Prima la musica

Warwick on Rigoletto (and the rest)

There are things you can do on a blog that you couldn't do anywhere else, and one of them is post a 3,137 word long interview without any cuts. Why? Because Warwick Fyfe is so damned fascinating, and so very funny, that, since I'm not required to chop his responses down to size, I'm not going to — you all deserve to read everything he has to say, about Rigoletto, Sigourney Weaver, bananas, Benny Hill and more. Much, much more.

So pray, read on. It's a long one, but the time will fly, I promise. World, here's Warwick. 

Allerta

Towards the end of March, while knee-deep in Bliss, I was interviewed by the lovely Annarosa Berman for Opera Australia's email newsletter, Allerta! We talked obsession, #donotmissBliss and fairy godmothers, among other things. That interview is now online, so if you're so inclined, you can read it here. 

Welcome to anyone who's discovering this blog for the first time on account of the article. If my brand of madness suits you, I hope you'll stick around. And to the party faithful, I promise something semi-substantive in the near future. Though I should warn you, it will probably be about Bliss. 

Jane Parkin

A couple of years ago, I ventured out to Parramatta for OzOpera's Madama Butterfly. It was a worthwhile excursion for a number of reasons, but my own motivating factor was a certain soprano named Jane Parkin, whose appearance in the finals of the McDonald's Aria competition had left me keen to hear more. I loved her Butterfly and have remained a fan ever since. 

Fast forward to 2010 and Jane is now a member of Opera Australia's Young Artist Program and currently appearing as one of the Nurses in Bliss, whose Melbourne season opens on April 20th. She's also been covering the role of Lucy Joy, Harry's daughter, and in fact sang that role on closing night in Sydney, when Taryn Fiebig was unwell. (And, I might add, she did a pretty fantastic job of it.) Jane's been kind enough to answer a few questions about the Bliss experience and about life as a Young Artist.
 

This year you're a member of Opera Australia's Young Artist program. Can you tell us a bit about how that came about, and about what the program entails? 

I had been working at Opera Australia and interested in the Young Artist program for some years but participants had previously always been invited and I’d never had the chance to apply. Last year Opera Australia opened it up to a nation-wide competition and I thought “Just do it - here’s your chance.” It was difficult because it involved several stages of auditions in Sydney over a number of weeks, and it coincided with final rehearsals and opening night of the Ozopera Butterfly in Melbourne. Two other finalists and I were flying back and forth from Sydney to Melbourne, doing 14 hour days of rehearsals, travelling and coachings. We were absolutely exhausted by the end of it. But it was totally worth it - the program is great.

In addition to the roles and covers we are assigned for the year, we have music and language coachings with OA staff, masterclasses and lessons with visiting artists, movement, dance and fight classes. We also have our own recital and concert programs throughout the year, so it keeps us pretty busy. It’s fantastic getting such intensive individual training. 

In Bliss, you've been playing one of the nurses while also covering the larger role of Lucy, Harry Joy's daughter. How do you go about balancing the two? How does your rehearsal process, as a cover, differ from that of the singer cast in the role? 

As a cover you will generally start rehearsing the part after the cast rehearsals have been going for a while. This is really helpful in that you can observe the cast first and then try it out for yourself on the floor. However, you do have to have the part musically prepared from the first day of cast rehearsals, as you may be needed to step in should your cast member be sick in the early days of rehearsal. I had that happen to me a couple of years ago when I was thrown into a rehearsal room run of Act I as Frasquita in Carmen. I particularly remember a fight with Morales that consisted of me rushing at him and then frantically following his muttered instructions – “tussle with me…now grab the gun…now flourish it… and run off that way…no THAT way!” 

Sometimes covering a part in a show that you’re also performing in is tricky as you might miss some of the action while concentrating on your own plot. But in Bliss doing the two parts worked really well - I was there for all the early rehearsals doing Nurse 2, and as the part is small and self-contained I had plenty of opportunity to observe Taryn’s part once my scene was done.  

Several members of the Bliss cast have spoken about the challenges of learning abrand new opera. How did you go about preparing your two roles? Were there aspects of either you found particularly challenging or particularly appealing? 

I am sure all the members of the cast would agree that there was a moment where everyone was looking at the score and thinking it was impossible. It’s a rich, dense and very difficult score, but I think the final product is amazing.  

I had sung Nurse 1 in an initial workshop and swapping to the other part in that scene sent me utterly mad at first because of the way the parts overlap. Even on opening night I may have accidentally sung one of Teresa’s notes with her. Also when we first added movement to the scene, coordinating that with the speed of the Nurses entries made for a patting head/rubbing tummy-like situation that quite undid us at first. Now I love our scene – we have fun with it.   

 On closing night of Bliss in Sydney, Taryn Fiebig was unwell and you had the chance to sing the role of Lucy Joy. How much notice did you have that this was going to happen? What was that evening like?  

I had seen Taryn the day before so I knew she wasn’t feeling well. I got the official call-up at 10am on the day and I was feeling pretty calm and confident until I went in for a rehearsal on the revolving stage at 5pm. My first entrance I stumbled on the edge of the revolve, nearly fell over, grabbed Peter, looked into his face and promptly sang all my “Stay Dad” lines in the wrong order. After that I was utterly terrified. But I calmed down during the first few scenes and managed to really enjoy the rest of the show. Although I had a thumping headache at the end of the night- too much concentration I think! 

