Chameleon?
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 40th anniversary of her professional career, she looks forward to continuing to ‘climb every mountain’ – even those as high as Valhalla!