NEWS FLASH: Andre Courville is runner up in Met Auditions

Andre Courville

Andre Courville, a 26-year-old bass-baritone, took second-place in today's Metropolitan Opera National Council’s Gulf Coast regional auditions. Courville is the Director of Music and organist at Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in Lafayette, Louisiana and an aspiring opera singer.

He wowed judges by singing “Sorge infausta,” the magician Zoroastro’s aria from Handel’s “Orlando.” Then the church musician ironically turned himself into Mephistopheles with an aria from Gounod’s “Faust.”

The judges for the Gulf Coast regional finals were Gayletha Nichols, the executive director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council; Kim Witman, general director of the Wolf Trap Opera Company; Christopher McBeth, artistic director of the Utah Symphony and Opera; and Steven White, principal guest conductor of Opera Roanoke.

First place went to Korean soprano Hye Jung Le, who sang Amina’s aria from Bellini’s “La Sonnambula" and “I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung,” from John Adams' “Nixon in China.”

Andre Courville playing the organ in Lafayette

The budding star and former valedictorian of Cecilia High School has shown amazing musical talent since he was a kid, conducting his church choir in Henderson, Louisiana. 

Courville recently made his operatic debut in New York City as Hermann, Schlémil, and Crespel in The Tales of Hoffmann with the Martina Arroyo Foundation.  Other operatic roles include Bartolo in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Simone in Gianni Schicchi, and Marquis d’Obigny in La Traviata at Opera in the Ozarks.  He performed roles in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers and Delibe’s Lakmé with the Loyola Opera Theatre, and has performed with the New Orleans Opera Association.  In 2005, he had the honor of performing the bass solo in Dave Brubeck’s Pange Lingua Variations with members of the Buffalo Philharmonic and the composer at the piano.

Courville will be a member of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers this year, where he'll be singing Marquis d’Obigny in Verdi's La Traviata.