Where are they now?

Maury floated an idea:

It might be fun to go back to the first year I went to this event and see what those folks are doing.

2005 wasn't the first Met Council Final I attended, but it was the first one blogged here. (Maury's thoughts at this post.) I was inspired to do some quick googling, so...

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Mari Moriya: covered and sang a Queen of the Night at the Met last season. Won some other competitions, and has been singing high soprano leads in various regional venues -- including, next month, Opera Ireland.

Joseph Kaiser: seems to have made it fairly big.

Elona Çeno: at Yale. [UPDATE: apparently not any more.]

Michèle Losier: had a bit part in the Met's Iphigenie. Doing all sorts of stuff otherwise, though nothing really huge.

Susanna Phillips (winner): recently graduated from Lyric Opera of Chicago's young artist program. Has been doing all the Mozart heroines at Santa Fe and elsewhere.

Rodell Rosel (winner): also a Lyric Opera of Chicago young artist graduate, and has been doing his character tenor thing in Chicago, Houston (soon), etc.

Ellie Dehn: last year's George London Award winner (Phillips, incidentally, won in 2005); seems to be covering everything at the Met of late (including last season's Aithra) and doing big things at other big US houses. There's some press on her of late, from her Minnesota run of Roméo et Juliette opposite 2002 Met Council Finals winner James Valenti.

Lisette Oropesa (winner): in her third (and final) year in the Met's Lindemann program. Endless bit parts here, along with her first Susanna earlier this season. Looks like she has a few Gildas in New Orleans next month.... Still just 24.

Jordan Bisch (winner): also third year in Lindemann. Still just bit parts and covers, I think.

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So it looks like Kaiser and Dehn have advanced the most after making the competition finals without winning. Having not heard them since, I wonder how they sound now.

Phillips seems to have her career well launched in her first post-YAP year; I hope she still has that magic tone. Oropesa is young and still in the Met nest, but was an amazingly mature artist from the beginning. Bisch is still developing.

UPDATE (3/4): As you may have noticed, Phillips will debut next season as Musetta.