Oy, Canada!

I realise that I am totally out of touch with what passes for singing in the pop world these days, but last night's otherwise spectacular opening of the Olympics has to have been a new low for the human voice.

The pop singers, only one of whom I had even heard of before, moaned and screamed their way through various songs. The rendition of Oh, Canada was a close second to Roseanne Barr singing the US national anthem which scratching her unmentionables at some sports event some years ago.

Then came the opera singer. Please tell me that this wobbly singer is not in a major career. And would someone please write an abridged version of the Olympic Hymn? It makes Götterdämmerung seem like the minute waltz! I practically wore out the 'mute' button on my TV remote.

The native tribes were the best thing musically that happened.

I keep remembering the incredible opening of the Barcelona summer games some years ago with a line-up that included Montserrat Caballe, Teresa Berganza, Alfredo Kraus, Juan Pons, and Victoria de los Angeles. Vive la différence!

Sorry, but I just had to vent!

Herb and Jerry

In the mid 1950's I was the Organist and Choirmaster at the Short Hills, NJ Community Congregational Church. I had a paid quartet of soloists who acted as section leaders in the choir. The bass, Bob (I wish I could remember his last name) took me aside after a choir rehearsal one night and asked if I would be interested in working with Jerome Hines on an opera he had written. He was looking for someone to do a small orchestration. Naturally, I jumped at the chance and got in touch with Jerry, as he asked to be called, and set up a meeting at the old Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway and 40th Street.

I went to the stage door, which was on the side street in the back, and gave my name. It was a lot easier to get backstage at the Met in those days than it is now! Jerry came down to the reception desk to greet me and we went upstairs to a studio. There was an upright piano and not much else in the room. This was the 'old' Met, remember.

We sat down on the bench together (quite a bench full; with Jerry at about 6 feet 5 inches and me at six feet three and a half inches) and Jerry produced the score of his opera The Life of Christ. We began on page one and went all the way through with me playing and Jerry singing. My left ear has never been the same since. I had never been that close to a voice that size before. The opera is a pastiche of snippets from Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner, but very pleasant to listen to. I took the score with me and began to arrange it for organ, violin, and harp (I think. This was a long time ago, remember). Kind of an unusual orchestration


The opera was to be produced at the Salvation Army Temple on West 14th Street in Greenwich Village. Jerry was very active in the Salvation Army at that time which was why we were able to use this large auditorium. It had a full stage and wings, a wonderful lighting board, and interested people to take care of all of these things.


Jerry, of course, was to sing the part of Jesus, and with a little work on his Irish nose and an added beard, he bore a remarkable likeness to some of the paintings one sees depicting Christ.

Jerry's wife, Lucia Evangelista, was to sing the part of Mary Magdelene. The rest of the characters were sung by some very fine singers whose names I can't remember. I have a feeling that many of them were in the Met chorus at the time.

A wonderful set was built and the costumes (which may have come from the Met as well) were accurate and fine looking.

We rehearsed for several weeks and were due to open on Good Friday evening. Jerry was also scheduled to sing in Parsifal that afternoon at the Met. In those days, the Met always gave Parsifal on Good Friday afternoon as its last performance of the season.

Part way though the matinée Jerry announced that he was having vocal problems and dropped out. His cover took over to finish the opera. That night, miraculously, he had not only recovered his voice, but sang incredibly well. We wound up being reviewed on the front page of the New York Times with this Good Friday miracle. He looks enough like Jesus to cast a miracle, so maybe that's what happened. I never had the nerve to ask him if he was really out of voice in the Parsifal.

We did weekend performances for several weeks and then Jerry asked me if I would go on tour with him and the production. Between my job in Short Hills, and the fact that I was also the Assistant University Organist and Choirmaster at St. Paul's Chapel. Columbia University, I had to tell him that, regretfully, I couldn't go on tour with him. I lined up a friend of mine, Donna Brunsma, who was also involved at St. Paul's Chapel somehow, to join him on tour.

He continued to present this opera in cities all over the country for many years.

Jerry was a wonderful person and a terrific singer. He continued to sing at the Met, and sing well, for at least forty years after that time.

Coincidentally, it was about this time that the first of my vocal students, Pamela Munson, began singing at the Met. Nothing to do with Jerry, but she continued to sing comprimario roles there for many years. My sixth student to sing there, Jim Maddalena, made his début this season.

I must be getting old, or something?

