10 questions for Brian Current

Posted on May 29, 2014 by barczablog

Next week Soundstreams present Brian Current’s opera Airline Icarus, touching down in Toronto at Ada Slaight Hall.

Current’s music has been performed across North America and abroad by the Esprit Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra (Carnegie Hall), the Oakland Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the Vancouver Symphony, the CBC Radio Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia (Koussevitzky commission), Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), the VOX festival of the New York City Opera, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Winston Choi, the Honens International Piano Competition, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and others.

Raised in Ottawa, Current studied music at McGill University in Montreal with Bengt Hambreaus and John Rea later completing his Ph.D. in composition on full fellowship from the University of California at Berkeley in 2002, where he was also active as a conductor. He has since been featured conducting with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Windsor Symphony, the Thunder Bay Symphony,  New Music Concerts, the Kensington Symphonietta, Soundstreams, CBC’s On Stage, as well as with the Esprit Orchestra’s New Waves Festival. Since 2006,  Current has been the artistic director and conductor of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s New Music Ensemble, which performs several concerts per year of international contemporary works.

In anticipation of Airline Icarus I ask Current ten questions: five about himself and five more about the Soundstreams presentation.

Composer Brian Current

Composer Brian Current

1-Are you more like your father or your mother?

I’m hugely grateful to have two amazing parents who are both active in choral singing in Ottawa where I grew up.  They got me into piano early and made sure I kept practicing all the way through to university level. My mom now says she was onto me, but I like to think that as a kid I could fake her out by making up “the illusion of Mozart” at the piano instead of practicing the real thing. They also got me into singing as a choirboy in one of the downtown churches (my wife makes fun of me for how nerdy this is, which it was, but it was also a great introduction to organized music).  And they were also patient when I practiced with a local rock band in our basement. My dad would come home from work to the sounds of thumping 70s cover tunes below his floorboards.

I’m not really sure which one I’m more like, but I realize as I get older how supportive they both were and hope that I can be the same with my own kids.

2-What is the best thing or worst thing about being a composer of “new” music?

It’s the greatest time ever to be a composer. Musicians today are unbelievable and I regularly see people performing things that make your jaw drop. In fact, musicians are getting better and better, particularly the young players I see coming through the graduate program of the Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory. New beautiful concert halls are being built both here and around the world and we can now broadcast our music everywhere from our phones, which was not possible even a couple years ago.

The wonderful thing about my job is that when someone asks for a new piece, it’s completely free of restrictions. They’ll request a rough amount of time – composers get paid by the minute – and a specific instrumentation: symphony orchestra or string quartet or voice, Chinese instruments and electronics for example. They never prescribe a theme or an idea that is prescriptive.  You are completely free to invent your own world and composers greatly value this freedom.

The hardest part about composing is the isolation. You sit in a room by yourself for six months.  We like to think that composers dash off symphonies during a short burst of inspiration but in reality (or for me, anyway) it can easily take months and months or longer of full time work to write out a detailed orchestra piece. No matter how many pieces you’ve written before, it’s always like pulling teeth and sweating blood.

3-Who do you like to listen to or watch?

I love to relax with Netflix, Jon Stewart or books when I’m able to. In reality, with three young kids in our little place it doesn’t really happen: we do homework, dinner, take them to soccer, put them to bed, pay a bill or two and that’s your night.

As for listening, I’m excited about all the online options that are available. I like the Rdio, NPR and TuneIn iPhone apps which I stream through my stereo while doing dishes or my headphones as I bike around the city. These apps are a great way to discover all kinds of new things.

4-What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have? 

I wish I had a better slap shot. I play hockey on Sunday nights with a great group of teachers, bankers and small business owners. We’ve been doing this for years and I greatly value both their friendship and the time on the ice where you don’t think about anything but the game.

5-When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?

When I remember to, I try from minute to minute to make the most out of hanging out with my kids. It may sound sappy, but I have a very keen sense of how quickly they grow up and leave you. I try to make the most out of every moment.

~~~~~~~

Five more concerning Airline Icarus

From the first week of rehearsal for Airline Icarus

From the first week of rehearsal for Airline Icarus

1-What are the challenges you face with opera?

One is the term ‘opera’ itself, which has so many misconceptions surrounding it.   What I really want is for people to have an immersive experience like no other. I want them to be in surrounded by sound and words and beauty and the performers’ courage.

2-What do you love about the story & subject of this opera?

I wholeheartedly believe in Anton’s premise and have championed it for years. It’s not just a play that is sung. It is completely its own thing.

The impulse came from reading an article in The Globe and Mail in 2001. In September of 1983, a Korean commercial flight was shot down over the Soviet Union’s eastern coast. They said they thought it was a spy plane. Rather than hit the plane directly, the missile struck its wing, and the plane “fell like a leaf for an excruciating 12 to 15 minutes.” I couldn’t help but to think about the people aboard for years after, and it still chokes me up to think about it today. It was important not to have this appalling event met with just silence.

Later when visiting with Anton Piatigorsky, I told him I was looking for ideas about theatrical works and mentioned the Korean airliner. Anton told me that he had just written a poem about the absurd little society we often take for granted aboard commercial flights and the unsettling mixture of hubris and technology: we’ll make small talk and watch movies while inches outside the window is a glorious cloudscape or freezing certain-death. Anton later proposed the perfect metaphor: Icarus. Icarus, you’ll remember, flew too close to the sun and his wax wings melted and he fell to the earth in a blaze of light. His father, Dedalus, looked for him, crying: “Icarus, where are you!” and “Damn this art!”

To me, one of the most interesting parts of the myth is that Icarus disappears in much of the same way that people involved in airline tragedies disappear, and the way the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia disappeared in a blaze of light over Texas.
Deadalus’s cries of “Damn this art” (which is in the libretto) are heartbreaking, not so much because Icarus has crashed and died, but more that he knows that we are doomed to keep building things – airplanes, computers, operas – in an endless cycle of trial and error that sometimes leads to disastrous consequences.

The opera also simultaneously presents the other side of the Icarus story: that we can rejoice in the thrill of our power to create wonderful things, as sings the Pilot in his aria – No peace so great. No joy so pure – as soaring Icarus must have thought before the moment he disappeared.

3-Do you have a favourite moment in the opera?

Throughout the work, the airplane gets brighter and brighter and eventually disappears. The initial impulse of the piece came from composing the final 15 minutes, which is meant to be a lullaby for the people on the Korean airliner who fell from the sky for about the same amount of time, and also for people in general who disappear from our lives when technology goes wrong.

By the way, speaking of timing, the piece is about an hour or approximately the length of a flight to Cleveland from Toronto, Chicago or New York (depending on who you fly with).

BrianC-0054-Please put your feelings about new opera and new music into context for us.

Airline Icarus is meant to be accessible to everyone. It drives me crazy when composers and classical musicians are perceived as being elitist or Old Europe.  We are often pigeon-holed as all writing difficult or avant-garde music, which Airline Icarus is not.
There is no single “art-music” style. Canada’s composers produce strikingly different music from one another. It’s our strength as a community, and represents a huge and genuine musical diversity. Nearly all composers working in Canada today both consciously and unconsciously incorporate the music of many world cultures into their musical thinking, including popular and electronic music. Almost all Canadian composers would be surprised to hear that their music is thought of as European or elitist. We just write what comes naturally. We write what it feels like to be alive at this time and place in history, and generally try to build it as rock-solidly as possible so that it gives Canada and the world a musical legacy a hundred years from now or more.

5-Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

I’m very grateful to David Milnes, my conducting teacher at the University of California (Berkeley) who really took the time to show me the ropes and handed over the orchestra to me during the summer.

Most of all, I owe my life in music to McGill professor John Rea.  When I arrived as an undergrad I had just a vague idea that I wanted to write music, but had no awareness of the technique or tradition. John introduced us not only to how to compose, but also to why we compose, which is that we believe in a world where people create and live with courage and beauty.

