Dear Editor: Very good! Especially input from resources such as collaborative pianists, auditioners, instrumentalists, professors, agents, Erda, and Jahn.
—Name Withheld
Sunnyvale, California
Dear Editor: I have two topics. One is to thank you for Greg Waxberg’s article on auditioning in challenging acoustical ven-ues [August 2010], which I suggested to you in a letter about a few of my difficulties when auditioning. . . . I hope it was helpful to other singers.
My second reason for writing was to tell you how much I appreciated the wonderful article on Diana Soviero [August 2010 cover story]. . . . I wanted to tell a story about her, which shows what a wonderful human being she is.
[Soviero] was the leading soprano in an opera I attended at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. Her singing was sublime, and I had to tell her my feelings, so I waited in a line outside her dressing room. As I was telling her how I felt about it, and that I was an aspiring opera singer, a man asked if she’d allow him to take a picture of her. She immediately put her arm through mine and said, “She also is a singer. Take our picture together.”
A beautiful singer, a beautiful woman, a beautiful soul.
—Betty Jean Rieders
Rushland, Pennsylvania
