Susanne Mentzer Writes About the Human Voice and Emotions

"On September 9, choruses from New York City, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Boston -- areas forever strongly linked by the tragedies of 9/11 -- will alternate performances throughout the day at Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel and will join together for a communal concert that evening. The human singing voice has the power to release deep emotions. Many know of sounds that give us goosebumps. From the point of view of one who makes sounds, I refer to it as my primal scream therapy. The wonderfulness of singing can be the primal, super-human sound that pours out of one's body. It also be humbling. It is thought that hearing is the last sense to leave us when we die. Over the past year, I sang both my parents into the next world. In the ICU, for my mother, an amateur singer who was particularly proud of me, I think I sang my entire repertoire of hymns and arias, toned down to a low dynamic. At one point she awakened with a smile and said, in the slow, whispered voice of one who could barely breathe, "You were singing!" I am not sure if Dad heard me in his last hours, but I would like to think so. It was a privilege that I would not trade for the world." The entire article is emotionally gripping and anyone who loves the operatic voice will relate to the kind of emotion the mezzo-soprano is talking about. Brava! [Source]

Keith Cerny Increases Exposure For The Dallas Opera

The man leading the charge: Keith Cerny.

"The Dallas Opera will present the second 'General Director's Roundtable,' a timely and in-depth discussion of issues affecting opera, contemporary audiences, and the greater performing arts community today. The brainchild of Dallas Opera General Director & CEO Keith Cerny, this series seeks to bring together the most knowledgeable voices in their fields, both local and national, in a genuine quest for answers. The topic of our second roundtable is 'Collaboration in the Arts,' once again presented in partnership with D magazine and moderated by D magazine Arts Editor Peter Simek. The panelists, in addition to the multifaceted Mr. Cerny who hosts these events, will include the dynamic and critically acclaimed artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, Kevin Moriarty, and the recently appointed general director of Opera Company of Philadelphia, David DeVan, who has been raising the profile of the OCP for the past six years. All
three panelists have strong opinions (and equally strong track records) about the need for increased collaboration within the performing arts. 'My ideas about exciting, new possibilities for creative partnerships in the arts were being formulated long before I ever set foot in Dallas,' explains TDO General Director & CEO Keith Cerny. 'One of my first tasks was to introduce myself to the other arts organizations in town and find the points of intersection where meaningful collaborations might be possible. Those discussions got underway almost at once, resulting in the Dallas Opera's very first simulcast last October in collaboration with AT&T Performing Arts Center, our first artistic partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art to present a world premiere song cycle inspired by works from the Permanent Collections, and the announcement of a history-making collaboration with the Dallas Theater Center to launch the Dallas Opera's new chamber opera series next March. These partnerships serve many important purposes,' adds Mr. Cerny. 'They increase our exposure in the community even as they deepen our base of support. The radical exchange of ideas, in itself, alters the way we think about this great art form. It eliminates the perceived boundaries in which we operate or perform; it makes us challenge our existing assumptions about what we can or cannot do. And, it helps us to take an art form that some regard as aloof and make it exciting and relevant for a much broader cross-section of the community.'" [Source]

Hao Jiang Tian Teaching Young Singers Chinese Opera

Master (right) and student (left) discussing
Mandarin Chinese for the "I Sing Beijing" project.

"When Hao Jiang Tian was a teenager, growing up in a China wrecked by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, his prospects were not bright. His parents had been sent away for re-education and he was living alone. At 15, he was forced to leave school and work in a factory making electric boilers. But a chance encounter changed his life, beginning a chain of events that turned him into one of the world's top opera singers. Now living in the US, the 57-year-old is back in China with a group of young performers to teach them how to sing Chinese opera. It is his attempt to bridge the gap between two very different countries that will largely shape the world this century." [Source]

Read the full interview here.

Opera Declines in America and Begins to Thrive in China

Guangzhou Opera House designed by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid in the Guangdong province.

