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Area residents vie for Opera Idol crown

Jenny Smith

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Phillip Jennings

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer Updated 10:18 AM Monday, June 22, 2009

Miami University student Phillip Jennings may be on the verge of getting his big break into the opera, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to give up the day job.

So while the other 160 or so singers who showed up at Cincinnati Music Hall for the first set of auditions dressed to to impress the judges, Jennings came in his Skyline Chili uniform.

“I wasn’t sure about the process or what was going to happen,” he said. “Everyone else was dressed in ties and evening gowns, and here I am ready to make cheese coneys.

“After I sang, the judges asked me about it, so I was just honest with them,” he said. “I didn’t know how long it would take and I had to go all the way back to Oxford to go to work.”

Still, he made the first cut and will be among the 10 finalists to perform Wednesday at the Aronoff Center for the Arts to determine the five finalists.

A lifelong resident of the Hamilton-Fairfield area, Jennings went to Miami University to study music education, and while he still hopes to teach, he also fell in love with the opera and plans to take graduate work in vocal performance.

West Chester Twp. mother of four Jenny Smith also is among the 10 semi-finalists. She was a voice major at Northern Kentucky University, but dropped out during her last semester for unspecified reasons.

Although she’s not kept up her opera chops, she is the choir director at Christ the King Lutheran Church in West Chester Twp. and has passed the love of opera on to her children.

“My goal was to teach my children a nice lesson that you don’t give on on the things you love,” she said.

She said that when she got to the audition, she realized that other than drinking a cup of coffee, she hadn’t warmed up, so she went into the ladies room, where she ended up running other contestants through some vocalizations.

“That was fun,” she said. “They all had wonderful voices.”

It was so much fun, in fact, that she went to the men’s room to lead some warm-ups there, too.

Alex Kozlovsky, also of West Chester Twp., grew up around opera. Well-known Russian tenor Muslim Magomaev was a friend of the family and Kozlovsky ended up marrying his daughter Marina nine years ago

“He gave me my first love of opera and the American star at the time, Mario Lanza,” Kozlovsky said.

In 1989, Kozlovsky came to the United States for a visit and “happened to stay here since,” he said.

He worked for a while at the now-defunct Forest View Gardens restaurant as a singing waiter and got to know a lot of people from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

“When I came to my senses, I started taking college courses in computer programming and I am now a technical engineer for a local software company,” he said.

Although he’d gladly accept the ??????????$3,5000 ??????????????? contract that is the main prize for the Opera Idol competition, he said that he’s not looking to change careers at age 50.

“Singing the opera was my dream, but that was 30 years ago,” he said. “I truly believe that there are a lot of talented people in the competition, and I wish them the best that they will start their opera careers at a more appropriate age.”

During the intermission at Wednesday’s concert, audience members will vote for their favorite performer and videos of the top five performances will be posted on the Cincinnati Opera’s Web site, www.cincinnatiopera.org.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

how to go

WHAT: Opera Idol Cincinnati finals

WHEN: 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 24

WHERE: Jarson-Kaplan Theatre, Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnati

TICKETS: $10

INFO: (513) 621-2787; cincinnatiarts.org

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He said he is not ready to quit his day job....that is a good idea because opera is for tards. Also, who spends all that money at Miami to study music. If you are going to study something stupid do Women studies or Psycology.

Ricky Tinkle
4:07 PM, 6/22/2009

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Although he’d gladly accept the ??????????$3,5000 ??????????????? contract that is the main prize for the Opera Idol competition, he said that he’s not looking to change careers at age 50.

What the ?????
6:34 AM, 6/22/2009

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