by Robert Faires
Perfect, it’s called. Sublime. A pinnacle of the form, in the quality of its
craftsmanship, its appeal, and its artistic expression. That’s how Mozart’s The
Marriage of Figaro is described, and with that great a rep, it can be a little
daunting to artists who deign to give it life onstage. How do you do it
justice? How do you even begin to approach such a monumental work? That’s
precisely what a team of artists at the University of Texas has had to ask
themselves, as the UT Opera Theatre began work on a new revival of this
operatic masterpiece. Director Noel Koran and his four lead performers — David
Dillard (who plays Figaro), Crate Herbert (Susannah), Stephen Barrick (Count
Almaviva), and Suzanne Ramo (the Countess) — shared their answers with the
Chronicle.
Austin Chronicle: The Marriage of Figaro is one of the
biggies, one of the Everests of the form. I was wondering what place you think
it occupies in the operatic canon. Is it a Hamlet for opera? Is it that
universal, in what it means both to the general public and those in the opera
world?
Suzanne Ramo: Well, I think when the general public thinks of opera, the
first thought is, you know, the woman with the horns. Wagner. Then Puccini and
Carmen and things like that. I don’t think Mozart operas leap to the
mind of the general public readily. But for musicians, the Mozart operas are
right up at the top. They seem simple in a way, but they’re so complex, and the
characters are very complex.
Crate Herbert: You said the Hamlet of operas and I’m awash. I don’t
think you can make a blanket statement like that about any opera. Every opera
brings something so individual, so wonderful. There are the greats:
Boheme, Aida, Figaro, Barber of Seville… but when you do one, you realize why
it’s great and still being produced. For me as an individual performer, this is
an Everest because my role is really long, but I’m not sure the general public
considers it an Everest.
Noel Koran: I find a lot of similarities between Shakespeare and Mozart. In
Shakespeare, everything happens on the text — as opposed to, say,
Chekhov, where a lot of things are going on between the lines — and I find
that in Mozart. And it goes on so many levels, and the wonderful thing is that
it can be enjoyed on every single level. You can enjoy this music on a totally
superficial level and just listen to some of the prettiest tunes ever devised.
But the more you go into it and delve into the music and characters, the more
you find.
SR: Every time you listen to the music, you get a deeper understanding of it.
You realize how much of the character is in the music and how much is going on
underneath the singing, like in the first act, when Figaro and Susannah have
their duet, she has one melody and he has another. She’s saying, “Pay attention
to me,” and finally, he starts singing her melody, he does pay attention
to her. Everything you need is there.
NK: I could probably spend 10 to 12 weeks on Figaro and still just
barely scratch the surface.
CH: I feel the same way as a performer. Earlier today, Noel said, “How are you
feeling about things?” and I said, “I feel really good, but this is only my
first Susannah, and hopefully, if I am lucky, I will be able to do this role
again and I will be able to bring more to it.” Every time you do a role, you
can bring more to it, you can understand the character more. I feel I’m just
getting to know Susannah. It’s extremely humbling, it’s like having the great
opportunity of being able to do this role and at the same time going, “Wow, in
three years, I know I could do a better job.”
NK: It’s not gonna all be there the first time.
CH: Exactly. And it won’t all be there the second time. That’s the confounding
thing as a performer: You can only be so anal and be realistic.
Stephen Barrick: This is the second Count that I’ve done. I did the Count at
Baylor five years ago, and I think: How did I do it? There are so many more
life experiences I can bring to this now. At that point, I’d been married six
months. Now, I’ve been married almost six years. I’ve had so many more years to
learn about marriage and what it can be and what it sometimes can’t be.
NK: Figaro came rather late in my operatic awareness. I was in Wexford,
Ireland, with the Wexford Festival and they did an evening of scenes, and two
ladies sang the third act duet between Susannah and the Countess. All of a
sudden, I was absolutely struck with what an incredible jewel that music is and
how stunning it was. It’s a short piece but it says so much in those few bars
that I was just bowled over. I immediately went out and bought the whole opera
and fell in love with it. That was my first experience with Figaro,
struck by just the pure beauty of the music.
CH: I said to one of my coaches this semester, “When you listen to this, don’t
you think there’s a satiation point of how much beautiful music an ear can
hear? Don’t you think your ear should get full, just like your stomach does?”
Everything, even the recitative is beautiful. I mean, you go, “Gosh, everything
is so beautiful, I’m gonna be sick.” That made me remember Amadeus,
which made an indelible mark on my young mind, and the Emperor saying to Mozart
after Figaro — and I don’t know if he actually said it because they say
all sorts of horrible things in the movie that weren’t true — “There are just
too many notes.”
NK: You know, Mozart’s reply was, “Only as many as are needed.”
AC: There’s so much to deal with technically and emotionally, but there’s
also a historical burden a work like this has. Are there past performers or
performan-ces you’re aware of as you work on this?
David Dillard: I really like the idea of us being in the line of history
of all these different people that have done this. But I try not to listen to a
recording too much because then you start to sound like that person.