~~~~~~~

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Soundstreams present Airline Icarus
Music by Brian Current, libretto by Anton Piatigorsky
Produced by Maniac Star June 3-8, 2014
Tuesday to Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 4pm, Sunday at 3pm
Ada Slaight Hall, Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas St E

Directed by Tim Albery
Music Directed by Brian Current
Set & Costume Design by Teresa Przybylski
Lighting Design by Kimberly Purtell
Stage Managed by Kristin McCollum
Featuring: Dawn Bailey, Vania Chan, Sean Clark, Alexander Dobson, Larissa Koniuk, David Roth, Zorana Sadiq, Geoffrey Sirett, Krisztina Szabó, Jennifer Taverner, Graham Thomson
Post-concert chats after each performance with members of the creative team.
Tickets range from $20-$75 and are available through The Royal Conservatory Box Office at 416-408-0208 or online at soundstreams.ca.

Geoffrey Sirett & Krisztina Szabó

Krisztina Szabó & Geoffrey Sirett

Posted in Interviews, Opera | 1 Comment

A Poet’s Love

Posted on May 28, 2014 by barczablog

Writing in Opera’s Second Death, Slavoj Zizek claims that opera served a purpose at one point, before Freud & the invention of psychotherapy.  Watching “A Poet‘s Love”, tonight’s concert from Talisker Players & baritone Alexander Dobson , I had parallel thoughts about poetry and the evolution of culture.

At one time poets may have played a key role in exploring and articulating the nature of love.  As I type this I’m listening to Dana Andrews interrogate the various suspects in Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944) on TCM at roughly 11 pm, a film where we watch not a poet’s love, but instead a detective’s love articulated, the love of a pragmatic seeker for truth.  As cultures change sophistication demands new ways to tell the same story.  The romantic sensibility as articulated in the time of Heine or Schumann is delicate & naive compared to the film I’m over-hearing.  Just as Zizek said opera died when we had a new way of achieving the same therapeutic objectives –via psychotherapy rather than dying divas–so too, I suspect, with poetry.  While Heine and his brethren were once fearless explorers on the unarticulated frontiers of our culture, we no longer see poets as authorities on love, even if their works are wonderful relics from a time when they took the first bold steps onto that frontier.  And so we sit through concerts, examining the anatomy of the human heart, via string ensemble & vocalist.

Talisker’s program was a strenuous test for Dobson, who sang a great deal tonight:

  • John Beckwith’s “Love Lines”, a diverse assortment of arranged songs reframed and re-thought for baritone & string quartet
  • Gabriel Faure’s “La Bonne Chanson” for baritone, string quintet & piano
  • Alexander Rapoport’s “Fragments of Verlaine” for baritone and string quintet
  • Robert Schumann‘s “Dichterliebe” in a recent arrangement by Harold Birtson for baritone & string quartet

The four very different compositions called for four different approaches, four different ways of signifying love for Dobson & the Talisker Players.  To begin, Beckwith sampled other composers, making something like a quilt or a collage of their diverse styles, from Handel to Gershwin, sewed together, although it was no more troubling than a medley on the radio, given that there was no real sense of a connection among the items, except their proximity to one another on the program. But don’t misunderstand this for censure, i quite liked it.  There were places where Beckwith made some wonderfully playful effects, boldly deconstructing the Handel into discreet sounds.  It managed to be new yet old at the same time.

It was a special pleasure to hear Dobson’s suave baritone again, particularly in the warm acoustic of Trinity St Paul’s Centre.  In “La Bonne Chanson” we encounter an impossible poetic ideal from Paul Verlaine, coming to stunning fruition nonetheless via Faure’s setting.  Dobson gave a very nuanced reading, sometimes soaring to sweet pianissimo high notes, sometimes boldly taking the stage in fearless declamations.

I was surprised that the most satisfactory of the four should be the composition from Alexander Rapoport, a very complementary piece to hear following “La Bonne Chanson”.  Where the Faure is already somewhat abstracted in its declarations of love,  Rapoport’s piece feels like a series of fragments, abstracted from another time or another life.  Dobson felt like a ghost witnessing moments from his own life, gently reminiscing over shards of experience that abruptly end.  This is actually wonderfully apt for a symbolist such as Verlaine, writing in a time known for fragments.   I’m very impressed both with the composition & with Dobson’s masterful handling of the work.

Baritone Alexander Dobson (Photo credit Jimmy Song.)

Finally we heard the work that likely gave the title to the proceeding, namely “Dichterliebe” or “a Poet’s Love” presented in a recent arrangement for string quartet.  While it’s always nice to shine new light on a familiar work, I didn’t find this arrangement especially illuminating, charming as some passages actually were.  In places the four string players had less oomph than a piano, leaving Dobson with the challenge of making drama himself.  It’s pretty, but I don’t think it does much for either Heine or Schumann, who indeed regularly pokes his head into the action in the piano commentaries, particularly the two long interludes where he seems to comment: passages that simply didn’t fly in the new version.  Dobson was again stellar, on a night when he was singing for most of a program that ran over two hours.

As usual Talisker punctuated each musical item with a dramatic reading, tonight from  Stewart Arnott.  I think one reason I was thinking these thoughts about the obsolescence of poetry may have been because I saw literary theorist Linda Hutcheon sitting nearby.  I was thinking back to one of my first lessons about love, from that great amorist Jacqueline Susanne, author of Valley of the Dolls or as David Berg of Mad Magazine called her “Jackpot Susanne”.  No wonder i’m such a mess, using trashy novels to learn about life. What is love, and who really knows it? At one time poets were our teachers to answer such questions.  Of the four treatments, Beckwith’s deconstructive comedy felt the most fresh, while the cool distance of Faure, and the hyper romance of Schumann don’t resemble any love I’ve known or seen.  I found Rapoport’s druggy glimpses of something recollected through a fog the most intense, the most genuine.

