Orlando Opera’s Heinz Rehfuss program seems rather unique, since it funds the Resident Artist Program, and a competition where singers earn cash prizes. How did it come about?
It was one of those kinds of things where you just never know what is going to happen when you meet someone. In 1989, I directed a “Butterfly” in Syracuse, and when we took it over to Buffalo, the conductor there was Carlo Pinto. I only knew him from that one connection.
Several years later, after I became general director of Orlando Opera, he contacted me to tell me that his friend—the great bass-baritone Heinz Rehfuss, on the faculty at SUNY Buffalo—had died. [Rehfuss] had left [Pinto] in charge of his estate without any real specific instructions about what to do with it, except that it needed to benefit singers between the ages of 18 and 34. [Pinto] wanted my advice on what to do with this fund.
Well, I had always wanted some kind of competition for singing actors. Most of the other competitions were for “singers,” and I thought it would be wonderful to encourage those talents who wanted to think of themselves as singing actors.
Carlo died soon after our conversation, but his wife, Melisse, contacted me after his death, and we started the Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actor Awards in 1993. It has developed to the point now where many of the singers who won awards in the competition in the early years are now coming back to sing mainstage roles at Orlando Opera!
The Rehfuss Trust also helps pay for our Resident Artist Program. This is where we have professional artists who sing with us throughout the year, and one of them is sponsored through the Rehfuss Trust. The Heinz Rehfuss Artist this year is soprano Janette Zilioli.
It’s great to see that the Trust money has been well invested, so it has had an increase in award money available for distribution every year.
You say you go after singing actors, so are your auditions different from other auditions?
I think just by using the term “singing actor” we encourage a more complete presentation, but sometimes singers misunderstand and assume we want them to stage their arias. What it really means is that I like to see a complete characterization. It’s not about blocking or staging yourself. It’s mostly about vocal coloring and using the face and the body to connect dramatically with what the material is providing.
You are calling it a singing actor competition, but what I hear you implying is that this is what all auditions and competitions need to be!
We want to foster the idea that any so-called vocal competition should be more than just a canary contest. It surprises me when a singer says, “My teacher tells me not to act in this aria.” I say, “How can you not act? How can you not involve yourself in this character?”
I think what the teacher meant to say was that the singer [should] consider the range of space she will have to move in and the fact that there may not be appropriate lighting, etc. That is important. You can’t be eating up the stage when the acoustics aren’t right, when the lighting isn’t right, etc. You would certainly do a more complete reenactment of the character in a full operatic setting, but you shouldn’t limit your presentation because you think you are just focusing on your singing!
Great singers today absolutely use the combination of singing and drama. They know how to pull the drama out of the music, and if they can’t use their bodies as well as their voices to express the music drama in a balanced way, they are limited, regardless of how magnificent the voice may be.
Do you want to expand the Orlando Opera Young Artists Program?
Yes! We have already added a second group we are calling “studio artists.” These are local performers of a similar caliber to our resident artists, but they may not have the kind of experience—and won’t be given quite the mainstage experience—as the resident artists. However, they can help us with educational shows, outreach, and other singing opportunities, which constantly arise as we grow.
What do the “RAs” receive while working with you?
They receive a living stipend plus a weekly salary and an additional amount for each mainstage role they are offered. They do not sing in the chorus, and we’ve cut down on the number of educational shows they need to do. The education program has been so successful, there’s been no way they could do all that would be required [with all the other activities they are involved in]. We save them for the things that are better for them, and we think of their training as an important investment for the company. As in any business, it makes sense to take good care of your investments.
I noticed that your four “RAs” from last year are gorgeous!
I don’t necessarily go for gorgeous, though it is nice when that happens; I do go for the complete singer-actor package. That usually means that a singing actor will be fit, and sometimes fit is also gorgeous, I guess. You know, even larger singers can be fit and gorgeous in their own way, so gorgeous doesn’t necessarily mean thin. For certain mainstage roles, I have engaged large, fit singers, if they are also actors. But as there is greater competition
for roles, singers must realize that all of these factors go into consideration for casting.