"As if any more proof was needed of China's growing dominance, it is now being bellowed at full volume by tenors and sopranos. Chinese composers have become a major source for opera in Europe and North America, while more opera festivals are staged in the People's Republic than anywhere else. 'The future of opera may be in China,' says Tian Hao Jiang, China's most celebrated operatic export a mainstay at New York's Metropolitan Opera. 'So it's about time to reverse the trend. Instead of Chinese singers always coming to the West, Western singers are coming to learn Chinese.' That's the idea behind Tian's 'I Sing Beijing,' a summer program bringing some 20 promising young professionals from the U.S., Europe and South America to China to learn to sing in Mandarin, a program that will culminate with a gala concert at the National Centre for the Performing Arts on August 18. For participants, it's a chance to see China and eat dumplings; to study Mandarin and perform in it. For Tian, it's the fruition of a ten-year vow to bring fellow singers back to the country he left 28 years ago. 'I was always telling my colleagues they had no idea about Chinese culture, and someday, I'd bring them here.'" [Source]

Deborah Voigt: Alcoholism, Obesity, Suicide Despair, Vocal Decline

Opera singer Deborah Voigt has collaborated with playwright Terrence McNally, director Francesca Zambello and pianist Kevin Stites, to create an autobiographical one-woman show titled "Voigt Lessons" which features 18 pieces of music to accompany her timeline. It premiered on last Friday at the Glimmerglass Festival. All the below excerpts are from the New York Times. Read the full article here.

The dramatic soprano singing in 2009.

"Though keeping the timeline a little vague, Ms. Voigt spoke courageously of suicidal despair, alcohol abuse and a low point of her life, when she 'jumped into a bottle and went into a 35-hour blackout.” That is long enough, she said, 'to fly around the world' or 'to sing two Ring cycles,' referring to Wagner’s epic four-opera Ring des Nibelungen, in which she has been appearing at the Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Voigt shared with her audience what she called the eight words that saved her life: 'My name is Debbie, and I’m an alcoholic.' She followed this admission with an elegantly unsentimental account of the pop standard 'Smile' ('Smile though your heart is aching')."

Carnegie Hall in 2004.

"About halfway through the program Ms. Voigt said that up to that point she had been avoiding the subject of 'fatness,' a condition she likened to an expletive. Before she underwent surgery, Ms. Voigt said, she was not 'full-figured' or 'Junoesque' or 'heavyset.' She was fat. At her worst, her weight hit 333 pounds, three digits she will never forget, she said."

Richard Tucker Gala 1992.

"In recent years some critics and opera buffs have noted with concern that Ms. Voigt’s voice is becoming brighter, a little hard-edged and less warm. Toward the end of 'Voigt Lessons' she acknowledged that her voice is changing in its colors and texture. But she feels good, she said; she is comfortable in her body and with her singing."

One confusing section in the NYTimes piece describes the soprano's desire to sing her first aria, but the author makes it unclear whether she only was mistaken about the aria not being in her fach or did she also think it was from the opera Tosca rather than Turandot: "In her youth Ms. Voigt was not really an opera fan, she said. When she finally enrolled at California State University at Fullerton, to study with a voice professor, Jane Paul, she arrived at her first lesson hoping to sing an absolutely beautiful aria she had come upon: 'Nessun dorma' from Puccini’s Tosca. Ms. Paul explained that this was a tenor aria. Well, in 'Voigt Lessons,' Ms. Voigt sang it, an exuberant performance that drew a rousing ovation from the delighted audience."

Deborah Voigt during the rehearsals of Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass 2011.

Interview With Hockey Player-Turned-Opera Singer Elliot Madore

"You can add Elliot Madore to that ever-growing list of 'only in the age of Obama.' Madore is a 'half-black' (his phrase) Canadian former hockey player who now sings opera (baritone) in leading roles on the world’s major stages. He has a paid position in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and for the Saturday matinee at Opera Theatre of St. Louis he will close the curtain on his performance in the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The Opera Theatre of St. Louis production (directed by James Robinson and Michael Shell, with choreography by Sean Curran) is so rich in physical comedy it verges on slapstick. It makes the most of the vital athleticism of this former hockey player, who has leading man looks reminiscent of former NBA star (and fellow Canadian) Rick Fox."

The Don Juan of Missouri: Elliot Madore in Don Giovanni (Photo: Ken Howard)

The article about the singer attempts to broach the topic of opera productions being colorblind, but the multiple uses of the awkward phrase "half-black" gets in the way. Not to mention this tidbit, "In addition to staging an incredibly athletic production, Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ casting is as ethnically diverse as it gets. The leading lady who has been abandoned by Don Giovanni, Donna Elvira, is played by Kishani Jayasinghe. The beautiful soprano hails from Sri Lanka, an island nation off the southeast coast of India, though from the seats at the Loretto-Hilton in Webster Groves, she is easily mistaken for an African American....In fact, Madore replaced another actor in the lead role just a week before rehearsals commenced, and the switch from a non-black lead to a 'half-black' lead required no changes whatsoever in conceptualizing the production." [Source]

If the photo above taken from the Don Giovanni production looks familiar, you might want to check out why after the jump.

