One-time bounty hunter Carl Tanner is enjoying a burgeoning international career. After years of driving trucks and bounty hunting, Tanner decided at the age of 29 to listen to his heart and pursue a career on the operatic stage. Now, having sung the major tenor roles of Calaf, Pinkerton, Cavaradossi and Radamès, and having graced some of the finest stages in the United States and abroad, Tanner can look back on that decision as perhaps the best of his life. Anticipating the release of a new Christmas CD this month, Tanner sat down with CS to discuss his life and career.
Did you grow up in a musical atmosphere?
I didn’t really grow up in a musical atmosphere, but I did start playing violin at the age of 10. When I was 13, some of the kids in my hometown of Arlington, Virginia, formed a rock band called Alpha and Omega, which I joined as the keyboard player. Surprisingly, most of those people are still working in music!
My mother had me start taking voice lessons in the eleventh grade. After I finished high school, I attended the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Winchester, Virginia, where I studied with Lloyd Robo. I was a baritone for two years before switching over to tenor.
Until 1991 I kept running away from a career as a singer. When I graduated from college in 1985 I liked singing, but I was not in love with it. I was not raised around the theater and no one ever listened to opera at home. As a result, when I graduated from college I continued driving a truck. It’s what I had been doing in my time off all along. When I was out of school, I began to drive a big truck and I enjoyed doing that for two or three years.
How did you get into bounty hunting?
At one point I told a friend that I was not making much money. He said he knew a bounty hunter who needed a partner. I spoke with that gentleman and he agreed to train me in the necessary skills, including the use of a handgun. I was not raised around guns. My parents did not believe in them, so I had to think that over. He also told me that I could make $2,500 or $3,000 in one night. At that time, neither I nor my parents had any savings, so it was basically a monetary decision. I wanted to be able to help my family and take care of myself, so I trained with this fellow for about four months.
The man I trained with was a good teacher but had a hard time applying his own techniques. I found that he would rather kick in a door than knock and negotiate, so we complimented each other over the years. All told, we succeeded in arresting 179 of the 186 people we were sent out to catch. Since the other gentleman is still a bounty hunter, I need to protect his identity. I’ve been out of that line of work for quite a few years.
After a while, I began to realize that this was not the profession for me. Signs kept hitting me in the face, telling me that I should try singing for a living. One day I was sitting in my truck singing along with the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcast. A lady in a red convertible pulled up next to me and asked if that was me. I think I was singing “E lucevan le stelle” from Puccini’s Tosca along with Plácido Domingo. When I said “yes” she asked why I was driving a truck and said, “You know what you’re supposed to be doing, but you’re not doing it.” She drove off and I said to myself, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
When I arrived back to my office, my boss was listening to the same radio program. He said, “You sound like the guy on the radio. You should be singing at the Met.” I said, “That’s a big name tenor!” He said, “How do you know you can’t do that? You don’t want to wake up when you are 60 years old and wish you had tried to have a singing career.”
Now, two people had said much the same thing to me on that one day, so I began to think I might be ignoring my true calling. That evening while I was driving home my car broke down. I could not get anyone on the phone, so I walked four miles to my parents’ house. On the way, I began to think that God was giving me a sign that I should try singing professionally. Something was drawing me toward music. At that point, as I was cutting through a clover field, I found a four-leafed beauty in a little clearing, just as the sun was setting. I put it in my pocket and I still have it.
When I got home, I told my dad that I had tried to phone him but could not get through. He said that no one had been on the phone. Then he said he had been listening to some singing on the radio and he said, “If anyone was made to sing, it’s you.” My dad, who passed away in 1991, was a sweet little guy who had quit school at age 12 to help support his seventeen brothers and sisters.
At that point I asked my father what he thought I should do. He suggested I think seriously about what I wanted to do with my life. When I returned to work the following Monday, I gave my boss a week’s notice, saying that I was moving to New York to work on my singing career.
What were the stepping stones to a professional singing career?
