Do the other major international houses give preference to domestic applicants to their equivalent programmes? I thought that gaining international exposure was one of the purposes of joining such a programme. Do you also object to British applicants getting accepted into overseas schemes?
ROH is the only national opera company we have left. It has a public duty to attend to the national interest.
So you are advocating a sort of operatic Brexit?
The ROH is essentially an International Opera Company . Their training programme is open to all comers, and, like their counterparts across Europe and beyond, they make no special case for choosing home grown singers ahead of foreign singers. The 7 artists chosen will have won their places based on merit. If they have a public duty to attend to the national interest, then they should encourage British singers/répétiteurs to go abroad to study rather than stay in the UK. They should work out of their comfort zone, learn languages, get coaching in Germany from German coaches (or Italian coaches in Italy…France…etc.) Above all try to get a foot in the door in Europe, because, lets face it, that is where a career in opera is still possible.
Chauvinist claptrap. This scheme should be about talent and nothing else
Really?
When it receives such a large amount of public funding?
I disagree.
“When it receives such a large amount of public funding?”
Only by UK standards.
I agree Norman. Same for BBC, New Generation Artists programme funded by British tax payers and TV licence payers should be restricted to British (UK) talent. All of our conservatoires and colleges are turning out world class talent every year most of whom are ignored by both of these institutions.
Too true, unfortunately.
So, attending to the national interest, does that mean we should never have heard Pavarotti, Baltsa, Callas etc at Covent Garden? If it’s to be UK only artists then that sounds like having a nationalist interest, no? The national interest is bringing the best home and international artists to the UK, at whatever career stage they are. These appointments fulfil that remit imho.
Then I guess British singers had better start singing better at their auditions, or we can let the UK get its ass handed to it in every artistic market.
Norman, wasn’t the British national interest served spectacularly well when the Royal Ballet took on board so many dancers from overseas?
Were the other UK applicants up to scratch?
Will Mr Fu be known as “Ombra Mai” to his new colleagues?
And they do? Four out of seven who got in are from the Commonwealth. Not bad for the leading opera company of the former British Empire, don‘t you think?
Does the national interest bely the company’s commitment to quality? I also, not true. Scottish Opera, Opera North and WNO still ran schemes of a similar ilk last time I checked?
Whilst the JP is a very fine programme, it will not suit all. As a global house the JP programme needs to recruit as it wishes and support the talent it identifies, appropriate to its needs, chosen by its leaders and mentors since they will be working on a day to day basis with these young artists. If we are hoping to prepare UK-trained singers for a career in performing opera, they are as well served by joining a Young Artist Programme in Europe- learning from cultures and systems which have additional linguistic and cultural perspectives other than an UK-based model. An operatic career needs to have an international dimension if it is to have any long term trajectory, and with the state of the UK opera scene and lack of positive endorsement by successive governments, the sooner UK based singers embrace a perspective beyond, the better. Irrespective of where a career may or may not go, broadening cultural, linguistic and artistic perspectives will be of benefit not only from an artistic but an individual perspective and should be encouraged and promoted. All these singers will be work in progress and it is the overall strategy across the art form that is most important to coordinate and prioritise. A YAP is not an end in itself but at its best, promotes the ethos of life-long learning which lies at the heart of any great artist.
5 out of 7 should not be called ‘gaining international exposure’. It is totally international.
With immense British pride, SD posted a photo of a Hong Kong artist instead of UK artist, however photogenic she might be.
Maybe the UK entries this year were just not good enough…?
Or standard better out of the UK?
Or the UK conservatoires are taking too many non UK residents for their money at training level?
Singing teachers in the UK have to take some responsibility for this shortfall at least…
Opera companies should be ranked as they once were to International, National, Regional. However when a country only has one opera house then a fair play to it’s citizens should be mandatory.
I’m not sure that Huskinson needs a training programme, even at the ROH; already a fabulous voice which companies here should be utilising regularly.
Surely all we care about is having the best talent being supported and promoted in the UK? If UK singers aren’t up to scratch on the international playing field that is not the ROH’s fault (in this particular instance). Are you suggesting they give places to UK nationals on a preferential basis? Sounds like the sort of thing you would cry and scream “woke” about if the same approach was taken on the basis of race, gender or anything else.
Bit of a dilemma here though as presumably the British taxpayer is funding (or part funding) this? Not sure it sends the right message when it comes to applying for grants.
Maybe the money wasted on tickbox family activities could be directed to teenage UK singers?
The Jette Parker Programme is funded by Oak Foundation, not the tax payer.
not to worry:
in Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper Opernstudio programme there isn’t a single German – but three Brits …
https://www.staatsoper.de/opernstudio
At the Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino where I teach and coach, we have a preponderance of Ukrainian singers, some Spanish and two or three Italian. To the best of my memory, in the last ten years no British singer has even bothered to audition.
Just a little bit of xenophobia going on here?