Have I ever told you about the guy who was messing around with my wife, so I strangled him to death? It happened 29 years ago, but those dramatic events seem like yesterday for me- I guess because my life had been relatively quiet and ordinary up until then, and I had never ever found myself caught up in such dark and dramatic events.
This might be a good time for me to say that the events I just described happened on the opera stage…. in performances at the University of Nebraska of Puccini’s darkest opera, Il Tabarro – the Cloak. It was the very first opera I had ever sung in, and what a way to begin! I portrayed the role of Michel, a hard-working Parisian who has drifted apart from his wife Georgette after the death of their young (and only) child. Finding no affection in me, Georgette turns to the handsome young man Luigi, who works on my boat, and the two fall into a torrid affair. And by the end of the opera, I have strangled Luigi to death – and triumphantly reveal his corpse to my horrified wife as the curtain falls.
Not exactly The Magic Flute!
The tenor who portrayed Luigi was an extraordinary tenor by the name of John De Haan. We had some truly superb tenors at Luther, where I was an undergrad, but none of them had the kind of trumpet-like, dramatic tenor voice that John had that could set the walls shaking. I’d never heard a voice like that ever, and to go toe-to-toe with a voice like that, particularly in an opera by Puccini where the climaxes call for all the sound that we can pour out, was thrilling and transformative for me.
Oddly enough, the moment that stands out most vividly for me did not involve singing. It follows a long and tender duet in which Michel, after years of cold indifference to his wife, finally reaches out to her – only to find that she has emotionally moved on and can no longer be reached. And as she tiredly heads off to bed, Michel watches her walk away and says under his breath “sguardrino” – which means “whore.” And at that moment, Puccini shifts from a shimmering E-flat major chord to an ominous a minor chord, an incredibly jarring juxtaposition that signals a turning in Michel’s heart from compassion to hatred. On recordings and in staged performances, you almost always see and hear Michel thunder out this word with fury that is completely uncontained… but I’ll never forget the advice of the stage director of that production, Gregg Tallman, who said that Michel should say that very much under his breath, as you would if someone you were furious with walked out of the room, and you would very quietly say to yourself “you son of a bitch.” Believe me, for a young Lutheran like myself who got in VERY serious trouble the one time I said “O God, no!” this was extraordinary…. and sort of thrilling. And that’s how I tried to play that moment.
Of course, the other thing that happened in that moment was much more unfortunate. We sang the opera in English translation, which called for Michel to say “you harlot.” Gregg was concerned that this was too antiquated a word and it would have negligible impact, so he asked me to say “you whore” instead. Regrettably, that was right at the same time that the movie Tootsie with Dustin Hoffmann had just come out. This is the film where he plays an actor who can only get a job by masquerading as a woman. And in what might be the single most memorable moment in the movie, his roommate (played by Bill Murray) walks in on him as he’s half-dressed in woman’s clothes and under- garments and says with comic disgust, “you whore.” You can probably guess what happened opening night at this incredibly intense moment in the opera – laughter where there should have been horrified shock. And in the quickest directorial retreat of all time, Gregg told me for the next performance to revert to “you harlot.”
Anyway, the tenor who portrayed Luigi was John De Haan- who has gone on to quite a distinguished career both as a solo singer and as a voice teacher at the University of Minnesota. And at the spring NATS meeting in Whitewater, John was brought in to do the first of three master classes. And what a joy it was for me to reunite with this colleague I have not seen since our graduation in 1984 – but even more to see him in action as he worked with three young students, including a Carthage student of mine named Nick Huff. Nick had never even been to a master class before (he’s only a freshman) – much less sung in one. They can be incredibly stressful for the singer if the master clinician is too negative, too aggressive, too confusing, too intimidating, etc. (And there are some horror stories floating around about master classes.) But John was gracious, patient, positive- even as he was also incredibly discerning, exacting, and articulate. And he was also hilariously funny. In the photo above, John noticed I was snapping photos from my perch on the piano bench, so he insisted on standing in a studious, professorial pose. (That’s why the soprano he was working with at the time was laughing.)
In maybe the strongest endorsement I can give John as a master clinician, I was sitting up there as the accompanist but the first singer he was working with was one of my own voice students – and that can be a thoroughly disconcerting thing, because that clinician is, in effect, calling into question what you have done with that student – or it can certainly feel that way. But John demonstrated just the right combination of painstaking intensity and genuine humility and gentleness. And Nick ate it up. He knew this was a very special and rare opportunity (my Whitewater colleague, Brian Leeper, was the organizer of this master class, and invited Nick to sing for John when he heard Nick last week during the countertenor meeting I blogged about on March 23rd) and relished every moment of it. And he made me very proud, first by singing “Dalla sua pace” amazingly well for 9:30 in the morning – and then for being so responsive to all of the suggestions which John had for him. I could not have been more pleased with Nick- nor more impressed with John or appreciative of his work.
I’m also sorry I strangled the guy.
pictured above: I described the semi-comical moment in which this photo was snapped. I believe this young woman’s name is Caitlyn, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who sang a thrilling performance of Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade, one of the greatest songs ever written.