Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release                                                 
October 28, 1999

Lawrence University Graduate Wins State Metropolitan Opera Audition  


     APPLETON, WIS. -- Sarah Ribbens Dionne, a 1997 Lawrence University
graduate from Hilbert, was named one of three winners at the annual
Metropolitan Opera Auditions for the Eastern Wisconsin District held
Saturday, Oct. 23 at Carroll College.  
     A soprano competing in her first Metropolitan Opera event, Dionne
was one of 22 young singers who participated in the audition.  She
performed three arias from a predetermined list of five for a panel of
distinguished judges.
     A student of Kenneth Bozeman in the Lawrence Conservatory of Music,
Dionne received $3,333 for her first-place performance and advances to
the Metropolitan Opera's Jan. 29 regional competition in Minneapolis,
Minn. Regional winners qualify for the national finals in New York next
spring.
     A 1992 graduate of Hilbert High School, Dionne is currently
completing her master's degree in music at Indiana University.
     Two other recent Lawrence graduates, tenors Joseph Graziano,
Milwaukee, and  T. David Wallach, Wausau, also competed in the audition.