TSTQ5: What Difference A Brain Makes!

by Donald Kaasch

Finishing up my first year as a Young Artist in the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists (LOCAA) at Lyric Opera of Chicago should have been a swift exit with, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”, yelled at me from behind. It was not. I had had a very successful time with the Lyric season and had shown my value there. I was still beneath the standard of the “Stars of Tomorrow” but I had discovered that this wasn’t what the deal was fully about. I was safe. Miss Krainik, Mr. Mason and Mr. Bartoletti all wanted me back. I was set to go into my second year as an LOCAA Young Artist.

The technical challenges were coming to that inescapable stage at home when it was becoming even too much for my wife, Catherine, to bear with patience. A particular evening, literally one of hundreds or more, with the squalling out of high notes (this one being the big line in the aria from WERTHER ‘Pourquoi me reveiller?’) in which I couldn’t ‘accidentally’ hit that B flat even once left her out of good hearted laughter, out of yet another patient idea that I would not try and with a look I’d never seen on her face. She asked me a very tough question that was meant to make me think HARD, it succeeded. She asked me if it was more important that I sing, no matter what I sang, or was it more important what I sang than singing.

I had grown up with all the recordings of the big tenors of the time. I knew all the Verdi and Puccini favorites with a few Cilea, Giordano and Meyerbeer thrown in. This was opera to me. This was tenor singing. I knew nothing else but had come to understand that there were so many more classifications of tenor voices than I’d originally known, I’d even found a pride in defending such second and third class vocal citizens in my work on the mainstage at Lyric. Her question hit me hard. The answer might have been that it was more important what I sang two years earlier but I had learned much since then and the answer had changed 180°. The hard part was in the obvious next step. I had to abandon my own deep seeded dreams of tenorial greatness and turn to discovering just what my voice could and could not do. It was D-Day for me and we went to work. I hated every moment of it but I did know, deep down, that it was the only thing that held any promise for my having a singing career of any kind.

Catherine started to make sense to me. I was learning to listen more openly and to be willing to honestly try what she suggested. Her first approach was simple and clear, no matter the result, I had to find a vocal choice that was easy and consistent. I moaned that the head-voice, voce di testa, kopf stimme, voix mixt “cheating” was not operatic and would never be accepted. “Patience”, I was told. Get it established and allow it to become a blended facet of my registers. Let it find its own perimeters and see if it grows. Long story short; so much had to be adjusted to blend this “cheat” into place, but it worked well over time and I had a top that would not quit (eventual sustained E naturals in performance) and all of it was growing in volume and, more importantly, acoustical ‘cut’. I was becoming a technical singer and it was going to pay off very soon and very well.

Ms Krainik had established a composer in residence position for the development of new opera composition in the USA and Bill Owens was the first recipient of this honor. The LOCAA were to be the guinea pigs toward the eventual presentation of his work entitled THE GUILT OF LILLIAN SLOAN. Twentieth Century composers seem to absolutely LOVE to write in the stratosphere for the tenor voice. I recall working sessions with Bill when he would sort of Kermit the Frog out a section with an [i] (eeeee!!!) vowel on a big high C and say, “that’s perfectly comfortable, right?” I’d mumble something about modification and the passage would stay in. It was so fun being fully capable of singing anything he could write down. The head-voice was growing and I could sing like that all day. The other ‘real’ tenors could not even begin to negotiate this kind of writing, nor did they want to. SO, I ended up singing the romantic leading tenor of Owen Evans in both the test run of LILLIAN SLOAN in my second year in the LOCAA and the full premiere of it in my third and final year. It was very successful for me personally and the Lyric Opera management began to see me in a growing light. I was becoming ever more useful to them. Very cool.

As the casting was being done for the lesser parts in the Lyric season of 1987-88 I was approached by Ms Krainik with the opportunity to audition for the three roles in LULU of the Diener, Prinz and the Marquis. This package of roles would normally go to an outside tenor for contract but the powers that were felt I was a candidate that could keep it (and its expense) in-house. I learned the more difficult of the three roles, that of the Marquis, and auditioned like all other outside singers on the mainstage and was awarded the roles. This was a rather unusual step-up for the LOCAA and even Lee Schaenen began to be more enthusiastic about my presence in his program.

The production of LULU was directed by the Russian Ljubi Ljubimov, conducted by Dennis Russel-Davis and the cast was led by Catherine Malfitano. It was a great production and a VERY big deal both at Lyric and in the opera world. Lots of theaters came to see it including James Levine himself, from the Met. A few days after the performance at which Mr. Levine was present a message was delivered to me via the Lyric Opera office to the LOCAA office. I was invited to be flown to New York City and put up in a hotel for an audition with Maestro Levine himself on the stage of Carnegie Hall. Incredible.

I flew to NYC with a confidence that was quite new to me. I was prepared to sing, as my choice, Iopas’ Aria from LES TROYENS with great high B flats, Bs and a sustained C, my put-together aria of the Simpleton from Boris Godunov and a few others that were all, now, easy to produce. It was for the first time in my singing life a pleasure to both contemplate and actually sing an audition. I was comfortable and confident. The results were a three opera offer of character roles at the Met the following Fall, one of them being my first Andres in WOZZECK with Maestro Levine himself conducting. After that I was called to his office where he asked me what I’d like to do next. Yes, James Levine sat at his desk in his office in his theater and asked ME what I’D like to do NEXT at the MET? How totally weird and wonderful was that?

I had understudied the late Goesta Winbergh as the title role in LA CLEMENZA DI TITO at Lyric and felt that I could produce it. I stated this to Mr. Levine who seemed particularly pleased with the answer. There was, evidently, a problem with an English tenor who was to sing this role at the Met in the 1990 season and I was immediately offered the performances. Again, this was conducted by James Levine and the cast was led by none other than Tatiana Troyanos in her last Sesto. I was way too young and way too inexperienced in recitativi and coloratura but I did a very tolerable job for a 30 year old tenor who had just found his technical voice only two years before. What I did have was lots of big stage experience and I knew how to move, interact and hold my own onstage.

My career has been an amazing journey since that very surprising ending at the LOCAA and Lyric Opera of Chicago as a Young Artist. It is more surprising to me than it could ever be to anyone else. I secretly think of myself as the ‘accidental tenor’ and am ever aware that there have always been better voices than mine at hand for any role I have sung, but, and this is important, I had the contract.

In many Master Class settings I have taught since then I have urged all young artists to have the courage to reach back into the back of their vocal ‘closets’, behind all of the neat and tidy versions of all of their vocal heroes and pull that dusty, wrinkled or neglected voice off the bent nail on the back wall and work with it alone. You have a chance of a career singing with your own voice, you have no chance whatsoever trying to sing with someone else’s. I learned this the hard way but I know it to be true.

Do you want to sing, no matter what the repertoire, or is it more important that you sing repertoire you love than to sing at all? Ask yourself the question and answer it seriously. It might just make a difference.
_________________________________________________

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). Find out more about Mr. Kaasch at: www.donaldkaasch.com or e-mail him at: dkaasch@yahoo.com.