Are you a good witch or a bad witch? (Bad vs Good Habits)

The following blog discusses talent, a word that triggers me.

I hate the word "talent". What is it really? Is it nature or nurture? Ultimately I answer with: it's curiosity that gets nurtured at some critical point that then develops into skill sets that then become publicly identified somewhere, sometime, by somebody as "talent". My mom admonished me way too many times that I wasn't practicing enough and that I was wasting my "god given talent." Gosh I didn't like that phrase even when I was ten years old.

But more importantly, I'd like to talk about identifying and nurturing talent and those who like to judge talent based on their expertise (often that focuses on looking at what's wrong with the talent.) Often these negatives are collected into a list and if there's enough that seem resistant to change or seem untenable somehow, they get called "bad habits".

Bad habits are often used against the most talented. All of us who are even slightly successful have bad habits. Prime examples: Renee Fleming scoops, Pavarotti sang sharp, Corelli had a lisp. Lupone has - had - has questionable diction. The list is endless. Many see these as separate parts of the talent package that can be pointed to as something negative, something that must be fixed.

I don't. Well, not always.

I think many bad habits are often what makes people successful out in the real world. The academy is not real, and often the people in those ivory towers forget that.

Bad habits are bad, at least that's the general attitude nowadays. Sure, smoking, gambling, cellphone addiction are all bad for us. I'm not talking about those kinds of habits. I'm thinking about artistic habits. Those habitual things we do that create our art day in and day out. Musicians sometimes refer to these habits in a positive way - like habitual practicing, or skills, or craft; but I'd like to delve a bit deeper into the habitual.

Recently I did some binge-watching on Netflix (bad habit); multiple seasons of Supergirl. I've tried to follow the Arrow DC tv universe, but frankly often get bored with all the alternate Earth storylines. I used to drink lots of scotch during binges like this, definitely something that turned habitual until I had to stop cold turkey. Happy to report I'm still not drinking over a year later.

Another bad habit of mine is my writing style. Many have said it's a bit obtuse, long-winded, even scattered; too parenthetical with too many semicolons (see this sentence). I wish I had a regular habit of writing as I know I'd write more and probably more better (!).

A definition for the word "habit" is: a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

A practice! Aha! All us musicians love to practice! So that's a good habit, yes?

What's this to do with Supergirl? (See above about writing style...)

Getting there, but first a few random examples regarding these "tendencies", specific to some instruments:

• Piano: Poor posture, tightening you pinkie or overcurling it during scale passages, throwing on the soft pedal to control dynamics, turning your head to "listen" to a singer to see when they might be breathing (even though you may not be seeing anything because said singer breathes without showing it), not breathing yourself before/during technically difficult passages, tensing muscles in your arms or shoulders before loud fast octave passages, practice avoidance then guilt...
• Voice: Touching your tummy at the ends of phrases when you're running out of breath, flailing an arm out for no reason, the "baritone claw", fluttering you eyelids during coloratura passages, standing on tiptoes for high notes, taking too many breaths because you needed them years ago but no longer yet you can't stop them from happening, rolling Rs where you shouldn't in order to be expressive, spreading the tone in order to make the pitch, practice avoidance then guilt...
• Actor: Stammering during lines to stay in the moment, tightening the jaw or tensing other parts of the body before a difficult emotional bit, adding dramatic pauses in the midst of a line, shaking the head "no" while saying yes (a Laban lie), using charm instead of acting choices, choosing a physicality for a character based on little to no research - just what feels instinctive, etc.

Spend any amount of time with someone who teaches a pianist, singer, or actor, and you'd discover the list of bad habits is INFINITE. When does this 'habit expertise' become a problem? Often during auditions: ("She has so many bad habits already, I don't know how I'd teach her" or "He's only interested in the sound of his own voice, so why would he be interested in being an actor" or "Her pelvis is so locked, there'd be no point" or "His singing style is one-size fits all, how could he sing other styles?" or "If we can only get her to calm down and not be so intense, she'd really have something.") I can't tell you how often someone is dismissed because of habits that a panelist might think are unlearnable. This happens in rehearsals too, after someone is cast. A director can dismiss a person's choices because they might be too strong to overcome or change. People leap to conclusions, often frightened of big choices, big voices, or simply people who walk in the room ready to go and - perhaps - not in need of "being fixed" (i.e. controlled).

Oftentimes, I find those sorts of people to be the truly talented ones in the room. The really talented people have habits that are oftentimes simply "bigger" or "more out there" or "louder" than other lesser talents who hideout in the room labeled: Mediocre Choices. I've said way too many times, "Yes, they don't do anything wrong, but they don't do anything right." My very best students and young artists are -- more times than naught -- the ones that get dismissed or put down by others as having "bad habits".

Many of these habits can be the thing that bring a young performer notice. Habits (good and bad) can get you into programs, schools, and casts. But what happens then? If you're lucky, you'll be in the midst of teachers and mentors who can discern what you might need to work on in order to progress. If you're a bit unlucky, you might work with someone who decides the thing to do is get you to unlearn your habits.

Now don't get me wrong, it's important to deal with actual problems that prevent a young performer from communicating to an audience, or playing their instrument. This is a vital thing, and frankly it's the crux of the definition: something that is hard to give up is a habit. Something that can't be changed unless a huge effort is employed is probably a bad habit. I try to teach good habits, like picking up a prop with your upstage hand, or remembering to not over-breathe for short phrases, or to relax and breathe before difficult moments onstage. I wish someone had gotten to Bartoli about her facial ticks, but she's amazing anyway (and famous and wealthy so who am I to judge?!). I wish that Costner had learned to act beyond himself, but he's done alright being plain ol' Kevin onscreen.

And so this past summer I watched Supergirl and got a bit teary-eyed watching Jeremy Jordan as Winn, the plucky, I.T., best friend-yet-in-love-with Supergirl's alter ego.

Jeremy was a student at Ithaca College during my last two years as Music Director for the opera and musical theatre program there. I was lucky enough to conduct and coach him during those years. He shined so bright that sometimes it was as if no one else was around. Jeremy was just one of many in a long list of talented Ithaca College MT students. If you're not aware of the program, look it up. You'll see under their famous alumni list, quite an astounding array of talent. Just on the male side of things during my time there were some outstanding students: Zach James, Matt Cavanaugh, Joe Ried, and Tony-award winner Aaron Tveit. Zach, a MT major, made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few seasons ago in Akhnaten. Matt starred as Tony in the Broadway revival of West Side Story (Jeremy was his understudy, btw) as well as starring in Grey Gardens and Urban Cowboy. Joe starred in London's West End production of Dreamgirls, and Aaron has reached beyond Broadway (Moulin Rouge, Next To Normal, Catch Me If You Can, Wicked, and Hairspray) onto the telly (Danny in the national broadcast of Grease) as well as film (that little Academy Award-winning flick Les Miserables.) Interestingly enough, these five men also had a tricky time making it through the rigorous acting review process infamous to North American BFA degrees. I can't say if it was the circumstances of bad habits, but part of the review process was calling out the students' weaknesses. (I was always on the fence for the IC review process, if the truth be told, as I think it cut out some remarkably talented students.)

