Those of us who were around in the ‘90s can still remember the moment when Frank Lopardo forever secured his place in operatic history. It came in the form of the Deutsche Gramophone recording of Rossini’s Semiramide: Lopardo’s Italianate tenor voice cart-wheeled through Idreno’s music like the second coming of Manuel Garcia. Among Bel Canto enthusiasts, he was all we talked about. So imagine my shock when Lopardo confessed himself surprised that I was interested in talking to him: “You see, I’m not a superstar,” he said.
His humble statement reminded me that Lopardo’s career has been one of transition. Arriving on the operatic scene as a Bel Canto specialist, he eventually shed the leggiero label in favor of the beefier Puccini and Verdi roles. The transition pitted him against singers already established in this repertoire, and in an era that allowed only three tenors to share the operatic throne, his status suffered.
Many also feared for the survival of his essentially lyric instrument, and when the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced him as the tenor lead in last March’s performances of Verdi’s Requiem, I too became suspicious. But after the performance was over, the joke was on me. One of the two opera connoisseurs I attended with voiced his disbelief: “I can’t believe he doesn’t think he is a superstar.”
“He isn’t,” I said, “He is just a true artist.”
How did you arrive at your profession?
I studied Broadway at first, but my teacher, Dr. Robert White Jr., told me that my voice was too legitimate, and that I had a higher calling. When he suggested opera, it wasn’t apparent to me that I could sing at that level of artistic involvement. Eventually, I followed his advice, because I wanted to see if I had the discipline to master it.
Once I made that decision, the most daunting thing for me was facing the idea that for the duration of my professional life, I was going to constantly have my head in a book. I wasn’t a great academic, and now I was being pushed into becoming one.
It’s impossible to do well by this art form without becoming somewhat of an intellectual about it. Just by virtue of doing it all the time, you’re forced to become a diction specialist, a language specialist, and a better musician. Unfortunately, when I first started, I didn’t have all my ducks in a row. Singing isn’t an easy thing to make a living in when you are 26 years old, newly married, and trying to establish a family.
What kept you motivated in those difficult early days?
Actually, starting a family forced me to become more committed to my profession. I was 25 years old and still taking singing lessons when I got married. My singing wasn’t providing a significant income, and I became overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a young husband.
I spent whole days putting together audition packages, going to lessons, and entering competitions. Getting married gave me such tremendous tunnel vision, that I made a deal with my wife: If after three years, singing didn’t work out, I was going to start a house painting or sheetrock business. Between singing lessons, I worked in sheetrock and house painting, with the intention of potentially starting a business of my own.
How long did you have to sustain that situation?
Luckily, not very long. Eighteen months into our deal, I made my professional debut in the summer of 1984, in St. Louis, as Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. My motivation certainly wasn’t monetary, but having done odd jobs until then, that first paycheck meant the world to me. It meant that I was finally making a living as a singer.
And then your career just took off?
Yes! At the end of 1983, I got my management with Bruce Zemsky and Alan Green Artist Management, and they catapulted my career. In the fall of 1985, they didn’t just send me to Young Artist Programs, but to the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. By 1989, I had debuted at most major opera companies, always with Mozart and Rossini roles.
That became the repertoire with which both the public and critics associated you at first. Was that your intention all along?
I felt that earlier composers—like Mozart, Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti—were more conducive to the young singer. I also wanted to approach the repertoire in chronological order. Honestly, the Rossini roles that I became known for weren’t roles that I wanted to do at all. But they were a job and involvement opportunity that I couldn’t avoid. In order to work you often have to take what is offered you. The Mozart repertoire I was fine with, and I would have been happy to sing nothing else.
I can confidently say to a singer who wants to learn how to sing clearly and exposed to start with Mozart. Mozart presents a vocal discipline that is unique. Sure it’s exposed, but when your Mozart technique is intact, these things become part of your vocal arsenal.
This repertoire makes serious demands on the singer’s ability to negotiate coloratura. You show great facility in this department, and seldom break the line by aspirating.
My teacher was keen on me singing a legato coloratura, as opposed to an aspirated coloratura. This made my life difficult, but I think that a legato coloratura is more interesting and satisfying. Perhaps it’s less pyrotechnical, but it’s more on the note, and it creates a phrase. I did a lot of work in my mid-section in order to accomplish this, because it wasn’t just the movement in the throat, but also a breath attack in the body.