I am grateful that Talisker keeps programming music & text in such a way so as to provoke my thoughts & feelings.  I look forward to seeing where they take us next year, but in the meantime there’s one more performance of this program to come Wednesday May 28th at 8:00 pm.

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Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult letters

Posted on May 25, 2014 by barczablog

I first encountered the romance between Franz Liszt and Comtesse Marie d’Agoult in Impromptu, a film full of famous artists in the script (Chopin, Liszt, Sand) and on the screen (Judy Davis, Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin & Bernadette Peters).  Impromptu is really a film about Chopin, with Liszt & his Comtesse as a colorful part of background, badly misrepresented in the script.  If you’ve seen the film you might use it as evidence in the question: “why didn’t Bernadette Peters have a film career?”  Neither Peters nor Marie d’Agoult do very well at the hands of writer Sarah Kernochan, who backs Peters into a screaming shrewish corner, in one of the most unpleasant portrayals I have ever seen onscreen, making Liszt look like a fool in the process.

The bicentennial year for Liszt in 2011 encouraged a wealth of scholarly activity around the composer, something like the more recent bicentennials of Wagner & Verdi in 2013.  As I’m a complete junkie for such things, I’m not sure that my perspective counts, a devoted follower, especially of the lives of the romantic composers.

click image for more information

Michael Short has assembled & translated the correspondence between Franz Liszt & The Comtess Marie d’Agoult, into an attractive oversize volume presenting all 473 letters with notes immediately below the letters.  I am in a state of shock.  I picked the book up from the library because I am always hungry for details about Liszt, Berlioz  and Wagner.

I did not expect to stumble upon a romance.  Over the course of those 473 letters, written between 1833 and 1864, we see the ups and downs of a remarkable love affair.

This is not, I must add, the reason I would expect scholars to read the book.  Correspondence of a great artist can be used to back up all sorts of positions, because they afford testimony that’s otherwise unavailable.   In addition to the simple pleasure of reading, regardless of who these people might be, there are details to the lives of famous people, sometimes including trivialities that could be important.  For example, letter 96 (by Liszt) includes the following review offered in passing:

I have finally managed to see Les Huguenots, that had not been performed since my arrival.  It contains some remarkable things.  The instrumentation and production are prodigious.

Or in letter 106 (Feb 1837), Liszt writes the following partisan report:

I have just heard Thalberg;  really it is a complete hoax.  Of all those things that are supposed to be superior, he is certainly the most mediocre that I know.  His last piece (composed recently) on God Save the King is even worse than mediocre.  As I said to Chopin: “He is a great man manqué who has turned into an artist even more manque”

Berlioz & Chopin come up from time to time, but Richard Wagner only rears his head at the very end.  The last letter, written by Liszt in 1864, is the first for almost a decade, and containing none of the obsessive romance found in most of the previous 400+.  By this time RW (or his music) had displaced Md’A as the apple of Liszt’s eye.

For the first hundred letters it’s all Liszt, Marie only appearing for the first time in letter #83.  It’s electrifying because her style is so completely different from his.  Where he’s effusively poetic she’s as direct as an amorous shark, and I can’t help envying her meal.

[Basle June 2m 1835]
Tell me immediately  the name of your inn and the number of your room.  Do not go out. My mother is here my brother-in-law no longer.  When you read this, I shall have spoken, until now I have not dared to say anything.  It is a final and testing trial but my love is my faith and I have a thirst for martyrdom.

Even so it’s hardly surprising that Short gives us mostly Liszt, given that for the most part, he’s the one whose words matter at least in the scholarly world.   Letter 113 (perhaps only the fourth or fifth specimen of her writing to this point) is one of the most wonderful letters in the book for what it might tell us about Liszt & his playing (first paragraph) even if it’s ultimately intangible and elusive information.  The  second paragraph (only presented in part) might be of more interest to literary scholars (but will they ever bother to read this book?) than musicologists, although at the end Marie seems to be telling us that George Sand is using Marie & Franz as her inspiration

    I have just received a letter from Ronchaud who tells me that the concert at the Opera has been deferred until Palm Sunday.  Would you like me to come?  For myself, I am not sure.  I fear that I might stop you working, embarrass you, be very fidgety myself, bring you bad luck.  In the end I have struggled a lot and believe that It would be better if I did not come,.  Reply to me positively: come or don’t come.  And if I am to come, get me a ticket for a ground-level box. […]
George [Sand] has fallen out with Le Monde.  The Abbe’s cuts to the 3eme Lettre a Marcie having aroused her suspicion, she wrote a perfectly nice, affectionate and reasonable letter to him [etc]
P.S. In the letter from G to the Abbe there is a very fine page about exceptional loves, noble, holy and imperishable loves, for which the inspiration is not foreign to us, I believe.

As the book progresses more and more of the letters are Marie’s for Franz, sometimes long diary entries.  Her writing is much more prosaic, whereas his flies off into poetic fancy.  This romantic tale is made three dimensional by the profound difference in their writing styles, reflecting their respective circumstances.  This letter of Marie’s from January 1840, at a time when they hadn’t seen one another for at least two years — is simple testimony to the impossibility of their lives:

Letter 170, January 6, 1835

    I have just received your letter from Pesth.  It made me cry like a baby.  How can you imagine that I am insensitive to such triumphs?  They are fine, great, poetic!  Oh if only I were there! always there!  What a pitiful role I have come to play here…..

Or letter 176, January 25 1840:

           This morning I received your letters from Pesth (please no more recommandirt letters) in which you detailed what you term household accounts.  I was sadly moved by all that.  The misfortune of only being your mistress and not your wife was rammed home to me as it had never been before, when I think that I have to stay far away from you on such days, such lovely and splendid days, my dear and great Franz, days of noble pride which You truly deserve!
What you say to me about permission to be unfaithful (in this connection I was posing a question, to which you didn’t reply, as is your wont) is full of heart and fills me with respect for you, although this way of feeling will always remain incomprehensible to me.  It is as impossible for me to conceive as that pigs may fly, and I can only allow of it as an inexplicable fact.  The final word in your letter Truth is useless.  I swear by our children that even a white lie has become impossible for me with you.  I hasten to rid myself of all my pent-up secrets and no confessor would ever have heard such a full and true confession.  If I do not write to you, it is simply because I do not know if it would not be better to talk.  What is certain is that my love, my veneration for you does nothing but increase and that your word ever and always will be the sole regulator of my actions.