Having driven a truck and worked as a bounty hunter after college, I was almost 29 years old when I started my singing career. Many young artist programs were no longer possibilities for me, but I did go to Santa Fe as an apprentice during the summers of 1992 and 1993. Because I was older than the other singers, I was singing Puccini and Verdi while most of them were still doing Mozart and Rossini.
I won the Puccini Foundation Award, the Gerda Lissner Award, and I got to the finals in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The night before the Met finals my father died and, although I tried to sing anyway, I found I couldn’t do it. They were very nice to me and told me to come back later. When I did, they gave me $5,000 and a study grant.
What is your advice for young singers?
Learn to say “no” to yourself and to people in the business. Managers always want to use you before the time is right for your voice. You need to know your languages, your breathing, your technique, all the facets of your craft before you go out the door.
Auditioning is a separate entity from performing. It’s a performance for two minutes. You have to know different skills to do it well. It helps you learn to deal with being judged. You have to remember that it’s a numbers game and you cannot take “no” too seriously. You will never make a career if you quit because you were turned down five or six times. I have been told to slow down and leave off the heavy repertory, but I have never given up, no matter what anyone said to me.
What do you think of the current search for good-looking singers?
Unfortunately, opera is trying to keep up with the popular sector of the artistic world. Companies are trying to find a way to bring new audiences to opera, but they are going about it in the wrong way. Searching out tall thin tenors who look like models is not the way to go.
An example of a better way of finding a new audience was last summer’s Bregenz Festival approach to Il trovatore. They put on a beautifully crafted, expensive production. Each night there were 7000 people in attendance and each night they recouped 90 percent of their money. Also, they made a DVD of the show so that people who could not get to the theater can also see it.
What are your thoughts on vocal technique?
There are many vocal techniques that work. You have to find which teacher’s method works for you. I believe that breathing is one of the most important aspects of technique. It affects our nerves, our cardiovascular system, everything. It can affect your placement, too. If you start breathing high and shallow, you’re going to put your voice where you don’t want it. Shallow breathing will cause you to constrict the voice.
It’s also important to utilize the head voice. Many people want to sound dark and dramatic. They want to beef up the middle. The voice is like a rubber band. If you pull on one side, the other side has to give. If you only work the middle and lower notes, the upper register suffers.
Do some young singers try to copy the sound of well-known singers?
When you tell a young singer in his mid-20s that he needs to make a certain sound, he does it. Many do try to copy famous singers. A singer has to develop his own sound. When you imitate someone else, before you know it you’re making vocal and technical mistakes. Singers who do that are out the door in short order. We sound the way we do because we have a God-given individual timbre.
It’s good to be somewhat nervous before you go on stage. It makes you aware of the things you need to remember. You need to concentrate on your weaknesses so that you avoid them on stage.
Do you have a private life?
I was engaged at one time, but I think that if I had gotten married I would be divorced by now because I’m away so much. I really don’t want to ask anyone to make sacrifices for my career. I have three dogs and a nice lady who dogsits here in my beautiful Virginia home when I go away.
Do you have any recordings out?
Yes, some time ago, I recorded Giacomo Puccini’s second opera, Edgar. More recently, I made a 2006 Christmas CD called Hear the Angel Voices. I did it with the Northwest Boy Choir, the Seattle Chorus and Northwest Sinfonia, which has won numerous Oscars for playing movie scores. Most of the music was recorded in Seattle’s Bastyr Chapel, but I sang my part at the Sony Music Studios in New York City. This recording was funded by Bounty Productions, a company created by some of my colleagues and myself. I particularly wanted this CD to be an American product.
In 2004 I was invited by President Bush to sing “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night” at the lighting of the national Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve last year I sang “O Holy Night” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and I also sang it on the Today Show at the request of Katie Couric.
What are some of your important upcoming performances?
During December 2006 I will be performing holiday concerts that feature songs from my CD with various U.S. symphony orchestras. In February I sing Don José in Hamburg Opera’s Carmen. Following that, I will be doing a concert version of Samson and Dalila with Olga Borodina in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris. In the late spring I go to Dresden for Turandot and Aida. Then in summer I will be in Madrid for Madama Butterfly.
