Too Stupid to Quit

Donald Kaasch as Shuiski in Boris Godunov at Teatro Real Madrid

by Donald Kaasch

It is quite amazing how many ‘friends’ and acquaintances I have lost over the years due to the very existence of my career. The common assumption seems to be that if I have been fortunate enough to be successful it only follows that I think I’m better than anyone else. I think it’s time to settle that matter.

I do not now, nor have I ever been in possession of anything approaching a perfect voice. My voice is littered with imperfections and flaws that I know vastly better than anyone who would love to confront me with the lurid truth of the matter. I don’t deserve my career in the slightest. There have always been, are at present and always will be singers of far greater talents than I who would do a better job with my contracts. Sorry to pull the rug out from under the feet of so many people but it is the truth. No one can whisper in my ear or shout in my face a list of my imperfections that would be as long or detailed as that which I can list myself.

After 30 years of singing for a living I think I can state very honestly that the real core of my longevity and experience has been that I have always been just too stupid to quit. I believe that my work ethic and desire to expand my strengths to somehow balance out my weaknesses has been the spine upon which my career has hung. I have ALMOST always learned to make adjustments to survive that require honest assessments of my abilities and limits.

In the 1987 Chicago area MET auditions I was competing against singers of vastly better EVERYTHING than I had to offer. This is a high-powered region and these people could really sing. I couldn’t compete with them on their level so I created an audition repertoire that was correct for me. I chose to sing character arias, you know, the 2nd and 3rd class citizens in the cast of any opera, and glued together the pieces of the role of the Simpleton from BORIS GODUNOV as my choice. I worked out every detail and diction including a rather shocking place to sing from by sharing the bench of the accompanist. It was my moment, I owned that time and I poured every bit of honesty and passion into it. That was all I had to offer, just me and my swiss cheese holes for everyone to see.

I won 2nd place that night against vastly superior voices than mine. Some fellow competitors were visibly disgusted and angry with me so much that they refused to speak with me afterward. I was accused of ‘rigging’ the results through wheedling my way to the judges, especially the head judge of the evening, Sam Ramey. I didn’t get to go to New York City to compete in the National Finals, 2nd place winners don’t, and I could not have survived there anyway.

I sang with Sam Ramey a few years ago in Madrid, oddly enough in BORIS GODUNOV where I was singing the character role of Shuiski. Sam remembered me and told me a funny story. He related that he, as head judge of that evenings’ competition, had insisted that I be given the first place honor against the protests of the other two local judges who made up the panel. The other judges demanded that it be put to the head of the MET National Council and a phone call was made. Sam claims that he explained that all levels of roles are worthy of consideration and he felt that I had offered the most ‘complete’ package of the evening. He was told by the MET that the National Council auditions are specifically for the discovery of leading and principal repertoire singers and that they had no place for a ‘character tenor’ in the finals in New York City. I was shocked more than anyone there that night to be given 2nd place. I had intended to just go into the event to see if I could hold myself together.

All of that because I was just too stupid to quit…
__________________________________________________________________

The career of American tenor Donald Kaasch has taken him to the principal theatres of the world in title and leading roles at the Netherlands Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Colòn in Buenos Aires, Grande Théâtre de Genève, l’Opéra de Paris, TMP Châtelet, Zürich Staatsoper, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Australian Opera/Sydney, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, The Royal Opera House, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Hamburg, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Teatro Reggio di Parma, Los Angeles Opera…

He maintains an active international concert presence with major orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony, the BBC and Royal Philharmonic Symphonies, l’Orchestre de Paris, l’Orchestre National de France and l’Orchestre de la Radio-France, Berlin Symphony Orchestra… among many others. The title role in the Berlioz La Damnation de Faust is perhaps his signature concert role and one which he sings worldwide with conductors such as Prêtre, de Waart, Soustrot, von Dohnányi, and Soudant.

Recent engagements include: St François d’Asisse and Kat’a Kabanova with the Netherlands Opera, The Tempest at the Royal Opera House/Covent Garden in London, La damnation de Faust at the Semperoper in Dresden, Boris Godunov at the Teatro Réal in Madrid and Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero with the American Symphony Orchestra in NYC, Lincoln Center.

Future engagements include: Il Prigioniero with the Netherlands Opera, Elektra in Brussels, Toulouse and Santiago (Chile) , Salome in Liege, Kat’a Kabanova at both the Paris Opera/Bastille and the Opera Oviedo in Spain and Mahagonny at the Teatro Real Madrid.

Recordings include Rossini’s Armida with Renée Fleming on Sony Classics, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with James Levine on Deutsche Grammophon, Lizsts’ Christus on MD&G and Oh Fair to See, a collection of English Art Song with Peter Lockwood for Globe and Thomas Ades’ The Tempest with EMI. He is also featured on DVD  in the Stuttgart Opera production of Alceste (SudWest Rundfunk and Arte) as well as the Netherlands Opera production of St François d’Asisse from (Opus Arte).

Learn more about this amazing respected American tenor at: www.donaldkaasch.com