High and Low Notes

Good Bye

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:11:00 +0000

This will be my last post. As much as I have enjoyed this, I just don't have the time to update as I should. I will no longer write here and shortly I'll take the whole thing down.

Thank you for reading. I hope that you'll remember it fondly.

Best,

Rich

Company

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:52:00 +0000

I'm currently rehearsing for a production of Sondheim's brilliant 1970 musical Company which marks my return to the stage after almost (gasp) ten years and my first musical in more years than I care to count.

Approaching this musical for the first time I'm quite in awe of the complexity of the score. This ain't easy. I've sung Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Strauss, and Eaton and this ranks up with the trickiest of them. I give great credit to my colleagues, most of whom have not had the musical background I do, in mastering this quite difficult music.

The play is a quite perceptive view of married and non-married life and I quite relate to Bobby's plight. If there is a more heart-breaking song then "Being Alive", I don't know it.

Finally a nod to George Furth, who wrote the book and who passed away only a few weeks ago. Much of the credit for this groundbreaking play goes to him.

More Beer

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:05:00 +0000

In view of my recent Music as Beer metaphor, I thought I should mention that at least beer commercials have been the source of some classic jingles. Remember "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one", which, despite encouraging over imbibing, is a good tune.

I'm also fond of "When you say Bud" (the commercial, not the beer).

When I Rule the World

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:52:00 +0000

City Opera Director Has Eyes on Bayreuth.

Hmmm.

Podium Time

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:33:00 +0000

Those outside of the industry may not be familiar with Tessitura. Not "the general pitch level or average range of a vocal or instrumental part in a musical composition" according to dictionary.com, but the arts enterprise software, originally developed by the Metropolitan Opera, which handles ticket sales and fundraising tracking among a myriad of other things for non-profit arts organizations.

I just returned from their annual conference, which was very useful, but that's not what I want to discuss. I had the pleasure of conducting the Tessitura Chorus in one selection at the opening festivities and what I assumed would be just fun, was more than that. The quality of the singing was quite high and I was disappointed not to have more time performing with this talented group.

Talking with other people in arts organizations, I was struck by the number of very talented people who decided for whatever reason not to pursue a career as a performer (or composer, or author), but to translate that love into a career in arts administration. The number is not inconsiderable, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised since that's the route I took. But it is reassuring that many of those who work so hard to create an environment for the creation of art are so passionately committed to it in multiple aspects of their lives.

Disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 02:21:00 +0000

I was visiting my old stomping grounds in
Brooklyn the other day, when I discovered this monstrosity that had apparently had grown through the roof of the building next to the one where I used to live.

Now I'm no expert in architecture, but would common sense and good taste indicate that if you wanted to add a floor to an existing building, you might want to do it in the style of everything around it. In a neighborhood filled with historic row houses and brownstones, it looks like the top of a factory. Unfortunately this part of Carroll Gardens is not in a historic district and so the owners can do pretty much what they want.

But God it's ugly.

Shifting focus

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:34:00 +0000

I've been doing some thinking recently about this blog. I haven't been updating it frequently and have been considering ways that I could revive it.

I was visiting my mother last weekend and reading some old NY Times Magazines that she had lying around and came upon this article about Emily Gould, a blogger and purveyor of Emily Magazine. I have to say that I admire her courage (foolhardiness?) in putting her personal life out there for anyone to see. It proved not essentially wise but I also realized that I've been very sparing in the personal thoughts that I have chosen to share on this blog.

I intentionally have kept away from controversy and in giving opinions that could possibly offend anyone. Being a professional in the opera world I've shied away from opinions about singers, productions, and personalities in the fear that it could be detrimental to my career. I've also spent a lot of time (bending over backwards like a contortionist sometimes) in avoiding politics.

