I had the oddest experience yesterday during opera workshop when I was coaching some of our young singers in the final section of the act two finale of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. It’s a glorious passage of music- challenging but also incredibly fun to both sing and play- and I was having a good time at the piano, not only accompanying and coaching it but also filling in for the young man singing the role of Figaro. So I was playing the piano, throwing cues to the singers, and singing Figaro’s part (or at least trying to) all at the same time. I felt for all the world like one of those one-man bands with a pair of cymbals between his knees, carrying a bass drum and blowing into a harmonica simultaneously. It was a blast!
The odd part wasn’t in doing all of that, but rather in the multiple flashbacks that I experienced along the way, drawing me back to my many encounters with this opera over the years. I should say first that it was an aria from this opera, “Non piu andrai,” that was the very first aria given to me by my first voice teacher, Cherie Carl. I sang it in English, and I can still remember most of that translation. “From now on, my adventurous lover …. no romantic, philandering excursions. Such diversions are done with and over, Cherubino my young cavalier!” I absolutely loved it, and one of my big dreams became to sing the role of Figaro someday.
Fast forward to freshman year at Luther. The opera which they did that spring was The Marriage of Figaro, and as a freshman I was just in the audience, marveling at the good work of Jim Bjorklund, Brian Newhouse, Mike Madson, Amy Johnson, Lisa Narveson, Karen Jacobsen, Janice Miller, Jim LaBelle, Trudy Peterson and others, and terribly sad not to be up there on stage with them. It looked like so much fun- and the music was divine! (Marshall was in the pit, playing cello with the orchestra.) During my time at Luther, the closest I came to singing in this opera was to study the aria “Non piu andrai” (this time in Italian) as well as the Count’s aria, which I sang on my junior recital and at NATS. I can still remember looking at the last page and seeing all of those fast triplets followed by a high F-sharp and wondering if I was insane to even attempt such a thing. But the aria quickly became a favorite for me.
It was in graduate school that I finally got to sing in this opera – in the role of Count Almaviva. (My Luther classmate, Brian Leeper, who also went to UNL, was Figaro.) I cannot remember if we did it in English or Italian (I’m guessing English, since that’s the language we used in the other operas I was in) but it was an amazing experience with a superb cast. (The soprano opposite me as the Countess, Connie Rock, had a HUGE voice- and it was incredibly exciting to go head-to-head with her.) One thing I remember was that our regular stage director, Gregg Tallman, did not direct us- it was a friend of his brought in as a guest director, and that was sort of scary for me. I had a really good working relationship with Gregg and I felt like he genuinely liked me and wanted the best for me- and to entrust myself to a stranger for such an important undertaking was scary. But it was also a helpful learning experience to realize that if I was going to do anything in opera, I was going to have to be willing to step outside my comfort zone, time and time again.
I have The Marriage of Figaro to thank for the incredible opportunity that came to me in 1985, when I earned a coveted spot in the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists. I was the youngest singer to be part of it- and absurdly inexperienced compared to everyone else- but I think the reason they chose me was because they needed their second baritone both to sing the tiny role of Antonio for most of their performances of Figaro- but also step up to do the role of the Count for two performances when the first string baritone, Paul Kreider, had to be out of town for another engagement. I was a good choice because I was young and green and would be thrilled to be part of the Center, even singing a small part- and yet also capable of stepping into the role of the Count without embarrassing myself or the Lyric. That experience in Figaro was monumental for me because I was in the company of superb young semi-professionals from whom I learned SO much. And our stage director for the production was a very well-known opera singer from the 1950’s and 60’s named Graziella Sciutti – who was famous enough to make the cover of Opera News. She had sung Mozart on all the major opera stages of Europe, and to work with someone of that stature was awe-inspiring. And interestingly enough, one of my most vivid memories is when she expressed displeasure with certain lines of the English translation we were using (the standard Martin translation from the Schirmer score, which I actually like a lot.) I ended up being the person who probably piped up the most with alternate lines that she ended up inserting into our performance- and I found that direct collaboration with Ms. Sciutti to be almost more exciting than actually singing for her!
The Marriage of Figaro ended up figuring in my long association with Carthage College. In 1988, two years after moving to Kenosha to begin work at WGTD, Dr. Richard Sjoerdsma (with whom I had just soloed with the Kenosha Symphony) called to ask if I would be willing to come in as a special guest for his spring opera workshop, which was to consist of scenes from The Marriage of Figaro. It was a complete delight to take the stage with his gifted young singers and to once again portray the Count- and it didn’t hurt my ego any to be treated as a Big Shot! 🙂 Little did I know then that three years later, I would begin teaching at Carthage ….. and I’m still there, loving every minute of it!
Five and a half years ago, Matt Boresi and I undertook the audacious (or should I say crazy) challenge of mounting a full production of The Marriage of Figaro in a single semester. It was an absolutely nutty undertaking, given that we met with the students three times a week, 50 minutes each. That isn’t nearly enough time to fully master a score as long and challenging as this – and sure enough, for our performances the singers actually had to hold score at certain points. (We explained to the audience that it was a workshop experience.) Even with that concession, it was still a scary and stressful experience for all concerned, but it all went just about as well as it possibly could have- and we all learned some very important lessons along the way. I was proud of the whole cast, but I was especially proud of a freshman baritone named Mike Anderle who was going to sing the small role of Antonio- but then found himself with the much larger role of Count Almaviva when someone was forced to drop out of the production. Mike worked incredibly hard and I couldn’t have been prouder of him for delivering the performance that he did.
(Our Count, Susannah, and Basilio)
(Four of our principals, plus two characters which Matt Boresi and I added to the proceedings: two maids who provide much of the continuity of the plot by gossiping about what has been transpiring in the castle as of late. It allowed us to dispense with some of the recitatives while still keeping the plot clear for the audience. )
And now, Matt and I are in the midst of yet another production of Figaro – but this time wise enough to have set aside two semesters to learn it rather than one. It’s allowing us the “luxury” of actually digging deeply into the score and really tasting its delights – and Matt also is able to engage the students in all kinds of exercises and games to enrich their skills as singing actors. It’s been tremendously fun and we have appreciated their good work. We have a young group of singers but they are talented and committed- and I’m especially happy that one of them is a freshman named Michael Huff, whose older brother Nick was our wonderful Basilio when we did Figaro his freshman year. (He’s about to do the same role- but now in Italian – on the main stage of Eastman, where he is going to graduate school.) And of course, it’s especially meaningful – and fun – for me to be working closely with Matt Burton and Austin Merschdorf, our Figaro and Count respectively, and to be coaching them on the music that has been a part of my own life for several decades. It’s a vivid reminder for me that one of the greatest gifts that music gives us is a channel into our own past. When I am coaching Matt on “Non piu andrai,” part of me is back in that voice studio in Atlantic, Iowa in 1977, learning that aria from Cherie Carl and feeling the thrill of having one’s own voice unlocked and unleashed like never before. I want Matt to experience that. And when I’m working with Austin on the Count’s Aria, I can’t help but remember what it felt like for me to sing that aria way back in 1980 when I first learned it – or when I sang it for the Met auditions or for the audition that brought me into the Opera Center – or a few years after that when I sang it with the Kenosha Symphony. There are certain arias that just feel like your own- but at some point you realize that an aria does not belong to you- it belongs to the world- and there is nothing more gratifying then to help bring that joy to someone else.
Pictured below: Austin Merschdorf (Count Almaviva), Michael Huff (Bartolo), Marina Awes (Marcellina), Isaiah Jackson (Basilio), Allie Kurkjian (Countess Almaviva), and Olivia Wallace (Susannah.)<
