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Departments Arts
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Arts She radiates "something you can't teach" SFA student Kaduce wins first round of Met opera competitionBy Judith Sandler But for the naming of the plants, lyric soprano Kelly Kaduce (SFA'99) might today be in a cell biology lab instead of heading to the Met. A regional winner of last month's Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Kaduce majored in biology during her first two years at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. "I loved singing," she says, "but I didn't know how I could make a living as a singer. Biology seemed like a more logical major, but as soon as we started naming the plants, I knew biology wasn't for me." Nor did she really know that opera was for her, although music had always been a great love. Her interest was sparked and encouraged by her mother -- a banker by trade, who plays the piano -- but her first exposure to opera didn't come until she was in college. "I always sang," she recalls. "I grew up listening to the top 40 and singing musical theater. But when I started to sing classical repertoire in college, I began to discover this incredible music I knew nothing about, music that is much more suited to my voice." That voice is one of "unique timbre and beauty," according to Sharon Daniels, director of the BU Opera Institute and an SFA assistant professor, who says that Kaduce also is armed with other ingredients crucial for an operatic career: "intelligence and a feisty personality. She works hard and has professional standards; she's great on stage and lovely to look at."
"In addition to singing for the judges," says Pauline Ho Bynum, regional chairman for New England of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, "the semifinalists and finalists will be performing for an audience that includes managers and people looking to hire young talented singers. The name of the game is to get a gig, and the other name of the game is to get a manager." "This is a very tough business," says Kaduce's teacher, SFA Assistant Professor Penelope Bitzas. "A singer has to keep going in the face of disappointments, no matter what. And there's the element of luck and of being in the right place at the right time." While her Met career is in the hand of the judges, Kaduce's Boston University career is well in place, and her datebook is filling up for 1999. She will sing the role of Musetta in the Opera Institute's production of La Bohème April 22 through 25 at the Boston University Theatre, perform with the Boston University Symphony Orchestra on May 4 (the result of having won the Concerto-Aria Competition at SFA), complete her master's degree, and spend the summer performing at Glimmerglass Opera in upstate New York. "Kelly is a very hard worker," says Bitzas. "She's very focused and mature. Her voice is this beautiful, round, dark, yummy sound. She has a way about her when she sings -- she radiates. That's something you can't teach. Singers either have it or they don't."
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