Hmmmm... despite some of the predictably
black-or-white answers given already, I would imagine
this is an issue that many young singers confront
seriously.
The first question is, how do they verify your age?
If you audition for any of the big apprenticeships or
the Met competition, they ask for a certified copy of
your birth certificate, I think... that sort of thing
would be impossible to fake.
On the other hand, is it a small competition? Do they
ask for a driver's license? Or do they simply ask for
your age on a form to fill in?
Either way, what are the ramifications of being
caught? It's always possible that people will find out
-- old classmates of yours from high school who might
say to the wrong person, "Oh, hey, I knew her -- we
had tenth grade French class together" and situations
like that.
If you do decide to change your age, you'd have to
stick with it. Farrar took five (or was it three?)
years off of her age, and it stuck throughout her life
-- her tombstone is wrong to this day. If you were to
win the competition, there may be publicity that goes
along with it -- a newspaper clipping, for example:
"Thirty-two-year-old Soprano X, winning the Y
Competition, goes on to..." There would be no going
back, which means you would have to think about what
documents you carry with you, or whether you have
previous press clippings or resumes you've sent out in
the past that have information that could date you (a
graduation date from university, for example).
I wonder how many singers do it. This might be a
great topic for the Classical Singer online forum,
since there are many, many singers in that
borderline-age-limit age group there, whereas this
group (from what I've seen) seems to have a higher
percentage of singers and teachers over thirty on it,
who might tend to be slightly more judgemental about
an issue like this. It is a real issue, though, and
shouldn't simply be ignored with a blanket statement
of wrongness -- it ought to be discussed and dealt
with, rather than simply condemned (which helps no
one).
You could think about asking the judges if they
wouldn't let a matter of three months slide and let
you sing, but you run the risk of being refused. Do
you have a backup story if you get caught ("I'm not
good with math" might not get you off the hook). Are
these people well-known enough to disgrace you if
you're caught?
What are the facts and statistics out there? Teachers
and judges (for non-Nats competitions) -- have you
ever caught a student changing their age? Maybe the
chances of getting caught are slim because, in the
end, the judges don't really care that much.
Isabelle B.
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Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
ibracamonte@y...
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