Jeremy, though, was unique. Utterly.

Jeremy made me cry one day. (Let me be clear: I. Don't. Cry.) And certainly I don't cry during undergraduate callbacks for a sophomoric and inane musical about Dr. Seuss characters!

Jeremy had already made a huge impact onstage the year before performing the very small role of Nick Cricker Jr in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I'll never forget cracking up during performances, as I was down in the pit conducting, watching him steal scene after scene - oftentimes without making a sound. He made the most unusual choices, instinctively knew how to read an audience's reaction, and kept an incandescent focus on the other actors onstage. It was as if he had his own spotlight following him around stage at all times. 

And the next fall, the dreary Seussical the Musical was chosen (yes, I was part of that decision). During the long hours of auditions and callbacks, it became clear that many talented students might get cast in small roles (Zach was a turtle. A super tall turtle), but who was going to be Horton?

We asked for "Alone in the Universe" for callbacks. Lots of students sang the song, all really well and every single student could have done the role justice. Here's most of the text from the song:

There are secrets on a leaf, in the water, in the air
Hidden planets, tiny worlds, all invincible
Not a person seems to know, not a person seems to care
There is no one who believes a thing I say
Well, I'm fairly certain that at one time or other
Great thinkers all feel this way
I'm alone in the universe
So alone in the universe
I found magic, but they dont see it
They all call me a lunatic, okay, call me a lunatic
If I stand on my own, so be it
Because I have wings, yes I can fly
Around the moon and far beyond the sky
And one day soon I know there will be
One small voice in the universe
One true friend in the universe
Who believes in me

It was during Jeremy's singing of this song that I started crying. As expected, he sang it exceptionally well (Jeremy has the most amazing voice with a crazy/phenomenal top voice), but it was his choices that made the biggest impact. He quickly established that he was in an imaginary world where I was fairly certain that he actually was seeing "hidden planets and tiny worlds" because he was gazing at them with such specificity; it all seemed so real in his imagination. Then he broke that moment and grabbed my heart and brought me into Horton's world where he was "all alone". I felt his loneliness. He smiled through it, though, literally playing the opposite of the text (something more singers need to learn to do). Where most of the auditioners broke the 4th wall at "okay, call me a lunatic", Jeremy made another quirky choice and sang the line back at himself, giving himself permission to accept his otherness. And then he let go, vocally and physically, throwing out his arms at "I have wings, yes I can fly" and just went there totally. I started to cry; couldn't help it. I wanted to be his one true friend who believed in him.

He made me cry by exerting an influence into the theatre that was so powerful, I couldn't help but be moved. He did this with basically the same habits I'd seen on display during his first year at school -- odd acting choices, manipulative vocal dynamics, playing the opposite of the text, looking up into the air with his head cocked to one side and his eyes reaching towards the other direction, and uniquely large physical gestures that really extended. 

He didn't get the part. (I'll say no more.) 

It was still a great show, and it was conducted by my extraordinarily talented conducting student Brian Herz (who went on to a brilliant career of his own), but it was a seminal moment in my life where I saw clearly that I needed to leave. I had never been comfortable collaborating in casting, it is a very big weakness of mine. I like to cast quickly as the choices seem so apparent to me, like answers to simple math puzzles. Nothing against any of my colleagues - former or present - I freely admit this is one thing that I just don't do well with others (the exception being my colleague at Opera McGill, Stephen Hargreaves.) So if I had to point at one thing that made me start to think about leaving IC, it was that Jeremy had made me cry as Horton and he got cast as the General instead. Yes, he was also unbelievably hysterical as the General (my boys only remember his role in the show to this day), but my want to hear him sing Horton with an orchestra never materialized.

So there I sat watching Jeremy act his way through Supergirl on Netflix. Making the same choices, if I might be so bold, as I saw him make over a dozen years ago as a student. He likes to walk backwards/sideways as he's pointing at the person he's talking to. He still likes to cock his head one direction and throw his eyes the other way. He makes odd, funny gestures and fidgets on camera. He shows us he's thinking and feeling at all times, even when the writing is clearly a bit below par. On close ups you can see the tightening of the jaw that releases up into his oh-so-charming eye-smile. All these things were in evidence when he was an underclassmen working on his craft. Luckily, these things were not "unlearned".

And then just last month, the new Lincoln Center production of Floyd Collins released a video of Jeremy singing my all-time favourite song "How Glory Goes". Yes. All-time favourite song.

Not just song. All-time of all repertoire. The only song that touches something so deep in me that I think perhaps I may not truly be an atheist. It's a song about dying and what's it like on the other side of death. It asks the eternal questions of what will happen to us after we die. Questions I've asked myself my entire life:

Do we live? Is it like a little town? Do we get to look back down at who we love?

Are we above? Are we everywhere? Are we anywhere at all? Do we hear a trumpet call us and we're by your side? Will I want, will I wish for all the things I should've done? Longing to finish what I'd only just begun? 

Written by Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza), the score is folk-opera. Jeremy is the lead. 

The video is perfection. Vocal perfection. Like Freni's "Deh vieni non tardar" recorded decades ago. Like Buckley's "Memory" belt at the climax of the song. Like Jennifer Holiday's "And I Am Telling You". Like Corelli's "Non piangero Liu". Very few recorded moments are perfect. This is. 

It's been about 20 some years since Jeremy first made me cry. Now again. How does he do it?

And why do other IC students stick in my brain as being examples of people with "bad" habits but who went onwards to some big successes (or in Tveit's case gone viral into millions of views)? It's mainly because I had to explain their talent to a few too many colleagues who just didn't get them. Some wanted them to be out of the program. Some never wanted to cast them ever. Some dismissed them as "just pretty chorus boys". Some were, honestly, perplexed by their talent and annoyed at their bad habits on display in scenes work or in their singing. 

Aaron sounded too much like a musical theatre singer to get into the classical voice program but sounded too much like a "singer" to be taken seriously as an actor in the BFA music theatre program. I won that debate thank you very much. Zach was a bass - a rarity in musical theatre people. He was also nine feet tall and had a huge stage presence. I know - in my bones - his talent was simply way too big for college. Matt was definitely a stud (google the old Urban Cowboy billboard on Times Square and you'll see the abs on display. He had a real baritenor voice - great in the bottom range, exciting top notes - with exceptional musicianship. But, again, many thought he was just limited somehow. Then Joe came along - literally gorgeous head to toe - who was such a smooth mover onstage it was like he was actually floating in a separate kind of gravity. And we all know how dance is often dismissed as the least important of the triple threats (until one is actually in an actual show and then it is as integral as anything else.)

