George Shirley
Dominique-René de Lerma:
In a recent exchange of emails, Professor emeritus (University of Michigan) George Shirley validly stated that opera goers sought a musical
experience and were willing to suspend certain expectations toward that
goal. This becomes an obligation when viewing a short, rather stout
tenor (e.g. Luciano Pavarotti, but not Professor Shirley) as lover of an equally embonpointe soprano -- and if she is dying in the last act of consumption, she better be in good voice!
There seems to be a relationship between physiology and vocal Fach
(further enhanced by the unlikelihood of a light-weight Brünnhilde in
her twenties). If the soprano is quite young, she might not only be
relatively petite, but also a coloratura, with a neck not yet as
extended as one by Modigliani. (A most dramatic exception is the video
of Catherine Malfitano, superbly acting and singing the role of Salome,
managing the bass clef demands and even going so far to remove the
seventh veil!) Not so the mezzo or contralto, who are best a bit large
at least -- after all, these are mothers, old maids, or witches. And
the basses might be even taller and slimmer than baritones (how suitable
for Rossini's Basilio, while Mozart's Basilio is a slimy, conniving
tenor).
Then there is the question of race. For virtually the entire history of Otello,
the tenor has needed dark makeup, almost looking as if he moonlighted
in minstrel shows. So also Aida, but Leontyne Price had her natural
complexion as one of many assets.
What
would be said if Faust were dark-skinned to start with, or Mimì? In
this country's theater, a Black character often brings in ghetto
sociology and the heritage of slavery, but that seems an American
historical fact, present in endless applications. Avoiding it appears
as an Anglo comfort, a censorship. An addict of BBC's imports to
public television, I find it a great relief to witness a Black British
actor as just another cast member, with no reference at all to race,
even in the instance of a mixed couple -- this despite an international
drive by Michael Wright (UK) for greater minority representation in all
media. If credulity is already suspended in opera, why can Don Ottavio
not be a Black tenor? But if Don Giovanni were viewed as a Black man,
the myth of lechery would be immediately brought to play.
Side-stepping
that fact that many Baroque operas have plots based in Africa, racial
casting could be used as a subtle commentary if Figaro and Susanna (and
Antonio) were not Caucasian. And with productions revised so
enthusiastically (one of these days we will find that Orfeo played tenor
sax!), suppose Fidelio took place in Jim Crow South, with Florestan as a jailed civil rights activist, and the prisoners all Afro-American?
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Dominique-René de Lerma
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