Memories

The emails back and forth between Richard Dyer and myself today got me thinking about the wonderful singers I have had the privilege to hear in my 80 years. I have already mentioned the Otello I heard in Cleveland with Ramon Vinay, Licia Albenese, and Leonard Warren. After I came to New York I would attend the opera as often as I could afford to buy 'standing room'.

After standing in line in the cold outside the old Met on Broadway and 40th Street for four hours, I was able to get a standing room ticket for Kirsten Flagstad's farewell performance. It was in Beethoven's Fidelio. Several years later, after she had supposedly retired, she came out of retirement to sing a concert with The Symphony of the Air, which had been the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini. After Toscanini's death, the orchestra tried to make it without a conductor for several years and had asked Flagstad if she would return to sing with them. She sang the Wesendonck Lieder and the Immolation Scene of Wagner in fine fettle. Toscanini's grand-daughter, Liana, lives just around the corner from me in Sandisfield today. Small world! Alex Williams, a long ago friend of mine from New Jersey, was principal clarinetist in that orchestra.

I remember hearing Zinka Milanov and some tenor standing on the stage of the old Met belting out an incredible 'Anything you can sing, I can sing louder' duet from La Gioconda. The walls would still echo with that sound if they had not torn down the building to build Lincoln Center. I often think I can still hear it when I walk down Broadway in that block. I heard Milanov many times and she is still one of my favorite singers. Like the little girl with the little curl, 'When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid'. But I loved her anyway. Of course it was Mae West who said, 'When I'm good, I'm very, very good, and when I'm bad, I'm better'. But I don't think she was talking about her singing!

Speaking of Mae West, in 1950 John and I saw and heard her on the stage of the Broadway Theatre in Diamond Lil. She sang a very risqué version of 'Frankie and Johnny.' Her legendary bust preceded her onstage by at least 30 seconds! But that's another story.

I saw Joan Sutherland's début at the old Met in Lucia. A student of mine called one morning and told me that someone had given her tickets for the Met that evening. Some British soprano was making her début! I guess so!

I saw Leontine Price and William Warfield in the revival of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the Broadway Theatre. Now there was a Bess! I also heard her sing songs by John La Montaine in the Miller Theatre at Columbia University when I was Searle Wright's assistant at St. Paul's Chapel. Searle took me to the party at John's apartment afterwards where I met her. I heard many of her appearances at the Met.


I saw Monserrat Caballe sing a concert at Carnegie Hall where the bows and encores went on for a half hour. The stage was filled with flowers, looking like a Mafia funeral. As her final encore, she sang a Spanish folk song and literally danced all the way around the piano so the people seated onstage behind the piano for this sold-out concert, could get a chance to see her head-on. Amazing grace, as this super sized Señora, her arms lifted over her head, danced around the Steinway D. They don't make 'em like that anymore!

I must not give short shrift to the New York City Opera Company. When they were still at the City Center on 55th Street, I heard Beverly Sills in the first performances of Douglas Moore's Baby Doe. Moore was the head of the Music Department at Columbia when I was getting my degree there.

I also heard Phyllis Curtin sing the title role in Carlyle Floyd's Suzanna many times as well as the title role in Vittorio Gianinni's Taming of the Shrew. I saw every performance of that opera because a dear friend of mine, Dorothy Fee, was the librettist (along with William Shakespeare) for the opera and asked me to accompany her to all the performances.

Dorothy was also a composer and studied composition with Vittorio. I got to know him and his amazing wife, Lucia, through my friendship with Dorothy..

I was also happy to hear Judith Raskin's début at City Opera as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. Judy studied with Anna Hamlin, with whom I also studied as well as playing for her lessons when she came to the city from Northampton where she was the head of the voice department at Smith College, where I now teach. Judy often coached with me in those days and we did one performance together. She died much too young.

And, of course, I was at the Met when Lorraine Hunt Lieberson made her début there in John Harbison's Gatsby. She was one of six students of mine who have sung at the Met. I was also in the Palais Garnier in Paris for her début in that hallowed hall. She died at age 52, breaking my heart.

Well, that's enough for now. This one not-so-hot Otello has brought forth a million memories; a sort of mental diarrhea. I'd better quit while I'm ahead.

I'm so glad I saw and heard all these singers and I am just as glad that I am working with fine young singers at Smith College these days. I have had the enormous honor to teach some of the world's greatest singers over my career. As somebody (Yogi Berra?) once said, 'It ain't over 'til it's over!'

Truer words were never spoke!

