Getting into Character

Off to Hawaii!

2009-07-08T00:52:00.003+08:00

I leave for the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival in about 8 hours! I'm looking forward to a musically enriching time over the next 3 weeks and will try to update you on what's happening with me while I'm there. Part of me is missing home already but another part of me is looking forward to making music again!

I will be back in Singapore for the month of August before heading back to NYC at the end of that month. I hope to catch up with the Singapore friends I did not have the chance to meet up with in August when I get back so let me know when you are free!

Take care everyone and talk to you soon!

Money, Money, Money

2009-06-28T01:50:00.005+08:00

Yesterday, I got paid for doing a 2 hour recording session for a couple of demos for the theme song of the Youth Olympics that will be held in Singapore next year.

I have to say ... it's a great feeling getting paid for singing after two years of being an unpaid music student!

I hope I continue finding performing opportunities that pay after I return to NYC. Afterall, I am making the transition to becoming a professional singer which means I would very much like to get paid for singing. There are some opportunites that require you to pay in order to perform. As good as some of these pay-to-sing opportunities appear to be, I have to be selective as I doubt I can afford to invest much financially in such performances.

It's probably impossible to earn a living just from singing alone but ideally, I eventually hope to be able to earn more from singing than from other activities like teaching or arts administration. New York offers more performing opportunities and that's why I want to stay there for a while more to sing instead of settling back here in Singapore immediately after graduation.

Singing is an expensive craft to master and perfect. I'm glad I've had financial support from various people in the last few years, otherwise I would not have been able to pay for my education.

My hope is that I will gradually be offered scholarships to be involved in programs instead of having to pay to be a part of one. It frustrates me when I get overlooked for financial aid because it means I have to pay to be involved in something. However, I tell myself I just need to keep working harder to become a better performer and hopefully one day, someone will appreciate that effort and offer me a scholarship to sing.

In the meantime, I plan to earn my money from whatever performing/singing gig I can find. I'm going into the studio again next weekend to record some songs for an original puppet musical based on Journey to the West, a famous novel of Chinese Literature. I sing the part of Monkey. I used to love watching the TV dramatization of it when I was a child so I'm really curious to see how the music for the recording turns out! It should be fun ...

And, it's paid!

A Little Tribute to Karen Carpenter

2009-06-23T00:44:00.015+08:00

I watched a wonderful documentary on one of my all-time favourite groups, the Carpenters, over the weekend and I was reminded of the reason I came to love music and singing so much. I have had many musical influences in my life but the voice of Karen Carpenter remains one of the few voices which touches me deeply.

The documentary is entitled "Close to You - Remembering the Carpenters". Below is the link to the DVD on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Close-You-Remembering-Herb-Alpert/dp/6304861702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1245695074&sr=1-1

Karen Carpenter possessed one of the most unique and gorgeous voices I have ever heard. I fell in love with her voice as a kid thanks to my dad who used to play Carpenters music in the car when we went out. I bought every cassette tape I could find of their albums (Since then, I am proud to say I have collected every single album they put out on CD in addition to various compilations, live albums, bootleg recordings and videos!) I listened repeatedly to their music and memorised all their songs. I never grew tired of listening to that voice which had such a haunting quality of immense vulnerability and yearning.

Karen's deep contralto was most at home in ballads that spoke of love. When she sang, you immediately understood the pain, the hurt, the happiness. It is a voice that easily brings tears to its listener. Her delivery was simple but the emotion in the voice ran deep, a quality I continually strive to have in my own singing. Her brother Richard understood her talent and surrounded it with arrangements that brought out the best in her voice. Together, they created and recorded a beautiful body of work that has stood the test of time.

Karen Carpenter died at 32 on February 4th, 1983, a victim of anorexia brought on by the scrutiny of the media. The world lost one of its greatest female singers. Although she was taken away at a young age, Karen Carpenter touched the lives of millions with her voice and will continue to do so through her recorded legacy.

Those of us called to be singers have to remember that the gift of music we have received is not ours forever, but while we do have it, it is our responsibility to nurture it and cultivate it and use it to touch the lives of those around us. Karen fulfilled this responsibility abundantly. As I approach the age Karen passed away at, I look back and hope I have spent these past 31 years wisely. I look forward to many more years ahead of me to sing and hopefully bring joy and comfort to those who want to hear my voice.