Do your “RAs” cover lead roles?
They can cover anything that is appropriate. They get thorough coaching on the covered role… They might not go onstage—but they understand that. Janette will want to learn Aida, but as she does, we will discover together if it would be practical for her to think about going on, if we need her to. Our tenor will not have an interest in covering Radames, because it isn’t right for him. He’ll be doing one of the supporting roles in Salomé., and all four of our resident artists will sing roles in The Mikado.
How did you come to be a singer and then a general director?
I went to Cal State Northridge as a tuba major, but a choral director in high school encouraged me to learn a couple of arias so I could audition for the voice department. Cal State had an incredible program, doing four fully staged operas a year. I was also really inspired by New York City Opera tours to Los Angeles. They would come every year, doing 10-12 productions. I saw Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle and other greats. These were great productions that had a wonderful balance of music and theatre. Corsaro and Capobianco did the productions so they were very theatrical, and I was very impressed with the singing actors who were in them.
I had not thought about opera being that theatrical, and as a young performer I became a passionate champion for that combination of singing and acting skills. It changed my focus, and I became a voice major and theater minor. I took all the theater classes I could take including costume and lighting. I also took ballet, modern dance and Italian.
I studied voice with Elizabeth Parham until my senior recital, and then I switched to David Scott. I’d always been very close to David, since he directed all the operas, and he always believed in me. I sang bass-baritone roles in 17 productions in that program before I left Cal State Northridge, which was an incredible opportunity for a developing performer.
Did matters “fall into place” for you again after school?
I did the Merola Program and a lot of touring on the West Coast, and after a couple of years of that, I was cast as Papageno at Hidden Valley Opera in Carmel [Calif.]. I met my wife there, a violist, and we decided to move to Seattle. We had met Henry Holt and Lincoln Clark doing “Butterfly” at Hidden Valley, and Lincoln had invited me to come up to Seattle Opera to help out.
So my wife and I moved to Seattle, basically on faith. The job was all on spec—no contract. It was just, “If you are in the area, we’ll give you some work.” Once there, Henry Holt remembered I had this background in theatre and asked me if I’d be an assistant stage manager for the Pacific Northwest Wagner Festival. Lincoln heard that and said, “That’d be great, if you’d also assist me!”
I was there for five years. General Director Glynn Ross was notorious for having people do as many things as possible, and my background offered a lot of different things that I could do. I would go offstage after having sung, say, Morales in Carmen, and put on headphones to be assistant stage manager! That was how Seattle Opera operated in 1979. I also directed in their Singers Training Program and developed a real interest in working with emerging talents, which I have carried on to my work now as general director and director of the Opera Studio program at the University of Central Florida.
Where did you go after Seattle?
I’d made a great connection with Bruce Chalmers, who was the general director of Portland Opera. Seattle and Portland had a great exchange program, and we would take a show down there every year. When he became the new general director of Charlotte Opera, he invited me to join him as director of North Carolina Opera, which was a touring and education subsidiary. It was like being a general director of a junior company, and it was great working with Bruce Chalmers. He was a wonderful mentor and businessman who gave me a lot of responsibility. I was there for five years also.
Then I had the opportunity to step into my first general directing job, at Syracuse Opera. I did that for three years, and then had the chance to come to Orlando as general director, in 1990. I have had other opportunities to do other things, but this has been a great place to raise my family.
My son, my youngest child, is now a freshman at the University of Florida. So I’m suddenly an empty-nester, and I am freer to accept other opportunities. Last year took me to a directing job in China and the possibility of directing something in Majorca, and I’m ready for those adventures now.
Let’s talk about auditions. When do you do your New York auditions?