I've decided to open up the range of topics that I'll write about here and to share a little bit more about me. Most people who know me, know that I am nothing if not discrete and I most likely will not share too many personal details, but my thoughts are something else. My life experiences are not limited to opera and while no one may care, I've decided to start talking about these things in this blog in the hopes that it will make it just a little more interesting to read.

So if you are reading this, you might see some more activity and more topics. I hope you find that it's worth reading.

Food for the Soul

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:44:00 +0000

In the recent BBC Music Magazine (yes I get it) the cover CD contains performances of works premiered at the Proms. One of them is "Epic March" by John Ireland which was first heard at the 1942 Proms. It was the first year in the Royal Albert Hall after the Luftwaffe bombed Queens Hall.

It then struck me how a work could not only be composed during those years, but how anyone could have the fortitude to mount a music festival in the middle of a war which saw the destruction of so much of the city.

So when anyone comments that the arts as being elite and a luxury, I will point them in the direction of 1942 and tell them they have nothing to complain about. Britons in the Second Wold War saw music not as a luxury, but is a necessity. It is food for the soul and it is how a cultural will be judged.

And then I'll shut them down.

Music as Beer

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:16:00 +0000

In times of trouble arts organizations, like many businesses, try to move to safe ground. This often takes the form of standard repertoire; eschewing the adventurous, they move to programming just the classics. I think this is a mistake.

You may get a few people in the door with safe programming, but you keep them coming back with the interesting. I liken it to my recent exploration of the world of beer. Now I've always been pretty picky in the beer that I drink (Budweiser has not touched these lips in many a moon), but recently a friend introduced me to the wonders of a beer bar here in Sarasota called The Cock & Bull. Sitting on my bar stool I can travel the world of beer and whet my palette with a multitude of different tastes. With hundreds of different brews to choose from, I have experienced a new world and beer has changed from just a drink that I enjoy on a warm day, to one that I savor with great expectation.

Now I'm not equating Beethoven's Fifth with Budweiser, but I think there is a lesson to be drawn here. You have to nurture and develop a taste. Once you've lured them in the door (not an easy task I admit), I think you have to help them in their exploration of the obvious into the unknown. Everything will not be to their taste (I myself can't stand fruity beers) but part of the journey is sampling the incredible variety that is out there. Perhaps sticking with the usual is safe, a known quantity, but in the long-run is that what creates a long-lasting relationship?

The power of music

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:09:00 +0000

I'm often amazed at the power of music to affect our emotions. It can manipulate us or soothe us. It sometimes puts us in a place to meditate and reflect and sometimes causes us to be enraged and angered.

I was reminded this past weekend when I had three very different musical experiences. First I went to see the Eagles, who were a staple of my youth. Even at a distance of a few years, their playing had the ability to bring me back to the innocent (or not so innocent) days of my adolesence and recall those happy and not so happy time.

The next day I went to the memorial service for a friend. He was a conductor and it was an afternoon full of music. It was reflective and emotive but never maudlin. It was a celebration of the life that he had dedicated to music. And although there were words spoken, it was Ives, Schütz, Bach, and Brubeck (very moving, played by the man himself) that took us to another place.

The evening brought Gypsy and that powerhouse Patti LuPone. It was a towering performance and what she brought to that monster of a character Rose (can anyone make her sympathetic) was a strength and determination that Jule Styne's great score proved to hit us hard over the head.

It was a music packed 24 hours, but never was I tired or weary of hearing. In fact I wanted more.

I'm glad I'm not a critic

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:01:00 +0000

I used to think that I would make a good critic, but now I think I've come to the conclusion that not only wouldn't I have, but it would have ruined my life.

Once, when I was in college, I became so super critical that I found that I couldn't enjoy anything. I became severely depressed and that was the point that I decided that I was done with academia and ready for the real world (OK, I had also finished my degree). I left to make my way into the world and got my first apprentice program and began slow to enjoy making music again and listening to it. I learned a whole new way to appreciate it and I began to come out of my critically induced depression.

