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. 

It's the question everyone's asking me by email. The answer is: great. Really great. Opening night in particular was a huge hit, and everyone sang beautifully.  The audience was great, and I could really relax and engage in some audience banter.   

The only down side: there was no program!  I don't know why, but somewhere between the producer's computer and the printers things got fouled up.  That means that the audience may have enjoyed the show, but they have no idea who we are!  I was actually stopped on the street by the reviewer from the local paper, to ask for names of the cast!  I'm happy I ran into her... otherwise we would have been a bunch of nameless awesome singers in the review.

The Sunday Matinee wasn't as good, from our perspective.  Matinees are always a pain - as our Countess Alex Rafallo put it, "who wants to see opera while the sun is out?"   Hell, who wants to SING opera while the sun is out?  The audience was quiet and slow to get going, and that affected our energy big time.  I wasn't happy with my own aria... I was stupid and had coffee when I shouldn't have, and I got jumpy for the first half of the opera.  In the end it was still a good show and the crowd had a good time, but the overall spectacle wasn't on the same level as the night before. 

Sorry for not posting about this sooner, but there really isn't much internet access in Mendocino. Plus, I've been spending some quality time with my parents, and blogging just doesn't get very high on the priority list next to family.

Today I'm in San Francisco, hanging out with friends and relaxing.  I can't wait... this is really my last day to relax for awhile.  Between auditions, my graduate recital (ugh) and Masters' finals, I've really got to put my nose to the grindstone...

Today I got to walk with a cane for the first time, for my Bartolo character.  I've never walked with a cane, or even seriously injured my leg, so it was interesting.  In an effort to try and get some real sense memory for the limp, I stuffed a big ole' pine cone in my shoe.

The cast and directors had a little meeting this morning.  It was discussed that although we all had concerns about pulling off a project of this magnitude in the time allotted, we could do a really fantastic job of a more limited production.  Today's rehearsal is a "cutting board" rehearsal (my term, not an industry one).  We sing through the entire show, and decide which recits etc can be cut.  We'll have a limited narration to fill the audience in on the happenings they missed, but it will essentially be a normal cut production of Figaro.  

And I'm relieved.  At the very least, 4 hours of Italian without surtitles is a lot to ask of any audience.  2 hours and a bit is much more reasonable.  

My part is not a large one, but my biggest problem is a common one - how to keep vocally warm in the long break between my scenes!  My first scene, at the beginning of Act I, includes my big aria.  I have to be warmed up for that.  But my next entrance isn't until the Act II finale!  In rehearsal at least, there's about 2 hours in between those scenes, where I'm sitting quietly studying music.  That's a lot of fallow time... and so far, by the time I've come on for the rest of my singing, my voice is cold and even a bit tired.  More on this later...

Interesting tidbit - it bothers a lot of singers that whenever a Mozart bass sings in an ensemble, he doesn't get to sing the bass line. Rather, he often sings above the baritone parts! In fact, in modern productions it's customary to switch the bass roles' part with one of the baritones, so each voice can sing in their more comfortable register.

A perfect example is in Nozze di Figaro, with Dr. Bartolo. In the first big ensemble number (the Act II finale) the original score has the bass Bartolo singing the entire time in the upper fifth of his range. Meanwhile, the baritone Count sings an octave below, keeping the bassline. In authoritative scores, the parts are written this way, and it gave me a heart attack when I tried to learn the part. But ask a working bass-baritone if he's ever sung that part. Everyone switches the Count and Bartolo's lines. It's so common that in the Schirmer score, they do it for you as an editorial decision.

Why would Mozart, who knew the voice so well, make such a mistake? Is it a problem with the originals? A publisher's messup from the first printing run?

My friend (baritone) Mike Krzankowski enlightened me on the subject yesterday. Apparently the bass who premiered so many of these roles, Bussani, had a lot to do with it. It turns out that he sang these roles as an older singer, when his low range had lost a lot of its lustre. He was much more comfortable in his high voice, and the parts were written accordingly.

And he ruined it for the rest of us.

Today I started working on the physical life of Bartolo.  Unfortunately, without a cane in Cincinnati I'll have to wait until I get to California to work on the "walk."  But there is much more than just a walk to a character!  My favorite is figuring out the nervous tic.

Most people have a nervous habit they do, something they do when they get emotional, or angry.  If this action is consistent throughout your character's physical and emotional life, it will help make the image of this person appear real in the audiences eyes.  Unfortunately, it's easy to go overboard with this.  If you're always doing your nervous "thing", it becomes pretty transparent and fake.  The balance is a careful one.  (think about Indiana Jones' little smirk, or any of Chris Farley's character's nervous physicalizations.  These bring some color to the character, and an easy physical cue for the audience of his state of mind)

I decided that Bartolo's nervous tic will be with a pencil, or a pen perhaps.  A little twirl, or some funny trick he does almost without thinking.  I like this idea because not only does it give me a very personal prop to work with, not only does it give me a physical action that can keep me occupied while Bartolo thinks, but it's a very distinctive sort of action too.  Plus, the possibility exists of Bartolo getting particularly worked up and breaking the pencil - that's good for effect, depending on how you play it.

 Some other examples... my Colline folds the lapels of his coat obsessively, and I've always wanted to learn a few knife twirling tricks for Sparafucile.

Anyways, I'm spending quality time at pentrix.com - a very good place to waste an afternoon if you want to learn tricks with a pencil. :)