Dear Readers,
Surprise, surprise! Here I am writing to you from Bethesda, Maryland. Yes. I'm back.
The prodigal tenor hath returned! Have you missed your operatic greatest hits albums? We're bringing you a concert of romantic opera highlights. I'll be singing Faust with a tremendously talented group of singers including Alexandra Razskazoff (Marguerite), Olga Syniakova (Martha), and Michael Pitocchi (Mefistofele).
It's starting to feel as though the fabulous team at Maryland Lyric Opera has started a "fest" position. This will be my third appearance with this year and I will return in the January for Thais, March for L'Heure Espagnole, and then Mary in Le Nozze di Figaro. I arrived from Berlin two days ago, following a weekend of travelling around Eastern and Central Germany, where I worked a bit with Anne Larlee in Frankfurt, Damon Nestor Ploumis in Weimar and even ran into the indomitable Stephan Lano! Not to mention a weekend with my best buddy Richard Block and his beautiful family.
I am so grateful to the strong and supportive leaders of this opera company: Mr. Matthew Woorman, Maestro Louis Salemno, and Brad Clark. If you're a long time reader you'll know that my career has been more sinuous than meteoric, following an irregular and graduated path rather than an arch.
It difficult to summarize my feelings seeing my graying hair, and hoping that sometime soon the luck, timing, and opportunity that one cannot create but by chance is prepared to pursue should they align.
Keeping my fingers-crossed.
Filled with gratitude,
Joe
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
From Maryland 2019: Il Tabarro
Dear Readers,
I am excited to write to you from my hotel room in Bethesda, Maryland. We had our first rehearsal today for the double-bill Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusitcana. I am singing the role of Tinca, as I explained in the previous post. As I am in Maryland, I am on a hiatus from Berlin till the 17th. Readers, it is going to be a great show. There is so much rich talent in these casts you need to be there: 14th and 15th of September.
It has been several months since I've been in a rehearsal, and a full year since a professional operatic production. That is hard to admit. It's hard to write. Feeling the throes of this business, while often weighing depressingly on unlucky artists, also reminds the fortunate few working to feel and express gratitude for the jobs that they (and on occasion we) have. Speaking from personal experience, it is such a relief to be in a room with great singers, a strong leader, and an encouraging management. Those elements, I am not shy to state the accusation, are often in short supply. A platitude: Yes, this is not an easy life or business, being a musician/artist never has been - and I certainly don't face the severe hardship that many others do, nevertheless the abject plight of the many debt ridden, degree carrying, talented artists is often afflicted by sexism, racism, gender-bias, and the pageantry emblematic of a severe sickness in the opera world.
I struggle with the continued decision to be in this business. It's a challenging topic to write about. The rather obvious struggle is the financial. Between platitudes and criticism there is the challenge of dealing with dry spells... dry months... dry years in a business, whose functional landscape has and continues to shift dramatically. Opera companies, the opera business, the opera economy, and the audience do not share much in common with the bulk of the previous century's (or centuries') model. I can't bring myself to say it's dying or shrinking, but it's changing - as are (have) all of the arts.
I was reinvigorated today by Maestro Salemno and my colleagues.
The other struggle is the ethical. I can't argue with the person who challenges me on the ethics of being a classical musician, and the replete sexism, racism, gender-bias, and the very tangible problems we as humans face in the increasingly globalized industrial society. Deficits, fallout, inequality, war, paucity, hunger, climate change, inflation...
I can't continue this post, because I am boiling. As so many people have said, like Barbara Ehrenreich, "It is expensive to be poor." I just received an e-mail telling me that I was charged $30 dollars for transferring $25 from my checking account, to my pay my minimum balance (I would of course prefer to pay in total - I would prefer not to have a credit card at all - but the dry spell of no work has both necessitated using a credit system as well as minimizing my ability to cover the full cost - and unlike when I lived in the United States, I am not legally allowed to work in Germany because they continue to refuse my application for a freelance visa) on my credit card from the same company, but did not have $25 to cover the transfer. Now I owe them an arbitrary $30, and I am charged the monthly fee for not having a direct deposit, and I am charged a percentage for the credit balance. This is obviously their policy, yet... here I am, at the mercy of an electronic system. I made an electronic transfer on Friday to cover the cost of future payments such as the one I am now being fined for, that was delayed by the observance of Labor day (because apparently even computers get labor day off) and because the funds have been delayed the amount I transferred is now $30 less than it would have been going strait to the bank. If a singer/artist could obligate the companies that we work for to pay a fine in the case of delayed payment this would be a wildly different world.
