San Francisco Classical Voice

Rosenberg's "Singer of the World"

There was a significant San Francisco presence at the Welsh Canwr y Byd Caerdydd ("Cardiff Singer of the World") song contest. As a result, you may expect Romanian tenor Marius Brenciu in the War Memorial Opera House one of these seasons, but don't hold your breath for a return of Valery Gergiev.

How come? What is known publicly is that among 25 young artists from all over the world, Brenciu, 28, won the 2001 Singer of the World competition on Sunday. What I am finding out through the grapevine is that his unprecedented double victory ("Singer of the World" and the Song Prize) had much to do with the strong advocacy of a judge — San Francisco Opera general manager Pamela Rosenberg.

On the other side is Larissa Gergieva (the conductor's sister), with candidates of her own. Gergieva was described by one observer as "a sort of matron-governess figure in charge of the Mariinsky brigade." (Apart from this little conflict, of course, Gergiev, who had his U.S. career launched here, is much too overemployed elsewhere to come back to this small town.) Humphrey Burton reported on BBC-3 that Gergieva did not take kindly to the jury decisions and threatened to walk out and boycott future competitions in the Welsh capital. And all this while Vladimir Putin and George Bush were busy embracing each other! So what's more "political" — opera or international relations?

Chaired by Welsh National Opera manager Anthony Freud, the panel of judges included Rosenberg, Marilyn Horne, Tom Krause, Gundula Janowitz, Joan Sutherland, and Brian McMaster, head of the Edinburgh International Festival.

The winner of the first Cardiff contest, in 1983, was Karita Mattila, then 24. "Local boy" Bryn Terfel lost to Dmitri Hvorostovsky in 1989, but he did win the Song Prize and stated for the record: "Having been born Welsh does not necessarily mean being the son of a good home, but it does mean having singing in the fibers of your heart." At the last of the biennial contests, in 1999, San Francisco Opera's James Westman won the title of audience favorite. My favorite name in this year's contest is Korean baritone Tito You.