I like to go in January, rather than December. The way we do it is to send out notification of our season for the next two or three years to about 30 hand-picked managers. I ask managers to submit singers who might be right for the roles. (I also may hear new singers who aren’t right for these roles, but I like to hear good new talent if they are with managers I trust.) We have to have this filtering process so we can get down to about 200 slots.
Then we have the Rehfuss auditions in May, so I hear another couple of hundred singers for that. I hold those auditions in Los Angeles, Orlando and New York, and this year, for the first time, we also had Rehfuss auditions during the Classical Singer Convention.
Do you do the auditions alone, or do you have another pair of ears with you?
I do them alone. However, I don’t do the final judging for the Rehfuss competition. I bring in two judges who are not connected with any school, and instruct them to look for the balance of singing and acting attributes that we wish to encourage. The results are surprising to some, as winners may not necessarily be the best singers, but offer a better combination of what we are looking for.
How do you keep track of all the singers you hear over all the years?
I take a laptop to all the auditions and have about 10 years of audition data that I keep handy. Michael Ching and I were the first computer geeks to be doing this, as far as I know. I also make a lot of backups, so it’s not lost if computer problems happen. I think it is important though, to be as unobtrusive as possible with the laptop. You have to turn all the bells and whistles off so it’s not making sounds.
I position it so other people can’t see it when they come into the room. I don’t like managers for example to see what I’m writing. It’s for my eyes only. It needs to be private, and I’ve never shared it with anyone other than a particular singer. I find it really useful when I can see what someone offered two or three years ago and see how he or she has improved. Otherwise, you have only a vague memory or what was performed or sung and what you liked or why.
If a singer sings a really bad audition, would you ever hear that singer again?
It would depend on why it was bad. If I saw that a singer had changed direction, gotten more performing opportunities, or started studying with someone I respected, I’d consider it. Also, what’s on the résumé, since the poor audition may indicate a good reason to hear someone again (or not).
I spend a lot of time poring over résumés, and that is why I like them to be concise and to always include dates. The résumé should demonstrate some positive activity, which leads you to see they are doing something viable. We often have to do some detective work with a résumé. If there is a gap, I am always curious about why that might have been. Sometimes it may be taking time off around the birth of a child, and that is a positive thing to list in my view. Also, I can usually tell something about the direction that a performer is taking by which companies the artist has been performing with.
How many CDs and audition packets do you receive in the mail every year?
I don’t generally listen to CDs and I don’t advise singers to send them. The CD is like step two. Recently, I was casting Narraboth in Salomé and I couldn’t get around to a couple of different choices I had, and I asked for something recorded. In that case, I wanted the CD. But I get a lot of unsolicited CDs and I just can’t listen to them. It’s a good thing to have handy if you are called to supply them, but it’s only a last resort.
Lately, with low airfares, if it is a singer I’m interested in, I’ll spend $150 and fly them into Orlando. It’s a much better investment than taking a risk on a CD, but it also depends on how significant the role is. I did use a CD to cast Narraboth, but I also spent a lot of time asking for opinions from colleagues listed on the résumé.
Do you use singer Web sites?
I have used them, but I don’t go surfing looking for singers. I only recently got involved in The Classical Singer Community, where one of our resident artists asked me to comment on yoga. I made some good connections there with some singers who are also involved in teaching yoga. I’m trying to put together a book and a DVD with yoga for singer’s bodies that may be large or less flexible, so no one need be intimidated by the wonders of yoga.
What percentage of the materials sent to you are inappropriate for your level of company?
99.9 percent. Unsolicited materials generally do not get attention—unless they send something odd, and then it is usually not positive attention. Two different people recently sent me their business plan with their résumé. I believe they had read an article in Classical Singer and misunderstood, thinking they were supposed to send me the business plan!
How many singers do you think you hear a year?
We limit the managed auditions to 200, plus the 200 for Rehfuss. I will hear singers who come through Orlando, if they are of a sufficient level. I would expect them to have gone through an excellent apprentice program and/or to have sung in high quality houses. It also depends on whether I have an accompanist on hand. We’ve heard some good people that way. I like to keep that door open. But the materials have to be submitted ahead of time. I won’t hear someone who just appears on our doorstep.
