Musical America Blogs

Janice L. Mayer

photo credit: 2007 Clive Grainger

Joyce Castle is a chameleon, or perhaps in operatic terms she should be classified as a ‘Camille-ion’:  a leading singing-actress capable of moving from one nuanced portrayal to another carefully drawn characterization by utilizing her consummate theatrical skill, musicianship and vocal resources.  If she were a soprano, certainly Verdi’s tragic Violetta (the operatic version of Alexandre Dumas’s 1852 novel La Dame aux Camélias) would be within her grasp. But as a mezzo-soprano with a repertoire of gypsies, witches and one meat-pie baking loony, ‘extreme makeovers’ are often required.  Last week for example, she moved from the Queen of the Fairies in Patricia Birch’s fully-staged production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe with the San Francisco Symphony directly into rehearsals as the Mother in Menotti’s The Consul for Glimmerglass Opera. How does she make these transitions? I went behind the scenes to do some research.  After all, in last week’s blog some of opera’s most character-full tenors shared their tricks of the trade. Time to hear from one of the ladies, I think.

Joseph Frank in last week’s discussion spoke about languages being incredibly important in creating a character in opera.  Joyce Castle agrees.  “Languages are a skill to be reckoned with for most Americans,” she said. “I had to concentrate really hard on the pronunciation and then learn the languages so that I knew what I was singing about.  Coming from the Midwest, I had two years of Latin; that was all of my public school language training. Eventually I moved to Berlin for a short time, and then to Paris where I went to the Alliance Française every day.  Meanwhile, I was doing everything in French. Sometimes I would wish that I had been born in Europe, I mean how many languages does Nicolai Gedda speak…is it ten?” These days, I encourage my students at KU to attend summer immersion programs in languages in France or Italy.

With more dialects at her beck-and-call than Meryl Streep has films, Joyce Castle moves from Gilbert & Sullivan’s outsized Queen of the Fairies (in a largely British cast – sure, no pressure!) to Queen Elizabeth I in Britten’s Gloriana which she performed in the first American stage production at Central City Opera a couple of seasons ago, to Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd which she first performed in Hal Prince’s  production and then on to Mrs. Bertram in Jake Heggie’s opera The End of the Affair which was based on a Graham Greene novel. And let’s not forget Scottish Meg in Brigadoon which she performed at the New York City Opera opposite Broadway veteran Tony Roberts. Many American actors would not make a clear distinction between the various English dialects. “I did a lot of work early on. I first trained as an actress with the works of Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw. So I think of the Queen of the Fairies as speaking in heightened stage English.  With Sweeney, I had to hire a diction coach to learn Cockney and listen to tapes. But then Hal Prince cautioned me to pull back a little; that ‘it has to be clear’ and told me that he said the same thing to Angela Lansbury when

she performed the role on Broadway.  It can’t be too much or the audience won’t understand me. One can’t possibly know all of the regional accents such as Mrs. Bertram’s English seaside dialect.”  With a wink, she offers that she wouldn’t “have to work too hard for a Midwest or an East Texas dialect, but there aren’t too many operas set there!”

“Diction is unbelievably important to me.  I want to be understood in German and French or I can’t tell the story. And I have to tell the story. Once I know where I fit into the story from my vantage point, then I can find my way through the labyrinth.  And then of course, if I’m in the character and know what the other people on stage mean to me, I’m home free – really safe – and I can enjoy myself.”  

I asked the mezzo-soprano if she goes back to the original source material when she is portraying an operatic character that has been drawn from another medium? Claire Zakanassian in Von Einem’s The Visit of the Old Lady, which was first a straight play, comes immediately to mind.  “I read the play and go back to any original material I can find.” That amounted to a lot of research when she portrayed Queen Elizabeth I.  I had a friend stay over and after looking at the bookshelves in the guest room, I was asked if “I ever read anything that was not about Elizabeth or the Tudors?! And I read a lot about the life of the Carmelites when I originally prepared for Mother Marie and then later for the Old Prioress in The Dialogues of the Carmelites. At Glimmerglass Opera I had the good fortune to be directed by Tazewell Thompson who drew on his wealth of personal experience having been raised by nuns in a cloistered environment. He had first-person experience in that setting which he was able to bring into the rehearsal room. In Santa Fe, I would go by the Carmelites convent and watch them – and, well, er see what I could see.  Well you don’t see much, and that tells you something too.”