An image of model Peter Johnson taken by famed photographer Bruce Weber:

Anna Caterina Antonacci Is Just Fine Not Singing at the MET

The relaxed diva not concerned about the MET
(Photo: Pierre Mandereau)

"Nevertheless, she can seem a mass of paradoxes. She fits no stereotype and no precise vocal Fach. She was an early starter yet a late developer; she made headlines in Handel and Rossini but still had the courage to reinvent herself entirely at the age of thirty-eight. Her voice defies classification, yet she can fit it to an eclectic range of music, from great mezzo roles such as Carmen to Monteverdi, Berlioz and Gluck, as well as the songs of Respighi, Chausson and Fauré, to name a few. Remarkably, she has never sung at the Met. In the pub, Antonacci smiles and shrugs. 'I regret a little that I never, never sang at the Met,' she says, 'but I think perhaps they choose more the recording stars. It's a world that is quite far from mine.' Though she doesn't have a major label contract, she is well represented on opera DVDs — including, for instance, Carmen twice, Ermione, Rodelinda, Les Troyens, Cherubini's Medea and even Marschner's rarely heard Hans Heiling — and on CDs of L'Incoronazione di Poppea, La Mort de Cléopâtre and Così Fan Tutte, among others. But she has made only one solo album to date — Italian Renaissance works, mainly her beloved Monteverdi, under the title Era la Notte (on theAstrée Naïve label). The disc is based on a music-theater project that she toured in Europe: it brought together some of the great 'mad scenes' of early opera and culminated in Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. OPERA NEWS's critic declared, 'Antonacci mesmerizes the house for a full, uninterrupted hour, running the gamut of vocal expression.'" [Source]

Patrick Reardon Gives a Perspective From the Chorus

Patrick Reardon, one of the many stories
in the Chicago Symphony Chorus

Carnegie Hall presented Verdi's Otello in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Maestro Riccardo Muti on April 15. One of the members in the chorus was tenor Patrick Reardon. In an interview with the Litchfield County Times, the Connecticut-native gives an interesting insight into the world of one chorus member's life. Growing up in a musical household in New Hartford, his singing abilities were discovered at an early age as he performed in his local church choir. An avid sportsman, he continued to casually pursue his passion for music when he decided to attend the University of Connecticut and begin taking voice lessons. He is now studying to get his masters in music education. “I think we can’t start early enough....in instrumental work, the Suzuki method starts children as young as 3 and 4 years old on very small stringed instruments. They achieve phenomenal results when they get older, and are so much more advanced that their peers who start in the fourth or fifth grades.” As he continues his education, he gets his income from being a member of the Chicago Symphony

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra and Chorus at Carnegie Hall
(Photo: Joshua Bright/The New York Times)

Chorus and the St. James Cathedral Choir. Once finished with his education he hopes to teach four or five years at the high school level before he pursues a doctorate in conducting. Singing with the Chicago Symphony Chorus has one major perk besides the music for this 25-year old, he gets to perform with his his fiancée, Katherine Kahrmann, who is also in the Grammy Award-winning group. So the next time you're at a concert with orchestra, soloists and a famous conductor, remember there are more than 100 individual stories of the chorus members behind it all. [Source]

Luisi Taking Over For Levine: "Epochal Changing of the Guard"

Luisi at the MET (Photo: Sara Krulwich/New York Times)

As Fabio Luisi prepares to conduct Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday, the New York Times speculates that he may be the heir apparent to James Levine's job as Music Director. Although the Italian-born maestro refuses to discuss the matter, dismissing the topic as inappropriate, there is plenty of evidence to suggest he is slowly making his way to New York for more important duties. Getting ringing endoresments from one of the MET's favorite artists doesn't hurt either: "He’s like James Levine, an all-arounder,” the German soprano Diana Damrau said of Mr. Luisi. “He loves voices, and he listens and he reacts.” [Source]

Nudity In The Theater: Too Much For Audiences?