I could go on and on. My operatic students, the really big famous ones, just didn't impress everyone in the same way I was clearly impressed. Putting Phil into major operatic roles in his sophomore year, having Rihab perform in multiple operas in just one semester, dropping Simone and JP into a Bluebeard's Castle while in their master's degree seemed insane. Yet these, and so many others, were so clearly - CLEARLY - major talents to my ears and brain. Easy peasy to see. Simple to put them onto the stage. Were they 100% ready? Of course not, they were students. 

Here's a blog about that on my new site: Coach Craft: Are You Ready?

We teachers have a bad habit of educating people. Find me on any given day and I'll be lecturing whether I know it or not. We like to hear ourselves talk. We like to help others by pointing out their bad habits and teaching them new ones. 

But this is where it gets tricky, if not down-right dangerous. It's akin to a writer in need of an editor, and if they turn to the wrong editor, the soul of their book might get deleted. If you are with the wrong mentor or coach or teacher, you might edit out the good stuff that makes you you. The successful people we aspire to all have habitual characteristics that set them apart. Think Hvorostovsky, Horne, Horowitz, Hanks, Hudson, and Hepburn(s).

These habitual characteristics are clearly evident in their singing, playing and acting. They've been highly criticized by people-who-know-things about these tendencies. Yet still they continued to reach the heights of success in their fields. What would have happened if someone would have tried to unteach Vladimir to be more accurate in his playing, make him aware he was missing handfuls of notes? What about Marilyn's odd way of singing fioratura passages with a bit too much of what I'd describe as a vocal gobble? She partnered with the greatest coloratura who ever lived, that didn't stop her. And then there's Kate who spoke the majority of her millions of words on film through a clenched jaw. Imagine her studying acting now and working semesters on releasing that tension, in order to fix her acting. Thank god no one fixed Jennifer Holliday's singing or told her belting might hurt her.

Learning to tell the difference between the habitual that can't change and those tendencies that should change is something that can easily derail the most talented student. They have to simultaneously learn to trust their instincts while listening to other people's instructions (based on their own set of unique instincts) - oftentimes saying the exact opposite of what the student holds to be true about their talent or craft or technique.

So let's embrace our bad habits every now and then! Really explore them. Go towards them! See if they are actually bad, or merely fabulous habits that aren't quite formed yet. Embrace yourself, the good and the bad. You can't just hit a delete button on yourself, it's not something that ultimately helps. You are who you are, and as Polonius said, "to thine ownself be true".

And while you're at it, stop looking for teachers who can "fix" you, or "fix" something in your technique. Stop thinking you're a donut with a big whole in the middle of yourself that needs to be covered up with icing. You are enough. You are you. Look for what makes you unique. Look at your strengths and strengthen those areas even more. Don't just focus on what's wrong, because you might also need to nurture and grow what is right and special about you!

When I think back over the 1000 or so students I've taught over the past 30 some years, it's never been clear why some "made it" (whatever that means) and some did not. One of the things that the big success stories have in common is that I heard severe criticisms of their talents from someone who was a teacher. The big talents scare people and you have to take them on and be as big yourself in how you teach, what you say, and how you strive to nurture those big talents. That's the mark of an excellent teacher, at least in my book. Same for directors, coaches, conductors, producers - they need to get out of the way for real talent. (That's a talent in and of itself!)

Just for fun, here are my top Jeremy Jordan Youtube selections:

Let It Go (yep, that song)
It's all coming back to me Tribute to Celine with over 2 million views (wait for the key change)

Santa Fe from Newsies 
And, gosh, here's a few more (Youtube is a rabbit hole...):
Tveit's I'm Alive

Tveit's viral Roxanne (1.9 million views)
Dreamgirls in London (Joe's the one you can't miss centerstage)
West Side Story at the Tony's (Matt sings at the end with that girl Maria)

Zach's monologue at the Met (Akhnaten - just a stunning performance)
And just for giggles, a bootleg video of the IC "La Resistance" medley with yours truly appearing: SouthParkMedley

Is there a critic in the house?

There was a time where critics were kinda needed, were lauded even. Remember back to the olden days when people read newspapers and, in the big cities, discerning audiences often relied on critics do tell them if a show, opera, or concert was worthy of their attending? Many of these critics influenced box office receipts - a great review could save a season; a terrible review could plummet earned income and risk ruin for the producer or producing company.

There was also a time when I was lauded by critics. My favorites come from a Bluebeard’s Castle I conducted at Opera Festival of New Jersey about twenty years ago: New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini praised my “lithe pacing and vivid colors” while Pulitzer prize-winning London Financial Times critic Martin Bernheimer wrote “Hansen respected the delicate balance between passion and introspection. He made much of Bartok’s epic essay in psycho-sexual angst.” and David Patrick Stearns in the Philadelphia Inquirer noted “Hansen revealed another side of the score: stroke after stroke of musical characterization that’s often obscured by dazzling orchestral color, skillfully drawing the ear into the two characters’ hearts of darkness.” 

Obviously these were great critics. I mean, psycho-sexual angst and hearts of darkness!

I’ve also gotten my share of terrible reviews (obviously by uninformed critics LOL), been misquoted by the press, and had my name misspelled (Peter Henson was my fav). As I tell my students, if you believe the good reviews, you must believe the bad ones. Therefore, ignore them all – unless you need a press quote for your bio!

Don’t get me wrong, there’s been some great critics. The composer Virgil Thompson was a noted critic (the book to read is “Composer on the Aisle” by that brilliant critic cited above, Anthony Tommasini), Alex Ross (another book to read is “The Rest Is Noise”, simply the best book on the 20th century musical universe), and Anne Midgett (although there are some who point to a few “mean” reviews, I often agreed with her). It was the influential NY Times critic Harold C. Schoenberg who said, ''Criticism is only informed opinion. I write a piece that is a personal reaction based, hopefully, on a lot of years of study, background, scholarship and whatever intuition I have. It's not a critic's job to be right or wrong; it's his job to express an opinion in readable English.''

Apologies to any non-English critics…

When I told my wife Elizabeth the title to this article, “Is there a critic in the house?” She thought I had asked “Is there a cricket in the house?” We laughed.

Yet, like a lone cricket chirping away in a quiet room, a critic in the house can be sort of annoying. Not for anyone in the audience during the actual performance, but for the performers who are informed of a critic’s presence beforehand or for a nervous producer wondering if the reviews will “pan” the show or lead to a run at the box office, the knowledge that a critic is going to chirp their thoughts after the show from an unseen location you can’t find, is very unnerving. A performer’s internal monologue can be hijacked with nerves or worry (the last time so-and-so heard me they hated/loved me) and I understand, from first-hand experience, how knowing a Tommasini is in the house can add a wee bit more sweat to my pits.