Darren Keith Woods spoke of observing people moving in Central Park for hours at a time so that he could incorporate individualized stances and walks into his characterizations.  I asked Joyce Castle how she developed the physical side of her characters, especially given the wide age range and socio-economic differences of the women she portrays? “Observing is good,” she concurred. “When I was in acting school I would sit in bus and train stations, and cafes to watch people.  Actors need to be observers.  I don’t plan my gestures, except in musicals where there might be a set movement. My physicality comes from knowing the character.  The body will work with the inner story of the character; everyone has physical inner instinctive knowledge and if you plug into that emotion then the body will follow.” Just this week alone she moved from a fictional royal fairy frolicking with young dancers culled from the San Francisco Ballet corps to an elderly war-worn mother behind the iron curtain. I can only imagine that this must be a physical challenge as well as a musical one.

As Augusta Tabor, which she will perform in her eighth production of The Ballad of Baby Doe this fall, she has been confronted with an Augusta with varying degrees of physical limitations. In her first production she was wheelchair-bound by the final curtain. I wondered how this restriction impacted on the character. “Augusta is old and weak by the end of the opera. Even when she walks, she doesn’t walk that well.  That impacts then on how you get up from a chair.  I’ve seen my mother get older and have been in nursing homes and I go back to observing.  Of course, if it is your mother who is becoming more fragile and you’re doing Strawberry Fields (Michael Torke and A.R. Gurney’s opera premiered by Miss Castle at Glimmerglass) and you walk in and sit on a bench, there are things that are inherent.”

Joseph Frank also spoke about musicianship and how he finds piano skills lacking in many of his undergraduate students because they are not given music instruction in public schools any longer. I asked Joyce Castle about her piano background having heard that she started playing at an early age. “I began studying piano at age six and then added cello and clarinet early on.  Later I played the tenor saxophone so that I could be in the jazz band and oboe because I thought it was a cool instrument. But I’m really a piano groupie and have even played my own piano solo as Begbick in Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and my own cello solo as Lady Jane in Patience. Musical skills are important to develop because then you’ll know how to count. I seem to have a strong suit in rhythm and I like math, which may be why I like to do modern music. I love tearing apart a new score.” The artist who recorded the Old Lady on the Grammy Award-winning recording of Candide added “I’ve been able to ‘assimilate’ roles very quickly as a result: Without missing a beat, I was onstage as Siebel at San Francisco Opera – my first professional role – thirty hours after being assigned the role for the first time.  I joined rehearsals – in Russian – at the Metropolitan Opera three days after being engaged and I didn’t know a note before. I was contracted for my first Baby Doe (Augusta Tabor) two days before rehearsals began. I remember asking Beverly Sills what she missed most about singing and she said ‘opening that new score’ – I couldn’t agree more – it’s thrilling!

Joyce Castle not only ‘heard’ Beverly Sills, she sang with her as well. And she most certainly ‘listened’ to Leonard Bernstein when she was invited to give the first performance of Arias and Barcarolles with him at the piano. She also listens on stage. “Listening is just everything. If I’m in the story I listen to others on stage and I’m listening to my own thoughts as the character.  The rests are also very important – they’re in the music too. They provide time for breath and punctuation; they’re part of the phrase that is emotion and drama-filled.

Other composers with whom she has collaborated are Michael Torke, Judith Weir and Ricky Ian Gordon. “Singing recitals keeps me honest and I give one every year:

1 singer/1pianist.” Often new music is included. “Ricky arranged some songs for me – put some instruments to them and that was fun! Jake (Heggie) came to see me and we talked a lot before he composed Statuesque, and he found a librettist in Gene Scheer who knew me well. Bill Bolcom is now writing a new vocal chamber work for me and we’ve been going back and forth discussing possible texts.”

