RIP James King

One of the most enduring and durable artists of my lifetime has passed away. James King was an outstanding dramatic tenor, who made such a mark in some of the most challenging roles in the repertoire. He all but owned Bacchus and the Kaiser in Die Frau ohne Schatten during the 60s and 70s and was Siegmund in the groundbreaking Solti Ring. He sang well at an age where many have stopped and into his 70s was still singing remarkably well.

My path crossed his during my student days at Indiana University. He was the nicests of guys and although I had few opportunities to speak with him, he was always extremely friendly and gracious.

There was a recital album on Decca, which I once heard and my recollection of which was that it was fabulous. Unfortunately it never made it to CD as far as I can tell. Still, there are many commercial and live recordings available. I found a good discography, as well as a clip of his singing Walther's Preislied.

Surtitles, again...

I was at a concert last week that had a minor surtitle malfunction. In the middle of the Rigoletto quartet the Duke asked Maddalena to turn off her cellphone.

I missed the whole thing though. I was engrossed in the music and frankly never look at surtitles anyway. So, I couldn't quite figure out why everyone was laughing.

Simple pleasures

Working in a new job is always difficult and my new job is no exception. There are always the inevitable mistakes that one makes. Happily my early mistakes seem to be minor and the first performances that have been my responsibility to sell have met their goal. I don't take credit: that belongs to Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and the performers. But had they not, I would have assumed the blame.

One moment of great satisfaction though was when I awarded the prize to the winner of our free ticket raffle: a 7-year old girl who had come to one of our free events. She used the pair of tickets we gave her to take her mom to the concert.

These are the good days.

Am I Loud Enough!

Anne Midgette writes a pretty on-target article on the dearth of the big American voice in Sunday's NY Times.

My only thoughts regard the discrepancy in training. Marilyn Horne hits it rather on the nose when she says that "one lesson a week is not enough." Back in the old days, singers used to take lesson with their teachers every day. Read the biographies of some great singers, who often talk about going to their teacher's studio every day, not only having their own lessons, but taking in the lessons of others. Of course who can do that when a lesson costs $150/hour, but in addition who has the time? In college or music school, curriculums don't provide for more than a lesson a week (or two shorter lessons) and once out into the real world, singers have to find some source of income to let them pay for just one. This cuts into, not only lesson time, but the ability to practice. When you've worked an 8-10 hour day, one doesn't really have the time or energy to put in a good practice second.

After one of my earliest opera jobs, I returned to my church choir. After my first solo a colleague turned to me and said that several months of opera singing had me sounding great. The truth was that it was a situation where I HAD to sing and practice every day for months. I got the ability to flex my vocal muscles in a way that I never had the chance to during my weeks of working 9 to 5.

Enthusiasm

Our concert season started last week with a recital by four of our singers. Next week is a concert with orchestra which I'm looking forward to immensely.

I was listening today to a Tosca performance from the Met in 1964. It was one of those performances that was legendary to Met fanatics from a certain era, because on that day Tebaldi, Barry Morrell and Tito Gobbi were scheduled for Tosca. When Rudolf Bing stepped in front of the curtain, the audience groaned, fearing that Tebaldi was cancelling. She did not, but the tenor did and in his place they heard Franco Corelli.

Now the singing was not just fabulous but primal. On a level that we rarely experience today. But I expected that. What was remarkable on that live performance was the level of involvement of the audience. Each of the three singers got prolonged ovations on their entrance and one could sense the audience's collective blood pressure rising as the temperature of the performance increased. It wasn't just the singing, but the entire experience that made that audience a very lucky one.