I swore never to go that way again and a few minor lapses aside, I've held to that. I've been much happier.

But now I've found a new level to my enjoyment, not only to opera and classical music, which after all I was trained to listen to critically and analytically, but to all kinds of music.

With the downloadable MP3 file, I'm like a kid in a candy shop. No longer held back by the constraints of shelf space (only by hard disk space, which is much cheaper and takes less room), I've been exploring all kinds of new worlds. A friend mentions and artist and I can go to iTunes or eMusic and download a song or two and learn what they are talking about.

I've had a great time exploring worlds that I never knew before and even if I'm not blown away by everything I hear, there is the opportunity to open new doors and see where it leads. Often somewhere very interesting.

Isn't music amazing?

Words

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:00:00 +0000

I've been spending a lot of time listening to music recently. Mostly vocal music of genres other than opera: blues, folk, rock, popular, and jazz. When I listen closely (which I find it hard not to do), I'm struck by most singers attention to words. They all concentrate not in producing a sound, but in conveying the meaning of a song through the text. And even though I sometimes can't take long doses of their vocal quality despite other compensating talents (I'm sorry, I just can't listen to too much Bob Dylan at one time, despite his genius), I'm almost always (in a good musician) moved by their approach to the text.

It's something that some opera singers forget. One who didn't was Giuseppe DiStefano, which is probably why, among the great tenors of the second part of the last century, he moved me the most. Despite his vocal defects (which increased dramatically in the later part of his short career), he always threw himself into what he was singing and always spent most of his capital trying to put across the text. Of course his career was essentially over before I was born, but the recordings, live and in the studio, all speak to a talent that was natural, unaffected, and joyously exploited. Exploited to the point were it was all gone in just about ten years, but when it was there, it was glorious.

Many people try to analyze his defects: his lack of cover through the passaggio, taking on roles far too heavy for his basic lyric instrument. The truth is that none of it really matters. To take away any of it would have changed the person. A man who obviously loved life, who had an innate natural musicality, and who was born with a glorious instrument, that in its prime could do just about anything.

I'm sure he had no regrets. RIP, Pippo.

Stunning

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:58:00 +0000

I'm suffering after a hard drive crash and no backup (yes, I know I should back up). Happily I don't think much was lost apart from my tax returns.

I went to see Ned Rorem's Our Town at the Juilliard School last weekend and experienced one of those things you hear about but you rarely think happen in real life. I was seated next to someone who was obviously a critic. Since I do PR for an opera company I know the signs: carrying a press kit with a pad and pen ready.

This gentleman (who I vaguely recognized but could not place), spent the first ten minutes of the performance sneezing loudly and then promptly fell fast asleep for the remainder of the first act. He woke up in time to applaud at the end of the act and after realizing that there was no intermission between Acts I and II, dozed off again. He slept through Act III and at the conclusion yelled "Bravo" and "Bravi" loudly. I looked at him in wonder. How could he know?

Amazing.

Gut Reaction

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:18:00 +0000

As I come down from a particularly hard, yet musically fulfilling opera season, I find that I need to hear music more than ever. I've spent a lot of time (for various reasons) with a wide variety of music from different genres.

As I immerse myself in the sounds, I'm surprised at the multiplicity of reactions. Listening yesterday to the Met broadcast of Satyagraha, I was struck by the sounds I was hearing and surprised that I was having an emotional reaction to that music. I can't say that I love it and it definitely requires a deeper acquaintance for me to fully understand, but it seems like something I will need to explore.

Years ago I realized that there was music that I might appreciate and admire (from an analytical and structural standpoint perhaps), but that didn't move me and that I would therefore never pine to hear (except for intellectual stimulation). Then there is music to which I have strong visceral reaction and be drawn to over and over again.

There is something about the second act ensemble in Puccini's La rondine that gives me chills. The music is not especially distinguished and certainly inferior to many of his other works (and those of others) and yet I react to it with a feeling in my gut that signifies a connection. I can't explain it, but it is feeling I love having.

