Campbell Vertesi

And this is a post about sex.

DISCLAIMER - This is a post about sex. Only read it if your parents say it's okay. So before you read any further, ask your parents! This goes double for anyone over the age of 20. Call your parents and ask if you're allowed to read something dirty about singing. I'll wait. No, seriously - go make that call. If you're under 13, skip on to the next post. This is a grown ups only blog entry.

This is one of those posts where I have to make every story anonymous, but it will be worth it.

In a recent discussion with a colleague of mine, it came up that every singer has a story about... mixing business with pleasure. At some point in a life devoted to classical music, one finds that one sensualist pastime is actually quite close to another... and it all goes downhill from there. It occorred to me that since most of us have these stories, someone should try and collate them. If nothing else, it makes for great copy.

I've known a singer who had a hell of a time relaxing for his high notes. At his teacher's suggestion, this young man asked his girlfriend to help him "rehearse" - if you get my drift. The assignment was, at the moment of greatest relaxation, to sing a high note, rather than lighting the more traditional cigarette.

Another singer friend was using a newly purchased, "great hits of the opera" CD as romantic background music with a man she had been seeing for all of two weeks - until Wagner's "Wedding March" from Lohengrin came on. Awkward silence and a sudden lunge for the CD player ensued.

One of the coolest sopranos I know swears that she learned her high notes in bed. Yes, apparently her husband is that good. Another singer friend, a mezzo, still uses the sense memory of a great orgasm to get ring in her voice. I can certainly think of at least one great bass, who was rumored to have encounters with chorus girls in the wings before he would go on to sing!

It works both ways, though. Stories abound about a certain great tenor (OK, why hide it - it's generally rumored to be Franco Corelli), who would refuse to make love to his wife for three days before a performance. This is actually a common restriction - many singers feel that it ruins their energy or voice for the big night. According to rumor, Mrs. Corelli went to (then Met General Manager) Rudolph Bing, and pleaded her case: "please give Franco some time off! You are ruining my sex life!"

Do any of you have good stories of mixing business with pleasure? Comments are anonymous for a reason... :)

NOTE: Immature content ahead. This story may cause you to giggle like a 12 year old.

(image removed because it didn't work)   Follow this link to the original, instead. 

They had to cut the deckchair in half! After this, nothing could embarrass the guy!

Good thing all your tax dollars go to HomeSec - they're our last line of defense against... the mooninites! 

According to various news sources ( incl. cnn.com), the city of Boston came to a stop today, thanks to an imminent terrorist threat. The mooninites, 8-bit creatures "from the inner core of the moon", were all over the city in a viral ad campaign for the cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Background - Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a surrealist cartoon about a fast food meal with superpowers. A very popular set of characters are the evil Mooninites, who look like something out of 1978 arcade game Space Invaders.  If you can stomach the inanity, try watching the original Mooninites episode (Youtube).  If you can't stomach the inanity, may I suggest the liberal application of your favorite recreational drug. Try watching now.  Rinse and repeat.

So, this viral ad campaign (which has been ongoing in dozens of other major cities in the US) involves the strategic placement of lite-brite-like displays, chiefly of the mooninites giving everyone the finger.  It seems that the authorities felt threatened by the mooninites.  Well, after all, they ARE "hundreds of years" beyond us!

I can't wait - next year, we'll start random house searches for people harboring Klingons. 

Came across these posters on Soho the Dog today. Enjoy!

For singers:

And for that guy who somehow always sits beside me at the symphony:

This is worrysome. I mean, I knew I was a nerd, but... 97th percentile? That's just shocking.

NOTICE: This is a post that I've been working on for some time. I started collating stories with the first jerk colleague I worked with (many moons ago), and have been collecting ever since. This is one of those posts that skirts the line of what I will write in this space, so these are all anonymous stories. Some of them are from friends, some are from personal experience. They are all written in the first person, and no names will be associated therewith.

Most of the time in showbusiness, the people you work with are lots of fun. They may be twisted, sadistic baby-eaters on the inside, but there is a surface veneer of niceness and good-naturedness that is almost essential to survival in such a people-oriented business. Almost everyone is funny, witty and great to be around, because we have to be to get anywhere.

I say almost, because every once in a while, a jerk gets through. We've all had to deal with them on some level: maybe it's the stage director who chews you out for 10 minutes for a minor misstep, or the colleague who calls you unprofessional, moments before making fart noises in rehearsal (true story!). Jerks do manage to survive in the business, against all odds.

Now, this isn't to say that there isn't a time for humor, or the occasional good-natured jab. Anyone who has worked with me knows that I dish it out pretty strong myself. But Jerkus Operaticus is a different beast. His humor is inappropriate and poorly timed. He is generally motivated by insecurity, so he can dish it out but not take it. I realize that I'm drawing a fuzzy line here: you can have fun in rehearsal and still be professional, and sometimes every stage manager has to snap at the talent... so maybe I should take some time to define this species of singer/conductor/whatever more carefully.

Let's be clear and differentiate between Jerkus Operaticus and the true professional who just has a work ethic. If someone is dicking around, the director might have to snap to remind them why they're here. That doesn't make the director a Jerk, it just makes the performer an idiot. Stage managers in particular often have to come off as mean, because it's their job to keep the chorus (and sometimes the principals) in line. They may have to take a hard line, but they're not Jerki; it's just their job. Besides, if you were pissing off stage management, you were probably the one being unprofessional in the first place. SMs are the final word on what is acceptable "fun" in rehearsal and performance. Given their job description, I think it's fair to exclude SM's entirely from the genus Jerkus Operaticus.