PS

This morning I had an email from Richard Dyer who kindly sent me the program from the Met archives of the Otello I heard in Cleveland all those years ago. Richard was for many years the chief music critic on the Boston Globe and has a vast knowledge of music and musicians. He has written wonderful reviews of the work John did at Harvard, as well as offering a magnificent eulogy for John after his death in 2008. He has also written great reviews of several of my students, including Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Janet Brown. He is a good friend to have.

Here is the cast list from April 9, 1949 (I was a year off in my date);
Otello-----Ramon Vinay
Desdemona------Licia Albenese
Iago------Leonard Warren
Emilia-----Martha Lipton
Cassio------John Garris
Lodovico-------Nicola Moscona
Montàno-----Clifford Harvuot
Roderigo-----Leslie Chabay
Herald-----Philip Kinsman

Conductor---Fritz Busch

Richard wrote that he saw the next Cleveland Otello in 1959 with Mario del Monaco, Zinka Milanov, and Leonard Warren. He was living in Cleveland at the time.

When I came to New York City in 1950 to finish my undergraduate work at Columbia University, I studied voice with Mrs. William E. Neidlinger. Clifford Harvuot (the Montàno from the Cleveland production) had the lesson just before mine, which is probably why I decided to spend my performing time at the keyboard rather than as a singer. My 20 year old baritone suffered in comparison with his enormous voice, even heard through the closed door. Jean Madeira, the great mezzo-soprano also studied with Mrs. Neidlinger. Mrs. N. had a bulldog who had been returned from the Canine Corps of World War II. He was leashed to the piano leg and gave menacing looks at all of us students who were pretty much plastered against the far wall. As a result, we all had exemplary posture.

Richard has also promised to send me a CD of Lorraine singing Das Lied von der Erde with the Netherlands Philharmonic under Edo de Waart in 1999. I am eternally grateful for this kindness.

My many thanks to Richard for setting me straight. As I told him, I was dredging these memories up from 60-some years ago.

Wow! Leonard Warren as Iago! No wonder I remember that performance.

Otello/Iago?

The first time I saw a performance of Verdi's Otello was in 1948 in Cleveland, Ohio, of all places. I went down to the 'city by the swamp' with Suzanne Pfitzner, a voice teacher at Michigan State College, where I was enrolled at the time. She was not my voice teacher, who was Harriet Hillier Birchall, but, for some reason, I was accompanying her rehearsals for a concert she was preparing, The Secret of Suzanne. I have no idea why I was involved in this production but it got me to my first performance by the Met company on tour. She took a group of her vocal students and me to hear the Met in Cleveland! Ramòn Vinay was the Otello and either Bidu Sayao or Licia Albenese was the Desdemona. It was in an enormous auditorium which has probably been torn down by now.

Prior to this, my only encounter with opera or operetta was in Battle Creek, Michigan, my home town, when touring companies brought Blossom Time or The Student Prince to the Bijou Theatre. I also saw a performance of Rigoletto at the Kellogg Auditorium in which a coloratura, Jean Dickinson, 'Nightingale of the Airways', who had her own radio program, sang Gilda. She took the high E at the end of Caro nome. I was the managing editor of the high school newspaper at the time and went backstage after the performance to interview the cast- much to their horror, I'm sure. It was performed by the La Scala Opera Company of Philadelphia: not the one in Milano.

All of this leads up to the fact that I am puzzled by the performance of Otello I heard today at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, Ct., a part of their on-going series of operas filmed live in Europe.

This production was from the Salzburg Festival of 2008. The director was Stephen Langridge who, with George Souglides, produced a set that was pretty much incomprehensible to me. There was a large glass platform in the center of the stage which in the last act swallowed Otello whole. Stephen is reputed to be the son of the British tenor, Phillip Langridge. Tough luck!

The Otello of Aleksandrs Antonenko was pushed, covered, and sweaty. Apparently the Grosses Festspielhaus is not air-conditioned. Much of the cast was dripping. Marina Poplavskaya, the Desdemona came into to her own in the last act with a touching Salce and Ave Maria, including a high A at the end while lying on the floor flat on her back. Overall the voice does not thrill me. Bidu or Licia, or whoever I heard years ago, to say nothing of Tebaldi and others I have heard since, have made more hay out of that role. Admittedly, much of the role lies low in the soprano voice, which can be a problem. Dorothy Kirsten might be a Desdemona to remember!

Otello stabbed himself at stage left at the end and didn't make it back to Desdemona who, for some reason, was lying on the floor rather than the usual bed. Just as well, I think, as it would have been a very sweaty last baccio.