Broadway still relies on these reviews. A terrific show gets panned and it’ll close the next day, or soon thereafter. The influence of reviews on audiences and shows alike is well documented by anecdotes. I produced a very boring opera (in my opinion) that on opening night was lightly attended and politely applauded. Then this amazing review came out the next day, “run to see this show” (I’m paraphrasing) and we sold out the run. The performances got better as there was more feedback from the audience - laughter, riotous applause, standing ovations. David Hyde Pierce talks about how a bad review shut down a show (and even changed the audience reactions) in this interview: https://youtu.be/9jU8xcYrBcw?si=TE7bRxREjYGVBzzG (If you don’t want to go to the video… Basically, during previews the audiences were laughing hysterically, then came a terrible review after opening night and that next performance audiences sat in silence. The show closed two weeks later.)

So, these critics can wield a big trophy or an axe. For operas, I’ve been wondering for decades why music critics were sent to review operas and not theatre critics. I’ve asked around. Often I get the “but opera is about the singing” (no it’s not, that’s called a recital and even then, it’s about the singing and the pianist.) I’ve been told that some theatre critics are “tone deaf”, or not “educated enough” to apply their informed opinions to opera. Is opera that convoluted? Is opera so difficult to penetrate from a musical standpoint? Is opera singing so foreign that someone can’t judge it who might also judge musical theatre? I’d love for theatre critics to come and take a critical eye to the latest libretto being given a production, or have them turn their informed opinions to how the costume plot supported the director’s choices of movement, or any such thing that music critics seldom if ever even touch upon (let alone can see.) So why do music critics, adept at recital and/or concert repertoire, review the opera? 

Often in reviews, the conductors are ignored or hardly mentioned (“so-and-so kept things together”). I think it is because they aren’t on a podium. Just read any orchestral review and there are sometimes paragraphs about the gestures, how they communicated, how those things affected the music, and still to this day if it’s a women conductor, what they might have worn (can that stop please?!) Being down in the pit renders a conductor invisible and so, for many critics, this renders their informed opinion useless. For you see, I believe they don’t really know what’s going on down there unless they can see the arms and gestures of the conductors. 

But these critics CAN see what’s on the stage, so that gets reviewed. Costumes were colorful, or cheap looking, sets were spectacular or drab, singers acted well, were funny, overacted, or were histrionic. The lighting design seldom gets a mention (and lighting is the crucial component in opera because it affects everything, from the color palette of the costumes, makeup, hair and set painting down to whether a singer can see the conductor.) Directors, the ones actually responsible for putting all those visual elements together, often get ignored or barely mentioned (“moved the singers well”). Many times, singers get criticized for acting choices they did not make - hello, it was the director! As well, I’ve often seen poor reviews for a stage director while everyone performing got rave reviews - for their acting and movement! Again, it was probably a director responsible. 

Recently, a local critic in Montreal reviewed a student performance of an opera I produced (to be clear, I did not conduct it or direct it). It goes without saying that some critics simply can’t tell the difference between professional and student productions. In Montreal, my program once received a review that was unbelievably positive and even compared us to the multi-million dollar L’opéra de Montreal (as in, our show was just as good as anything recently on the OdM’s stage; first off, no it wasn’t and secondly why write that?!) We’ve also received a handful of terrible reviews, and many mixed reviews. But most reviews for students – either when mentioned too negatively, or not mentioned at all – can be detrimental and often hurtful to training young singers. It teaches them to be careful and to worry about what others might think of their choices just when we are trying to get them to try to make choices. 

We have a policy of not posting reviews - good or bad - because someone always - ALWAYS - either gets left out of the accolades, or a student gets targeted publicly for bad singing, either by name or by innuendo. This latest review (not gonna link it, not gonna quote it) was so problematic on so many levels. Pointing out who among the students gave wonderful performances is terrific. Thanks. But writing that some of the singers in smaller roles need to be given an honest talking to by their voice teachers (intimating that they’re not good enough to pursue a career in singing) stepped over a line. And it was an ignorant thing to write.

Why ignorant?

Because those of us who work with young singers (from undergraduates through young artists to even established emerging stars) know that THINGS CHANGE DYNAMICALLY from week to week, month to month, and year to year. 

I have worked with the biggest young talents and seen many of them falter. I have worked with questionable talent and seen them, often through sheer willpower, get to the Met. My roommate in my undergraduate school was told by many judgmental voice teachers (often at voice competitions) that if she kept singing that way, she’d ruin her voice. Many who knew her in her first few years might have discounted her talent. Certainly, this Montreal critic probably would have lumped her into needing an honest talk because her voice was not put together when she was first on the stage. But she learned to sing, applied a work ethic beyond her peers, and developed by being given opportunities to be on the operatic stage. You don’t just study and then assume the role of Tosca. It is a process.  I can’t tell you how thrilling it was to witness her Met debut standing on that stage taking her bow!

With all that said, I’m thinking I should ask some questions about criticism. 

Is criticism for criticism’s sake important to classical music? 

If so, why? When? How? At what point?

Has the time come to think of new ways of criticizing/reviewing?

I’d be interested in knowing others’ thoughts.

But before I leave this subject, I’d like to write about the real critics - the teachers, coaches, conductors, directors, gatekeepers (like artistic administrators, directors of programs, and adjudicators) - who are the most influential critics when it comes time to teach and prepare young singers for a career.

Why is it we can’t sit and enjoy a singer doing something that only a microscopic fraction of the world’s population attempts to do: tell a story in public, on a stage, with just their instrument, their body, in an art form that is beyond collaborative, without judging them at the same time? When I write “judging”, I mean observing what is not quite right, what needs work, or what is wrong.

Why take the parts of an opera singer’s performance apart in order to judge them better? 

Why not see the whole first, discuss that, then get down to details? 

Why start with what's not quite right?

How integral to training is constant, unceasing, glaring judgement? 

It’s totally cool to think “beautiful voice, but their top is tight” and another thing to tell the singer that they need to “fix their top”. Or to judge a lack of enough breath to get through a phrase and have that turn into a takedown of their entire support system. Or to see some tension in a jaw and think that what will help will be to tell them that their jaw is tight, so be less tight. 

Has anyone read “The Inner Game of Tennis”? Pointing out what’s wrong often causes it to continue or get worse. The mind is a huge part of being a performer and when the mind is filled with “don’ts” instead of tangible things to “do”, many do not perform optimally, and many do not get better technically because they’re singing to fix something.

Why fix singers? Why insist that teaching a singer is about working on their weaknesses?

How about focusing on their positive points? Those positive habits and talents are probably what got the singer into said program or cast. Focus on making the top notes that blossom in high mezzo rep consistently gorgeous. A tenor’s ability to sing long phrases without breaths can be turned into finding more repertoire to show that off. The lists are endless. Teaching is not just pointing out what the problems are. It should also be pointing out what the great things are.

