Sound bites.(Isabel Bayrakdarian)

Isabel Bayrakdarian, who makes her Met debut this month as Catherine in the company premiere of A View from the Bridge, started singing in church--the Armenian church, that is. Born in Lebanon, to Armenian parents, and raised in Canada, Bayrakdarian was a biomedical engineering student at the University of Toronto when she began studies in voice and theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music--in order, she says, to improve her church-singing technique. "The music in Armenian services is gorgeous but hard to sing, with these spiiiiiiiiiiinning melismatic lines. You need real control to do it justice." Five years and "a lot of tears and wrinkles later," Bayrakdarian completed both degrees with honors.

There's no word on job offers in biomedical engineering for the twenty-something Bayrakdarian, but her singing career is progressing just fine. Her distinctively tangy, dark-edged soprano brought her victory in the Met's National Council Auditions in 1997 and in the 2000 Operalia Vocal Competition, plus sheaves of admiring notices for opera appearances in Germany, San Francisco, Toronto and Santa Fe. Her 2001 Weill Recital Hall debut ran the gamut from Vivaldi to a charmingly accented "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Her first solo recording, Joyous Light, a disc of Armenian sacred music, went straight to the top of classical charts in Canada on its release in March 2002. Mozart ...