For most people, 3 and 4 are not an issue. There's nothing wrong with including a non-standard aria on a list or having a piece that is long where you'd expect to stop and start. There's only a problem for folks who have a history of making bad choices or lack access to coaches who can advise them appropriately. When you're in that boat, then you're better off being as conservative as possible.
Love love love! I was away and came back and here you go with wisdom and fabulousness yet again. Most of this I know but it's nice to be reminded that I'm on the right track!
It's fine to include a non-standard aria if there's some reason to. If you are very good at singing Handel and want to sing something very flashy but not one of the 2-3 Handel arias everyone else sings, go for it. Don't start with it, but sing it. Or if you spent two years in Russia and want to list something that shows you have mastered that very difficult language. Or if you can learn something really difficult and modern. English is a good place to be creative. No opera in English is really "standard" in the strictest sense except for Porgy and Bess. Go for something off the beaten path for that. Just have a damn good reason for singing it besides "look at me I'm not like everyone else". If you can't set yourself apart singing standard rep arias, then you aren't going to get most jobs so it's really not going to help
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True, but you are a smart and reasonable person. People who are crazy just decide that they were meant to be Russian and then they go and learn some Glinka with incorrect notes and whatever pronunciation they thought they heard on a recording figuring that no one will notice and their awesome talent will make it work. Or they bring in arias from Attila because people totally need to hear that because they are channeling Sutherland for reals
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this happens to people in rare voice types all the time. Because at the lower levels (really lower) it's hard to find a spinto or dramatic anything to sing for free must mean that the same is true all the way to the international level. Surely agents will leap to sign him with no stage experience and no track record of getting through these roles. (It's one thing to sing Un bel di...it's quite another to sing all of Butterfly.) And people tell people that it's all going to be easy because they are so rare. They said it to me. The truth is that once there's real money involved you have real competition. I have been at those auditions and heard some damn good singers. Yes, some god-awful ones too but they have choices. So he might be really good. Or at least decent. But someone is telling him that he just needs to get an agent and then just wait for the money to roll in. People like that mean well. I heard it for a decade myself. But they are out of touch with the reality of the business.
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That said, I could debate #3 and #4 to a point...but I do understand where you're coming from with them :).
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