Can you hear me, Mum?

Notwithstanding a very busy week which included rehearsals for Aida, the Annual dinner for Camerata members and a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Portland Opera, the General Director of the Opera, Christopher Mattaliano, took the time to sit down with Operaman and discuss some issues of vital interest to the continuing health of opera and the security of our country. Okay, I lied about homeland security. Who doesn't? But we did talk opera. When I say he sat down “with” me I use the word in its chronological rather than geographical sense. I was at home with a sheaf of notes and a beer and Mr. M was at a car wash somewhere. We had an interesting chat.

Operaman: let's start with the easy stuff, Chris. Encores - yes or no?
C.M. I think it's something you decide on a case-by-case basis. If a singer has just nailed a particularly wonderful aria and the audience wants to hear him or her sing it again and if the singer is prepared to do it and the conductor is okay with it, why not? There's a very long tradition of encores in opera. I know some houses have a no-encore policy but I don't have such a policy here in Portland. It seems to me it is a part of what can make a night at the opera a very special experience.
Operaman: Juan Diego Flórez got lots of ink last week for taking a bis of “Ah! Mes amis” at the Met. Apparently Peter Gelb contacted him weeks before the performance to arrange how they would deal with an encore and finally it was decided that there would be a telephonic hot line from Gelb's box and a red light on the conductor's podium to give him the go-ahead. Are you okay with that?
C.M. What?? There was? No! (CM took some persuading that this was widely publicized and acknowledged by Gelb. And while declining to condemn the event, C.M. did leave me with the very clear impression that he had been referring to a spontaneous outpouring of love and joy for the singer and that this rather more cynical approach to giving the audience a good time was not quite what he had in mind).
Operaman: Chris, the opera blogoshere has been all a-twitter recently over the issue of amplification of voices at the Met. I have heard you say many times that one of the wondrous things about opera is that the audience hears the natural unamplified voice. Talk to me about that.
C.M. I think they have been over-reacting. I draw a distinction between mic-ing the singing and mic-ing dialogue. As you know, when we have done singspiel here in Portland - Abduction From the Seraglio, Magic Flute and even Street Scene where there was lots of dialogue, it seems perfectly reasonable to amplify those dialogue sections. Singers aren't trained to project their speaking voices in the way actors are and when they are trying to have their spoken words heard in a 3500 seat house...
Operaman: In a sense that begs the question because the way the argument is being framed is that if the dialogue can't be heard because of the size of the house then that opera shouldn't be performed in that house.
C.M. I think that is unrealistic. The Met, Chicago, San Francisco, these are all bigger houses than the Keller… 3500, 4000 seats, that sort of size. And people want to hear Magic Flute. You can't expect these companies not to put on great Mozart opera, for instance, because it was written for a much smaller venue. The same with Fille du Regiment.
Operaman: That covers the dialogue issue. What about singing? The New York City Opera has been mic-ing singers for years.
C.M. I am sure they don't do it at the Met. As you know, I was on the directing staff at the Met from 1986-1992. Never did it. Never.
(Chris and I then had a discussion in which I told him that I have an impeccable source, Operaman's Mole At The Met, who has given me first-hand information of singers - big names - names of the bigness of Cecilia Bartoli for instance - who have been using amplification for years now. Other names of equal stature were mentioned.)
C.M. If you tell me that I have to believe you. But it's hard to believe. I believe that Peter Gelb is first and foremost a lover of opera and it's hard to believe he would lead opera down that road. If true, it would be a great tragedy.
Operaman : We know that Kristen Chenoweth will be mic-ed when she appears in John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles at the Met in due course. He has said so. He said "Maybe it will start out mic-ed in her lower register where the voice doesn't project operatically. But it may end up unmic-ed in her coloratura register where it does.” This part was originally written for Marilyn Horne. Ms. Chenoweth is a Broadway star. Isn't this a case of Corigliano saying "She doesn't really have the voice for it so we'll need to pump up the volume in that big house"?
C.M. I know that opera very well. In fact I was the Assistant Director for the world premier of that opera which was at the Met with, as you say, Marilyn Horne. Her part was a cameo at the end of Act One. She was a hoot! Of course, she had a biiiig voice! I can only imagine that Corigliano is entirely rethinking the part for Chenoweth. It seems to me - and this is important - that Corigliano is making an aesthetic decision here. It's not just about bumping up the volume it's about coloring the sound in a different way.
Operaman: Like Adams in Nixon in China?
C.M. Exactly. He was trying to create a particular sound, to design the sound the audience would hear. I think you need to distinguish just increasing the volume of the singers' voices from aesthetic decisions the composer may make. Those are two very different matters. But isn't it ironic that audiences should now consider amplification of Broadway shows natural? These are small houses - 1000 seats or so. They shouldn't need any amplification but now some sound engineer sits at a board at the back of the house and produces a sound which is unrecognizable from what would be heard without amplification.
Operaman: Some people fear that opera is headed down the same road and that future generations of opera-goers will take it in stride.
C.M. That would be tragic.
Operaman: You said earlier that you think the opera blogoshere is over-reacting to these issues. How do you feel about blogs and bloggers?
C.M. Did you see in the newspaper last week that Melinda Bargreen is leaving the Seattle Times after being its music critic for 31 years? And she won't be replaced. (see her open letter to her colleagues here). She didn't blame the rise of blogging but I think in the next 5-10 years music critics, theater critics, they're all going to disappear. Blogging allows a dialogue which you can't get in the print media. Sure, you can write a letter to the Editor which may or may not be published but there isn't the instant gratification that you get from commenting on a blog and entering into real-time discussion. I like some blogs. I read Parterre Box...
Operaman: And Operaman!
C.M. Of course!
Operaman: I shouldn't let you go without asking you - how is Aida going? I am hearing that Lisa Daltirus is pretty spectacular.
C.M. I am very excited about this production. Yes, Lisa is spectacular. And Philip Webb is back. He sang Pollione in Norma for us last season and I think this current role (Radames) may suit him even better than that one. He is sounding great. And Greer (Grimsley) of course. I am a big fan of Greer. But the whole cast is coming together beautifully and, as I say, I am very excited.
Operaman : Thanks, Chris. I think I just heard someone in the background say your car is ready!
C.M. Thanks, Operaman!