Campbell Vertesi

This summer's contracts have Bryn and I separated for 8 weeks.

That's too long.  There's no other way to put it: it's much too long to be away from the love of your life.  And it's killing me.  We're at week 5 of the separation  - barely halfway - and already I feel like an emotional wreck.

Bryn is finishing a program in Italy as I speak (write, actually), and afterwards she'll be vacationing there with my family. I'm singing with Utah Festival Opera for the same period of time.  Between Italy and Utah, it's tough to get to visit with each other.  We've been skype-ing which is great, but it's just not the real thing.  We get to see each other on August 10th, and I can't wait.

 One thing's for certain: this can't happen again.  I'm making a list of provisions to request in every contract - basic things, like housing with running hot water, and timely paychecks - and I think that I'm going to have to add a clause about visitation rights.  Either my wife is housed with me, or (if she's in a show) I get to fly back and see her,  even if only for a day every two weeks.  I understand that this will probably lose me some work, and may even count as "diva behavior", but honestly I don't care to sing under any other conditions.  I'd rather leave the stage than suffer this kind of separation with any regularity.

When it comes right down to it, I married Bryn because I want to spend my life with her.  And here I am, spending 6 months of the year without her.  Not cool.  I have two passions in my life, and I guess I"ve figured out which one is more important to me.

Lately I've been doing a lot of "back to basics" work with my vocal technique.  For opera singers,  that means breath control. 

It's obvious that singing takes a good deal of air - most people can tell that the first time they watch an opera singer in action.  Interestingly, it takes a lot less air than you probably think.  In fact, singing isn't so much about the quantity of air you can put out, as it is about the fine control you can have over that quantity. 

The great Italian voice teachers of the 19th century used all sorts of exercises to teach this fine breath control.  A famous example - and the one that inspires today's title - involves singing to a candle. 

Try this one at home, folks: light a candle, and hold it so that the flame sits two inches or so in front of your mouth.  Now take a slow, deep breath, and exhale slowly through your mouth, without blowing out the candle.  The goal is to make a single breath last about a minute, and to perform the whole excercise without the flame so much as flickering.  This is about the amount of airflow you need to sing.

The next step requires even better breath control: do the same excercise, but now allow the flame to bend away from your mouth - and try to keep it at a constant angle the whole time. 

Now you can try it singing.  Amazingly, even one's highest notes require very little air, if you're singing right.  For many people, just the ability to control airflow this way will be enough to make great improvements in the sound of their singing. 

With all the technological advances in the last century, the candle excercise remains a mainstay in the teaching repertoire.  Today I sang a high F (the highest note in my range) with the candle, and was very excited that I managed it with only a slight flickering.  But I did notice something else - a funny tingling feeling in my nose.  For a moment I worried that I might be singing nasally, to get such a strong tickle there... but then my sense of smell kicked in.

So I discovered the one drawback to the candle: you run the risk of everything smelling like burnt nose hair.

I SEE!!!!

I had LASIK eye surgery yesterday.  All I can say is, holy crap it's amazing.  HOLY CRAP it's AMAZING.  

Those of you who know me in real life, know that I wear (wore) glasses all the time.  I had a high prescription, and was essentially blind without my glasses.  I wore contacts for many years, but my eyes gradually developed a sensitivity to them, to the point where I couldn't even wear them for performance.  About two and a half years ago, I started just singing blind everytime I went onstage.  

Singing without vision is one thing; it even has benefits.  For instance, it's kind of nice not to be able to see the audience in an audition.  I have friends who would agonize about the reactions of the audition panel  - that was never a problem for me,  because I was barely aware that there WAS an audition panel!   It made it very easy to go into my own world dramatically, not to be bothered by the reality of the objects in the room. 

On the other hand, acting and singing on stage without glasses was a treacherous endeavor.  In the first place, I'm an "eye contact actor" - I find that making communicatigve eye contact with my colleagues on stage is a very effective way to get and stay "in the moment".  Unfortunately, without glasses eye contact was impossible in all but the most intimate moments.  Not to mention the physical problem of moving around on a stage where you can't see anything.  I always had to do the first few rehearsals on stage in my glasses, until I got used to the position of all the steps, props and scenery in my way.  More than a few times I would miss steps on stairs, or run into props.