SR: It’s hard, especially as a young singer, not to get a performance in your
ear since we have these CDs and records to draw on. But you don’t want to start
imitating them. You want to make it your own. That’s been difficult for me, to
try and sing it like Suzy instead of Elizabeth Schwartzkopf or somebody. I have
the Schwartzkopf recordings, she’s one of my idols, but I listen to Lucia Popp
sing it and it’s totally different and it’s beautiful, so it can be done. It’s
been hard for me but thank goodness, finally I’m saying, “Stop that now. You’re
Suzanne Ramo and you’re singing the Countess, and you’re gonna do it like
Suzanne Ramo and not Leontyne Price or Kiri Te Kanawa…”
SB: And it’ll still be beautiful.
SR: Thanks. Yeah. It’s different, but that doesn’t mean it’s lesser. Bring what
you have to bring to the role. Make it yours.
CH: I find that’s the only way it works. I was told, “Oh, go see this video,
this one’s really great,” and I didn’t do that because I knew that if I saw a
gesture in the second act that I liked, I might try to appropriate it, and it
needed to come from me. I have a coach who says, “Crate, the best Susannah you
will ever do is the best Crate on stage.” That doesn’t mean Crate Crate, but
Crate as Susannah. That means my Susannah is going to be fundamentally
different from everyone else’s. No one is going to do Susannah the way I do
Susannah. And people’s decisions about whether they like that or not is, in a
lot of ways, out of my hands.
SR: If you get on the stage and you do your best, there’s always going to be
that little stinker in the audience who doesn’t like it. Well, if they can’t
listen with a fresh ear, then too bad. We can only bring ourselves to it. And
do our best.
AC: What things have you needed to do differently technically in approaching
these roles? Anything?
CH: Yeah. Well, I haven’t actually counted the number of measures that I
sing, but Susannah is the second longest role in the history of opera. It’s
really huge. It’s made me get really serious about the technique just because I
have to make sound for so long. My voice can’t get tired. My body can get tired
but my voice can’t, and that means that I have to sing correctly all the time.
If I do one thing wrong in the first act — and it can be very small — there
may be repercussions in the second, third, and fourth acts. I have to be on my
toes the whole time. I’ve had to become ultra-coccooned, going over every note
and passage and making sure that it’s all in my voice. It’s been a tremendous
amount of work but I’ve learned so much.
DD: I feel like for me, at my point, Figaro is a pretty forgiving part. I’ve
worked on two of his three arias for years, so I feel like it’s just a good
chance for me to do something real solid and not have to worry too much about
technique and be able to explore other areas of the character.
SR: You have to pace yourself, like an athlete would. This opera’s long. Hours
long. And Mozart has these amazing finales at the end of the second and fourth
acts. A 20-minute finale… whoa!
CH: We actually thought about ending it at the end of the second act.
SR: That was our idea.
SB: We could do the third and fourth act in the spring.
CH: It might work. Leave ’em in suspense.
SR: You want to leave them wanting more, right?
CH: To be continued.
SB: I’m more into my character than last time. The anger and frustration — the
Count is either yelling at people or conniving — I’m angry, I’m hitting
people. Emotionally, I can get so into it; it starts affecting me technically.
Then I have to go, “No, I can’t be doing that and killing my voice.”
DD: Yeah, whenever you’re emoting, especially anger, it’s hard to keep that
from having a manifestation in the voice, which is bad news. Drama has always
been a challenge for me because I’m a really laid-back person, so finding that
Beavis-type thing is hard for me.
[Laughter]
DD: I mean, Figaro’s not like Beavis, but that sort of energy.
CH: No, he’s not like Beavis. That’s Cherubino.
AC: Part of what I get from Mozart and this opera is effervescence and joy,
and I’d think that in addition to being a challenge, it’s also a great deal of
fun.
SR: It is. It’s very fun. We’re having a really good time with it.
AC: Which leads me into the second act finale.
SB: It’s an opera itself.
AC: For an audience member, it’s like a Christmas present within a Christmas
present within a Christmas present. You open it and here’s something wonderful
and, oh wait, there’s more wrapping underneath, and you keep going and going.
What’s your experience of performing it?
CH: It’s like a Christmas present within a Christmas present within a
Christmas present. But sometimes the wrapping is a lot more difficult to get
off. There are times it feels great, it sounds great, everyone is clicking, and
it moves and it moves and it moves, and there is an excitement, there is a high
that you get. Then sometimes, it’s like, “C’mon, voice, go up there, c’mon
voice.”
SR: I’m so amused by it. It makes me so happy, I’m on stage thinking, “This is
so fun.”
CH: And the momentum makes all of us perform better than we think we can. That
energy takes us all further than we could get on our own.
SB: When everything clicks and we’re all in the groove together, it is really
just incredible.
NK: The vocal excitement when things do click — and they have several times in
rehearsal — that’s truly exciting for me as a director. When they do, I feel
like a little child again. When they click, that is the magic of opera, a magic
no other performing art form can even come close to matching.
CH: That’s why we perform, for those clicks. That’s what it’s all about,
getting lost in what you’re doing, and when it’s over, just going, “God, that
was good.”
NK: It takes on its own life.
SB: We’re opera junkies.
CH: And there ain’t no cure. n
The Marriage of Figaro will be performed Nov 3 & 5 at the McCullough
Theatre, UT campus.
This article appears in November 3 • 1995 and November 3 • 1995 (Cover).