{"id":916,"date":"2015-09-21T13:54:53","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T20:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/?p=916"},"modified":"2015-09-25T15:27:11","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T22:27:11","slug":"how-not-to-save-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/2015\/09\/how-not-to-save-money.html","title":{"rendered":"HOW NOT TO SAVE MONEY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thelma<\/a>

Thelma Votipka<\/p><\/div>\n

The other day one of the excellent character artists in opera wrote me that he was going into another business: he likes to perform in the United States, but many companies, both large and small,\u00a0have stopped engaging mature performers and were using young artists instead. This could be much more a disaster to opera than it might seem.<\/p>\n

Great opera is not cheap, and since the birth of opera in the early 1600s it has needed high quality casting throughout–and generous donors to support it. A classic example, as a matter of fact, is Lucano in Claudio Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea<\/em>, the first truly great opera. He doesn’t have much to do, but he does sing with Nero in one of the most engaging and significant duets early in the opera. Nero is rejoicing over the suicide of his tutor, the philosopher Seneca, and believes that no one now can criticize his pursuit of Poppea. In most productions the duet involves athletic, happy action between the two men; whether that happens or not, it’s very complicated to sing. If less than an experienced, first-class singer and actor is used for Lucano, the duet will not have either the dramatic or vocal importance it deserves.<\/p>\n

Some character roles demand mature voices and could easily harm young and still settling voices. Take the five Jews in Salome<\/em>, four of whom are tenors. Strauss created some of the most difficult small roles in opera for only a few minutes for each because he believed opera would always take place in repertory opera companies where there were plenty of singers who could ideally fill the roles during an eleven-month season. That was the case, certainly in Europe, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Our current American system in which everyone in the cast is assembled from scratch in almost all of our opera houses\u00a0never occurred to him. The fact remains: if any one of the Jews can’t handle the difficult vocal line, it harms the whole, and these are parts that should not be sung by developing voices.<\/p>\n

In most cases the problem is knowledge of the intricacies of language and the stage, the first a problem with many young Americans, and the second the kind of artistry and command that comes only with experience.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

Charles Anthony and friends in 2004 on the 50th anniversary of his Metropolitan Opera debut. Credit Chang W. Lee\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

\u200bA few vivid examples might suffice. Charles Anthony, who filled a wide number of character parts, retired from the Met in 2010 after 56 years and 2928 performances. The unforgettable Alessio de Paolis, who over the course of 26 years from 1938 to 1964 at the Metropolitan made even such very small character roles as Iseppo in La\u00a0Gioconda<\/em> memorable. Character women singers don’t have as many roles, but the contribution of Thelma Votipka in her 1422 roles over 31 years from 1935 until 1966 added much to so many operas.\u00a0Catherine Cook and Dale Travis, both of whom currently singing for San Francisco Opera, have contributed much to that company’s success, and at Seattle Opera over the last seventeen years Doug Jones has created memorable vignettes.\u00a0Also at Seattle Opera\u00a0 Archie\u00a0Drake in his last twenty years moved from a lead artist to\u00a0an invaluable character artist, a vital vocal and dramatic presence until a few days before he died.\u00a0 All of them worked\u00a0\u00a0in many other companies as well.\u00a0\u200b<\/p>\n

If someone says that the people come to hear the music and the principal singers, that may be what much of the public may think, but the reality is that character artists in many cases create the milieu in which the principals perform.<\/p>\n

Take the subtlety of language. Everyone who has any familiarity with<\/p>\n

\"Alessio<\/a>

Alessio de Paolis<\/p><\/div>\n

the plot of Tosca<\/em> knows that Cavaradossi’s death by the firing squad is a shock to Tosca. In the preceding scene Scarpia, in order to have his wicked way with Tosca, calls in Spoleta and tells him that he is changing the death command for Cavaradossi and that her lover will go through a mock execution as did Count Palmieri. Spoleta repeats Scarpia’s words– in Italian, “come Palmieri” or “like Palmieri”–and leaves. At least 75% of any opera audience, maybe more, knows what Tosca doesn’t know–that\u00a0\u200bPalmieri died by \u200ba firing squad as \u200bwill Cavaradossi\u200b. The trick is that the artist playing Spoleta must sing the phrase in a way that will not alert Tosca to Scarpia’s duplicity, while conveying to the audience that he knows what Scarpia means. This is not easy, and it takes acting ability, comprehension not only of the words, but the way to respond properly to the Scarpia of this performance.<\/p>\n

As for stage savvy, the character actor must instantly be ready to adjust to surprises from the principals. Take this example, which happened not long ago. An Elisabetta in Don Carlo <\/em>was staged to move upstage as she was singing the farewell to the Countess Aremberg. Her page was rehearsed to exit downstage and in front of where she had been singing. In the premiere the page started to move; the soprano changed her mind, walked into the page’s path, and could have literally collided with the page. Fortunately the page was experienced, saw this coming, and withdrew quickly, moving behind the soprano. No one noticed a thing. One may say from this description, big deal. Not so. A person with very little stage experience and nervous will often do exactly what he or she has been rehearsed to do, devil take the hindmost. And in this case there could have been a collision.<\/p>\n

\"Archie<\/a>

Archie Drake<\/p><\/div>\n

Or take La fanciulla del West<\/em>, Puccini’s American gold-rush opera. It is literally loaded with character singers–a bartender, a minstrel, a miner who cheats at cards, lots of cowboys who in a good production are made into individuals. Some of them can easily be performed by young artists, but most of them need experienced performers who can form the milieu so crucial to the opera. In other words they must do their parts in such a way that an American audience, very hard to please in this opera, will not see them as opera singers trying to be cowboys, but the real thing.<\/p>\n

Many roles, such as Borsa or Marullo in Rigoletto<\/em>, Valzacchi and Annina in Der Rosenkavalier<\/em>, the first Prisoner in Fidelio<\/em>, the Dancing Master in Ariadne auf Naxos<\/em>, Trabucco in La forza del destino<\/em>, Falstaff’s cohorts Pistola, Bardolpho, and Dr. Caius, and many other roles demand language and experience. Each of them adds greatly or detracts from a performance.<\/p>\n

In some cases young American artists either because of their inherent ability or great coaching can do them well, but many young artists green to the stage and not really knowledgeable in the language of the opera are only ready for these roles if there is extensive coaching and a director who will take time with them, time that is not always available in a three- or even four-week rehearsal period.<\/p>\n

In short I am not arguing against ever using young artists in character roles, but if experienced character singers are finding no work and leaving the business because all these parts are given to young artists, the quality of opera performance is injured. What is needed is to continue the American tradition of blending the young and the experienced character artist.<\/p>\n

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The other day one of the excellent character artists in opera wrote me that he was going into another business: he likes to perform in the United States, but many companies, both large and small,\u00a0have stopped engaging mature performers and were using young artists instead. This could be much more a disaster to opera than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":929,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}