Stephen Costello, the Cassio, sang beautifully and looked the part of the ardent young man.

The Iago was Carlos Alvarez, the Mexican baritone. He sang with fervor, but again, with a very covered sound. I think I'm getting off on the covered sounds?? Whee! I'm a voice teacher! So, sue me!

The rest of the cast included Barbara di Castri as Emilia, Antonello Ceron as Roderigo, Mikhail Petrenko as Lodovico, and Simone Del Savio as Montàno. They were adequate in their roles.

Probably the Otello I remember best was that of John Vickers, who sang the role of his lifetime at every performance. I heard him many times at the Met with various Desdemonas, all of whom were better than this one.

I realized that Otello really comes off as sort of a jerk, believing everything Iago tells him and finally murdering his wife based on suspicion and rumors. Maybe the opera should have been called Iago; he's on stage more and has more to sing than Otello. He also manipulates Otello and the entire plot of the drama.

It was a puzzling afternoon. At least it made me think and reminisce. Where is John Vickers when we need him? And where in the world is Jean Dickinson?

A Roméo et Juliette to die for!

The three decks of stone arches of the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg are the backdrop for this production of Roméo et Juliette. Passionate singing by this excellent cast was the norm. But the real star of the production was the incredibly beautiful score by Charles Gounod. It is truly a masterpiece.

Rolando Villazòn was the vocally muscular Roméo. It is truly a remarkable voice and he is a dramatic actor, but the voice is concentrated too much in the throat. This apparently recently caused him to cancel all performances for several months. He is more like a young John Vickers than a young Placido Domingo. Producing a voice in this way often leads to vocal problems. I hope that he will find a way to sing with less throat tension because he is too good a singer to be stopped by vocal problems. Vickers was able to get away with it but not everyone is that lucky. This performance was one of the first Villazòn did after his time out. It is obvious that he spends too much time pushing from the throat to achieve what is, admittedly, a dramatic sound. A word to the wise! Call me up!

Nino Machaidze is from Georgia (Russia, not southern USA) and has a voluptuous soprano voice. She easily matched Villazòn in ardor and vocal power. It is a lustrous sound that sometimes straightens out at the very top. But perhaps I'm being picky. Juliette starts as as a coloratura and winds up having to do spinto duty as the opera progesses. She was able to bring this off in fine fettle. She was replacing Anna Netrebko who was taking time out to be pregnant.

The rest of the cast included Mikhail Petrenko, bass, as Frère Laurent, Russell Braun, baritone, as Mercutio, Falk Struckmann, bass-baritone, as Le Compte Capulet, and Juan Francisco Gatell, tenor (and a very good one!), as Tybalt. They are all fine singers and actors. The Stéphano of mezzo-soprano Cora Borggraaf absolutely stole the show with her big aria. A wonderful singer!

The stage direction was by Bartlett Sher and the work was conducted by Tannick Nézet-Séguin.

An excellent chorus sang the wonderful pieces that Gounod created for them. They put the Met chorus to shame! But then, almost anyone puts the Met chorus to shame.

I don't know why this opera is not performed in this country more often. It is simply marvelous in every way, especially with a cast like this one.

This was again, a part of the series of filmed operas from European houses that the Warner Theatre in Torrington, CT, has been featuring. What a pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon. You should be so lucky where you live!

Some like it hot!

When it's a toss-up between Puerto Rico and the hills of Western Massachusetts in January, guess who wins? I have just returned from a wonderful two weeks at the Caribe Hilton Hotel in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico and my money is on Puerto Rico.
I managed to miss some of the worst winter weather we have seen in a while here in the Berkshires and, instead, was luxuriating in the warm ocean breezes of San Juan. The hotel is on 17 beautifully landscaped acres right on the ocean on the western edge of Old San Juan. I was on the eighth floor of 'The Garden Wing', which overlooks a tropical garden complete with swans (are swans tropical?) and peacocks wandering around. Lush vegetation, one of the four or five pools to be found on the hotel grounds, and a wonderful view of the ocean, all from my balcony.
The color of the sea in Puerto Rico is something from an artist's palette. A slightly deeper blue than the sky. With the white-caps rolling in to shore, it's a painter's dream. At night, when I was in bed with no other sounds going on, the roll of those waves pushing against the rocks was a lullaby.
The people of Puerto Rico are a sweet group of folks. Everyone was very friendly and kind.
I love it! I"ll probably do it again next year.