But all of that is no more!  As of today, I CAN SEE!!  The procedure was painless and over in less than 10 minutes, and even my vision test less than 24 hours later rated me at 20/15 vision - that is to say, better than 20/20 "normal" vision.  I still have some sensitivity to light; today I found I prefer wearing sunglasses outside.  I also see a halo around bright objects; even the layout of my webpage has a cool little halo effect around the white parts.  All of this is supposed to disappear in a few days - though some people end up having to live with slight halo-ing.  Actually, I kind of like the look of this page with a halo.  I think that after the effect wears off, I'm going to see about adding it to the page itself... :)

The point is, if you're considering laser eye surgery, DO IT.  It's painless, quick, and effective.  I'm certainly pleased with my results, and I'm not even fully recovered yet! 

I recently found out about an incredible tenor who's been singing at all the great houses for the last 30 years, but who has somehow managed to fly under the radar, fame-wise. His name is Giuseppe Giacomini, and why he is not a household name is beyond me. Seriously, the more I listen to this guy the more his high notes make me gesticulate wildly and cheer out loud.

He sounds like a baritone. A baritone with the best B natural on the freaking planet! See if you can stay in your seat listening to this one.

How did you do? I managed to stay sitting this time, but I had to beat the air with my fists during the high notes. And I let out a little "bravo" at the end, though I tried so hard not to.

The fact that this man sang like this for 30 years at every great house from Scala to the Met, and is not a household name like Corelli or Pavarotti is amazing to me. Amazing, and sort of depressing. So I consider it a mitzvah to pass on this forbidden knowledge to you. Now go and share the gospel of Giacomini with all of your friends.

It's been a month since I returned from Sarasota Opera - high time for an update, methinks.  I've waited a long time to write this post, because... well, honestly I needed time to decompress and process my experience. 

My experience with Sarasota Opera changed me, and I'm still not 100% clear on what all those changes were.  Broadly, I learned what it really means to be a professional opera singer, in terms of outward appearances as well as the internal discipline required.  I had my passion for the art re-energized, and learned to identify the sorts of experiences that had worked against it.  Perhaps more than anything else, I remembered what it felt like to really live IN the music.

Of all the crimes we have committed against the operatic art form, the obsession with "perfect technique" has to rank near the top.  Students are taught to scrutinize each individual note, each individual vowel, and every breath; to the point where the music disappears completely.  Students learn to be so afraid of singing anything "wrong" - wrong technique, wrong for their voice, wrong for their development, wrong anything at all - that they become afraid of the music.  They learn to be afraid of making an individual sound,  or of making a - god forbid - individual artistic choice.  So they all work very diligently towards becoming very careful, very safe singing machines.

What students aren't taught is what audiencees really want, and that is passion for the music, intensity in the characters, and real communication with the audience.  Ther is actually music out there that will get you out of your seat and screaming with excitement - and that's what we should be giving the ticketholders.  To have every note a perfectly pear-shaped tone is nice, and beautiful.  But it will leave an audience dead unless it is motivated by such  powerful emotion that you may as well be screaming.

Lest we forget our priorities: Corelli had serious technical flaws in his singing, but DAMN!  Just try and listen to him sing without getting out of your seat! Price was always exhausted by the time Pace, Pace came on at the end of Forza... but holy crap - you just can't BREATHE while she's singing it.  Tebaldi sang on pitch for maybe 3 high notes in her career - but what a sound, and what emotion!  Del Monaco recordings are hit and miss; sometimes you get the most beautiful tenor sound you could imagine,  sometimes he was just yelling.  But his Otello was a rollercoaster for anyone within range.  They were not always good technical singers - but they were all very emotive, passionate singers.  

In Sarasota, I learned that a real professional opera singer has that kind of emotion on call for every rehearsal.  It is his business to be obsessive about the music and text.  It is his business to throw himself into the most intense human drama imaginable, over and over again.  It is his business to make decisions about the music - decisions that some people will hate, and others will love. An opera singer's job is to take risks with his emotions and his music - and that's something I never learned as a student.

 On my last post,  an anonymous commenter said

"He has turned pro, knows he can't rant & rave like he did before--end of story."

I'd like to respond by saying, YES I've turned pro, but my policy on ranting/raving remains unchanged.  Unfortunately, being professional means that writing in my blog has taken a back seat to learning my music and singing myself hoarse every day. I'm having a great time learning Ramfis (Aida) and Geronte (Manon Lescaut) for my summer gig with Utah Festival Opera though, and I don't think I can resist sharing that with you for long!

It's nice to be back. 

... it's cheaper than plastic surgery.  I wonder if I've used that joke here before?  Probably.  Ah well, that's basically where I am with Sarasota Opera at the moment.  We're in the process of opening our fourth show of the season right now, while we are running the other three.  Most days we have a dress rehearsal and a performance - that takes a lot of energy!  We're also rehearsing our second round of scenes to start performing in a couple of days.  Whew!