From the debtor's hole,
Joe
I am excited to write to you from my hotel room in Bethesda, Maryland. We had our first rehearsal today for the double-bill Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusitcana. I am singing the role of Tinca, as I explained in the previous post. As I am in Maryland, I am on a hiatus from Berlin till the 17th. Readers, it is going to be a great show. There is so much rich talent in these casts you need to be there: 14th and 15th of September.
It has been several months since I've been in a rehearsal, and a full year since a professional operatic production. That is hard to admit. It's hard to write. Feeling the throes of this business, while often weighing depressingly on unlucky artists, also reminds the fortunate few working to feel and express gratitude for the jobs that they (and on occasion we) have. Speaking from personal experience, it is such a relief to be in a room with great singers, a strong leader, and an encouraging management. Those elements, I am not shy to state the accusation, are often in short supply. A platitude: Yes, this is not an easy life or business, being a musician/artist never has been - and I certainly don't face the severe hardship that many others do, nevertheless the abject plight of the many debt ridden, degree carrying, talented artists is often afflicted by sexism, racism, gender-bias, and the pageantry emblematic of a severe sickness in the opera world.
I struggle with the continued decision to be in this business. It's a challenging topic to write about. The rather obvious struggle is the financial. Between platitudes and criticism there is the challenge of dealing with dry spells... dry months... dry years in a business, whose functional landscape has and continues to shift dramatically. Opera companies, the opera business, the opera economy, and the audience do not share much in common with the bulk of the previous century's (or centuries') model. I can't bring myself to say it's dying or shrinking, but it's changing - as are (have) all of the arts.
I was reinvigorated today by Maestro Salemno and my colleagues.
The other struggle is the ethical. I can't argue with the person who challenges me on the ethics of being a classical musician, and the replete sexism, racism, gender-bias, and the very tangible problems we as humans face in the increasingly globalized industrial society. Deficits, fallout, inequality, war, paucity, hunger, climate change, inflation...
I can't continue this post, because I am boiling. As so many people have said, like Barbara Ehrenreich, "It is expensive to be poor." I just received an e-mail telling me that I was charged $30 dollars for transferring $25 from my checking account, to my pay my minimum balance (I would of course prefer to pay in total - I would prefer not to have a credit card at all - but the dry spell of no work has both necessitated using a credit system as well as minimizing my ability to cover the full cost - and unlike when I lived in the United States, I am not legally allowed to work in Germany because they continue to refuse my application for a freelance visa) on my credit card from the same company, but did not have $25 to cover the transfer. Now I owe them an arbitrary $30, and I am charged the monthly fee for not having a direct deposit, and I am charged a percentage for the credit balance. This is obviously their policy, yet... here I am, at the mercy of an electronic system. I made an electronic transfer on Friday to cover the cost of future payments such as the one I am now being fined for, that was delayed by the observance of Labor day (because apparently even computers get labor day off) and because the funds have been delayed the amount I transferred is now $30 less than it would have been going strait to the bank. If a singer/artist could obligate the companies that we work for to pay a fine in the case of delayed payment this would be a wildly different world.
From the debtor's hole,
Joe
Sunday, August 11, 2019
From Germany - Part 1 (recap)
Dear Readers,
As I promised, below is a brief, but detailed recapitulation of the last few months:
I returned in the fall of 2018 to Maryland Lyric Opera to sing the role of Nick in La Fanciulla del West with some rather fantastic singers. I was particularly excited, like a high school-aged groupie, to be singing - once again - with Mark Delavan. As I may have mentioned in a previous post, he is one of my favorite singers.* Other cast members included Susan Bullock and Jill Gardner sharing the role of Minnie; Mark Delavan and Aleksey Bogdanov as Jack Rance; Jonathan Burton and Yi Li sharing Dick Johnson/Ramerrez; Kenneth Kellogg; SeungHyeon Baek; Catherine Martin; Norman Garrett. There are of course so many miners, and other brilliant singers sharing the state. I recommend you follow these singers, a full list of the cast can be found here.
Following that set of great performances, I returned to New York, my job as bartender at the King's County Distillery tasting room and singing at the Greek Cathedral.
What is becoming a musically rewarding trend, I returned in December to Maryland. This time I was engaged to sing a pair of performances of Beethoven's 9th symphony with the Montgomery Philharmonic.