Yes – everyone needs to work on stuff. That’s not my point. Continue the work, of course. But a sole concentration on what’s wrong will ignore what’s right and that part of a singer must also be nurtured!

But the same goes for what learning is! That notion is hard for young musicians to hear, let alone understand fully. I’ve oft been told that I should be “more critical” or that the coaching was “too positive” (that comment was fun, because I was digging into details and I thought I’d been too hard on them!). Singers especially confuse learning and good teaching with needing to be in a room with someone who is going to fix them, someone who will turn them into a real artist, someone who will make them better, some magical being who will yada yada yada.

Yes, we need critical thinking. Yes, we need objective criticism. Yes, we need to be judgmental when it comes to picking a winner or a Fiordiligi. Yes, all of us musicians need our critical minds at play, 90% of the time. It’s about balance. Learning to turn off the inner critic so that the instinctive performer has a chance to dance on the stage without fear.

A final parting idea:

Today’s opera world does not need a local critic telling audiences to shut up and behave because their cheering was disturbing the Heilige Kunst present in the Hallowed Halls of Opera. That’s just Victorian colonialism and classicism turned into pretentious bullshit. We don’t need that in today’s worrisome climate of dying audiences and low ticket sales. The last thing we need is to ostracize today’s new opera going audiences who already might feel uncomfortable in these strange spaces (what to wear, when to clap, etc.). 

How lucky and wondrous was it to have a big audience yelling and whistling and being boisterous at a comic opera telling the story of Cinderella to the (to-my-ears) mostly boring Massenet score (I can tolerate only so many diminished chords going nowhere)? 

The time to sit in silence is over. If one needs abject obeisance for the classical clergy to worship a dead composer, I’d suggest investing in a home entertainment system. 

But don’t take the joy from the onstage performers and don’t judge others for enjoying themselves and sharing that emotion with others.

(And that goes for those of us responsible for the care and nurturing of young singers!)

Auditions (2023 version)

2023 VERSION!

Well, it's been a ride. The Pre-Covid days are long gone. Covid shutdowns came and went (fingers crossed) but a few things from that pivot have stuck: namely video audition submissions. But In-Person Auditions are back and going strong again so I thought I'd edit my regular auditions blog for 2023.  

Here it is:

It's that time of year, a time that ramps up the anxiety and stress levels for many young singers:

Audition application and audition season has commenced!

All around North America, singers in undergraduate and graduate programs are finishing up their auditions for their schools' opera programs, hoping to get cast in a production, scenes program or opera classes. In addition, those singers who want to move beyond the pay-to-sing programs are feeling the avalanche of deadlines fast Glimmerglass, Merola, Canadian Opera Company, Santa Fe, Central City, etc. with their requisite YAP tracker accounts spouting reminders and checklists. As for the singers fresh out of school, the desperation factor starts to creep into place -- will this be my last audition season? What happens if I don't get any auditions? How am I going to pay for all the application fees, travel and hotel expenses?

Life was simpler ten to fifteen years ago. Really.

Time was when deadlines for summer programs were mid to late October (imagine!), not end of August. There's a huge difference between the two, especially for singers just starting a new grad program and/or starting in studying with a new teacher in a new city.

And yet, every year I get requests for recommendation letters as well as requests for "what should I sing for my 5 arias" from students I barely know.

I've often thought that first year masters students shouldn't try to do summer program auditions during their initial semester at a new school with new coaches and teachers. Maybe a better idea would be to FOCUS ON THAT FIRST SEMESTER. Work on technical issues, get the hard courses out of the way, get to know the city in a casual fashion, make friends, hear symphony concerts, etc.  These are things one can't really do while preparing an audition packet (especially if there are new arias in it) or flying in and out to take summer program auditions from October to December.  I know everyone feels rushed to be a success, but there are lots and lots of singers who make it without pushing themselves onto such a fast track.

Perhaps an even better idea might be to either take the summer "off" from singing, get a job or an internship, maybe focus on reading literature or researching new arias, visit museums, take in outdoor events/plays/symphonies, visit the Glimmerglasses of North America to see what the level actually is out there. Travel and explore!

But I don't think anyone will listen to my sage advice, so I'll put down my thoughts on AUDITIONS that I post most every fall, albeit with some modifications for 2023.

TEN THOUGHTS ON AUDITIONS:

1) A successful audition is a complicated thing. It has more to do with the day, who/what the panel is looking for and why, the needs of a given season, whether the panel's blood sugar is normal, if their attention span is fixed or waning, and/or their personal taste in practically everything. In short, little to do with the singer's talent. The sooner one accepts this, the better. It helps to remove the JUDGEMENT happening constantly inside one's mind.

2) Attitude counts for a lot. How a singer walks in the door, how they communicate with the panel and the pianist, the body language signals before singing, between arias, and at the close of the audition. It is vital that a singer present themselves in a heightened (I don't want to say exaggerated) version of whoever they want to "be" at an audition. You can't just quietly enter a room, whisper your aria to the panel, sing like Renee, exit like a mouse and expect that your Renee-esque tones will win the day.  Most auditions nowadays take into account personalities and how a singer might fit in to a group of other singers. If there is a worry about confidence in how a singer presents themselves (and I mean their "self" as opposed to presenting a character from an opera), then there can easily be a worry about how that singer might function in a group of drama-filled opera singers all living and eating together for 6 to 12 weeks.

3) The panel has no imagination. Okay, maybe they have a little. But mostly, not much. This means the singer's imagination needs to come into play in a big, big way. You need to know who you are singing to and why you need to sing to them. You need to know if it's day or night, inside or outside, in a furnished room or a courtyard. Are there other people in the scene that the aria takes place in? You simply can not just stand there and make pretty tones. Not any more, my friends. There must be a strong connection to the text, a huge musical mind at work making decisions and taking stands in multiple areas (ornamentation is just one example.) And if someone is telling you that it's the voice, and only the voice, that'll get you into a young artist program, then they are telling you what we all want to believe is true, but actually isn't true. An opera singer has always been, and will always be, a human being who acts with their voice. So work on the human being part, the acting part, as well as the singing part. Work on it before the audition. You can't think for a moment that your gestures will just appear and make sense, or that fixating on the wall behind the panel will make anyone in the room think you're an operatic Viola Davis or Robert Downey, Jr. They work on their characters before the camera shoots, and so should you. Actors live in a broad, imaginative world, and so should you.