I remember the first time I heard the third act ensemble of Verdi's Otello. I had a similar reaction. Yesterday I was reading and listening to Bill Charlap's Live at the Village Vanguard when I was struck by "Autumn in New York" and had to stop everything I was doing. I was listening to some tracks from Springsteen's Born to Run and had the same reaction. I couldn't concentrate on anything else and that feeling in my gut came back.

That feeling is so difficult to describe, but which I relish like a child waiting for Santa to come. That feeling is just one of the reasons that music is so important to my life.

And then it was over...

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:59:00 +0000

I can't help but be sad at the end of another opera season. It seems amazing that less than 24 hours ago, there was a performance going on, the end of a long weekend and an amazing amount of activity.

And now many have already left town and the rooms that were just yesterday bustling with activity, are quiet. So inside my gut there is a slightly empty feeling, knowing that tomorrow there won't be something else on our stage.

But on the other hand...

I'm tired. It's been a tough year and a half and the culmination of the activity was not the sense of joy and relief that I had anticipated. It was coupled with complaints and negativity and frankly I'm just over it.

When you work hard on a project and see it to its end, you expect a certain amount of validation and gratitude at the end. When it doesn't come, it is pretty deflating.

I'm looking forward to making art again, some time soon. But first I need a few good nights of sleep.

What I Don't Know

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:17:00 +0000

I imagine since birth, I've always taken a very methodical approach to just about everything. In learning new operas, I always searched out the "best" recording, pulled out the libretto and/or score and studied it faithfully. As my repertoire spread I always looked for some authoritative source to give me the full scoop and the work and what I should find in it.

Perhaps it is advancing time, but I now find that approach limiting. Especially as my interest in new genres increases, I find the whole studious way of going about it detracts from and discourages, rather than enhances my enjoyment.

Case in point: I have had a middling interest in jazz for many years, but it's one that I have never able to fully indulge. I think I was intimidated by the breadth of the available literature and my total ignorance of the seminal figures in it. As a result I was never able to fully get my head around it.

More recently I've availed myself of some online resources. These lacks liner notes or other sign posts that I would normally use to immerse myself in the music. Instead, I've loaded it onto my iPod and have taken to listening to it, initiated, in my car or when jogging.

And instead of inhibiting my enjoyment I'm finding two things. First is that I'm listening in a much more active way. I'm searching out the signposts that mean something to me and not the preconceptions of a critic. Secondly is that I'm enjoying the music in a much less studied way and therefore new way. It's a different, not necessarily better path to finding how the music moves me. To be moved be it, is really my ultimate goal.

I'm glad I'm not the only one

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:43:00 +0000

On this blog more than a year ago, I expressed skepticism about the Met's plan for in theater HD telecasts of movies. They had been tried before on other occasions and I didn't think they'd have much impact.

Boy was I wrong.

But I wasn't the only one. It was nice to see that Terry Teachout and I were ofsimilar mind. Both of us are eating crow at the moment.

I became an enthusiast early on and was excited at the prospect of new audiences for the opera. As Terry comments, that hasn't quite panned out. At least at the one's I've attended, it's been the same people that I see at the opera house. With the ability to purchase tickets in advance, all of them were snapped up by our regular subscribers.

That is disappointing. I don't begrudge them the opportunity to buy their tickets in advance, and it certainly helped the Met's success, but it has left little chance for last minute, walk-up sales by younger patrons. I think that this is a non-threatening environment for newbies to dip their toe in the water, at (generally) a lower cost than in an opera house and in a comfortable familiar place.

It's a shame that there are no tickets left for them and that the audiences are the same ones that are in the opera house. It's my hope that the Met and National Cinemedia will expand and present more opportunities. Perhaps more showings of the Encore (taped) telecasts would be a possibility.

Let's not miss an opportunity here.

