In the 2004 Lotte Lenya Competition, tenor Richard Todd Adams remembers that judge Teresa Stratas "gave me unbelievable feedback. When I went to the finals, I had a swelled head and faked my way through it. I didn't win, and afterwards, Stratas grabbed me and cussed me out: ‘You're too good to do that crap! You always have to sing from the heart.' She really opened my eyes. The next year I said, ‘I'm gonna f**king win this thing.' And I did."

When tenor Eric Liberman sang "Try Me" as part of his program in the first round of the finals of the 2005 competition, Broadway director Harold Prince was one of the judges. Forty years earlier, Prince had directed "She Loves Me," the Broadway musical from which the song comes. Following the finals' first round, the judges called some of the contestants to the front of the stage, Liberman among them. Prince said to him, "In the original production, we had a single spotlight on the actor's face for this number. I'd like to see if you can do it as if you're being lit that way." After eight bars, Prince interrupted, "That's it; he can do it," and off he flew to Los Angeles in a hired jet.

Kim Kowalke, University of Rochester music professor and president of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, who founded the competition in 1998, explains that Prince was trying to get Liberman to eliminate the extraneous movement that was getting in the way of the song. Liberman simplified his performance and, later that night, won second prize in the competition named for the woman who had been composer Kurt Weill's wife and inspiration, and a distinguished actress and singer in her own right.

Liberman never forgot that moment, and apparently, neither did Prince. Two years later, he hired Liberman for the original production of "Lovemusik," the musical based on Weill's life.

That kind of quick teaching between the finals' afternoon and evening programs is an essential part of the Lenya Competition's commitment to the future of theater singing - everything from musical comedy to grand opera. Now in its 11th year, the first competition had a total of 11 entrants, all from the Eastman School of Music. With 13 singers drawn from an initial field of 164, this year's finals include singers from Toronto and Berlin (all the participants must be between 18 and 32 years of age). The 2009 finals competition take place Saturday, April 18, in Eastman School's Kilbourn Hall. The finalists compete for prizes totaling more than $50,000, including a first prize of $15,000.

Each of the finalists performs two contrasting songs by Weill, an aria from opera or operetta, and one piece from the American musical theater. One selection must also be in a language other than English. In the evening performance, each singer will perform one of the four numbers as selected by the judges.

Weill was a German composer of art and theater songs, who fled the Nazis for America where he wrote for the Broadway stage with such lyricists as Ira Gershwin and Alan Jay Lerner. His best-known song in America is "Mack the Knife," made into a hit by singers as varied as Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong. Lenya was best known for singing her husband's songs. He died in 1950, she in 1981.

Kowalke established the competition to celebrate the centennial of Lenya's birth, and the Sibley Music Library's receipt of Weill's papers. But his deeper commitment was to promoting versatility in trained singers. "This is a theater singing competition, not a vocal or recital competition," he says. "Somebody has to encourage performers to sing in the right style with the right voice in a wide range of music with honesty and integrity. When you sing an aria, sing it like an aria. When you sing Cole Porter, don't sing it as if you're singing Wagner. Give both the respect they deserve."

Last year, Tony-winning singer and competition judge Victoria Clark told finalist Rebecca Jo Loeb to reprise Weill and Odgen Nash's "That's Him" at night. "They chose it because it was my worst song," Loeb says. "Vicki Clark didn't like my standing behind a chair as if I was hiding. I tend to do too much stuff to indicate what I'm feeling rather than putting it in the song." Loeb's deeply felt version that night earned her the first-place award. She has recently completed featured roles in runs of a musical and an opera, "A Little Night Music" and "The Marriage of Figaro." That's the kind of versatility the competition encourages and rewards.

This year's judges are Stratas, the renowned soprano who will be judging for the ninth time; Theodore Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization; and Rob Berman, music director of New York City's "Encores!" series of musical revivals.

Stratas says that "this is the only competition that wants kids to prepare so many kinds of songs, and then take what the judges give them and immediately put it to work."

Stratas, 70, knew Lenya in both a professional and personal way at the end of her life. She reflects on what the competition in Lenya's name achieves through Kowalke's original idea: "What a terrific idea that honors the singing and Lenya both. And now it's one of the most important international competitions in the world."

2009 Lotte Lenya Competition

Saturday, April 18

Kilbourn Hall, 26 Gibbs St.

11 a.m. & 8 p.m. | Free | 274-1000, esm.rochester.edu