No words can adequately describe the memorable qualities of any singing voice and so I shall cease to use any further superlatives to describe Karen's. Here is an audio track of one of my favourite Carpenters songs "I Need to Be in Love" which incidentally was also Karen's personal favourite out of all the songs she recorded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBuZk-kRp4

I know I need to be in love
I know I've wasted too much time
I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world
And fool enough to think that's what I'll find

I hope you too will come to love this unique and amazing singer!

The Road Less Travelled

2009-06-14T23:41:00.009+08:00

In a masterclass that mezzo Stephanie Blythe gave in the Manhattan School of Music two years ago, she spoke of the loneliness she felt when she was touring and performing away from home. However, she added that being on the road has become much more tolerable after she got married because her husband now travels with her. Her story is hardly unique. Many opera singers eventually choose to base themselves in a particular city where they do most of their performing as this arrangement allows them to spend more time with their families.

When I left to study at the Manhattan School of Music two years ago, it was the first time I was studying and living outside of my home country, Singapore. It was the first time I was apart from both my family and significant other. The excitement I felt of becoming a full time music student in New York was tempered by my fear of not being able to adjust to a new life in a new country. Now, two years later, I have graduated from school and am making the transition into the life of the professional singer. My time in New York has been wonderful in so many ways. I have matured as a person and a performer and look forward to continuing this process of vocal, artistic and personal growth when I return to NYC this fall.

There were times over the past two years I doubted my ability to survive in this business. Coupled with the homesickness and yearning for Singaporean friends, family and partner, I considered giving up the desire to be a full-time opera singer and return to Singapore after graduation. I figured I could teach, find a position doing arts management or even go into sales in a music establishment and perform on the side. However, several friends convinced me that I should continue staying on in the US to audition for at least the next year and that what I probably needed was a vacation back home to cure the homesickness.

Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity to meet up with several groups of old friends; dinner with one of my best friends from junior college and her husband, a group of secondary school friends with their spouses and their growing number of children and finally, a group of former Singapore Youth Choir friends. Each gathering was fun in its own way and I'm glad that despite our hardly seeing one another, each group clicked right away and things felt comfortable and familiar.

Seeing all of them with their families and hearing about their jobs, I realise my life is so different from theirs. Part of me wants that comfort and stability and knows that I could be contented with that. However, I also realise that if I chose to do that, a part of me will always regret not accepting the challenge of walking the road less travelled. I would be lying if I said that I do not feel any apprehension at all about heading back to New York to audition. I am by nature someone who needs to have a plan for what lies ahead. I hate uncertainty (which probably makes professional freelance musician one of the worse jobs for me!). However, I am learning to let go of my constant need to feel in control of the future because I know nothing is certain about it and I need to live in the moment. God alone controls our future and I have to learn to trust that things will work out in His time.

I return to NYC in August to a life of a professional singer, without the comfort and familiarity of home, partner, friends and family. I know that there will be times I will feel discouraged and doubful of my abilities but I also know that there will be times I will feel confident and completely thrilled to be doing what I'm doing. My best friend said I was one of the few people she knows who is truly happy doing their job. And you know, she's right. It's not really a job for me. It's a passion. I feel especially alive creating a character on the stage. I enjoy the rehearsal process where I discover who this character is and flesh him out. I enjoy learning a piece of music and using it to express emotions and thoughts I sometimes find hard putting into words myself.

I will continue stumbling along this road less travelled. Each time I take a tumble, I learn a valuable lesson and eventually pick myself up again. Although it sometimes feel like I'm making this journey alone, I know technology keeps me connected to my loved ones in Singapore, in addition to the new friends I will make who are also walking this road. And if more people choose to take this path, it will gradually smoothen over time, making it easier for others to travel on it.

Developing a Bit of Character 1 - Don Basilio

2009-06-12T00:49:00.013+08:00

I had the opportunity in the last 10 months to portray 3 very different character tenor roles which I would like to discuss in the next couple of posts. The character tenor roles in opera are often the secondary tenor roles; these characters are often the side-kick, the clown or the villain, never the guy who gets the girl. Some singers are uncomfortable playing such comprimario roles as these characters often get little stage time within the opera and often don't have an aria to sing. Even if one was written for them, like in the case of Don Basilio from Le Nozze di Figaro, it is often cut in performance. This leaves the singer with not much stage time to create an impression which is why comprimario roles are sometimes regarded as ungrateful roles for singers to study and perform.

However, it is this very aspect of such roles I find an exciting challenge. How do you establish a strong presence with the little stage/singing time you have? One important lesson I took away from acting class is that there are no small roles, only small actors. Once you allow yourself the freedom and imagination to create a character away from what's indicated in the score, the possibilities become limitless.