One of the many nude scenes from Baal in Sydney

In the opera world, most audiences wonder if the soprano singing the title role in Salome will bare all during the dance of the seven veils. Few have. But artistically speaking, shouldn't it be put in front of audiences for realism sake? Current productions at the Metropolitan Opera include prostitutes in Luc Bondy's Tosca that have greatly toned down their sexual antics with Scarpia, but the Wozzeck included an erotic simulated sex scene involving a 55-year old Waltraud Meier jumping up and wrapping her legs around Stuart Skelton as he humped her against a wall. The Sydney Morning Herald addresses the issue of taking it to the limits in theater. "Baal is playing at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. In Stone's version, the actors are naked for much of the play as Baal, an outsider poet and singer who rejects the constraints of a bourgeois society, immerses himself in sex, booze and emotional and physical cruelty. The show's early previews inspired several walkouts by audience members confronted by the nudity and violence." This production of Bertolt Brecht's play has prompted many walk-outs by audience members. But it begs the question of why is this sort of thing fine to see in movies, but it is not good live in theater. In this recent article, Jonathan Bielski, executive producer at the Sydney Opera House, comments that it is justifiable to push the envelope as long as it is not just for "shock" value. "Opera Australia received a number of complaints about the lengthy fellatio scene in Neil Armfield's award-winning production of Bliss last year. More complaints rolled in for Tosca's rape scene, which insiders say is one of the reasons Cheryl Barker pulled out of the role. The company plans to warn audiences about nudity and scenes of a graphic violent and sexual nature in the coming production of Richard Mills's The Love of the Nightingale. So far no one has complained about the topless prostitutes in La Boheme." Opera Australia's Lyndon Terracini says, "Personally, I think there is a terrible double standard. What is allowed in film and television is far more insidious. If you're comfortable watching extreme violence and sex scenes in Underbelly, you should have no problem with Rigoletto." [Source]

Lucine Amara Carries on the Tradition in Her Home

Lucine Amara rehearsing Aida in the living room
(Photo: William Perlman/The Star Ledger)

"It’s business as usual with the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera, which has long rehearsed in the home of its artistic director, Lucine Amara, an 86-year-old soprano who sang at the Metropolitan Opera for more than 40 years. 'The better the singers are, the more the neighbors complain,' says director Evelyn la Quaif, Amara’s daughter, who is helping stage a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida — in the living room. As part of the company’s mission to train young singers, operas like Aida — which will be performed Sunday afternoon at bergenPAC — can have 10 weeks of rehearsal, with intense coaching sessions almost every day. 'I love singing, and I love to pass on what I have learned to other young singers,' Amara says...Amara and la Quaif express continued frustration with donors who focus solely on the Met. 'What they spend on a production we could use for four years," la Quaif says. 'It’s heartbreaking for us. We go out of our pockets constantly and we have a couple board members who go into their pockets big-time. We would love to have rehearsals in a rehearsal studio instead of here — but here we can save money.' Amara has been the artistic director of the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera since 1993. The company is one of the few opera presenters left in New Jersey." [Source]

Countertenor David Daniels Featured on Atlanta Home Tour

The view from the living room.

"Music and art are integral in the lives of David Daniels and Scott Walters, and the design of their modern loft reflects their passions. David is an opera singer with the Metropolitan Opera, so you’ll see a large sign from his debut performance. There’s also a black upright piano and floor-to-ceiling bookcases that showcase some of the couple’s musical collection. The condo features dark hardwood floors and is decorated in bold colors including red and purple. Most of the art on the walls is the work of Scott’s late mother, Reina Carrillo, including the ceramic jars in the living room and kitchen. 'She was a tortured soul, which shows in a lot of the work,' the homeowners said. Another of the couple’s favorite possessions is a piece by artist Renea Menzies, which was purchased at her Santa Fe gallery. 'The painting is thick wet oil that is [manipulated] into shape and color with a spackle. It takes up to three years to dry,' Daniels and Walters said." [Source]

Opera and Ghosts of the Past at the Ansonia in New York City

Freeman Gunther being very continental at home. (Photo: Andrew Hetherington/New York Magazine)

The April issue of New York magazine focuses on apartment living in the Big Apple. One of the residents profiled is Freeman Gunther, a retired editor of gay porn magazines, who lives in apartment 3-92 at the famed Ansonia at Broadway and 74th street. What makes his domicile so unique? Perhaps it was one of the reasons he moved into the building in the first place: "A 1974 photograph in Gunter’s bedroom shows Sarah Vaughan performing for a crowd of shiny men in towels. The picture was taken four

