Campbell Vertesi

I started working on my scene music for Sarasota this week.  It will be a fun lot to sing: a Baby Doe scene, the Figaro act II finale, a Pasquale scene, and one from La Vida Breve.  The Baby Doe is one of the parts I learned when I was mistakenly assigned a cover for one of Tabor's "cronies", so I'm set on that... and of course I just finished performing in Figaro, so the finale will be a lot of fun.  The new pieces for me are Don Pasquale and Vida.

Pasquale looks like an incredibly fun role for a good buffo bass.  It was composed at the end of Donizetti's career (his third last opera, I think...), so his comic style is in full form.  Plus, it pull heavily from the old commedia dell'arte tradition, which means that corny sight gags and slapstick are a must.  Sounds right up my alley!

Unfortunately, I'm not a "great buffo bass".  But I'm working on it!  This duet lives on my passaggio, which is a tricky part of the voice in which to live.  It's very easy for the throat to tense up, or (for me) to get very shouty... not good things.  The worst though, are the Ebs at the end.  They're very well set vocally, they would be a cinch to sing in isolated phrases... but as is always the case, it's the context that kills.  You get those Ebs after living in passaggio land for 5 straight minutes of patter, and without a breather to relax in between.  This means that in order for  those Ebs to be good, I have to spend the rest of the piece working my butt off to stay vocally relaxed.  So far, I've taken the piece apart phrase-by-phrase, and it seems fun and even easy to sing.  The trick is going to be stringing those phrases together without building tension.

Interestingly, the Figaro scene is the other one that I expect to take some work.  I know I can sing the part just fine, but since October I have quite literally taken my technique apart and put it back together again.  I want to sing the scene with my new technique, and that will take some unlearning of old habits.  I forsee hours in a practice room.

All in all it looks like it will be a great season in Sarasota... I'm really looking forward to it.