Let's begin with Don Basilio, the music master in Le Nozze di Figaro. The idea to create a sexually ambiguous Basilio started during a summer program in Italy last year. I was given a handkerchief to play with as a prop when I was coaching the aria and soon, I found myself gradually becoming more loose physically as well as becoming increasingly limp-wristed (Somehow, twirling a handkerchief in your hand while singing a 4 minute long aria has that effect!). One thing that came out of that experiment was that everything I was doing physically felt mannered and somewhat pretentious, which I incorporated into my interpretation of Basilio's character. He is obviously a busybody, poking his nose into everybody's business and essentially just being a real pain in the ass bitch in the household.

I decided this compulsion to be in on everyone's business was a way of concealing his personal insecurities. He is very aware of his status as a servant in the household but tries to make himself feel superior by treating the other employees in the household as his inferiors. He tries to elevate himself to the status of the Count by putting on airs and adopting the mannerisms of the nobility. I also thought that playing him sexually ambiguous, by giving him what we would nowadays call stereotypical gay behaviour, would make for a more interesting and complex character. His position as music master acts as an indication of his sexual ambiguity. He could possibly not be sexually active, the one person in the opera who is not capable of finding love or lust, which leaves him sexually frustrated and increases his feelings of insecurity. His aria "In quegli anni" (which I got to sing for the production I did!) fails miserably in its intent to elevate himself. Instead of appearing wise as he hoped, he ends up literally an ass, as he describes using a donkey's hide to shield himself from danger and humiliation.

Basilio comes across superficially as a comic character but upon deeper consideration, his actions can be regarded as the desperate attempts of a man lacking true self-awareness trying to conceal deep insecurities about his sexuality and his social status.

Here is a youtube clip of Basilio's aria, In quegli anni:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srec8S6ZUNc&feature=related

Incidentally, my final Basilio performance was attended by the wonderful tenor Barry Banks who turned out to be dating the Cherubino in my cast. Barry Banks has been alternating with Juan Diego Florez in recent Met Opera productions and will be featured in several operas in its upcoming season. We were introduced and it turns out he himself has sung Basilio before! It was a real pleasure making his acquaintance!

I shall discuss another Mozart creation, Monostatos, in my next post. He proves to be an extremely interesting character too despite only having probably less than 10 minutes of singing in total in the entire Magic Flute ...

The Art of the Character Tenor

2009-06-09T23:59:00.011+08:00

I started off my second year of school in September last year with the very honest opinion of a faculty member that I would probably never get cast as the lead tenor at auditions given my diminutive physical stature and the size of my voice. Not an easy thing for any tenor to hear, especially since we tenors all dream of singing the big Italian verismo arias. However, three quarters of a year later, the sense of resignation and disappointment felt then have been replaced with an attitude of curiosity and excitement. The process of accepting the type of repertoire that I'm looking at now has been gradual but it has also allowed me the opportunity to learn more about the standard opera repertoire and my own performance abilities along the way.

I'm now actually exploring the character tenor repertoire. What exactly is a character tenor? Both Wikipedia and voice authority Richard Miller in his book "Training Tenor Voices", use the terms tenore buffo and Spieltenor to refer to "a tenor with good acting ability, and the ability to create distinct voices for his characters. This voice specializes in smaller comic roles". Wikipedia goes on to say that "The tessitura of these parts lies lower than the other tenor roles. These parts are often played by younger tenors who have not yet reached their full vocal potential or older tenors who are beyond their prime singing years. Only rarely will a singer specialize in these roles for an entire career." There is an obvious negative implication in that last description which I am not comfortable with as there have been several wonderful tenors who have specialised in these parts for their entire career.

Miller makes a distinction between the two terms, proposing that the tenore buffo has a timbre characterised by a throaty quality. Roles that fall into this category include Monostatos (Zauberflote) Dancairo/Remendado (Carmen) Goro (Madama Butterfly) Cajus/Bardolfo (Falstaff), Spoletta (Tosca) Guillot (Manon), Gherardo (Gianni Schicchi), Valzacchi (Rosenkavalier). He writes that the Spieltenor is the male counterpart of the soubrette, singing roles like Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Jaquino (Fidelio), Pedrillo (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail), Cassio (Otello), Beppe (I Pagliacci) and Vacek (Bartered Bride).