What can the singers you hire do to make your job easier and to more effectively “sell” opera to Orlando audiences better?
Mark Rucker was here for Rigoletto, and in addition to being a great performer, he is also a sports fisherman. I live on a lake and he caught a pretty good-sized bass there. I took a picture and sent it into the newspaper. They wrote up an article and we got in the sports section —which may have sold a few tickets, and got us great exposure.
Getting involved in the community is a great thing for the artist and for the company.
The big thing that guys want to do when they come here is to sing the national anthem for the Orlando Magic basketball games. We love that. We have this incredible connection with the Magic. We joked with them one time about having the Magic Dancers come to be in an Orlando Opera performance. It turned into reality when I used them in Carmina Burana [see photo pg. 66] And I’m going to use six of them in Salomé. In exchange, they want us to do another halftime presentation.
When we did the halftime during La traviata, we did the chorus “Libiamo,” with a translation on the screen. We included a ticket offer: anyone who brought their Magic ticket stub to La traviata got a discount. After “Libiamo,” as the singers were leaving the court, the singers in costume, with huge bustles wagging, sang “Baby Got Back.” [Editor’s note: If you’re not familiar with the song, the words include: “I like big butts and I cannot lie…” etc.)
The fans loved it. It showed opera singers could be cool.
What advice do you have for singers?
The biggest problem I see right now is that there aren’t as many opportunities as there should be, and there may be an unrealistic idea of the opportunities out there. For example, my son, as an entering freshman, has just been given the odds of being placed in his field of chemical engineering. Music schools don’t want to do that. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a statistical view of what your odds of performing professionally as a singer are? There are X number of companies doing X number of operas. There are X number of roles in any season. How many singers are there vying for these roles?
For example, Orlando Opera doesn’t even cast most of the jobs on the upper tier from auditions. So out of 200 artists auditioning, I’m probably only able to cast 15 to 20 smaller roles per season. Most of the leading roles are cast because they are already known quantities. So there’s either a lot of disappointment or a lot of unrealistic expectation out there. It could be useful to have teachers and coaches be more realistic about what a singer’s options really are.
You taught wonderful yoga classes at the Classical Singer Convention. How did you get interested in yoga?
We have a family membership at the “Y,” and my wife asked me to come to a class with her. She has been practicing yoga for years, but like most American men, I thought of yoga as a “chick thing,” and kept resisting. Finally, I tried it because I saw it had been good for her. That was a couple of years ago, and my first experiences showed me that in some yoga positions, your lungs will be twisted around your spine. A good yoga teacher will focus on the deep diaphragmatic breathing through those torqued positions. I could see that this would be really good for developing your breathing capacity.
The imagery that is necessary for expanding all the way up into the top part of the lungs and exploring the musculature is all here. In yoga, you are learning not just about the singer’s diaphragm but the intercostals (the region around the ribs) and the complete capacity for breathing through the lower back. All the knowledge that’s really important for breathing is addressed through yoga.
I immediately saw the connection with what is necessary for the development of the singing actor, in terms of focus, balance, stamina, relaxation, and concentration, and I wished that I had learned about it ages ago. It would have been really helpful for me to have known about this when I was trying to develop as a singer, so I felt it was important to try to pass this on to the singers I work with now.
The opportunity to learn how to teach this just fell out of the sky. I now teach these classes to our “RAs,” our staff, and anyone from the community who wants to join us.
What is on your wish list for Orlando Opera?
Growth. We have our sights set on a new performing arts center. The one we’re in now is not right in a number of ways. On the horizon there is a center that the city wants to build. The next job is to find the money!
You can hear “Opera With Robert Swedberg” every Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern time on 90.7 WMFE-FM, if you are in the Orlando area, or by audio-streaming at www.wmfe.org.
