Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist Shannon Crowley is one of only six Grand Finals winners of the Metropolitan Opera’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition! She sat down with QED’s Anna Singer to talk about the competition process and her finals experience, which took place on Sunday, March 22nd.
Shannon explains how she entered the competition, progressing from qualifying to Districts (which were held in Pittsburgh), Regionals, and all the way to the finals at the Met. She recounts what it was like to sing on that iconic stage and all the emotions surrounding her finals performance. For the competition, she prepared four arias, including “No Word from Tom” from Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Handel’s “Da tempeste il legno infranto” from Giulio Cesare, “Adieu notre petite table” from Manon, and “Regnava nel silenzio” from Lucia di Mammermoor.
Anna asks Shannon about her opera journey, which started with her mother, the Virginia Children’s Chorus, and community theater. She began studying opera from a young age at the Governor School for the Arts in Norfolk, Virgina.
Join us in congratulating Shannon, and you’ll have a chance to see her with the Pittsburgh Opera as Nanetta in Verdi’s Falstaff, coming up April 28th through May 3rd.