Opera Ghost: Maria Malibran

floors beneath his apartment, at what was then the Continental Baths and is now a parking lot. The baths were what first got Gunter to the Ansonia and eventually prompted him to move in; they were opened in 1968 by Steve Ostrow, a businessman and opera singer, and they were decadent and clean, with fresh flowers, orgy rooms, a hamburger stand, and a mirrored sex maze." And yes, that included a dalliance with ballet dancer Rudolf Nuryev. But there is also a secondary explanation why Mr. Gunther decided this dwelling was the perfect place to call home: "The Ansonia is known for its uncommonly thick walls, which allow Gunter to listen to his Carlos Gardel records at concert volume whenever he pleases...He purchased his phonograph—a 1909 Victor Talking Machine with a quarter-sawn oak escutcheon and horn—from a collector for $4,000 last year...Gunter’s collection of portraits are a certain kind of company. The faces are chaperones and emissaries...with greater frequency than any other face, a nineteenth-century Spanish mezzo-soprano named Maria Malibran. Gunter furls and unfurls his hands when he thinks about the opera star. She came to him as a ghost, he says, in 1985, about 150 years after she died in Manchester. Gunter was startled. 'Why did you come?' he asked. 'I like the music here,' said Malibran. She visited a few more times to say hello or to evaluate Gunter’s records, including one by Cecilia Bartoli (Ghost, 2007: 'She sounds like a chicken'). A few years ago, he bought a copy of Malibran’s death mask, which he stores beneath a stack of DVDs. 'Like any sculpture, so much depends upon the light,' he says, lifting the lid from the mask.

'Sometimes it looks like a loaf of bread.'" Other famous musicians that lived at the Ansonia (but whose ghosts do not visit Freeman Gunther) include Enrico Caruso, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Arturo Toscanini, Gustav Mahler, Yehudi Menuhin, Lily Pons and Ezio Pinza. Although Mr. Gunther saw the likes of Barry Manilow, Bette Midler and Sarah Vaughan as entertainment at the Continental Baths, no word on whether he was present for the famous concert by soprano Eleanor Steber.

[Source]

Big, Large and In Charge: Opera Singers With a Football Past

Ta'u Pupu'a letting his tenor out
(Photo: Michael J. Lutch/New York Times)

Back in January this blog did a post on football players trading in the pig skin to sing in the opera world. Now the New York Times has a full-blown article about the people Opera Fresh mentioned and more! "Opera singers with a football past include Ta’u Pupu’a, a lineman drafted by the Cleveland Browns; Keith Miller, a former Arena League fullback who appeared in two bowl games with Colorado; the former Harvard players Ray Hornblower and Noah Van Niel; and Morrison Robinson, who played on the offensive line for the Citadel." Read the whole article by clicking here. In addition to photos of the football players turned

opera divos, the article has a wonderful video that features Noah Van Niel in the locker room being supported by his teammates, who dub him Pavarotti, as he sings "God Bless America" in full tenor voice. Watch the video here. A previous New York Times feature on Noah while he was at Harvard can be found here.

Hei-Kyung Hong Has Her Moment in the Sun

The soprano has sung nearly 360 performances at the MET and covered countless other evenings
(Photo: Natalie Kessyar/Wall Street Journal)

A native of Seoul, South Korea, the soprano starting studying at the Juilliard School of Music at age 15. Now a highly successful opera singer of 51, she makes her home in Bayside, New York, with her husband. They have three children: two daughters, 30 and 31, and one son that is now 17. Read the Wall Street Journal article about her decisions to make the Metropolitan Opera the central focus of her career, even if that meant not being front-and-center of fame. She also discusses what helped her find the focus that created the longevity in her singing and why the voice maintains a wonderful gleam. You'll also find out if she is really kissing her Roméo et Juliette co-star Piotr Beczala during the performance! [Source]

Was There Any Singing In That Opera Performance?

Commedia dell'Arte with very little scenery to steal focus.

"Opera reviews: why does no one write about the music? Staging tends to take precedence over singing, at least if critics are to be believed. But surely it's the music that really matters....Yet most reviews of productions I've attended concern themselves nearly exclusively with a detailed analysis of the director's conception of the drama. The fact that the writer is generally a music rather than theatre expert is even more bemusing. To pick one example among several, a review of David McVicar's 2008 Salome production at the Royal Opera House devoted just the last sentence to informing the reader that it was a
'musically solid production'. Or, to take another example, reviews of Rupert Goold's Turandot, where again the main thrust of the review is the staging: 'I haven't the foggiest idea what Rupert Goold is driving at,' writes the Telegraph's critic, while later admitting that although much of the music was "gorgeous" he was only awarding the production one star....Are opera and its critics focused too much on staging and dramaturgy at the expense of the music? Yes, a good production and fine direction can illuminate a piece but, given the option I'd much rather have a thrillingly played and sung version of any opera with a grotty production rather than vice versa. I remember a terrible production of Tristan at Covent Garden in 2002 that, thanks to glorious playing, was utterly compelling, and similarly a performance of Jenufa of such searing intensity that I spent the final act in a flood of tears – entirely because of the music and singing. A production, no matter how good, simply doesn't have the same effect." [Source]