breaking on through

I was not exactly excited to sing in St Catharine's yesterday night. Mostly, it's because it's been a really long time since I put on a gown and sang Puccini - a year, to be exact. I haven't been feeling too great about my singing lately, either, which I'll go so far as to say is understandable after a very unsuccessful audition season and a nagging feeling that what I really need is to get back in the studio with a teacher who's willing to really kick my butt.
But it began well. It was a beautiful day. The drive west was spectacular, easy and in good company - I rode with Grenville, the violinist for the evening (which was in essence a sort of variety show, presented as entertainment at a wine tasting event for the clients of Investors Group of Niagara). We weren't sure what to expect from the event, having only been in contact via email with the presenter and the other acts.
I was pleasantly surprised. Also involved were Alchemy Unplugged, Mark Lalama of considerable and varied fame in his own right, and Elton Lammie. We had opera, popular Italian song, Beatles covers, original pop, remixes of Canon in D... and it was all gloriously mixed by an expert sound team resident to the venue, which was an enormous complex called Bethany Community Church.
That's right. I sang into a mic. And I sang to tracks.
It was my first Karaoke experience, and I can't say I was thrilled to be doing it. Principles aside, because certain things can't be avoided and I am all for entertainment value, my reticence had to do 100% with comfort level. I was afraid to sing with my full voice knowing it would be amplified, and had visions of horrible technical malfunctions, leaving me to sing a cappella, or worse, to someone else's track. I had never dealt with the prospect of an inflexible, conductorless orchestra - the recorded tempo was the tempo I was stuck with, whether it was the tempo I liked in my voice, and their interpretation of the music was the one I had to reconcile myself to, whether I thought there should be a breath here and a fermata there, or not. And if I needed an emergency breath, I'd better make up the time myself, because they sure weren't stopping for me. This, you can imagine, is a really frightening and uncomfortable experience if you are accustomed to things being the other way around. Orchestras normally follow soloists, and I am the soloist. How could this end well?
It ended well. It was a great exercise in listening. I pretended there was a conductor but that he was not looking at me, and I followed him as best I could. The monitor provided about as much orchestra in my ear as you can hear from the stage, and so overall, it approximated a performance within my realm of experience more than I could have imagined.
I was so thankful for the extremely warm reception we got, and the other artists did good business on their CD's. It's an idea I have been toying with, and the evening really drove home a point - audiences want to leave with more than a memory. They want to own their experience. I directed them to my website (which I am also overhauling), but music is not available for download there. Do I really expect them to continue to visit my Myspace page to listen to obscure 20th century music that I enjoy, and so do many of my colleagues, but has very little relevance to the audience that, like it or not, is much bigger and would rather hear me sing something they know?
Here is the impasse. I don't consider myself a crossover artist, though I sing musical theatre when I can and I enjoy doing this type of concert with other, non-classical musicians. I think my background as a classical artist is something I can bring to the table, and I want desperately to extend the audience for this music. But I have to remember that I am also an entertainer, and that my livelihood, my "life's blood", as Pavarotti (the legendary crossover artist - let's be honest - he was, at least a little) put it, is the audience. If they go away having been bored or alienated, I have failed. How to serve the music, and also serve the audience?
Perhaps a look at Pavarotti's ventures can begin to answer this question. I just finished reading the famous publicist Herbert Breslin's expose/bio on the great tenor. He tempered his concert repertoire with simple, moving popular song when he began to do arena concerts. O Sole Mio shared the stage with Nessun Dorma. It was in this way that his already considerable fame and his careful programming catapulted Nessun Dorma to nearly anthem status, and got it into the mainstream consciousness. Few people would consider that "modern classical music", but guess what -- it's 20th century opera. Yep. GO PAV.
So what if I made a little CD with some arias, Ave Maria, and some musical theatre, English art song, and maybe The Prayer? Who would crucify me? Certainly not last night's audience, and I bet I could sell a few copies besides to them. Have I compromised the value of those arias by juxtaposing them with "popera" and other music from popular genres? I don't think so; so long as I'm true to the style in every case, nothing is compromised. And that way, everyone's happy.