You're about to begin the Melbourne season of Bliss. What's the feeling like among the ensemble as you head into a second season? 

It’s always strange going back into rehearsals for a piece you’ve just performed, but in this case I think we will enjoy the opportunity to keep tweaking the show. It was such an enormous effort from everybody to get it together for Sydney so I think we’re all happy to ‘wear in’ our Bliss shoes a little longer to get them nice and comfy.  

I see on OA's website that you're singing in both A Little Night Music and Rigoletto this season. Any other future plans you can divulge?  

I’m performing a role in the world premiere of an opera called Gabriel as part of the 2010 Australian Trumpet Guild convention in July at the Opera House. That should be really interesting. There are a few more covers this year and some things in the pipeline for next year but that’s all I can say for now. 

Jane Parkin appears as Nurse 2 in Bliss at the Melbourne Arts Centre from April 20th to May 1st. Information/bookings here.

Warwick on Tosca

The Prima la musica baritone interview series continues! (Although actually, the next one will almost certainly be with a soprano.) Warwick Fyfe has just finished up a long Sydney season of Tosca, singing the Sacristan right up until the final performance, in which he made his role début as Scarpia. He'll soon be appearing as the Sacristan in the show's Melbourne season, but in between, he was good enough to answer a few questions about his Tosca experience. 

It's a pretty long interview, this one. We do these via email, so I sent off my questions and was surprised — and delighted — to receive such detailed and fascinating responses. A more ruthless publication might have been obliged to edit for space, but I have no such restrictions; all I've done is split the post up, so just click the link after the first part to read the rest. You'll be glad you did. 
 

  

You've been singing the Sacristan in Christopher Alden's rather unconventional Tosca for about three months now. Can you tell us a bit about the demands of this production, and about Alden's take on the way this character fits into the opera?

As the Sacristan, once I’d got used to simulating the making of coffee (employing the one method I don’t use at home – I have plungers and a small espresso machine in my kitchen!), the only even slightly difficult thing I had to do was hand out the blooming lottery tickets which would always fain stick together, and the desire to oblige the choristers who were understandably in a hurry to get this bit of business over with in good before the climax of the Te Deum made me nervously fumble. The chair I had to sit on for a good long while on stage in Act Three was catastrophically uncomfortable and not in the least adapted to the requirements of generously proportioned buttocks, but pain aside, sitting can hardly be construed as demanding (the sheer torture of my immobility when attempting to render convincingly a dead Scarpia in my one performance in that role made every other physical inconvenience encountered in the show seem like luxury and put me in mind of that character in The Life of Brian hanging from the wall by chains in the dungeon saying wistfully how he dreamed of being put in manacles, just for a few hours.. Indeed I thought I couldn’t stand it after a while and seriously considered putting into practice my wife’s jestingly suggested expedient of simulating a violent death twitch to get me out of such and extremity if it arose! Somehow I got through, though). 

No, the most demanding aspect of the production for me qua Sacristan was nothing to do with physically awkward stage business or anything like that. Rather, it was to do with the dissonance between the reflection of a literal/traditional interpretation of the words, story and characters in Puccini’s music and the requirements of Alden’s production. The moroseness  required of the Sacristan by the latter was at odds at certain points with the music in a way I could not reconcile. Alden was at pains to keep “acting” to a minimum so that I daren’t do so much as flap an arm to emphasise a point and had to confine myself to creeping about sullenly if I was to avoid censure. And this MUST affect the singing. It is a logical fallacy to imagine that the singing and acting are separable. To act and sing in ways which are completely at odds with each other is impossible to sustain in practice, except perhaps in an ultra stylised production with no grounding in any sort of reality, such as a Tristan I saw at Bayreuth one year in which, while performing the love duet, the singers were obliged to carry out a series of bizarre angular chess-like manoeuvres. 

Anyway, at one point in rehearsals the then conductor (Licata) absolutely demanded more of the traditional Sacristan in the music at least than I could manage while skulking around like a peculiarly disagreeable tortoise. Rather than giving occasion for a tiresome and time wasting outburst, I cast an appealing look at the director and I thought received his tacit consent to fudge it, for want of a better word, that is to say, give a little more of something like what the conductor wanted while still doing the director’s production insofar as I was able. To be honest, more trad Sacristan stuff has crept back in during the course of the run, or at least more humour, and this has met with approval in some quarters as being a helpful contrast to the darkness of most of the rest of the score. I’m even flirting with the idea that Puccini may have been right… 

I tried on several occasions to discuss with the director and others the phenomenon whereby seemingly nowadays absolutely anything goes on the production front and yet the music is considered sacrosanct. It may be argued that this allows one to have one’s cake and eat it – innovation in visual matters but something like an authentic experience on the musical level. (I should say that I for one would be against the next step of radical tinkering with music as anything but a rare experiment in a festival or something.) But as I attempted to explain to Alden when trying to discover how to make my little role work in a way radically different from that which I pursued in the old production which was so familiar to me, sometimes one simply cannot do both. Production affects musical performance. It just does. Another straightforward example is the Gaoler section which I perforce perform with much more harshness than I otherwise would because it has been tacked onto the Sacristan and must therefore be all of a piece with it.