It's been a gruelling few months, I must say.  It's great though.  Opera for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week is a wonderful, intense way to geek out for a few months!  On the down side,  I'm pooped and some people are even worried about vocal damage from the demanding schedule.  On the up side, when we get a day off, the next day I can sing anything I want.  Inquisitor duet?  Sure.  Osmin scenes?  No problem.  Mephisto serenade?  Fine.  It took me awhile to get used to this - the first few times I discovered my newfound "chords of steel", I spent the entire afternoon blowing myself out on big repertoire.  Now I'm getting better, conserving my voice but still singing the big, fun stuff.  It's pretty cool though...

We've only got three weeks left here in Sarasota.  I'm already looking to my next gig - cover Ramfis (Aida) and Geronte (Manon Lescaut) at Utah Festival Opera over the summer.  This was an interesting gig to get - I didn't actually audition, since I was trying to take a year for vocal development.  But they offered such tantalizing (and useful) roles for me to learn, I couldn't resist!  Plus, I know my technique improves every time I go away to a program, so odds are I'll learn more than just music while I'm there. We shall see.  Meantime, I've picked up an Aida score and am starting to work...  more on that later, I'm sure.

Also, hopefully when I have a life again I'll be able to post more than once every few weeks!  No promises this time though.  Unfortunately, writing blogs is not the top method to become a great singer.  There are other items that have to come higher on the priority list :)  .  But I still enjoy it, so this space isn't going away anytime soon.

I had a funny experience yesterday that's stuck in my mind.  The company arranges for a cleaning service come to our artists' apartments once every two weeks, which is great.  Yesterday, the cleaner found a big pile of earplugs on my roommate's bedside table. 

He asked me completely honestly and earnestly what they were for.  At first I didn't understand; earplugs have a pretty obvious function after all.  I explained that sometimes our neighbors sing in the mornings, so the plugs are for sleeping in. "Oh," said the cleaner - "so they're not for... work or anything?"  

"No,"

"Oh good - because I'm sending my daughter to see the opera this Saturday, and you know... I didn't want her to go unprepared..."

That's when I figured it out.  He was worried that people might need earplugs in the AUDIENCE. Take a moment to process that.

This experience was a reality check for me.  We live in our little musicians' world and forget that for the vast majority of the country, opera is a completely foreign universe.  Foreign enough that people aren't even sure if you should wear earplugs or not.  Never mind the musical context, applause conventions, dress codes, and Italian vocabulary...this art form must seem REALLY unapproachable to people.  Kind of amazing - it completely re-frames the question of Opera's place in American culture.  I'm thinking about it a lot this week.

And I really hope his daughter enjoys herself this Saturday.  Apparently the Act II quartet regularly gets 4 and 5 minutes of applause, and often an encore... I hope she gets to see that. 

Opening night was today - for the 2008 season, for Rigoletto, and for the brand new minty fresh renovated opera house... and it was a great hit.  My cousin Tim was in town to see the whole thing, and I think he may have gotten some pictures... so look for them later.  But he got to see the ribbon cutting and the whole shabang, including the after party still to come.  So maybe I'll post some incriminating photos of that, too (probably not, but keep hoping!).

The show went very well.  Michael Corvino sang the socks off Rigoletto, which we in the chorus have come to expect.  After weeks of rehearsing, we've learned that Michael is not stopped by rain, snow, or dark of night.  That man can SING.  Hell, the whole cast was very solid tonight, and the audience appreciated it.  It was a great way to open the new theatre.

Now I have to go get into the shower to get the curls out of my hair (they pin the hell out of it to get it in my wig), and get coiffed for the party.  Wohoo!! We've certainly earned it.

I did some early spring cleaning on my computer tonight, going through old files that I don't need anymore and the like.  I found some of my old recordings, from the very first concerts I gave in Vancouver.  At that point I had been studying with Joseph Shore for all of a year and a half, and had quite recently switched to one of his students (Eric Hominick) when Maestro Shore moved away.  I was a complete baby to singing,  and to music.

And in many ways, I was a better singer than I was when I left IU.  Actually, there is an honesty, an ease and a clarity in the sound that I am working very hard to recapture NOW, almost 6 years later. 

Sometimes, the best way to advance is to return to the beginning.

Today is our first off-book rehearsal for I Due Foscari.  Color me panicked.  Rigoletto was a lot of words to learn, but it was mostly vernacular Italian.  This piece uses a lot of poetic wording, and is frankly being a pain in my ass.  I'll write again once I've reviewed my score. :)