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Baritone Virtuoso Douglas Carpenter, winner of the 2013 Lotte Lenya competition, joined host Robert Hammond to talk about the annual, international competition, that took place Saturday, April 12 at the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall. Carpenter discussed his journey to the competition, his repertoire, and what winning has done for his career. He’s currently in the role of Lt. Cable in Paper Mill House’s production of South Pacific, on stage through May 4.
Doug began his career in opera earning a degree in voice from UNLV and a Masters in Vocal Performance from UCLA. Since graduating, Doug originated roles in two Roger Bean productions, as Skip in Life Could Be A Dream (LA Weekly and LA Drama Critics Circle winner) and Curtis in Summer of Love (Musical Theatre West, Ogunquit Playhouse). Regional credits: Lancelot in Camelot (Pasadena Playhouse), Curly in Oklahoma! (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Fullerton Civic Light Opera), Tony in West Side Story (Fullerton Civic Light Opera), Thief in See What I Wanna See (Blank Theatre), Prince in Cinderella (Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities), Chris in Miss Saigon (Moonlight Amphitheatre), and Joey in The Most Happy Fella (Dallas Lyric Stage). New York theater: Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Doug is the only singer to win both the American Traditions Competition (2011) and the Lotte Lenya Competition (2013).
In 1998, to honor the centenary of the birth of Lotte Lenya (1898-1981), an extraordinary singer/actress and one of the foremost interpreters of the music of her husband, Kurt Wiell (1900-1950), the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music established an annual Lotte Lenya Competition.
The competition recognizes talented young singer/actors who are dramatically and musically convincing in repertoire ranging from opera/operetta to contemporary Broadway scores, with a focus on the works of Kurt Weill. More than a vocal competition, the Lotte Lenya Competition is a theater singing competition that emphasizes wide-ranging repertoire and the acting of songs and arias within a dramatic context.
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