2007 revisited

(Disclaimer because the movie bills itself as "a suspenseful competition narrative": don't click on the links below -- except the very first -- if you want to avoid spoilers.)

Next Sunday's special Met moviecast goes back two years to the 2007 Met Council Finals, the climax of the house's annual and national young singers' competition. What we saw then was one of the more talent-packed and interesting Council Finals events in memory -- the two since were a relative snooze -- with two obvious winners and one inexplicable one among the field. What we'll see now is, it seems, the backstory. I hope the apparent focus on three of the tenors doesn't background the most exciting voice of the bunch: the big soprano of the aptly named Amber Wagner.

I don't know how much "where are they now" the film will have added since the initial filming, but one of the non-winners is now in the Met's Lindemann Young Artist program (where he joins the most unfairly passed-over non-winner from the previous year, John Michael Moore). Meanwhile, one of the winners had a less happy fate.