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Two IU music students among winners at Metropolitan Opera Finals
April 4, 2001
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Two Indiana University School of Music students, tenor Lawrence Brownlee from Campbell, Ohio, and soprano Kristine Winkler from Huntingburg, Ind., are among the five winners in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York City.
The winners were selected as grand finalists from among 10 finalists after performing in Sunday's (April 1) concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York City. Brownlee, selected for the finals after winning the Northwest Regional event in Seattle, and Winkler, who won the regional competition for the Tri-State area in Indianapolis, will each receive $15,000.
The A&E program Breakfast with the Arts on Sunday (April 8) will feature the Met finalists.
Brownlee, 28, is a 1996 graduate of Anderson University who will receive his master's degree from IU this spring. He was last seen on IU's Musical Arts Center stage in the February IU Opera Theater production of Faust. He has performed such roles as the Prince in The Love for Three Oranges, Tamino in Die Zauberflote, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, and the Prince in Cinderella. He has sung the Mozart Requiem with the Lafayette and Columbus (Ind.) symphonies, as well as giving a concert of arias and duets with the Las Cruces (N.M.) Symphony. Last summer at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis he sang the roles of Andy and Cephus in Scott Joplin's Treemonisha. His upcoming engagements include Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Vogelsang in The Impresario and Don Curzio in Le Nozze di Figaro at Wolf Trap Opera.
Winkler, 26, is pursuing a master of music degree in voice on full scholarship as an associate instructor. She has performed several roles while studying at IU including Gilda in Rigoletto, Pamina in Die Zauberflote, Clorinda in Cinderella, Musetta in La Boheme, Loretta in Gianni Schicchi, and Belinda in Dido and Aeneas. Winkler spent last summer with Glimmerglass Opera, where she covered the role of Galatea in Acis and Galatea and was awarded the Richard F. Gold Career Grant by the Shoshana Foundation. Last December, she appeared as soprano soloist in a performance of Messiah with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. She has been nominated to sing for the Sara Tucker Study Grant this month, and this summer she will return to Glimmerglass as Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia.
Brownlee and Winkler are students of Costanza Cuccaro, herself a past winner in the Met National Auditions. Cuccaro enjoyed an international career performing leading lyric-coloratura roles in the major opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Colon, and the Berlin, Munich, and Vienna State operas, in addition to appearances with the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv and Toronto. The recipient of numerous distinguished teaching awards, she gives master classes and presentations at the National Association of Teachers of Singing National Convention, the International Voice Teachers Conference, and the Voice Foundation, in addition to many festivals and universities.
Others of Cuccaro's students have won Fulbright awards, Met auditions, and NATS competitions; hold positions at Adler, Merola and Western Opera Theater programs; and sing at Wolf Trap, Tanglewood, Chicago Lyric, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Houston, Glimmerglass, Chautauqua, Seattle and Palm Beach opera houses.
(Maria Talbert, 812-856-5719, mtalbert@indiana.edu)