In last week’s article Steven Cole, Joseph Frank and Darren Keith Woods spoke about the importance of makeup and costuming for artists performing character-full roles. Joyce Castle agrees, “When you look in the mirror and see a different look it gives you so much. I had a wig-fitting today at Glimmerglass and we were discussing which wig ‘fits’ how I feel about this character.” And costumes? Steven Cole would agree with Joyce Castle’s comment that “if you’re in a witch’s costume with a green tongue and a fake nose it will obviously impact on how you stand and deliver.” She adds, “It’s not the same as walking out in a black sequined gown and heels. Shapes will change you too. If you’re wearing hoops it affects how you go through a door and how you sit down. You have to wear them awhile in rehearsal to get used to it.  I prefer wearing clothes to rehearsal that would be like what my character would be wearing onstage.  I try to wear a skirt if my character will be in a skirt, or pants if it is a pants role. And I get my hair out of my face. It helps me and it helps the director see you in the story. Hats are wonderful too; the Cendrillon hats designed by Andre Barbe for my role of Madame de la Haltière were really funny!” I would say, literally over the top! “Shoes also make a difference in how you stand and walk. I need to be comfortable, but after that, I know that if I wear heels it will help me walk in a more stately manner and if I have clunky, oxford-looking shoes I will walk with a more measured gait.” Her most memorable shoes? Nary a false step here, she immediately named the “Thigh-high boots I had for my Met debut as Waltraute! Wow – running up that hill in those boots was really something!”

Joyce Castle has more than risen to many a challenge on stage, and as she anticipates celebrating the 40^th anniversary of her professional career, she looks forward to continuing to ‘climb every mountain’ – even those as high as Valhalla!

The China National Center for the Performing Arts has been open now for a year and a half. While Henry Sanderson’s recent article in the Associated Press covered the basics, I feel compelled both to amplify and correct.

Despite the Center’s newness, it shut down the second half of March, ostensibly for maintenance. However, a reliable source within the organization told me it was really because the marketing staff had convinced themselves that it would be too difficult to attract audiences during the period between the end of Spring Festival and other spring holiday periods and would rather just shut down. Vertical and horizontal integration in arts administration has not yet arrived in China; hopefully such team spirit will develop soon.

Though Sanderson states correctly that the complex is never expected to be fully self-supporting, I disagree with his statement that it gets next to nothing from corporate sponsors. The CNCPA’s development department, lead by Pan Yong, a former Kennedy Center arts management fellow, last year raised 60 million renminbi (US$8.8 million) in cash and in-kind sponsorships. Notably, that amount came 50/50 from Chinese and international sources. As of April, Pan Yong projected the need to raise 75 million rmb more this year, 40 million of which had been already pledged.

The CNCPA is also pursuing arts education and audience development activities full tilt. When we met in March, Director Chen Ping proudly explained that of the almost 1000 public performances last year, a third were not-for-profit “for the public good” presentations. In addition, there were 800 all-ages educational performances, with 320,000 in attendance; tickets for these weekend educational concerts cost the equivalent of just US$1.50. There were also over 400 lectures on classical music, plus several hundred more on other performing arts topics. The CNCPA may have endured a prolonged gestation; now they are trying to make up for lost time.

The National Symphony Orchestra recently joined the growing list of major American and international orchestras appearing at the CNCPA. My colleague Anne Midgette, who accompanied the tour, observed that what she’d expected to find in China but didn’t seem to encounter were huge audiences eager to hear Western music. However, she did feel she’d found a more discriminating, more sophisticated audience, and I think the absence of a huge audience for the NSO is directly related. The Chinese are highly brand sensitive. During the CNCPA’s inaugural season and a half, Beijing audiences have already heard the top orchestras in the world.  Audiences are now savvy enough to realize that there are status hierarchies between orchestras as well.

Midgette also wondered how the young audience members could afford concert tickets. In fact, many tickets are still sold to corporations or given to government entities or sponsors, who in turn give them away. The well-connected music-loving young and even not-so-young music lovers are expert in finding the freebies. As for those taped pre-concert announcements she describes, they hold a special place in my heart. Full disclosure: 11 years ago, my family and I visited the soon-to-open Shanghai Grand Theatre. Their artistic administrator, remembering my husband’s professional bass-baritone resonance, kidnapped him into the sound booth. His rich and amused-sounding voice welcomes audience members to this day.

When musical theater was called musical comedy, the creators had one goal in mind: to make the audience laugh. Today, as shows are often laden with drama and heavy-handed material, the music and lyrics naturally suffer, and the story takes over. It’s not that only comedies have good scores, but if the score is written around the story and not the other way around, the score may take a hit (or conversely, the score may lift otherwise poor musical text). Today’s musical comedies are often written with slapstick, pastiche-filled tunes, which are good, but writers who write dramatic and serious music receive more critical praise than do their comedic counterparts. Who are today’s great musical comedy writers and what does their music sound like?

