"The Artist"

     This weekend I was fortunate enough to see my wife in Nashville, TN. Even though it was a short stay, it was a very much needed break and it recharged my batteries; now I can keep going strong and inspired. Before my departure we went to see “The Artist,” a movie which mades us laugh, cry and think. So much can be said through silence, so much can be felt from silence, so much can be emoted through silence. What a powerful and beautiful thing it is and how true it is to the life of an artist.
      It is in silence what we singers do so much of our work. Researching, translating the score, preparing the score, memorizing melodies and lyrics, and creating our characters. It is ironic that for someone who makes a living singing, it all starts from silence. We spend so much of our lives on the road, doing what we love, but away from those we love the most. It is a lonely life sometimes, but it is then that silence becomes our consoling friend. In silence I close my eyes and I go back to my childhood, to my friends, to my grandparents' home, to thanksgiving dinner with my folks, to the first time I met my wife-silence keeps me company. In silence I find inspiration, in silence I hear the drama of life, in silence I find my true voice.
      The next time you go to the opera, remember that when you hear us sing at the top of our lungs, it all comes from deep within our silence. Silence is a powerful thing, can you hear it?

Marcello Giordani, may I sing with you?

So this afternoon the Dayton AIRs sang in a pre-recital to the Marcello Giordani recital at Dayton Opera. Unfortunately I had a rough week due to a cold. Of course I was very excited about the prospect of singing before Mr. Giordani’s recital, but at the same time I was upset (at myself) that I had to sing when I was not at my best. Nevertheless, the pre-recital went very well for all of us and the audience loved it.
I have to admit that I would have loved to have sung when I was healthy, but oh well, it happens to all of us (singers). After the event I told myself, “Marcello will make your day better,” and yes he did.

Before his last two pieces, O sole mio and Nessun Dorma, he walks up to the piano and makes an announcement.
Giordani: A little bird told me that there are two tenors in the audience.
Me: (heart skips a beat).
Giordani: One is Italian...
Me: ( I think, I'm part Italian....)
Giordani: and the other is Argentinian.
Me: (heart stops)
You gotta understand, this WAS NOT planned, I had not idea....
Giordani: Where are they?
Me: (I shyly raised my hand like a three year old. I was in the front row)
Giordani: (with a puzzled look) Are you a tenor...from Argentina?!
Me: Yes! (two octaves above my speaking voice. Again, like a three year old)
Giordani: De donde? (from where)?
Me: Buenos Aires. (heart still not beating really)
On top of all this, the audience is having a great time-they think this was planned.
Giordani: Come up?
Me: (and I cannot believe I actually said this to Mr. Giordani) Are you kidding me? (Again, two octaves higher...)
So as I was walking on stage I keep telling myself, “this is not happening, what is happening? Is this for real? I gotta be dreaming. Am I dead and did I make it to the gates of heaven?”
We shake hands. As we are shaking hands...
Giordani: there THEY are? (Looks out into the audience)
From the audience I see the TWO tenors he was talking about. OBVIOUSLY, I was not one of them...somebody unintentionally crashed a world famous tenor’s recital-me! When I saw these two gentlemen coming towards the stage, I thought, “I am so fired.”
One of the tenors was from Cordoba, ARGENTINA. To my defense, what were the odds of having two Argentine tenors sitting in the same audience in Dayton, OH? (I’m playing the lottery after this.)
So off we go, the music stars and the lyrics instantenously combust in my brain. I took a deep breath and found them again.
Line up: Italian tenor, me (the unplanned tenor), Giordani, the planned Argentine tenor.
We each sing a phrase with the great Giordani singing the famous B section. As I’m singing, “Pe' ll'aria fresca pare già na festa. Che bella cosa na jurnata 'e sole,” I see and hear Mr. Giordani mouthing me the words. I asked myself, “ why is he doing that? I’m a tenor, I know it...” BECAUSE HE DOES NOT KNOW YOU! He doesn’t even know if you can carry a tune! That’s why Matias!
You might be asking yourself, “So, how did you guys do the end?” We took turns, like at the good ol’ Three Tenors concerts. We each sang, “sta ‘nfronte a te!” and held the last note...
Mr. Giordani graciously let us take a bow and we all got a standing ovation. And no, I am not making this up, an audience of two thousand can attest to this. Of course, I’m still walking on clouds. Thank you Chuck for the great sitting arrangements and thanks mom and dad for my nationality.
Thank you Mr. Giordani for your kindness and letting me share the stage with you. I am humbled and honored. Today was a day I will never forget.
Talk about being at the right place, at the right time...at the right row, and from the right nationality.