In January, I packed my suitcase and participated in the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar. I sang several successful performances of Alfred in Die Fledermaus in Weimar and Arnstadt. March had me back in Maryland singing a night of, can you believe it, Mozart arias and opera excerpts.
The big news: I decided to try my luck in Germany.
Since April I have been living in Berlin, Germany learning the language at the Volkshochschule, and taking lessons and coachings.
I'll return to the States in September to sing Tinca in Il Tabarro with the Maryland Lyric Opera lead by the imitable Maestro Louis Salemno.
Keep your fingers crossed for me readers... trying to make this work.
Thanks for reading,
Joe
*I was very fortunate to be member of the Collegiate Chorale (now called the Master Voices) in my teens and early twenties performing operas in concert at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall (now called David Geffen Hall) with the great voices of that period. One of the most inspiring performances was given by Mark Delavan way back in 2005. It was a Verdi/Shakespeare concert with a star studded marquee: The Orchestra of St. Lukes, under the direction of the late Maestro Robert Bass; Roger Rees, Dana Ivey, and Richard Easton acting Shakespeare's text, alternating with Ryan McKinny, Richard Cox, Mark Delavan, Rodell Aure Rosel, Lando Bartolini, Kallen Esperian, Cynthia Lawrence, and Heidi Grant Murphy. I have since been a huge fan of Mark's. I saw him in Andrea Chenier, the Ring Cycle, and was in the chorus again for Road to Promise. At last, finally in 2017, I sang Trin in La Fanciulla del West at the Detroit Opera House as a member of the Michigan Opera Studio program with Mark as Jack Rance. I literal dream come true.
Following that set of great performances, I returned to New York, my job as bartender at the King's County Distillery tasting room and singing at the Greek Cathedral.
What is becoming a musically rewarding trend, I returned in December to Maryland. This time I was engaged to sing a pair of performances of Beethoven's 9th symphony with the Montgomery Philharmonic.
In January, I packed my suitcase and participated in the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar. I sang several successful performances of Alfred in Die Fledermaus in Weimar and Arnstadt. March had me back in Maryland singing a night of, can you believe it, Mozart arias and opera excerpts.
The big news: I decided to try my luck in Germany.
Since April I have been living in Berlin, Germany learning the language at the Volkshochschule, and taking lessons and coachings.
I'll return to the States in September to sing Tinca in Il Tabarro with the Maryland Lyric Opera lead by the imitable Maestro Louis Salemno.
Keep your fingers crossed for me readers... trying to make this work.
Thanks for reading,
Joe
*I was very fortunate to be member of the Collegiate Chorale (now called the Master Voices) in my teens and early twenties performing operas in concert at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall (now called David Geffen Hall) with the great voices of that period. One of the most inspiring performances was given by Mark Delavan way back in 2005. It was a Verdi/Shakespeare concert with a star studded marquee: The Orchestra of St. Lukes, under the direction of the late Maestro Robert Bass; Roger Rees, Dana Ivey, and Richard Easton acting Shakespeare's text, alternating with Ryan McKinny, Richard Cox, Mark Delavan, Rodell Aure Rosel, Lando Bartolini, Kallen Esperian, Cynthia Lawrence, and Heidi Grant Murphy. I have since been a huge fan of Mark's. I saw him in Andrea Chenier, the Ring Cycle, and was in the chorus again for Road to Promise. At last, finally in 2017, I sang Trin in La Fanciulla del West at the Detroit Opera House as a member of the Michigan Opera Studio program with Mark as Jack Rance. I literal dream come true.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Germany - Part 1
Dear Readers,
I have been silent for quite some time. There are many good reasons, and I apologize for the delay in updating you. This will not be a long post, nor will it be a verbose or loquacious post.
I chose not to write during my time singing in Weimar, in Maryland, nor have I shared any of the recent big changes in my life. That is about to change.
I participated in a studio program called The Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, founded and run by Damon Nestor Ploumis. Following a brief run as Alfred in Die Fledermaus, I flew back to the United States to sing an evening of Mozart excerpts with Maryland Lyric Opera. Following my brief return to the United States I packed my bags and made the jump across the Atlantic; I have been living in Berlin, Germany since.
Lots of detail to share, lots of stories to tell.
Hopefully, this will be the start to more regular posting.
Many thank yous,
Sincerely
Joe
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