As the years go by, his strength & independence grows while hers seems to wane, her obsession with him increasing.  Richard Wagner only comes into the picture in the very last letter, featuring in the last paragraph of the last letter of their 473 letter correspondence.  It is a letter consumed with musicological concerns, with no trace of the former romance, probably because by this point –many years later– the romance had died.

Correspondence of Franz Liszt and the Comtesse Marie d’Agoult, Translated and Edited by Michael Short.  Opening this book, expect to be moved.

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Second time lucky

Posted on May 23, 2014 by barczablog

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company production of Don Quichotte, 2014. Photo: Chris Hutcheson

Presented with more or less identical performances on two different occasions, what is it exactly that can make one so different from the other? Where I whined & complained the first time, I had a wonderful experience seeing the Canadian Opera Company’s Don Quichotte a second time tonight, at the second last show of the run. All things being equal, the difference must be in my head, perhaps something I did wrong the first time. Because of course i would always prefer to have a good time (who wouldn’t?).  I want to have fun, not feel distant & estranged. Did I show up with too many stipulations? Or maybe I felt distant and estranged because I wasn’t sitting very close to the stage the first time. I’ve had this experience before with the COC & the Four Seasons Centre. I recall loving The Nightingale & Other Tales from up close, but having a completely different experience when seeing another performance, this time from afar. Tonight –sitting up close—I was just as thrilled by Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Don. He sounds wonderful, his performance a nuanced interpretation of a figure that can easily descend into mere sentimental cliché or a cartoon.

I wonder, though, if this is the same interpretation of Sancho Panza I’m seeing, or if Quinn Kelsey has grown into the role, found additional depths. He’s now a commanding presence, often more interesting than the Don, and always producing a congenial sound of warmth & full of emotion. While I also enjoyed Anita Rachvelishvili’s Dulcinée more than on opening night I think the problem was me, that I had previously been emotionally unavailable, closed off from what she and the production were doing.  The first time I’d alluded to the article I’d seen in a newspaper, writing up the Massenet opera alongside the Stratford production of the music Man of La Mancha, and how it had led me to compare the performance to a broadway musical: as though there’s something wrong with that.

Sometimes one needs to lighten up, to let go & to simply let yourself enjoy what you’re seeing.

I also should acknowledge something very positive in this production, namely the foregrounded presence of dance.

The Don & Sancho ride forth one last time on May 24th.

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Media Circus 3: critical dinosaurs

Posted on May 22, 2014 by barczablog

In one tiny corner of the media circus, ignored by most of the audience, you’ll find a nerdy subculture, the opera lovers.  Yet many of the same influences inhere that you’d find anywhere else.

And so I’ll speak of something that’s big news in the opera world. But of course that means it’s under the radar for the other 99%, a story that won’t surprise anyone except possibly those entitled occupants of complementary seats, aka critics.

The story as I understand it is this:

  1. A series of reviews went wildly off-track, as reviewers took gratuitous pot-shots at a singer’s appearance, sometimes while acknowledging that her singing was good.
  2. Norman Lebrecht synopsised it and also published an impassioned response from Alice Coote, seen not long ago in the COC’s Hercules.

    Alice Coote as Dejanira and Eric Owens as Hercules in the Canadian Opera Company/Lyric Opera of Chicago co-production of Hercules, directed by Peter Sellars. (Dan Rest/COC)

    Alice Coote as Dejanira and Eric Owens as Hercules in the Canadian Opera Company/Lyric Opera of Chicago co-production of Hercules, directed by Peter Sellars. (Dan Rest/COC)

3.Social media have been alive with responses.

It reminds me of the climactic interview that more or less ends McCarthy’s reign of terror, the moment when Joseph Welch held up a mirror, in which the senator was shown to be a monster utterly lacking in compassion. Suddenly—at least as I hear it told—the burden of proof shifted, the red scare was no longer so scary. 

Hopefully critics will be left as high and dry as McCarthy, themselves shamed for their shaming.

I’ve long been afraid of the power of critics, the damage we can do.  My facebook cover photo is taken from Louise Hay’s page, addressed both to the students I work with and the singers I review.

I could be addressing myself. faceabook_cover_photo

I hope it’s clear where i stand on Coote’s essay.  I was appalled to read James Jorden of parterre.com post Coote’s essay to facebook with the heading “Dumpy singer takes bold stance defending the right of dumpy singers to be dumpy.”  I take offense, not just because I think Coote is beautiful.  Such language debases all of us.  I suppose it’s time I revised my “steal this page” essay, but it’s really obvious stuff.  Singers are vulnerable in a way that most people can’t understand until they try making their body their instrument.  Dancers might understand this as another group of artists who create their apparatus from the human body; but they get a free pass from most of society, living as they do on a pedestal for their physical prowess, their gorgeous shapes: an adoration entirely different from what singers usually enjoy or suffer.

Critics who put people down –and not just for their physique—are dinosaurs, somehow spared the extinction that wiped out others of their breed.  I suppose some of these reptiles have a huge following –Joan Rivers comes to mind—that isn’t about to disappear. Ha… One can only hope.

But I don’t believe opera has any need of its own fashion police.

Posted in Opera, Personal ruminations & essays | 5 Comments

Les Adieux

Posted on May 21, 2014 by barczablog

The Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio had their annual noon-hour concert to commemorate the departure of some of their members, titled “Les Adieux”. The three performers?

  • Michael Shannon, piano
  • Cameron McPhail, baritone
  • Sasha Djihanian, soprano
Baritone Cameron McPhail

Baritone Cameron McPhail

For most of the concert we went back and forth between artistic solo songs, in other words, far from the operatic idiom of the COC: until the last items on the program.  It makes sense, considering that for most of their time with the Ensemble, these flamboyant singers are often required to soldier in comparative obscurity, rarely getting the opportunity to show us what they can really do, what their voices can do, what charisma they could display if given half a chance.

That is, until the last two items. Djihanian sang & danced a broadly seductive “Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiss” from Giuditta by Lehar, including a couple of notes that might have been high C’s, tossed off to huge applause. It was a fitting reminder.  The two youngsters singing for us were not just capable of snazzy high notes, but could take the stage with flamboyance. And to close? The pair offered us a poised and well-acted “là ci darem la mano” as an encore, the one time McPhail & Djihanian sang together. It was a fitting display of their musical dramatic skills, at this bitter-sweet moment of graduation, embarking on their careers.

Photo: Sasha Djihanian, 2013. Photo by Chris Hutcheson.

For the rest of the hour we were hearing other sorts of singing, different tests of skill.  McPhail opened with Chansons gaillardes, eight dryly ironic songs from Poulenc. They’re as much a test of your ability to keep a straight face as of vocal stylings, McPhail ever the deadpan comedian, never telegraphing the joke or tipping his hand, as suave a display as you could imagine.

