2007 Metcalf Award Winner

Penelope Bitzas

The Greeks have always known that music tempers our character. In Plato’s Timaeus, Socrates scolds those who believe music is merely a fount of irrational pleasure. He testifies instead to music’s power, especially when sung by the human voice. The Muses gave mankind music, Socrates claims, that we may “correct any discord which may have risen in the courses of the soul.”

Attentive to the musical, intellectual, and spiritual needs of each of her opera students, Professor Bitzas has proved faithful to the wisdom of the ancients.

Professor Bitzas first carefully matches the voices of students to their proper repetoire. Does a soprano have a lively presence or a strong middle range? She may be a “soubrette,” suited for Mozart’s Papagena, but perhaps lacking the range and power for Wagner’s Isolde. One student remembers that Professor Bitzas saved her career by “rediscovering her true voice,” turning her from a struggling dramatic soprano into a prize-winning mezzo.

An operatic voice does not merely sing but also conveys a character in the heat of a theatrical role. With exacting passion, Professor Bitzas leads her students through the dramatic upheavals that their soaring arias convey. She insists on proper enuciation and pronunciation of texts in their original tongue, development of muscular support needed to sustain the voice, as well as proper posture, dress, and comportant. Professor Bitzas drills her students in “the technical and mechanical aspects of singing, of which she has an encyclopedic knowledge,” then “assesses technical, musical, and artistic merits and deficiencies.” Once convinced of a student’s professional competence, Professor Bitzas shops the student’s talent with the zeal of a Hollywood agent.

Aware that some important lessons are learned only under the pressure of the stage, Professor Bitzas conscientiously attends her students’ rehersals and performances. This becomes increasingly difficult as her students now perform in opera houses from Boston and New York to Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, and Santa Fe.