How do you place coloratura dramatically in opera?
There are many schools of thought on the subject. Did the composer intend for these figures to have true theatrical meaning, or are they merely pyrotechnical? How you go into that from a technical or intellectual point of view means nothing to me, because regardless of what the philosophy is, your responsibility as a singer is to execute [the figures] well.
At the moment in which the listener is receiving it, you have to sing it well, or at least make an attempt at it.
Some singers believe that they don’t have the natural ability to even attempt it.
Singers shouldn’t rush to assume that they don’t have what it takes to master coloratura. I think that they should do the work first, because coloratura comes after a lot of work, introspection, and technical application. Early on, it wasn’t easy for me either, and I had to learn how to do it.
Singing coloratura isn’t just a vocal question, but also one of breathing technique. It’s not just about if the voice can move, but whether you’re breathing properly in order to execute it. Learn how to place your breathing, and it isn’t an impossible thing to learn.
You left the Rossini repertoire behind to concentrate on Verdi and Puccini roles. What led to that decision?
Essentially, nature started making decisions for me. My voice got bigger and broader, and repertoire opportunities presented themselves. I think that is the ideal way a singer should choose repertoire: Once the voice displays the attributes that the role requires, as opposed to bending the voice out of shape in order to fit the role.
A singer shouldn’t feel responsible to sing all the music written for his voice type. There is no such a thing as: “I‘m an ‘X composer’ singer.” Rather, I sing the roles that are within my reach.
To say that I’m a Puccini singer is really incorrect. I sing Rodolfo, and this Rodolfo can credibly sing the Duke in Rigoletto—but can I sing Otello? Not all Verdi roles are created equal. That has been a misunderstanding with singers and the listening public, in the sense that they don’t understand the parameters of what is required for any given role. Just because you can sing one Verdi or Mozart role, it doesn’t mean that you must be able to sing the others.
What were some of the challenges you experienced during your repertoire transition?
Having sung those ornate roles for years, I did have difficulties when singing the new roles. Rossini’s melodic structures don’t translate well over to Verdi, and I had to relearn things I had accomplished very well in Rossini. From an orchestration point of view, you’re dealing with broader dynamics and instruments that you didn’t have to deal with before. Also, Puccini occasionally doubles the melodic line of the singers with the orchestra. While the voice can have overtones and it can cut, competing with the pit isn’t a good idea.
I try to hold my own, I have ping and good overtones, but I don’t try to compete with the orchestra or my colleagues. I just don’t have that kind of voice.
Incidentally, the last time I saw you singing in a big theater, I sat in the upper balcony, and you came across loud and clear.
A theater, if it’s acoustically sound, should bring your voice to the listener. Many singers have this misconception of projection, and it’s really important to understand that you have to work within the parameters of what nature has given you. Don’t blow out your instrument because you have repertoire aspirations. Once you can live with that, you can make better choices about your vocal longevity. It’s enough to sing within the parameters of your own body, because the spatial relations constantly change.
Say your teacher’s studio, where you train, is 15 by 10 feet. Then you go into a rehearsal room, which may have a tall ceiling. Once you’re on stage, you start changing things, because you don’t believe you’re being heard in this big space. But you can’t have different techniques to match different space dimensions. In fact, what you did in the studio will hold, if you allow yourself to trust it. Inhabit the immediate space around you—it will cut the orchestra and everyone will hear it.
Does your body give you signs when singing music that is not right for you?
I’ve been very meticulous about my choices, so I wouldn’t know first hand. I’m schooled enough in my knowledge of the art form to know that Otello isn’t for me. However, your body gives you indications if you are singing incorrectly. At the end of a performance, you may be physically tired, but the voice shouldn’t be fatigued.
If you don’t even want to think about singing in the next performance, this isn’t a good indication of a sound technique. You should be able to go back to the dressing room and sing a little. Just like exercise, the warmup period leads to a peak in activity, and then you cool down to create closure. My colleagues laugh when they catch me singing in my dressing room, and that’s OK. I’m simply making sure that my voice is still strong and on the right track.
To the envy of many, you’ve had the same teacher since the beginning. What made you realize that you had found the right mentor?
I met Dr. Robert White Jr., who has now recently joined the faculty at Juilliard, at Queens College 29 years ago. When I began to study with him, I found myself in the right place. While the tutelage I got from him was semantically right, the mentoring I got from him wasn’t just vocal. He befriended me. He was there for me, and I would’ve felt tremendously disloyal to consider going to another teacher.