Huh?

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:46:00 +0000

OK, so I just read something fairly silly in BBC Music Magazine. In a list of the 20 Greatest Tenors of All Time (a fairly silly prospect on its own), number 13 was...

Juan Diego Florez?

Now I think Mr. Florez is a fine singer. His Met debut as Almaviva had me pretty excited and I'm going to see him in Daughter of the Regiment in April.

But one of the 20 Greatest tenors of all time? He must have a great publicist. What has he been singing on the international circuit, something like 5 minutes? A few more august names were notably absent from the list: Giovanni Martinelli, Mario Del Monaco, Giuseppe DiStefano, Leo Slezak, Fernando DeLucia, Richard Tauber etc. Presumably a list that includes the words "Of All Time" should admit names like Mario, Rubini, Schnorr, or Manuel Garcia. I would think that even José Carreras would rate a mention before Mr. Florez.

Mr. Florez has great ability and I expect we will rank him as a great tenor. But I just can't imagine that at this point in a career, anyone would rate anyone "Greatest of All Time."

Yes, pretty silly if you ask me (and you didn't).

Pasqua

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:13:00 +0000

It's Easter and while my pasqual music choices would fall to Bach, a friend has a ritual of listening to Cavalleria rusticana. One of my favorite operas, but since it is less about redemption that damnation, I think I'll stick to Johann Sebastian.

(This is Roberto Stagno and Gemma Bellicioni. Two singers that I would have been very interested to hear in flesh).

On Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:00:00 +0000

I've been giving a lot tours of our Opera House and I've been surprised at some of the questions that I've been getting. People still ask if our singers are miked and I think are shocked when I tell them that no professional company that I know of in the country amplifies their singers (New York State Theater excepted, but that is not as blatant as some contend).

The other question that people ask often is about how much it costs to put on a production and how we pay for it. Too many people are under the impression that their ticket price covers the costs and don't realize how little it does contribute. For most opera companies it's about 40% of their expenses; for ours it is about 60% which is extremely high.

One person dared suggest a tax to help defray costs. It seems to me however that argument was lost long ago and that we in the U.S. have come to accept that fact that significant government funding is not forthcoming. I was recently reading some old (1960's) issues of Opera News and chuckled at how many articles call for increased government funding and looked to the subsidies that European houses received as a model. Of course that effort failed and now Europe is looking more and more how we fund our arts and increased corporate support.

Not that I wouldn't like to see more government funding, but with that likelihood pretty dim, we have to accept other ways to keep operating.

On the other hand it ticks me off a bit when people perceive arts organizations as greedy or "over-funded". None of us are rolling in dough. We all have expenses to meet and limited monies with which to meet them. The perception that just because an organization is successful in fund raising that it is the result of avarice is ludicrous. As a non-profit we CAN'T make money. And most of us who work for them are severely underpaid in relationship to the same jobs in the private sector.

Stepping off my soapbox. For the moment...

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:35:00 +0000

We've opened two of the four operas in the Sarasota Opera festival and it has been an amazing rollercoaster ride. The pressures of getting the theater open (just in time) were great and has taken a toll on all of us. The Opening Night was euphoric and the next day I had a massive hangover, despite that fact that I had only two glasses of wine. It was fatigue and the final release of pent up energy and anxiety I suspect.

Now that we're open and in the full light of day there are still many things to deal with. Media, patrons, little things that have to be dealt with, leave little time for rest or relaxation. There are just not enough hours in a day for all that I have to accomplish, but they must be done so I soldier on.

Yet when the curtain goes up, it all seems worth it somehow. My only sanity in this time is to sit in the theater (the renovation of which is spectacular) and watch what is going on onstage. More than any other season, I wish that's were I was, but I am enjoying and feeling more a part of the process.

So two more operas to go. Not out of the woods yet. But if you turn your ear in this direction on April 14, you'll hear a big sigh of relief.