Djihanian followed with a contrasting pair of Armenian Songs by Sayat Nova. Where “Kani vor jan im” showed off a rich middle voice in a moody composition that almost suggested that the soprano could sing mezzo-soprano rep if she so chose, “Kamancha” took us to a more extroverted place. She followed with Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliées, the furthest we’d drifted away from an operatic idiom, exploring varieties of internalized experience, with excellent support from Shannon. Another subdued pair of songs from Dvorak followed.

Michael Shannon, pianist & répétiteur

McPhail followed with I Was There, five powerful songs with English texts from Walt Whitman composed by American composer Lee Hoiby, requiring the singer to step forward into the spotlight.

All this variety serves to remind us that Ensemble Studio members can do much more than just opera. I wish them well in their future life.

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Louis Riel

Posted on May 17, 2014 by barczablog

When I was young there was a phrase used so often that it became a cliché, something to be joked about. What exactly was the “Canadian identity”, and –other than hockey or maple syrup –what was Canadian culture?

click image for information about the DVD including how to obtain

As far as those asking were concerned, it hadn’t yet been articulated. Had they looked in film or literature they wouldn’t have found much back in the 1960s. Over the next few decades, though, artists did what artists do. Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, David Cronenberg, and so many more told their stories, and in so doing, gave us stories with which to tell our own story.

It’s so simple, and so recent, that perhaps nobody realizes just how precious & new it is. The Canada to which my family came –before my birth, when my parents crossed the ocean—was a bland but safe place. Trudeau had not yet appeared to articulate the ideas of bilingualism & multi-culturalism, two central tenets of modern life in Canada.

I just watched a DVD, one of a series to commemorate the death in 1999 of composer Harry Somers. They took the recording from a CBC broadcast made in 1969 of Somers’ opera Louis Riel, one of two operas premiered in 1967 by the Canadian Opera Company. It’s a remarkable historical document for a number of reasons.

  • The opera captures some of Canada’s history: not just the story of the Métis hero Riel, but the circumstances of his life & death, including a portrayal of the bigotry with which he was executed (although I have no idea if that’s something accurate or merely a creation of librettist Mavor Moore)
  • The opera was commissioned by the Floyd S Chalmers Foundation in three languages (English, French & Cree).
  • The DVD shows some of the singing talent from almost fifty years ago, including Bernard Turgeon’s definitive portrayal of the Métis leader and visionary, sung in two languages, Donald Rutherford as Sir John A Macdonald, Roxolana Roslak as Riel’s wife Marguerite, and other singers of note such as Alan Crofoot, Joseph Rouleau, Patricia Ridout, Mary Morrison, Peter Milne and Howell Glynne.
  • The CBC broadcast re-framed the historical events within a contemporary context, given that there were contemporary echoes in Québec, even citing Pierre Trudeau’s words at the beginning & end.

Some aspects of the broadcast don’t wear well with the years. The wigs / hair on some of the singers, for example look rather artificial, although I think it was one of the first times that an opera production meant for a big stage had been captured in the intimacy of a camera. In other words the DVD is likely the COC production seen from up close, and so naturally there are a few blemishes showing. For some moments the camera-work is sensitive, even though the acting is often oversized, more proper for a big stage rather than film or television.

Yet the main portrayals are superb. Bernard Turgeon is convincing in both languages (and as I didn’t follow the libretto closely he may also have some lines in Cree: I’m not sure), on the edge between a kind of vulnerable passion and religious fanaticism. The compositional style is the modernist idiom that was brand new in the first half of the century, as in Wozzeck, but perhaps conventional in some TV dramas by the 50s and 60s.  Somers’ idiom includes some dissonant brass and string chords, as well as some whimsical woodwind writing, often associated with the political discourse for the scenes in Ottawa.. Turgeon sounds very comfortable with his music, always illuminating his singing with the passions of Louis Riel, poised somewhat like Joan of Arc between inspiration and madness.

For the rest, I’m less certain as to whether the quality of what we’re seeing reflects the composition or the performer. Moore’s libretto offers several witty moments for some characters. Thomas Park plays a key role in the first part of the opera, as Thomas Scott, a quarrelsome loudmouth asking for trouble. He gets himself executed, and becomes the martyr who later brings about Riel’s downfall.  You can’t take your eyes off Park whenever he’s onscreen.

Donald Rutherford is given marvelous lines by Moore to work with, as Sir John A Macdonald. One scene ends with Macdonald singing to the Bishop Taché “touché, Taché”. In another scene, Taché arrives saying “Sir John your health is in my prayers”, to which our first PM replies “So that’s where it’s gone”. Most of the role is played with the camera in very tight, so Rutherford has no choice but to be a smooth performer: as Macdonald likely must have been.

Conducted by Victor Feldbrill I can’t find any credit for an orchestra on the DVD. While it might have been the Toronto Symphony when presented at the O’Keefe Centre, perhaps there were some substitute players, which might explain the lack of a clear credit.

I’m thinking of this now, having just posted something about the CBC and their shrinking budgets. Who will champion Canadian culture? The CBC no longer have their orchestra, likely can’t commission so many (if any) original works by Canadian composers.

Does Canada still need champions of Canadian Culture? The COC once were big champions of Canadian culture. Indeed a friend of mine recently told me that there’s a charter somewhere stating that the COC have a responsibility to uphold Canadian culture & talent. Sometimes I feel that’s what the Ensemble Studio represent, a pathway for Canadian talent, although other times I feel the studio is simply a repository of talent for the company, a ready answer to critics (like moi), even though I am often frustrated at how often the talented graduates vanish, never to be seen on a COC stage.

But in the meantime, as we wait for a newly composed main-stage opera from the COC –The Golden Ass was their last I believe—the fiftieth anniversary revival of Riel is coming soon. Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian may not satisfy those within the classical composer fraternity who must feel bypassed by Alexander Neef’s decision to approach a popular composer. Yet Wainwright’s composition –whatever its strengths or weaknesses—is Canadian culture too.

For those who can’t wait, Louis Riel is available on DVD from the Canadian Music Centre.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology, Opera, Politics, Popular music & culture, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Media Circus 2: CBC

Posted on May 17, 2014 by barczablog

I am trying to be hopeful about the changes to the CBC. It’s been reported that over 600 jobs are being cut, that the network will reduce its sports department in the wake of the highly publicized loss of Hockey Night in Canada. This is not surprising, but a consequence of budget cuts in 2012, one of a series. For years, the Conservative aim has been to reduce the size of the CBC. I believe their concerns are far different from mine.

Their concern? Public affairs programs, news, all allegedly with a left-wing slant.