End of outreach-Dayton Opera 2012

Tomorrow marks the end of our first week of outreach. We have seven more weeks of it and today I asked myself as I was driving back from our afternoon show, "what is the importance of outreach?" Well, that got me going. I don't even know where to begin. Opera, like many other art forms, has become a foreign art form to today's youth. Art programs are being cut left and right all over the nation, the economy has put a damper on the proliferation of the arts, and the media is over-saturated with bad music. Kids are not being exposed to the classical arts, something completely the opposite to my experience as a boy growing up in Argentina.
I grew up in a house where my mom was a guitarist, singer, and painter. She would also turn on the radio (yes, a radio, remember those rectangular heavy things that had an antenna and their name did not start with an "i"?) at night to the classical station, so that I would fall asleep to Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart. I grew up in a culture where the schools made it a point to teach us our folklore, most importantly "our" music and dance. Turning on the television and stumbling upon the "Three Tenors", a ballet, or an opera was an every day occurrence. In synthesis, the arts were all around me, like it or not. The good thing is that I happened to like them very much.
Nowadays, where are the arts? Where are they hiding? Who is hiding them? and, why? It is sad that when a program needs to be cut, music is the first one on the list. Sad because music is culture and history. When you deprive a child of a music program, you deprive that child from gaining an artful insight into his culture and that of the world. Also, and I based this on my experience in junior high and high school, singing in the choir was not "cool."
Oh, the media! Excessively saturated with synthetically produced music that resides behind a pair of headphones, performed by “artists” whose shelf life expands from their teens to the end of their...teens. Yes, there are good pop artist out there. They write their own lyrics and music and some are brave enough to create their own style. Unfortunately, most teen idols are created in a mold, a mold that is hard to break, a mold that turns them into somebody’s big paycheck. Worst of all, a mold that comes with an expiration date on it.
Opera singers stay out of the mold. We strive to become our own artist in order to add variety, singularity and diversity to the art. We strive to do justice to the score, to the composer's vision, to the librettist's text. We aspire to be the muse’s voice. We long to add our own touch to an artform that expands hurndres of years- deeply rooted to history, culture, and traditions. We do not do it for the money or the fame. We do it because it takes us to a higher place. It lifts us up from the mundane and it keeps us away from the “molds.” As far as our expiration date? Just like a good wine, as we age we get better (hopefully).
Thirty minute television shows, forty minute school periods, the ability to skip onto the next track half way through a song; they all add up to “short attention span.” Kids have been trained to stay focused only for so long and not just that, to click “next” when they do not like something they see or hear. So how can we get a child to appreciate a one hour symphony or three hour opera? How can we get a child to appreciate a “live” singer over one that sings to them from behind their earbuds? How do we expect them to react to acting and singing when it comes at them from all angles, unedited, not digitally enhanced, not artificially amplified? The important answer is exposure, it’s outreach!
Sometimes, when I am on stage, I take a quick glance (without breaking the fourth wall of course) at their faces as my colleagues sing a high note, sing fast coloratura, dance and sing at the same time, sing in Italian, French, or German, and what do I see? Amazement and confusion, all good states of mind. It is a wonderful thing to see a child smile at us from the audience and it is a humbling experience to see their confusion, why? Because it means that they have witnessed art, “live” art, for the first time. Amazement and confusion go hand in hand. I’m pretty sure that I had an amazed/confused face the first time I heard the “Three Tenors,” but God knows how much that has changed my life.
We owe it to the children to let them experience what we experience everyday: the joy of music, of making it, of being “it.” Singing opera has changed my life. I live a life full of meaning, direction and purpose- all thanks to exposure. I have also experienced many hardships as a child, but music is what kept me going, what kept me from turning to the many evils that can hurt a child. This is why outreach programs are extremely important. These programs plant the seed of curiosity, a seed of a dream, a seed of a future. They keep the artform alive and in return we inspire the next generation. All I need is one amazed/confused face from the audience to know that I have done my job.
Expose your child to art, to music, to opera...and watch their faces, you’ll be amazed ;)