4) What you wear is less important nowadays. Pants on a soprano? Fine. Jeans on a tenor? Fine. Culottes on a bass? Fine. Glasses? If you need them absolutely! Formal dress or tux? Perhaps think that one over... Think about how you'll define yourself as a human being to a set of strangers who may never have met you. Define yourself boldly in order to make an impression -- do everything you can to not look like all those other people in the lobby waiting to sing. Color is important, absolutely. So is bling. Remember, the panel is made up of human beings who have been looking at hundreds of singers. It's impossible to remember everyone, particularly if twelve baritones all singing Malatesta's aria show up in a dark navy suit, with polished shoes, a blue shirt and variable ties to match. If your repertoire doesn't separate you from the pack, then your acting and singing skills need to come into play along with the rest of your "package" - which includes what you look like when you walk in the door. And if anyone tells you not to wear a dress above the knee, or to make sure you're wearing a tie, smile and ignore their advice. North Americans are WAY too uptight about how someone dresses for an opera audition and it's finally, finally changing with the younger generation of leaders. The Europeans got this totally right years ago: jeans, a smart shirt, maybe a leather jacket, and cool sneakers are all it takes for most auditions over there.

5) This is YOUR time slot. Use it, invest in the moment and enjoy sharing your talents. A ten-minute audition slot is not the time to fix your technique, make dramatic discoveries, or improvise some ornaments for your Rameau aria. The audition is about YOU. Share yourself, how you are at the PRESENT moment - not how you might be five years from now. If you have someone telling you you'll be the next great Tosca, well how lovely, but don't go taking "Vissi d'arte" around to auditions if you're some young 20ish soprano who really should be singing "V'adoro pupile". Sing the lightest literature possible. Take a step back, fach-wise; especially if you're being cast in school productions in heavier, or even, dramatic roles. This happens a lot -- getting confused over "what" you are because at your school you have the biggest voice, so you get cast as the Countess or Fiordiligi, but you really are a Susanna or Despina out there in the real world. For mezzo's, it's even trickier. Of course you're not a character mezzo, you're a high lyric soprano who just hasn't figured out her top, but you get cast as Miss Pinkerton instead of Laetitia... And then there are the tenors needing to walk around as lyric baritones while their voices evolve... Just be who you are. Every audition is only a snapshot of the singer you are at that moment, and this changes so quickly and dramatically. Be flexible in your early 20s. You don't have to present your future-illustrious-international career's best five arias during the fall of your senior year at college to an AGMA apprenticeship program. But you do have to present some version of YOURSELF, and be confident about it regardless of the fact that the arias might just be stepping stones to other arias in later years.

6) Prepare 5 to 15 arias for the audition season. Come on. Learn more than 5 arias. People who are pursuing other careers in the arts (just think about the hundreds of songs your musical theatre singer counter-parts have in their current rep!) make it a vital part of their training to learn AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE about their chosen fields. Walk into an audition and present the required 3-5 arias you had to put down in YAPTracker but then have a rep sheet with those plus "Additional Arias". It is a terrible, terrible thing that young singers - and the people who teach, train, and hire them - think that learning an aria should take months and months OR that having more than five arias running around your head is somehow difficult or confusing to both singer and panel. My thoughts on these arias? 

    1) Two contrasting baroque arias (one fast, one slow) 

    2) Two contrasting Mozart arias (either tempo or dramatic situation) 

    3) One aria by Rossini, Bellini, or Donizetti (or a composer like them) 

    4) A German, Czech, Russian, Polish, or Spanish aria of some sort 

    5) An aria from a verismo opera 

    6) An aria in French (either baroque or 19th century)

    7) Two contrasting 20th century arias 

    8) Two contrasting musical theatre arias (literally tens of thousands to choose from!)

    9) An aria from G&S or Offenbach or Lehar or Strauss, Jr.

    10) An aria from an opera written since 2000, preferably by a woman and/or a BIPOC composer!

For those who were counting, that's 14 musical pieces. If most are about 4 minutes long, then we're talking about an hour's worth of repertoire. Make a commitment to learn literature, to explore beyond the Anthologies and canonic composers. The above 10 categories can easily fill the needed "5" for any young artist program and then you'll have extra arias to have wiggle room if you need to vary one or two, or offer a piece of musical theatre, or add a couple extra arias that represent a company's upcoming season. But if you walk around with barely 5, you are limiting your opportunities. I know singers who can learn an aria in a day, and rather well. How long does it really take to learn an aria? If you don't learn quickly, figure out how. Then use every coaching, every masterclass opportunity, every studio class opportunity (heck, sing for friends!) to role out these pieces and get feedback. A 2023 update: If you aren't someone who thinks they should audition with baroque arias, or have problems with bel canto or verismo rep, that's okay. Eliminate those categories. If you have strengths like contemporary music or musical theatre, then perhaps augment those categories with a few more choices. If you believe that opera rep needs to be more diverse, then make sure your own audition rep is diverse. This is not a prescriptive "rule", it's a nudge to go out there and learn more repertoire!

7) Don't wear an all black anything to an audition. 2023 update: This really is my only non-negotiable piece of advice, and particular to me (so go ahead and ignore it if you look wonderful in all black). There was one audition season at Glimmerglass when we saw over a dozen sopranos in one day wearing a black dress with a set of pearls. It was impossible to keep them straight.

8) Keep an audition journal. Go crazy -- keep a journal everyday. Write down how the audition went, later write down if you got the contract or not, or any kind of feedback given. Describe the venue's acoustic or the pianists' abilities. A journal can really be a wonderful thing!

9) Figure out how to breathe in stressful situations. One of the first things that can evaporate in an audition is the BREATH. Getting it past your collarbone, for instance, can sometimes be a challenge during an important audition. Work on breathing outside of an audition. Ask your voice teacher about the breath. Their answers might surprise you. Seek out places to practice breathing: swimming pools, yoga, mediation, hiking up steep inclines, walking... Before your audition, have a breathing plan. Make space and time to center yourself outside of the room with your breath. Breathe in the audition room, too! Breathe between arias. Breathe!

10) Try, as best as you can, to not place too much importance on any audition. Even at the Met finals, if you listen to what many of the winners say, they'll talk about how they tried to make it "just" another opportunity to sing. If you walk into a room thinking that your whole future career (and therefore life) depends on the outcome, you are setting yourself up for failure. How about a "I don't care what you think" attitude? If you're walking into an audition believing that what the panel thinks of you is more important than what you think of yourself, then you should turn around and walk away.

A Bonus Thought: Remember that what you do -- singing opera -- is something quite special. It's something that billions of other human beings on this planet can not do. It's a crazy, joyous thing to put yourself into the head-space of an 18th century peasant or a Greek God or a famous character from Shakespeare. Who gets to do that and try to make a living at it? It's a transcendental experience to channel the genius of a Mozart, Rossini, Stravinsky, or Saariaho. While you sing their music, they live again. Their minds come alive once more from beyond the grave through your vocal cords, face, and body. Most people can't even imagine what that must be like!  So live it! Do it!

And learn an aria or two...

Best of luck to all of you out there!

Updated: Fantastic OPERA Beasts, and Where to Find Them!

 Updated from my original 2016 post.

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good!”

I read those words over a decade ago and loved them, for it sounded like my personal mantra that I’d been secretly saying to myself my entire life!

The title of this blog is “Fantastic Opera Beasts and Where To Find Them” inspired by the film Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.