Lucky for us, in addition to the number of great musical tragedies that have premiered over the last few years, there are a number of great musical comedies. This all came to mind as I began to unearth the script and score of The Full Monty, which I am music directing for ReVision Theatre  on the Jersey Shore this summer. Not only does The Full Monty have a great comedic script (by Terrance McNally), but its score (by David Yazbek) is quite superb too. Yazbek’s style is distinctly “Yazbek” and inherently comedic (but also touching), in the same way that Leonard Bernstein had his own distinct style of comedy music in Wonderful Town, On the Town, and Candide. Think about how many contemporary composers you can identify just by hearing his or her songs, in the way that you can identify a Gershwin, Porter, Loesser, Bernstein, or Sondheim tune.

Janice L. Mayer

Magic is synonymous with the unexpected, and discovering a treasure-trove of illusionists’ artifacts midpoint between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe was a real surprise to me. As I mentioned in last week’s blog installment, Dante’s restaurant is bedecked in period posters, one of which promotes “Lee Grabel, Acclaimed World’s Greatest Illusionist [in his] Famous Mystery Review with an All-Star Cast of Assisting Artists.”

That last phrase really caught my attention: “All-Star Cast of Assisting Artists.”  In the opera field, would we ever see a three-sheet in front of the Metropolitan or San Francisco Opera houses that advertised “Placido Domingo as Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci with an “All-Star Cast of Assisting Artists?”  I doubt it. However, the story needs Beppe to set the stage (literally), to provide contrast to Canio and to offer the audience some comic relief through his antics as Harlequin. As tenor Joseph Frank defines a secondary role “it is there to add color and interest to the plot,” and as tenor Steven Cole adds “to show another aspect of the leading character.” He elaborates, “I know that my role is there because the composer decided that at that point in the opera they needed my character for a particular reason. I have to discover how the composer perceived the role in each situation. Is my character there to show another dimension of the leading character, to add personality or comic relief, or to hold up the action while the audience has a chance to prepare for what is coming in the next scene? For example, the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel is there to illuminate the children’s evolution as they journey through the forest.”

I spoke with three established ‘character tenors’ in order to appreciate the role of the supporting artist more fully: Steven Cole, Joseph Frank, and tenor turned impresario – Darren Keith Woods, who is now General Director of Fort Worth Opera. Sort of our own Ping, Pang and Pong, or well actually two Pangs and one Pong (Ping is a baritone in Turandot‘s musically-tricky trio). Mr. Frank suggests that a supporting artist must “provide the foundation on which the big stars interact; you have to be someone that the major players will want around. Once you have gained your colleagues’ trust, you will heighten their ability to take chances.” Darren Keith Woods concurs, “we are there to take care of the principle cast.  They are there because they are great singers. The supporting artists have to provide dramatic variety and stability at the same time – to make sure that the show goes on. It’s next to impossible what these guys do.”

All of the tenors mandated arriving at rehearsal completely prepared and “with a bag of tricks.” Joseph Frank describes that “directors don’t have time to deal with secondary players.” Steven Cole sneaks a little time away from rehearsals for his first Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro to elaborate, “no one has time for me to make a mistake. Directors recognize that I am someone who is experienced and they assist me in determining my character’s boundaries.  Once they give me my orientation in the scene, ‘they can let me go.’ For example, I need to know from the director “when I enter the room, whether I know what is going on already or not?”  

Ever curious, now I want to peak inside their special ‘bag of tricks’!

Improvisational skills are stashed there, for one thing. Joseph speaks of listening as a critical skill. “I’m always engaged and listening on stage.  Even if it’s not your role, watch and hear what the other characters are doing and saying.” Darren agrees “you have to be quick and respond immediately. In the rehearsal process I was always discovering what I could build off of other colleagues and what they were doing in the scene.” 

And this involves physicality; number two in our collective bag of tricks. Darren uses the role of Mime in Das Rheingold to illustrate this point. “It’s a challenge to make this grotesque character seem real.  I think of his hands. Surely, they must be gnarled. How would he pick up things with his hands? On the opposite extreme, I worked with a Geisha to know how to move gracefully and operate a Japanese fan, so that my Goro (in Madama Butterfly) would be authentic.” “Artists have to know their bodies well,” agrees Joseph Frank. “I have never forgotten that the great director Jack O’Brien once said to me during Tosca rehearsals ‘Show us THE back.’ I realized then and there, that as Spoletta, I didn’t have to be looking downstage front to be a sinister character; my stance could create that impression.” However, the physical demands provide challenges to the singing as Darren describes “sometimes you have to contort your body, perhaps walk hunched over, which in effect closes off your chest. You have to learn how to get your support mechanisms to work in order to be able to still sing.”