Ha… Ironic! The network has been drifting closer over the years to being commercial, in its sensitivity to public taste. Where its 1960s and 70s programming seemed immune to such concerns, nowadays? Not so. But the irony is that the hard-core news function is not driven by ratings. The radio programming, ditto. CBC will cut back on its comedy and drama, and especially its sports programming long before they stop being a pain the conservatives’ collective butt.

But –speaking of butts—that’s not at all what bothers me.  I see the CBC in an entirely different context.

For me the CBC is the network of Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. I remember CBC orchestras and think of the Glenn Gould studio as a magical place for classical music programming. I always understood the CBC to be the broadcaster who would do what the public could not or would not do. They were the ones to help identify and create Canadian culture by commissioning and recording. I am not as confident about the future of classical music on CBC as I am of news & public affairs. I do feel strongly that this could be an election issue: if the other parties would identify it as one. The conservatives will never do so, as the party who have been systematically killing the public broadcaster through a series of cuts. The other two parties don’t need to promote the CBC as a cultural issue –even if it is so—because it’s also an economical one as well. Arts funding gives a great return on investment. The proof is relatively recent, and needing to be shouted from the roof-tops. Some –notably Tom Hudak—still think that austerity works, even though economists have discredited trickle down and supply side economics as fallacious. Pumping money into the CBC creates jobs, and not just the immediate ones working for the corporation. Artists are not to be compared with other disciplines such as law or medicine, where immediate payback is expected & required. A classical composer can be a guy driving a cab (like Philip Glass did at one time) working in insurance (as Charles Ives did long ago) or teaching music. A commissioned composition trickles down to the performers and to the audience who might otherwise not hear a new Canadian piece (admittedly an intangible). Trudeau & Mulcair should take positions on this right away. I am under no illusions. Harper won’t rescue the CBC, although he might temporarily soften his position if there were an actual conversation on the subject. But let’s make sure there is such a conversation.

Posted in Opera, Politics, Popular music & culture | 3 Comments

Toonseum

Posted on May 16, 2014 by barczablog

What was it that he said again? Joe Wos could have been talking about the way we make them, or the way we perceive them. I think he said that cartoons both exaggerate and simplify. The funny thing is that my recollection of him is exactly like that. I’m remembering him as a virtual cartoon, not because of who he is so much as the way he reminds me of a particular cartoon character.

At first glance, as he sat by the cash register in this place full of comics and memorabilia, I thought I was in the presence of someone just like that comic book guy on The Simpsons (speaking of toons). You know who I mean? The one in the store who is a nerd of deep & esoteric knowledge. If it were rocket science or medicine he’d be rich, but because it’s something comparatively obscure –like comics – he has not yet become wealthy, although there are other things in life besides money, right? I realize that by resorting to a stereotype I’m being simplistic, and in the process creating something in my mind that’s just like a cartoon.

Cartoonist and Toonseum curator Joe Wos alongside one of his quick creations

Cartoonist and Toonseum Executive Director (curator?) Joe Wos alongside one of his quick creations (photo by Leslie Barcza)

It had started out as a tour of a small gallery. Toonseum is a museum of the cartoon, or “toon” for short. If you don’t realize how broad a purview is covered by a place such as Toonseum, ask Joe Wos.   (hm or should one use “the” before saying the name? Is it “The Toonseum“? or just “Toonseum”? I forgot to ask) Today’s show, of artists illustrating for Golden Books had included images of famous artists such as Richard Scarry. Some had been refugees from eastern Europe (Feodor Rojankovsky, and Tibor Gergely), as well as artists formerly employed by Disney, who had chosen to go off on their own, perhaps giving up something financially for greater expressive freedom.

And come to think of it, do we really appreciate people like that, with their encyclopaedic knowledge of esoterica?

At least the nerds of the world are no longer ignored. Yes it started out as a tour. And then suddenly by good fortune I discovered I’d come exactly at the time when I’d be able to take a brief drawing lesson. Oh my gosh what a windfall. There were three others there at the same time , all of us sitting there watching JW’s lecture/demonstration. He explained some of the basics of cartoons. Hm…. Exaggeration and simplicity? As I thought about it, I was reminded of the cloisonists, painters such as van Gogh and Gaugin (at least for part of his career), whose paintings resemble cartoons, because they are a series of blocks of colour.  “Cloisonism” is a term coined by a U of T professor awhile ago to describe the phenomenon, whereby the artists emulated the style of cloisonné (a kind of ceramic where each cartoon section is surrounded by a thin strip of metal, and looks indeed like a cartoon). I think it was just as relevant to observe the similarity to stained glass. Just as a window showing a saint or Jesus would be forced to work in blocks of colour surrounded by a metal outline –because of the limits of glass—so too these painters. Gaugin at this time –before Tahiti—was a symbolist, and associating with others who were part of the movement. Maurice Denis, who wrote the manifesto for the Nabis (the movement to which Gaugin was attached at this time) lived with Aurelien Lugné-Poe, the man who directed the first production of Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande in 1893. You want to see a very exalted cartoon? Look at the first edition (either the cover or frontispiece: both by Denis) for Debussy’s La Demoiselle élue. You can’t see any features clearly because these are highly stylized images, aiming for something symbolic & ideal rather than realistic & individualized.  Anything by Denis or Gaugin from this period aims for an ideal largely by emulating stained glass and avoid realism or specificity at all costs. So in other words, I hope I can be forgiven by Mr Wos for the way my mind works. I am not one to denigrate cartoons, cartoonists or cartoon collectors, associating such works with some very ambitious artists.

My puppy, created with the help of Joe Was in cartoon class today

My puppy, created with the help of Joe Wos in cartoon class today.

After speaking of these two principles he then went on to demonstrate. We were taken along for the demonstration, invited to draw the same sorts of figures on our own piece of paper. You can see JW’s puppy (his last drawing) behind him on the easel. JW took things a step further by employing the letters of words in the drawings. We all did an owl, using the letters O, W and L. It was an apt demonstration of how even with the simplification of a cartoon, he could still portray something quite recognizably. Here you can see one of my drawings that I made as I took in the handiwork of the master. I think his puppy is far more sympathetic than mine.

Not what I expected!

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10 questions for Cameron McPhail

Posted on May 13, 2014 by barczablog

All good things must come to an end.  Brandon, Manitoba native Cameron McPhail has been a member of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, Canada’s premier training program for young opera professionals.

Recent COC appearances include Schaunard in La Bohème, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte (Ensemble Studio performance) and the Officer in Dialogues des Carmélites. Other credits include Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress (Music Academy of the West); Ford in Falstaff and the title roles in Don Giovanni and Gianni Schicchi (University of British Columbia Opera); Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Marcello in La Bohème, Riccardo in I Puritani and George in Of Mice and Men (Yale Opera Studio); Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Ford (Opera NUOVA); Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro (Opera on the Avalon); and, Schaunard (Highlands Opera Studio). In February 2014, he won a George London Award (for a Canadian singer) in the George London Foundation Awards Competition. This summer, he appears as Marcello in La Bohème.