The latest, and let it be said the most adult, evolution of the Wizarding World by author J. K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them hit the movie screens years ago. I took my family to see it and was yet again amazed and surprised by the film’s imaginative span and Rowling’s seemingly endless ability to morph, create, recreate, and exponentially expand the Harry Potter Universe.

If you are one of those who have not read the books, or seen the films, then perhaps this blog isn’t going to make much sense. I’ll try to refrain from getting too nerdy, but apologies ahead of time. If you want to skip down into the REAL blog about singing and magic, it’s about eight paragraphs further. (I’ve put asterisks and bolded the header so you can skip quickly to it!)

Rowling’s books, her play (the international hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), the billion-dollar Potter film series, and now this new series of films, attest to her ability to roll out big stories peopled with wizards, magical creatures, elves, goblins, muggles, nomajs (the American version of muggles), giants and a hippogriff or two all interacting on multiple levels of narrative story, allegory, and deeply emotional and political themes. Fantastic Beasts… is probably the most obvious of all of her output when it comes to the creation of an allegory that is very focused on real human history. Her output as a creative force is operatic on many fronts.

Opera, the genre, is vast and huge; very much like Rowling’s universe. Actually, opera is bigger, by far, than the Wizarding World because the repertoire spans over 400 years, and it’s written and sung in practically every language known to Earth (and beyond, we have operas in Klingon and in languages from Middle-Earth). Opera is very dense and complex, particularly in the information that’s passed from the stage to the audience via the singers, the designers, and everyone else involved in a production. If a song could be said to be written in a few gigabytes, a song cycle would be a dozen gigabytes, symphonies would be hundreds of gigabytes. But operas are written in terrabytes. Hundreds of terrabytes comprise Wagner’s Ring Cycle alone. If you don’t know about TBs, it’s a huge, HUGE amount of data. 

It is not possible to simply sit down and take in everything that is an opera in one exposure. However, the thing that makes opera magical is that one CAN sit down and get so very much in one sitting, and that information is so very different from human to human. Each and every person who watches any opera walks away with a different experience. If one goes to a great opera like La bohéme and sits with 3,000 others, each will have a different experience, a different take. Each of the players in the orchestra and the singers onstage will also have a different and unique experience. No opera is ever, ever, ever the same from night to night. The variations are boundless. Like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant named La Boheme, you’re sure to get a fantastic meal, but the ingredients in each of those same dishes is absolutely different than the night before and the chefs putting the meals together are oftentimes different humans night to night. Not to mention the wine choices affecting the food tastes, where you’re sat, the others in the dining room, etc. Opera proves the point that we are all interconnected in a vast array of brilliant shining lights.

J.K. Rowling gets that idea, and gets it in spades. Fantastic Beasts… is no exception. And it started me thinking.

My first thought went to another English creative force: Benjamin Britten. His output was riddled (yes, riddled) with works about the Outsider. Peter Grimes, Albert Herring, Owen Wingrave, Death in Venice, to name the obvious examples, are operas where society and the audience peer into the life of a man who is not like the rest of the other characters. Again, connections to Britten’s personal life as being a closeted gay man in Great Britain who was able to move around in society quite easily — even with his secret being common knowledge as it was never spoken about in what was called “polite society” — come to mind. Britten was an outsider living in the midst of a society that chose to not see the real him, or his inner secret. An outsider composing operas about outsiders that became wildly popular with audiences, even more so since his death.

Rowling’s Outsider is the wizard Newt Scamander. He arrives by sea to the United States in 1926 via Ellis Island with just his suitcase, seemingly yet another immigrant trying to follow the American dream. He is befriended, in what is clearly the lower east side of Manhattan, by three characters: Tina and Queenie Goldstein, magical sisters, and a baker, Jacob Kowalski. Connecting Newt to these three very specific types of characters in a story that is all about the magical community trying to hide itself from the rest of the “non-magics” (nomajs) seems to me to be a clear nod at what was going on in parts of Europe and in America during this time of terrible anti-semitism and the rise of fascism throughout the world. Jews started to hide the fact that they were Jews (not something new, by any means — just read up on what Mahler went through in his life) in order to move freely throughout society, academia, and business. A few years later, as the world seems to regularly forget, Jews’ very lives were at stake and millions killed. In the 1920s and 1930s, the danger was very real, at least to those who were aware and who could clearly see and understand the political rhetoric.

There are many evils in this new movie. The biggest threat is the unseen Grindelwald, the wizarding world’s Hitler. Grindelwald’s M.O. is that he believes the laws keeping Nomajs and wizards apart keeps the magical community from becoming the dominant power in the world. He dreams of a wizarding war (set to take place during the WW2 years) that will finally allow wizards to rule the world. But the movie plot actually entails trying to defeat a more devastating evil. It is an evil that can destroy cities and kill children: Child Wizards Repressing Their Magic.

Really? Repression as a destructive force? YES.

So — when a magical child tries to hide and/or repress their natural abilities, their magical talent, their literal magic, a horrible thing occurs: an “Obscurus” forms. This is a magical parasite that develops over time; basically if one doesn’t perform spells, the magic turns inwards and eats the child-wizard, turning them into a huge destructive black mass/cloud that rips apart streets and skyscrapers alike. Once this happens, the child dies (the film says usually by the age of 10). How terrifying! It is up to the Hogwarts' educated hero, Newt, and his band of three friends, to save New York City’s lower east side. They do that, as well as exposing who Grindelwald is pretending to be.

**Okay, so how does all of this relate to singing?**

I have believed for many decades that singers are magical. Let’s face it, all musicians are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we are the only special people on the globe — far from it. In fact, I think there are many different types of wizarding communities among us: poets, architects, software designers, composers, mothers; basically anyone who creates.

Singers are a special community of musical wizards. We even train singers and musicians at special schools with specialists who teach and coach using enchantments, craft, potions, divination, and other magical arts. (I even teach at a school that some think actually looks like Hogwarts!) To get into these special schools, your talent must be evaluated in a mystical gathering called an “audition” by a coven of like-minded creatures who invite or deny entrance. Our mystical ancient maestros wave their magical batons into space and music happens out of thin air. We look into ancient books and read/speak an ancient language that most non-musicians (our version of Muggles) can sometimes only recognize as “music," but actually have no idea what the secrets inherent in those scores actually are, or how to read them, let alone realize them. Some of us are born into musical families, but many are also born into Muggle families who have no idea what makes us so darn strange and amazing. 

To perform an operatic score requires a great deal of this specialized, magical training but an even greater amount of actual magic is required.

Just to sing, to phonate pitches and then control their duration, dynamics, shape, and color, is a magical spell that first requires one’s imagination. We imagine the notes and our brains somehow — and this really still is a mystery — create sounds that get organized by our throats, lungs, tongues, and lips into poetry that is carried out into the world via simple vibrations. Where before there is only silence, after a musician magics the air with their imaginative intentions, there is music. 