Although I don’t see him as often as I’d like, he taught me to be a good technician, to be very auto-critical, and how to fix my instrument. He didn’t want me to be co-dependent, but rather, he taught me how to sing and to go out into the world and do it. That’s a sign of a great teacher: someone who will allow you to use what they have given you and to become a creative artist. I gather that some teachers like to keep their singers on a leash. That wouldn’t work for me.
You are lucky. Some singers change teachers every month.
I hear good singers, so they must be studying with teachers who are giving them the message. Ultimately, that’s the key: Are you getting the message? You’re talking about semantics, about translating verbally to another person how to do this, and that’s often where the problem lies.
Singers change teachers because they’re not getting the results that they want quickly enough. But if you go through five lessons with a teacher and it doesn’t work out, you just didn’t give him enough time. Many singers need an entire revamping, while they themselves just want to tighten up a few screws. A teacher who’s worth his salt is going to take the singer’s entire vocal health into consideration, not just help the singer sing a high “A” more securely. That is the holistically sound thing to do.
Do you consult with coaches when preparing a new role?
I haven’t been to a coach in 15 years. I used to get really frustrated by coaches, who charged me to give me all sorts of ideas and things to do. Then I would go to the theater and the conductor would say “Well, I don’t like that, do it like this.” I learn everything on my own, and then when I go to the theater, there are people who will touch upon it. They want things done a certain way, and that is fine.
I want to be responsible for my own choices, and I want to claim my own artistry. I work with my wife, who is a pianist, so when that first rehearsal rolls around, I don’t want anyone to see me with a score in my hands.
You don’t want to attract any negative attention.
Exactly! In the beginning, there were signs that showed I was a young singer, so I would get coaching from the theater. I hated being taken apart like that. After so many years of working with many conductors who grilled me to pieces, I don’t want to be called out for being unprepared.
Other than, perhaps, the particulars of the production or the desires of the conductor, there should be few technical things to be touched upon. Because of limited resources, few regional companies have a coach on board, and it’s unprofessional to assume they will be around to help you.
If you’re under contract and you know your dates, arrive prepared and show no weaknesses.
Through masterclasses, you have kept in contact with developing artists. Is there anything in young singers that troubles you?
The thing that I have found, mostly in Young Artist Programs, is a feeling of entitlement. This feeling of: “It’s a given that I’m going to be a professional singer, and I am going to sing this and that.”
I’m also concerned about young singers not only lacking humility, but also a sense of awe about the score that they hold in front of them. You are holding genius in your hands, and now it has come to you, like it has come to so many singers before you. That’s a tremendous blessing and responsibility, and you have been entrusted with it. The true genius takes place between the covers of the score, and not in your opening of it. Once this idea is instilled in you, your work ethic will improve ten thousand fold.
Until you can take the position of serving the art form, as opposed to the art form serving you, we won’t go far as an art form. Keep your ego in check, and put yourself in the position of service.
Have there been negative aspects of your profession?
The business has always been name-oriented, and because there was a period when certain singers were ready to move on, there was a need in the industry to fill that void. The business model of the theaters changed, and they weren’t concerned with the operas being presented, but rather with the singers appearing in them. Singers have become labeled, and a large part of the public goes to the theater because famous singers will be on stage.
There are many good singers out there, but the public is only aware of a few, by virtue of marketing. People have bills to pay and children to take care of, and in order to catch their attention, you have to throw Armani or Prada at them. Lots of creative musicians out there don’t necessarily have the money to spend on publicity, and that’s something that the public may be quite surprised to learn about.
And among the most rewarding aspects of your profession?
As a singer, you’re coming into the presence of tremendous inspiration. We open the score and we have no idea the process that the composer went through. Say, when you hear 10 measures come together and they blow your mind, they may have had this very same effect on the composer when he put it down. When you see all this music on the page, it’s just amazing! And for what God has given me for genius or intelligence, I cannot describe what it must be like to outpour all of this information across time and space. To us, and to the ether, and hopefully for future generations, it lives.
That’s the thing that I’ve never lost, the sense of being a perpetual student, and that I’m in no way, shape, or form worthy of the task that I’ve been given.
For more information on Frank Lopardo and his career, visit www.franklopardo.com.