Ahhhh singing. These characters appear in operas, after all. Mr. Frank, who teaches voice at San José State University along with continuing his international performing career states “you can’t bark your way through character roles.” ‘Comprimario’ does not mean vocal compromises are allowed; “the Tanzmeister (in Ariadne auf Naxos) has to have a

B flat – PERIOD.” Mr. Woods agrees, “You have to have a beautiful sound.” Interestingly both Steven Cole and Joseph Frank came to opera from the concert world, and both continue to perform in concert and recital. “It keeps the voice fluid” according to Mr. Frank. Today with the increased popularity of Baroque opera, the catalogue of supporting tenor roles that require vocal flexibility has grown enormously. And a high level of musicianship can often open the door for a young tenor as it did for Steven Cole when he stepped into a concert-version of Eugene Onegin on 48-hours notice with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was still a student of Phyllis Curtin’s at Tanglewood when opportunity knocked.

Ariadne is traditionally sung in German, Tosca and Butterfly in Italian. Languages, yup they take up a big part of the bag o’ tricks. Joseph Frank makes fluency a priority. “First and foremost a supporting tenor has to have a great ability with languages. Often the words in our parts are sung fast and with accents and colors. For example, Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier has to sing Strauss’s score with bad German because he’s actually Italian.” Steven Cole admits that if he had his education to do over again, he would have studied languages, languages and more languages. “One of my first engagements was in Aix-en-Provence and I found myself singing a role in a Russian opera in rehearsals that were being conducted in French!” Yikes, I imagine that was quite a mind-bender for this American.

Speaking of American artists, what advice would these experienced artists share with a young tenor beginning to pursue supporting tenor roles? Darren Keith Woods remembers sitting on a bench in Central Park for two or three hours at a time simply observing people and how they walked. “I would also suggest finding people who have done these roles for a long time and get them to be their mentor. I covered Joseph Frank in three roles while I was a Santa Fe Apprentice and I asked him to coach me. I wasn’t shy about asking the great ones if they would help me with my character development. Not only did it help my art, but my first five or six jobs trickled down from the senior guys.” Continuing in the practical vein, Joseph Frank suggests learning to do your own makeup. “These days most regional companies cannot afford to import the level of makeup and wig companies we had when we were coming up, so learning to make yourself up is perhaps more important in these roles than in the leading roles.” Steven Cole also encourages young artists of all types to realize that they are a small business – each and every one- and that they have to understand the practicalities of finance and branding, just like any other small business.

Neal Ferreira, the 2009 recipient of Boston Lyric Opera’s Stephen Shrestinian Award for Excellence, is one of these emerging tenors exploring the supporting tenor category. Joseph Frank cautions that “you can’t back your way into character roles.” Steven Cole agrees that “you don’t become a character tenor by default.” Neal takes this advice to heart, as does Darren Keith Woods’s protégé Jamin Fabiano. Neal shared his story that he started as an actor in and around Providence (RI) and was reluctant to get into opera “because he thought it was not about real acting back then.” Former BLO General Director Janice Mancini DelSesto and the director of their Les Contes D’Hoffmann production (Renaud Doucet) “recognized my dedication to the theater in opera. They suggested that I explore character roles and I am grateful that they have opened this door for me by giving me my first major role, Spalanzani. I approach my characters as an actor and these parts, such as the Monostatos that I just took on in Boston’s Magic Flute educational outreach program; allow me to play a lot more. Of course I continue to study voice and to stretch my instrument. I’m just twenty-eight now and it has taken a while to get my voice up to my acting level.”

Neal’s questions for the experienced supporting tenors were about handling auditions and repertoire choices. Steven humorously describes his repertoire as “hit it and quit it” roles. Joseph Frank adds that “character roles are the molecules of the operas. They are mini-operas. You only get one crack at them.” Darren Keith Woods concurs “character actors have to develop in five minutes what soloists develop over three hours on stage.” Auditions are a lot like that, so they’re great practice for character tenors. That mindset could really take some of the psychological pressure off of the audition situation. And their audition repertoire reflects the breadth of the roles they portray. Steven Cole always used the Witch for his auditions, but that might be too big of a sing for some young performers. Aside from the Baroque repertoire, Joseph Frank suggests Pedrillo (Abduction), Tanzmeister (Ariadne), Arbace (Idomeneo), Triquet (Eugene Onegin), Shuisky (Boris Godunov), Hauk-Sendorf (The Makropolous Affair) AND the Magician in The Consul.

