M U S I C HIGH Note


The Boston Conservatory Voice and Opera program first made headlines in 1873, when it staged the country’s very first African- American opera, The Doctor of Alcontara, less than a decade after the end of the American Civil War. Today, more than a century later, the program continues to be a source of pride for the Conservatory. With auditions and applications at an all-time high and alumni regularly placing in the Metropolitan (Met) Opera National Council Auditions, we take a look behind the scenes to learn what makes The Boston Conservatory a top choice for voice and opera majors.


“I


literally went right out of the Conservatory, graduated, won the Met auditions, got an agent that same day, moved to New York … and have been on the road 10 months a year ever since.”


This is the fairy-tale story of voice and opera alumna


Victoria Livengood (’85, M.M., opera), who blew away the judges at the Met’s New England Regional Auditions in 1985 and—at age 25—shocked the community with a first-place finish. She is now a Grammy-nominated, inter- nationally renowned Metropolitan Opera star. “There’s no doubt that the success I achieved in the early


part of my career came directly from the training I received at The Boston Conservatory. I went for two years and just nailed down everything I needed to have a career,” says Livengood. Livengood is not alone. Alumni like Janice Hall (’77),


the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (’85), Deborah Lynn Cole (’85), Sherrie Seiden (’84) and Sandra Piques Eddy (’94) all placed first in their respective Met New England Auditions and garnered international success and fame. In addition, Wendy Bryn Harmer (’03), a recent gradu- ate of the Met’s prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development program, appeared this season as Freia in Das Rheingold and Ortlinde in Die Walküre in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of the Ring Cycle.


2 Victoria Livengood (M.M. ’85, opera) So what is it about the Conservatory’s voice and opera


program that makes it such a hot ticket? Livengood praises the Conservatory’s curriculum,


recalling classes in mime, movement, new repertoire and audition technique that were extremely helpful in


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