Over the past year, I have been gradually going into auditions and moving from positioning myself as a light lyric tenor to "selling" myself as a character tenor. And it appears that the new "sale" strategy seems to be working better because over the last nine months, I was given the opportunity to study/perform my first five full operatic roles (small roles but still, they are legitimate complete roles): Basilio/Curzio (Marriage of Figaro), King Kaspar (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Blind/Alfred (Fledermaus), Beppe (I Pagliacci) and Monostatos (Magic Flute).

So it would appear that directors and conductors see a character tenor quality in me. The opera department in Manhattan School used to tell us that the kind of roles we are offered at auditions are a good indication of what sort of repertoire we should be looking at. It looks like I have found my repertoire. Does that mean I am giving up the lyric repertoire entirely? Not at all! I still intend to sing it in my private practising and perhaps look towards a future Ottavio, Nemorino or Ernesto. Also, baroque and contemporary opera are two other repertoires that I intend to explore as I think my voice would be suited to those.

I leave you now with links to several interviews with tenors who specialise in the character tenor repertoire:

1) Jeffrey Halili
http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=5125&issueID=330

2) David Cangelosi
http://www.operawarhorses.com/2009/01/04/opera-drama-and-the-character-tenor-an-interview-with-david-cangelosi/

Finally, an article celebrating the comprimario singer, including several humorous anecdotes about character tenors Charles Anthony, Anthony Laciura and Nico Castel who had long careers at the Met Opera.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/_archive/41396/Comprimario.41396.html

MySpace Page with Audio Clips

2009-06-09T12:32:00.013+08:00

I just spent the whole morning trying to figure out MySpace as I was looking for a free website to post some audio recordings. I only figured out after an hour that I had to register as a musician/band in order to use the post audio feature instead of just a regular sign-up. I'm glad to say I now have 10 audio clips up there that you can listen to. Just click on the link in the right column.

Listening back to your own singing is always interesting. Things you thought you did well in performance sometimes make you cringe when you listen to it again. Other times, things you thought sounded like crap turn out to be not as bad as you imagined. Anyway, here are just some examples of the music I sing. Though far from being vocally perfect, I dare say the general spirit of each piece is pretty much there and I present them to you for your listening pleasure, warts and all!

Time for a website!

2009-06-08T21:01:00.006+08:00

Ok, I think I am finally done with the design for this blog. I spent a good part of this evening grappling with some of the features on blogspot and no, I haven't quite figured out what is wrong but yes, I managed to find a way around some of the problems I encountered. Honestly, if one has problems with supposedly idiot-proof sites like blogspot, one has got to be a pretty big tech-dummy, aka ME!

Anyway, I'm going to attempt creating a webpage for myself during the rest of June since I am now officially graduated from music school which means I am now supposed to be a professional singer which means I really ought to get a website for myself soon because everyone seems to have one now! Of course, that means I need to spend more time on the computer realising what a tech-dummy I am. However, it's something that has to be done and so I will just have to learn to do it.

I am considering using Dynamod which was introduced to me by a friend of mine back in MSM. However, I'm wondering what cheaper and user-friendly alternatives there are that I could consider. Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated!

Ok, you will definitely be hearing from me again about my website creating adventures. This blog is really meant for me to share my thoughts about everything that's related to me trying to be a working professional singer. I realise I have recently been thinking alot about this whole business of singing and gosh, sometimes, it's the only thing I find myself thinking about! Having an outlet to put these thoughts into words would definitely be helpful.

I hope you will join me on this journey. I don't really know where I am headed exactly and often, I find myself getting discouraged and I start questioning if this path is one I really want to travel. However, I also know there is nothing else I'd rather be doing at this point in my life. So, come along for the ride. I would love the company!

The rest of the Magic Flute cast

2009-06-08T19:33:00.010+08:00

with Pamina Alfonsina Molinari

with Tamino Neal Harrelson

with Papageno Jason Plourde

with Papagena Laura Shofner

with Sarastro Jorge Ocasio

And for some inexplicable reason, I just realised I never got a picture with Queen of the Night, Astrid Marshall ...

Monostatos with Bronx Opera

2009-06-08T18:45:00.022+08:00

Below are a couple of backstage photos from the production.

with director Ben Spierman

with the three ladies Helen Lyons, Shirin Eskandani & Leslie Swanson

Let's hope we make it this time!

2009-06-08T16:21:00.003+08:00

Welcome to my blog! I am Singaporean tenor Leslie Tay, a recent graduate of the Manhattan School of Music. Do join me for the mad mad ride through the incredible and crazy world of opera as I try to make my way through it!