As POPSearch '05 moves forward, so does a tenor from '04
Now that POPSearch 2005 is beginning to heat up, it's worth noting that the life of the 2004 winner, Tracy Silva, isn't the only one to have changed because of the Boston Pops talent contest.
Silva has had a busy year singing in musical theater, at sports events, and on community occasions. Meanwhile, the second-prize winner, tenor Wayne Hobbs, has revived his ambitions for an operatic career, which he had abandoned to go into banking.
In October Hobbs left his job in a bank in Vergennes, Vt., to pursue his musical dream full time. He participated in the demo recordings of Lorin Maazel's opera based on George Orwell's novel ''1984" and later flew to London to cover a role in the world-premiere performances at the Royal Opera House last month.
''I didn't go on," Hobbs, 38, said over the phone after his recent return to Vermont. ''The other tenor was awfully healthy. But the chances are very good that I will be performing in the next productions of the opera."
In the 1980s, Hobbs studied singing at Boston University and later worked in Italy with the famous tenor Carlo Bergonzi. Now he has found a new voice teacher, and plans to move to New York this month. He'll undertake a big audition tour in Europe in the fall.
''POPSearch was what gave me the push to pursue this," Hobbs says. ''The time away from singing allowed my voice to mature and settle. Leaving the security of the bank was difficult, but I have to follow my heart."
Kathy Porter, the singing grandmother from Braintree, took POPSearch's third prize, and she says she's still ''singing away" at private parties and events for senior citizens. Her only regret, she says, is that it barred her from competing again this year. ''It was as a great ride, a wonderful ride."
Fleming crosses back
Renee Fleming has always included American popular songs among her recital encores, and the popular soprano has talked about making a crossover album for years. Her roots lie in popular music and jazz, and when she was in college she regularly sang jazz in local clubs. Now the album is here -- ''Haunted Heart" on Decca -- and it's good, but not in the way one might expect.
''Haunted Heart" finds her using a tone quality few would connect with an opera singer's. Fleming almost always sings in the lowest part of her voice, an octave or more below her money notes, and with an intimate, sultry sound that would require amplification to be heard in live performance. Fleming's classical training is evident mostly in the breath support that enables her to sing long phrases and in the precision of her intonation. Her diction is relaxed and has a Southern flavor, like a splash of bourbon.
The main problem is that she sings most of the songs in the same slow tempo and reflective mood, so that her exceptionally varied selections wind up sounding the same. Her material ranges from art songs through songs by Stephen Foster to songs by Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, and Stevie Wonder. The most unlikely piece opens with pianist Fred Hersch's riff on a passage from Alban Berg's opera ''Wozzeck," then segues into Lionel Hampton's ''Midnight Sun." Guitarist Bill Frisell also plays on several tracks.
There are flurries of jazz ornamentation, bent notes, and purposeful singing around the beat, but Fleming lacks the spontaneity of a true jazz singer, and she's too calculating and pretentious to pass for a pop singer. Instead she's a sophisticated, postmodern cabaret diva or song stylist who alludes to predecessors from Jo Stafford to Phoebe Snow and expects her listeners to catch the allusions. There's no question of her intelligence, commitment to the idiom, and affinity for it -- and there's a lot here to enjoy -- but so far there's not much that sounds like Renee Fleming and no one else.