Interesting isn’t it, that a character tenor role brings the magic into Menotti’s opera and the comedy into Pagliacci?  So remember the next time you hear Canio exclaim the famous operatic phrase ‘La commedia e finita’  –  that there would have been no comedy without a dedicated supporting tenor crafting the role of Beppe!

By Andrew Hertz

There has been a consistent dearth of women on the production end of musical theater since its earliest roots. Of course, female actors have always been utilized and written for, but much of the canon strikingly lacks women in its production roster. There are only a handful of women writers (Mary Rodgers, Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman, Lynn Ahrens, and Jeanine Tesori, to name some of the few), however, the prevalence of women in musical theater, is still not up to par (although the talent is).

The Washington Post featured an interesting article last month on the “rarest role in musicals, the female director.” Last evening’s Tony Awards were chockfull of male winners in categories where a male or female could have won. Yasmina Reza won the Tony for Best New Play for God of Carnage, but otherwise, men swept the Tony Awards for best direction, choreography, etc., both for straight plays and musicals. As a field that has always been accepting of groups that are marginalized, women have still not found equality (save actors), even in the musical theater world.

Janice L. Mayer

How many of us remember Lily Tomlin center stage on Broadway portraying her loveable character, bag-lady Trudy? She held up a can of Campbell’s soup in one hand and a print of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can in the other and pondered “This is soup and this is art. Art. Soup. Soup. Art. No, this is soup and this is art.”

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend I drove with friends from Sacramento along Route 5 to Lake Tahoe. We stopped for lunch at an Italian Restaurant, Dante’s, en route. I should credit their recent stellar write-up in the Sacramento Bee for our dining choice, but actually it was because they were dog-friendly and my usual sidekick, Fiona (a King Charles Spaniel), was along for the ride.

Dante’s chef and owner, Kevin Cairns, was an amateur magician and his penchant for illusion is evident in the décor. Period posters promoting acts such as “Lee Grabel Acclaimed World’s Greatest Living Illusionist” line the walls and his tricks-of-the-trade are in showcases. These days Kevin’s magic happens in the kitchen where he masterfully slices sausages in half instead of svelte assisting artists. We certainly appreciated the results of his culinary art, and the enthusiasm in his son Dante’s presentation of a couple of magic tricks taught to him by his Dad. (A third trick is still being routined; it may be ready to showcase, if you drop by later this summer.)

How and what we choose to showcase as art has been a question for me for many years now.  As a former exhibitor at Western Arts Alliance and the trade shows sponsored by the many presenting service organizations in America, the question was raised in my mind time and time again.  I will never forget the WAA conference where my booth was directly opposite an agent representing a magic act.  As an animal lover, I was distressed watching the video loop of a bunny being shot out of a canon over and over again. I finally had to ask about the bunny’s welfare, and was comforted to learn that there were actually two look-alike rabbits used in the act! (Shhh, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.) As a small business owner and an artist manager representing thirty-six classical musicians, I was appalled. Needless to say, having a circus barker on the aisle deterred many a prospective presenter from traveling down our row. And those that did ‘brave it’ were not really oriented toward presenting the carefully curated vocal recitals that I was offering. I had a similar experience at the Midwest conference another year when I had the ‘good fortune’ to be assigned a booth next to giant puppet-people.  It took an intrepid music-lover to get around them and talk with me about Schubert!

So do we draw a line between entertainment and art, and if so, where? Should the shows be juried? And if so, what artistic authority draws the line in the sand? I think most would consider the legendary Salzburg Marionette Theater to be an artistic enterprise, but then what about my encounter with the grotesque giant puppet people? Is sawing a ‘Vanna White-esque’ magician’s assistant in half, art? What about ripping apart a young apprentice in ‘The Donald’s’ Boardroom on his hit television show The Apprentice – art or entertainment (or, dare I suggest, neither)? As proposed by some song words from Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, do we need to present “Something for Everyone?” And if every form of amusement exists co-equally, then is there still room to contemplate the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen on our own artistic journeys as Gustav Mahler would suggest?