On the occasion of his farewell to the Ensemble Studio at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre on May 20th  I ask McPhail ten questions: five about himself and five more about a special concert titled “Les Adieux”.

 

Baritone Cameron McPhail

Baritone Cameron McPhail

1)    Are you more like your father or your mother?

I am a legitimate cross-breed. As children, we subconsciously recognize traits and characteristics of each parent, then we do our best to embody the ones we admire. My dad was… I mean IS (sorry, Dad….) an athlete, a competitor, a philosopher and business man. My mother is warm, compassionate, artistic, creative and loves to shop.

I guess I fluctuate. I have my father’s competitive spirit, his wanderlust, hopefully as much of his manners and appreciation for people’s good qualities and their flaws as possible. He taught me to be gracious with people when they piss you off, because he always insisted that all people are inherently good and mean well. Thanks to my dad: I see my art as a product, I hate losing, I swear too much, I put too much butter on my toast and I like almost everybody. Thanks to my mom: I admire strong, independent, driven women; I could play as many sports as I wanted to, but had to be studying some sort of musical instrument. She was the performer and musician, my Dad was loud. A perfect recipe for an opera singer.

2)    What is the best thing or worst thing about being an opera singer?

The worst thing about being an opera singer is the uncertainty and not working. There are an infinite number of people who will tell you what they think, an infinite number of decisions to make which can affect your ability to put food on the table, pay a mortgage or get your kid braces. You can get an infection in your chest or sinuses and have to cancel an engagement that you might have been counting on to get you through the spring, or you can get a phone call from your manager letting you know that someone ELSE got an infection in their chest or sinuses and that you don’t need to worry about getting through spring anymore. As much as you work on your craft, as much as you practice, prepare, rehearse, you still need to be offered a job by someone. It’s not like being a lawyer where you can simply work harder and bill more hours. You can only work as frequently as someone else is willing to hire you. The big balancing act (in my opinion) lies between resisting the urge to become complacent and overly secure with your product, while also loving it enough to enjoy the journey through the ups and downs. Vocal technique is an infuriating, ever-changing labyrinth of variables. You go to bed thinking you have it. Then you wake up, head to the practice room, try to warm up and wonder during which REM cycle you got terrible again….

The worst things are also at the same time, some of the best things about being a singer. You get it together eventually. You become more consistent, you can correct mistakes yourself faster and that’s when the fun starts. All of those doubts and worries temporarily go away once you’re actually working. It’s hard to explain the feeling you get that contract, the feeling of walking past security through the stage-door. The way your heart starts to beat a bit faster when the orchestra begins tuning, and the feeling of standing in that principle bow-line when you’ve all had a great show and the audience is on their feet. Those are the moments when you forget that you’re actually being PAID to do this. It is those times when you feel extremely lucky, and you feel that urge to keep coming back, keep auditioning and keep getting better.

3)    Who do you like to listen to or watch?

If it’s opera that I’m working on, I think we all have our heroes we prefer to hear. I love Nicolai Herlea, Piero Cappuccili, Cornell MacNeil and Ettore Bastianini. If I need a DVD to watch, I’ll choose Simon Keenleyside, Bryn Terfel or Ferruccio Furlanetto. They are such incredible artists AND singers… Easy to emulate and be inspired.

If I’m not listening to opera (which is usually the case…), I’m a die-hard rock and roll fan. I grew up with Neil Young, Hendrix… Seeing The Rolling Stones live was a religious experience for me. Their virility, longevity and love of their craft is exactly what we need as opera singers. We want that 50-year career…

TV-wise, I think the greatest shows on TV are Pawn Stars and Deadliest Catch. Honorable Mentions go out to Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and Judge Judy. This summer, Cat (my wife) and I are going to do Breaking Bad and House of Cards. We’ll be on the road a ton… I tip my flask to the creators of Netflix.

4)    What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

I wish I could play piano better than I do. I was an athlete growing up, and while I took some lessons when I was a kid, I never really learned to read music as well as I wish I had. These days, that would be an extremely useful skill, especially when I was learning The Rake’s Progress, Billy Budd and The Rape of Lucretia.

Slightly less practical, I would love to be a haberdasher, bespoke tailor or cobbler. I have slightly expensive tastes when it comes to clothes and shoes. If I could make my own, I’d probably reduce my costs. Maybe not… I love the parts of men’s fashion that celebrate purity, tradition and timelessness. Raw denim, Goodyear Welting and British Tweed, and hand-made suits made from the manes of Milanese Unicorns.

5) When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favorite thing to do?

On my days off, I love to pay golf. I think it’s the greatest thing in the world. It’s so pure, so imperfect and when it’s just you in the woods, you’re at address and the ball moves, you’re the only one who knows you just incurred a two stroke penalty. It’s a game that shows your true character and grit. It also has so many parallels with singing. The focus, the mental endurance, the demand for great strength, yet at the same time dexterity, agility and flexibility. You need control over your big muscles, yet the ability to isolate and manage the small, intricate ones. It is extremely difficult to be good at either golf or singing. As you age, some things get simpler and new things get harder. Perfection is unattainable.

If I’m on the road, I love to get a little dressed up and go for a walk. I’ll shop, see people, places, eat, drink, do whatever it is that people do where we are!

As a Prairie-boy, I was bred to love road trips. My bachelor’s degree in economics and geography was at the University of British Columbia. My wife is also from Vancouver, so needless to say, I have done the drive from Winnipeg to Vancouver more times than I can count. My Dad’s Cadillac CTS-V, a few great playlists and one of those Lumberjack Sandwiches from Safeway… I’m in. I don’t care how far it is.

********

(l-r) Phillip Addis as Marcello, Eric Margiore as Rodolfo, Cameron McPhail as Schaunard and Tom Corbeil as Colline in the Canadian Opera Company production of La Bohème, 2013. Photo: Chris Hutcheson

(l-r) Phillip Addis as Marcello, Eric Margiore as Rodolfo, Cameron McPhail as Schaunard and Tom Corbeil as Colline in the Canadian Opera Company production of La Bohème, 2013. Photo: Chris Hutcheson

Five more about your farewell concert with the Ensemble Studio.

1)    Please talk a bit about the next step.  How does one approach life after the Ensemble?

This is a tricky part, because there are so many different paths to choose from. My wife and I are both singers, we have the same manager but other than that, we are both making individual career moves while supporting each other every step of the way. We are engaged in North America next season, but we are also spending as much time as possible in Europe to sing as many auditions as possible. These days, it is very difficult to simply have a career in JUST North America or JUST Europe. You have to work hard to try and maintain a presence in as many places as possible. It’s not easy, but we simply keep working hard, keep taking voice lessons and set high goals. We both hope to sing in Canada as much as possible, but Europe has to be a priority too.

