Jack of all trades, master of none. This phrase first appeared in print in 1785. As implied, it describes those who have a superficial level of skill in a plethora of fields, but are not experts in any one of them. The concept is not singular to the English language, appearing in various forms across cultures. The Cantonese expression translates as “Equipped with knives all over, none of them sharp.” To the Greeks, it is “He who knows a lot of crafts lives in an empty house.” And the Spaniard taunts, “An ocean of knowledge of an inch deep.”
When baritone Paulo Szot was first emerging on the operatic scene, he was offered the role of Emile de Becque in Lincoln Center’s revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic South Pacific. Many advised him not to accept the role. Singing eight shows a week would ruin his voice, they posited. If he crossed over to musical theatre, general directors would not take him seriously for operatic roles, they warned. In essence, trying to excel in both genres meant he would succeed in neither, they opined.
But Szot didn’t listen and, as you can read in this month’s cover story (p. 14), accepting the musical theatre role landed him his Met debut in an operatic role. In addition, the different skills required and honed for musical theatre have strengthened his classical work, and vice versa.
Szot is not the only artist bucking the stereotype of “jack of all trades.” Ron Raines (p. 24), who starred on The Guiding Light for 15 years, never stopped putting his Juilliard training to use. He recently finished the Broadway run of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies which will open soon in L.A. Tony-nominated Kelli O’Hara (p. 32) followed her vocal performance degree with an acting degree. She now does a variety of musical theatre and straight plays, as well as the occasional return to more classical fare.
Perhaps what makes it possible for these artists to excel in both genres is that musical theatre and opera have more in common than some might think. Florence Birdwell (p. 28), who taught O’Hara and Kristin Chenoweth (perhaps you’ve heard of her?), teaches both classical- and musical theatre-style singing and stresses to her students that it’s really all one voice. While many classical singing teachers shun the “belt” style of singing, Birdwell does not. According to her, learning to belt properly will often strengthen a singer’s classical voice.
O’Hara, Raines, Szot, and Birdwell all emphasize text, words, and meaning as hallmarks for believable musical theatre. Search the CS online archives and you’ll quickly find that coaches, teachers, stage directors, and general directors are saying the same about opera. Opera’s “park-and-bark” days are over. Singers are expected to be believable actors on stage—not just aware of what they are saying, but also fully able to convey the meaning and emotion to the audience.
While the complete phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” first entered the English language in 1785, the words “jack of all trades” first appeared in print in 1612. The second half of the statement, “master of none,” doesn’t appear until some 150 years later. Thus, “jack of all trades” originally had no negative connotation at all.
Perhaps those early English were onto something, just like the artists featured in this issue.