Gone Quiet

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:18:00 +0000

For many reason, but mostly due to an insane work-life, I've been quiet for the past few months. It's time to break the silence to pay tribute to a friend who left us.

For 12 years I sang under Richard Westenburg at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. Over that time Dick was a colleague, teacher, mentor, and friend. He founded Musica Sacra, New York City's premier professional chorus and his yearly traversal of Handel's Messiah (usually at Carnegie Hall), was one of the city's great institutions and beloved event.

Dick had one of the finest musical minds that I've ever known. Even when I didn't agree with him, he always had a valid and well thought out musical point of view. And yet his music making never took on a studied air, but came out of the natural talents of his singers. When singing with Dick, I always felt that he was treating the singers as professionals and relying on their innate musicality to make the piece sing.

He had studied organ with Boulanger and Langlais, was on the faculty of Julliard and Rutgers and for years was a fixture at churches in and out of NY City. He was opinionated, but he was always nice about it and quick to turn things to a joke and a smile.

He was a great computer geek (which he would freely admit) and he and I spent a lot of time chatting about every new gadget and technological breakthrough. It seemed that every Sunday at coffee hour we were talking about some new piece of equipment that one of us was planning to buy or some problem we were trying to figure out.

Dick succumbed to cancer on February 20. I will miss him very much. Plans for a memorial service can be found at the Musica Sacra website.

Nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:25:00 +0000

Sometimes it's not easy being a singer, working at an opera company where I've previously worked as a singer but now in a non-singing capacity. We've started rehearsals for our festival and this year, more than the previous two that I've worked here, I'm a bit overwhelmed with nostalgia.

First of all we're renovating the theater that we own. My first season as a singer coincided with a previous renovation. So this will represent the third incarnation under my watch and it has been a little emotional to experience.

And now rehearsals have begun for the the first opera that we'll perform in the renovated theater, which just happens to have been the first opera that I performed in the theater. There have been moments in my life that I remember with great clarity and the first sing-thru of Rigoletto in this space is one of them. I stood on the side, listening to our new cast (a very good one by the way) and I almost felt I was back almost 20 years ago (yikes!) at my own first rehearsal.

Life goes on and we all go on our own journey. But for a split second I was back in 1989 and very happy to be there.

In case you were wondering....

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:26:00 +0000

In case you were wondering what I've been doing for the past month in a half; well a lot! We're about to re-open a newly renovated theater. The holidays came and went (as did I). Let's just say that there's is a lot on my plate.

I've also been reading. To say Alex Ross' book The Rest is Noise is interesting is a mild understatement. It will be one of the classics of the literature. One of the things that makes a good non-fiction book for me is its ability to induce you to think. The words on the page, as eloquent as they are, are only the tip of the iceberg. Ross' book immerses us in the world of 20th century music, viewed in a cultural and historical context. As a result it forces, cajoles, and encourages me to the think about the entirety of the past century. I can't put it down, but more importantly, I can't stop thinking about it.

This must be on your reading list. I'm sure it will be one of those books that I will re-read on a regular basis. Bravo Alex!

It Just Doesn't Get Better Than This

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Russell) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:59:00 +0000

Probably due to Pavarotti's recent death, PBS has once again recycled the Three Tenors concert for their pledge drives.

Well this may be heretical for a traditionalist such as myself, but there is no more exciting moment for me, than the sound of the three greatest tenors in the world (and they were) going for that high B natural at the end of Nessun dorma.

These three men, two of them at the peak of their forms and one recently recovered from leukemia were singers of great accomplishment. At that moment they used their considerable art for a moment of pure excitement.

After this moment, one's career would begin a cheapening and decline, another's would peter out into insignificance, and one's would continue it's increasing level of achievement which, despite diminishing resources, shows no sign of abating.

But for this moment, they reached a level that none other (not even themselves four years later) would ever climb.

For that one moment, it just didn't get any better.