They do this with the most invisible of elemental forces: AIR. Breathe in silence, breathe out Mozart. This is an amazing thing that way too few singers admit, let alone realize.  We acknowledge far too often that other creative artists seem special in their own abilities — from creating sculptures out of dirt to building virtual dreamscapes out of binary electrical exchanges — but seldom really think to ourselves how special we are.

But Rowling also gives us a warning about thinking we are the only kind of special. This idea of thinking you are especially special can turn an ego to the dark side; the Trumpsters call people like us elitists due to our extensive educations. Well, we are, in a certain sense, elitist. However, there is a danger when an elitist mistakes Elitism for Puritanism. In classical music we have many different types of Puritans, or purists as we actually call them. I liken purists on the far right and far left to the followers of Voldemort - his DeathEaters - in Rowling’s world. They see their versions of the world in black and white, in right and wrong, in oppressors and the oppressed. There is no room for imagination, for innovation, for change, or for freedom to express new ideas or old ideas. Only the political decisions of a few, or the words written in someone’s holy scripture, or the ideas of a demagogue, are important. The individual dies in order to make sure that the purebloods, or today’s puritanical evangelicals or the purely politically correct, have their say in who is or is not allowed to think, to believe, or to express themselves freely. 

Our recent destructive history teaches us this — the McCarthy years, the tragedies of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the nightmare of the Stalinist regime. All three political ideologies sought to control culture by defining what it was and what it wasn’t. Millions died, thousands of lives were ruined, careers were destroyed and lost. Yet these nightmares came about not from evil, but from an attempt to make things safe for the People, to make everyone more comfortable and to create a more cohesive society where everyone would live in greater peace and prosperity. Sound familiar?

Musicians run into these puritans from time to time. The passionate musicologists, the early music specialists, the editors of critical editions, the connoisseurs of old opera recordings, the critics either holding to an older aesthetic against updates or to younger critics shocked to find that opera contains historical elements of sexism and racism. Opera is an art form that is big enough to accommodate many different opinions. But it is not an art form that works in, or under, any ideology that tries to repress artistic ideas. Let’s hold a seance and ask Shostakovich his thoughts on this subject, shall we? 

We shouldn’t hide ourselves from those who don’t get us. We need to engage everyone and anyone who’ll listen. Otherwise, our bubble shrinks and we’re left with no audience at all — magical or muggle.

Opera lives not just for us specialists and lovers of opera, but also for the casual listener, the regular opera-goer, or the film director who needs to give an Evil-British-Spy something to listen to while he drives his Porsche to go kill some innocent, good-looking person.

During the training of these magical singers, there is now a risk involved. That risk is to be too safe, i.e. to not actualize their individual “noise” (as I call the sound one makes while singing) for fear that that “noise” might be too unique, perhaps a bit ugly, or out of tune, or a bit out of control. 

To not be safe seems crazy. Crazy. I remember thinking that the teachers at Hogwarts were insane to just expect the first years to know how to do things, but especially none of them seemed to anticipate injuries. From the first flying lesson on their brooms to Hagrid’s putting Harry on the Hippogriff (what was he thinking?!) these teachers dared to allow their students to experience the magic firsthand, regardless of the outcome. Seamus, in the book series, kept blowing things up with his wand during his initial attempts at spells. Harry freely admitted he’s not a great wizard, he’s just lucky (plus he had great instincts and trusted those instincts throughout all seven books). Young singers need to make contact with the magic firsthand as well. They need to be allowed to blow sounds up, turn the bird purple instead of red, say the spell backwards and in the wrong order, put the wrong type of eye of newt into a potion, but especially they need to learn to trust their instincts and be courageous. Seldom do the children at Hogwarts die in the classrooms (that’s a whole other topic…), and as I am fond of saying, opera seldom kills those who study it!

Fantastic Beasts… shows all of us in the magical/musical community the danger of repressing our talents. Trying to hide our sound, our ideas, our creative forces can result in an obscuring state, which eventually implodes into a destructive monster, both within and without. Failure certainly occurs if we obscure our talents by not sharing them, if we obscure our ideas by worrying whether they will be deemed acceptable by others. If we repress our literal voices in order to make safe sounds, or sing correctly, or make artistic choices based on the notion of non-offence or choices that are denying the truth of the piece, we risk destroying ourselves. We risk destroying the art itself. The magic dies.

How is Music Magic? Music stops time, moves it forward and backwards. The sound of music, of voices joined together, can incite violence or passionate love, it can nurture the minds of babies, calm a lost soul, ease the pain of someone’s grief, wipe away the anxiety of tomorrow — at least for a brief time while the spell lasts.  Music can heal; science is proving this right now. Music vibrates on the quantum level, in the music of the spheres, and can exist in our brains alone. Right now, I’m hearing strains of Mozart’s great Die Zauberflöte wafting around in my head. Is it real? Yes, it’s happening in my head (Dumbledore taught us this truth at King’s Cross Station in one of my favorite moments from “Deathly Hallows”). 

Opera is an art form that needs all the other arts in order to create it. It needs an audience of wizards and muggles. But mostly, it demands a vast imagination from all those involved.

And that is the biggest danger of all, as humans can imagine heaven and hell equally well.  

Therefore, let’s all be careful, let’s watch out for each other, courageously stand up for ideas and freedoms. To defend yourself, and others, against the Dark Arts first takes the wisdom to perceive the difference between truths and lies. As the year of 2022 ends, all of us must redouble our efforts in order to seek actual truth and look past the hashtags and the 140 character social media postings. Life is beyond complicated and no issue is black or white. Those who think otherwise are dabbling in the Dark Arts and us musical magicians need to arm ourselves. But more importantly, we need to seek each other out in order to join forces.

For Fantastic Beasts… also shows that the 1920s wizarding world sat upon a precipice: whether to hide themselves further, go to war, deny their magic, or figure out a different path forward. If only our current world knew which choice might win out in the coming decade. 

Who will be our magical leaders in the years to come? Who will help our musical wizarding community navigate the treacherous waters rising around us? Is Grindelwald hiding in our midst? These new voices making themselves heard, are they misguided Muggles sensing that our art is old-fashioned, wrong, or boring simply because they don’t understand it? Will new audiences walk into our theatres and be able to see beyond the superficialities of opera and truly listen with their eyes and see with their ears? (Yes, you read that one right.) 

Or maybe there’s a new generation of magical musicians waiting to step forward to help divine a new and better future for all that includes every part of our exceptionally strange operatic Art? Opera has dangerous, wonderful and truly magical spells that allow us to think deeper than we’d like, feel stronger than we knew possible, love the strange and familiar, question our very nature, but especially allow us to recognize the humanity that lives in each and every one of us. I know there are many Newts out there, and hope that they open up their suitcases pretty soon.

Mischief Managed.