I am lucky enough to have the support here at the COC, in that they fully understand the importance of auditions and competitions… especially in your final year. If you’re not careful, you can enjoy the safe atmosphere of the Ensemble Studio, and once you’ve graduated, you’re on your own. The COC gives you every opportunity to cultivate future plans and a young singer can do everything right in his final year, but a challenging year after the Ensemble Studio is almost inevitable. I am very lucky to be relatively busy, but it’s still going to be an uphill battle. Wish me luck…

2)    What do you love about the Ensemble Studio?

The Ensemble Studio is as good as it gets. There are comparable programs in the world, but ours here is on par with every single one. They gave me as good opportunities as any artist that has come through the program. I was given lessons, coaching, guidance, financial stability, networking, freedom to be in New York for auditions or competitions when I needed them, and roles on the COC mainstage alongside the best singers in the world as my cast mates. What more is there to say?

My colleagues are some of my best friends, they’re talented, creative and a hell of a lot of fun. We get to do a show together each year, and it’s always a huge success simply because of the relationships. It’s pretty hard not to be close with people that you’ve changed with in a broom closet somewhere in Northern Ontario at 8:30 a.m. for an elementary school performance of The Brothers Grimm. I always tried to wear my nicest underwear.

3) What will you be singing in Les Adieux, and does it have personal significance for you at this moment of saying goodbye?

For the Les Adieux concert, I’m going to sing two song cycles that I love very much. The first will be Poulenc’s Chansons Gaillardes. It is extremely difficult for both the singer and the pianist (Michael Shannon), but the rewards are countless. The poetry is so incredibly French… so beautiful, yet with so many ingenious metaphors, double-meanings and innuendos. To perform them properly takes great restraint, subtlety and vocal control. I hope you like them.

Composer Lee Hoiby and his partner/collaborator Mark Shulgasser at The Falls, Long Eddy, New York.

The second cycle is by American composer, the late, great Lee Hoiby called I Was There: Five Poems of Walt Whitman. The poems are timeless classics and Mr. Hoiby was a close friend of my voice teacher while I was at Yale. Mr. Hoiby was such a kind, passionate man who wrote remarkably well for the voice. He was a wonderful pianist, and Michael Shannon definitely has his hands full with this set too. Both sets, the Poulenc and the Hoiby are about as challenging a sing as it gets for me, so to do them both in one hour will be a hell of a challenge.

As a vehicle for saying goodbye to a place that will always be extremely dear to me, the Poulenc represents maturity, gained wisdom and the notion that your own, unaffected, natural voice is going to be best received. The Hoiby, beginning with the song “Beginning my studies” contains personal awakening, accomplishment, loss and inspiration garnered from quality leadership, and lastly, departure on a new adventure with the future unknown. I can’t think of better music with which to take my leave. Sasha Djihanian and I will also sing a duet from Don Giovanni, because it’s cute, charming and will be on the Four Seasons Centre stage next season!

4)    Please put the COC Ensemble Studio into context, in a culture that doesn’t always value opera, at a time when it’s challenging to make a career.

Opera most certainly has a future. Anyone that says differently is being silly and close-minded. As time passes, there will be changes of course, but change is inevitable in all things. In the last month, the COC has just produced three of the greatest productions I have ever seen, anywhere in the world. World-class directors presenting well-thought-out productions sung by LITERALLY a half-dozen of the most in-demand singers on the planet. Eric Owens, David Daniels, Alice Coote, Sondra Radvanovsky, Russell Braun, Ferruccio Furlanetto?!?! Are you kidding me? You cannot go ANYWHERE else in the world right now and hear that many world-famous singers in the same week. ANYWHERE.

Sorry, I know that didn’t really answer your question… but in a way, it did. Context for a young artist program? Look who we get to watch in rehearsal. Our General Director, Alexander Neef, is a superstar. Only in the recent seasons are we seeing the vision and foresight that he has in distinguishing voices that are going to be valuable. These stars are going to keep coming to the COC and that attracts connoisseurs, agents, critics, coaches and the Ensemble Studio gets to be part of those performances, work with those conductors and directors. All of those superstars have high-powered management and they will hear us all. It’s cyclical. Talent attracts talent, and while people may question the future of opera, the shows I watched this weekend were packed, with people of all ages. It takes resilience and flexibility, but the young singers of the Ensemble Studio are getting to witness the re-birth of a company that has quickly established itself as one of the greatest houses in the world.

Canadian singers are wanted all over the world. The young batch of us in our 20s and 30s are benefitting from great work by singers like Adrienne Pieczonka, Russell Braun, Judith Forst, Tracy Dahl, Richard Margison, Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley. They’ve paved the road for us and set the bar extremely high, but luckily, we’re being exposed to that high level here at the COC, so we’re ready for the undertaking.

5)    Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?

There are a lot of people that I admire. I admire my parents, my brother, my wife, my in-laws, my friends.

There are people that heard me when I was still studying business at UBC, without whom I would never have done this. Bruce Pullan, Nancy Hermiston and Peter Barcza at the UBC School of Music got me excited to actually pursue opera for a semester or two and see how I did. After one semester, David Agler of the Wexford Festival, Richard Margison of Highlands Opera Studio, Kim Matice-Wanat of Opera NUOVA, and John Churchwell and Marilyn Horne of Music Academy of the West gave me the next series of shots. Each time someone says “YES”, we take a step forward in our confidence, determination and desire.

Bass Robert Pomakov

Bass Robert Pomakov: paying it forward

The biggest influence and positive impact has been recent. I’m approaching 30 years old and am on my way but it’s hard to know what to expect in the next five years. It has been my older colleagues, cast mates and other singers who are 5-10 years ahead of me who have really made the big difference. Guys like Stephen Costello, Josh Hopkins, Quinn Kelsey, Robert Pomakov, David Pomeroy and Dimitri Pittas are who give me my biggest motivation. They’re only about 4-7 years older than me, but they know exactly what I’m going through. They share ideas, advice, talk ‘man-to-man’ about money and investments over a few beers while making me feel like I belong. They’re the next generation of superstars and want me with them. They pay for dinner, despite my objections and say “just pay it forward man… I’m making lots… someone else did it for us not too long ago”. They remind me that money will come, success will happen if you play it smart and that I can support a family, pay a mortgage and be a happy man. That’s the way I want to be, the way I want to sing and the way I want to help another young guy someday.

*******

“Les Adieux” is the special concert to end the season at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, a goodbye from the departing members of the Ensemble Studio, May 20th at noon.

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