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Stephanie Blythe, Class of 1987, Appears at the Metropolitan Opera

From Monticello High School's humble theatre, where she was the lead in "Annie Get Your Gun" in 1987, to the role of noble Jocasta in Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Stephanie Blythe has certainly come a long way. 

Blythe's passion for music started here at Monticello when she was 16, seeing her first live opera "La Boheme" at the Met with her high school music class. "I was completely blown away," Blythe recalled to reporters for the New York Times. 

In high school, Blythe played flute in the band, and was later convinced to join choir as a sophomore. She was also involved in theatre.

The first time high school choral director (and devoted fan, today) Martin Banner met Blythe, Banner was auditioning Chris Bradshaw* (class of 1987, pictured below) at the Middle School to sing with the high school choir the following Fall. After the audition, Bradshaw and his barbershop quartet, with Stephanie as the quartet's tenor, sang for Banner.     

"She was a very quick learner, very good with foreign languages, and had a great flexibility in her style," Banner commented. "It was great to watch her vocal talents blossom."  

After high school, Blythe went on to SUNY Potsdam, where she studied music education. She felt her interest in music being stifled, until she took a writing course and became an English major. Through writing, Blythe was able to "break out of my restrictive learning pattern and discover the creature all over again," the New York Times reports, adding, "Music was no longer a technical exercise." A following course in Theory of Rhetoric influenced Blythe to communicate through music, the foundation of her technique. 

After graduating, Blythe competed against hundreds of singers nationally in district and regional competitions, which could ultimately lead to an invitation to join the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artists program. Having won her district and regional finals, Stephanie competed in the national finals against stiff competition from around the country. One of her two allowed guests at the finals was her choral director from Monticello High School, Martin Banner. 

"After her performance, I sat with Stephanie backstage while we waited for the results," said Banner. "It was absolutely glorious to be there with her when she was announced as one of ten winners who would receive a contract to sing at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Young Artists program."  

Blythe in her High School performance of "Annie Get Your Gun," with Chris Bradshaw.Blythe's first break into theatre came at the age of 24, when she finally sang at the Met, offstage, in "Parsifal," with Placido Domingo. Although her part was exceedingly short, Domingo was obviously impressed. At the following cast party, Blythe said that Mr. Domingo told her, "Stephanie, when I hear how you sing at the end of the first act, I know how I must sing in the second."  

"I felt knighted," Blythe said. 

In 1996, Blythe's career was transformed, standing in for Marilyn Horne, one of Blythe's idols, at the Met as Mistress Quickly in "Falstaff." Her breakthrough performance came three years later when she sang Cornelia in Handel's "Guilio Cesare." That year she won the Richard Tucker Award, one of opera's most prestigious prizes. 

Blythe has one CD out--"Handel/J.S. Bach Arias" (Virgin Classics) with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris. Another is on the way. Blythe hopes to put out more CDs, as well as give more recitals, as she did at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the early 1990s. 

Blythe is at the point in her career where she seldom needs to audition for parts--she was invited to sing the title role of Carmen at the Seattle Opera by that company's artistic director, and the Opera Company of Philadelphia offered her a production of the Grand-Duchesse de Gerolstein following an earlier triumph with that company several years ago as Elisabetta in Rossini's Italiana in Algeri. 

For more information about Monticello graduate Stephanie Blythe visit:

New York Times Article, October 9, 2003
 
* NOTE: Chris Bradshaw is an accomplished musician himself. He has completed doctoral coursework in accompanying from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and is currently active in the Philadelphia area as both an accompanist and partner in the piano duo Bradshaw and Martin. Bradshaw and Blythe remain good friends today.