No, the people I'm talking about are the ones who make the rehearsal process a pain, rather than a joy. The performer who is a diva or an ass (or both) to their colleagues. The director who never cracks a smile, or the conductor who treats the talent like unruly children. Those guys are a real problem. They turn a process that should be a pleasure into torture.

For me at least, one of the things that gets me through 13 hour days of rehearsal is how much fun it is. You're spending time with your friends, with whom you share a passion, and you're creating art. There are silly moments, but they never come at the expense of the actual product. At the end of the day you've laughed a lot, worked your butt off, and have results to show for it.

Jerkus Operaticus can spoil all that. What's more, if you can't have fun in the rehearsal environment, it is easy for the product to be stillborn - the performers are too busy dreading every minute of the rehearsal to put their hearts into it. If a colleague is acting like a jackass, your frustration towards them can ruin the synergistic experience that is great stage creation. You find yourself hoping that somehow the director will see through his brownnosing, and that the Jerkus will never be hired again. The truth is, if he's made it this far, he probably will continue to be cast for years to come. In the meantime, the show is damaged, and you get frustrated.

So how do you deal with Jerkus Operaticus? Sadly, it's not like an office where you can just ignore the guy... you have to interact meaningfully with the person, on command. Maybe you're lucky and your character gets to hate them in your show. On the other hand, maybe you have to (ulp) love them, care for them, or (worst of all) admire them. Trying to find a genuine root for those emotions can be hard, when all you want to do is punch their lights out!

In my own relatively limited experience, I've been quite lucky. My own few jerk colleagues have all been people I was scripted to hate, to manipulate, or hurt. Once I was asked to play a part admiring a Jerkus Operaticus, and after hours of trying to find a genuine emotion to use, I declined the role. Thankfully, basses don't get many romantic moments (until they're 40, anyways), so there have been no love scenes with Jerkus for me. I have had to watch a few of my friends go through that ordeal, and that's enough!

Tell you what though - it's pretty fun to get to hate a Jerkus onstage. To really get to explore that hate and vent it right in their face... and the deeper you feel that hatred, the better actor you appear! Meanwhile, the emotion comes from a real part of you, so your singing and acting are deeper and more motivated than ever before. Good stuff.

Of course, readers of this space will remember that one of my best performance experiences was with a Jerk in the audience - but that wasn't Jerkus Operaticus, it was just a garden variety Jerk.

Some of my favorite Jerkus stories:

• The singer who treated everyone as if they were unprofessional philistines, then proceeded with his obstructive humor, rehearsal time wasting, and immature comments (this was the fart noise guy)
• The conductor who only addressed the singers in the tone of voice one would expect from a kindergarten teacher
• The singer who was so full of himself, he was incapable of comment without relating it to himself or his singing. The most awful part of it was that he was not a particularly good singer. Even his jokes were about how great he was. Eugh!
• The artistic director who wouldn't pass on information about absences etc to the directors involved, and then would bareface her way through it by offering the singer as a scapegoat.
• the singer who made constant sexual innuendo at the director... enough to make the entire cast distinctly uncomfortable
• the singer who had such great attention needs that she would babble at length and at the top of her lungs about nothing in particular - often over the director or anyone else who happened to speak up.
• the singer who was such a method actor that he would be in character for hours before the performance. The trouble is, Bill Sykes is an asshole of a character, who is rude, violent and sullen. This singer destroyed any positive energy in the dressing room.

I'd love to hear your stories of Jerkus Operaticus. Let's have 'em!

Wellsung has a great post up today about an "only weird for opera people" moment.  The setting is a community choir Halloween concert, with a theme of "dangerous women."  They sang lots of stuff, including the lascivious "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Salome. Nice, right?  Until they had the local dance troupe come out to perform that number - who were all actual 15 year old girls.  Can we say "awkward"? 

I can think of lots of great stories like that, where a piece of opera was taken completely out of context in a way that is just plain wrong if you know the meaning of the words or the plot.  Not wrong like a test answer is wrong, but Wrong like a 10 year old at a striptease class is wrong.  Or Wrong like the wild success of the Jackass movies is wrong.

A tenor friend of mine was asked to sing at a funeral - they had him sing Nessun Dorma ("no one sleeps", the aria of a man facing his death in the morning).  I can't count how many times I've heard of O mio babbino caro being used at weddings (the aria of a girl twisting her father around her finger to let her marry her boyfriend, of whom the father disapproves) .  I mean, we can all aknowledge that this is beautiful music, but couldn't you pick something else?  How about the Liebestode?  That would be a fine fit for a wedding...

 Anyone else have good stories about inappropriate uses of arias?

Rob Kasper just made it into my good books.

The article begins:

Whether I watch in person or I'm sitting on the sofa, I am a fan of professional football and opera. This weekend I plan to enjoy a good dose of both. The Ravens are off, but the Cincinnati-Carolina and Washington-Indianapolis football games on TV could be worth watching. Meanwhile at the Lyric, home of the Baltimore Opera Company, I will be on hand as the Greeks take on the Turks in a performance of The Siege of Corinth. The early line favors the Turks.

I like this take on opera.  For the record, I don't get the interest in football.  Sorry, Rob.  Now hockey - there's a sport I can watch!