Carroll Freeman’s directing merges his highly creative nature and seemingly boundless energy with an astonishingly diverse musical career. He began singing professionally as a boy with the Columbus (now American) Boychoir. This led to solo opportunities with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, with New York City Opera, and on the Bell Telephone Hour.
Freeman’s voice changed, and attending the University of Southern Mississippi began what would be a long and successful career as a tenor. Soon after his house debut as Alfredo in New York City Opera’s La traviata, Freeman made his European debut at the Edinburgh Festival in the European premiere of The Postman Always Rings Twice. He appeared as Don Ottavio in Peter Sellars’ internationally televised Don Giovanni, and his singing garnered awards and praise, including the National Opera Institute Award given at the Kennedy Center by Beverly Sills and Harold Prince and a special mention in 1986 by Opera News as a young singer to watch.
In the midst of this burgeoning singing career, Freeman dabbled in another area of interest: stage directing. Still singing full time, he kept this interest at bay until an important series of events led him to stage directing. Now, as a past artistic director of Mississippi Opera and Opera in the Ozarks, a past co-director of the Des Moines Metro Opera Apprentice Program, and former director of opera at the University of Tennessee, Freeman’s stage directing awards line his walls along with his singing awards—including a National Citation given by the president of the National Federation of Music Clubs for his exemplary performing, directing, and teaching careers, second place in the recent National Opera Association Collegiate Opera Scene Competition, and his initiation into the Knoxville Opera Hall of Fame, to name a few.
From his office at Georgia State University, where he recently joined the faculty as the Valerie Adams Distinguished Professor in Opera, Freeman shared how he has navigated these careers, first as singer and now as stage director and professor.
As a singer, you have worked with an impressive list of stage directors, including Peter Sellars, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and Frank Corsaro to name a few. Have they influenced your career as a stage director?
Absolutely. Having worked with so many spectacular directors over the years, their style, their methods, their humor, their research, their intuition have been a huge part of who I was as a singer and subsequently who I am as a director.
Sellars gave me permission to be dangerous, to risk—which stimulated my imagination and made me braver. Corsaro brought details to productions that I thought were unusual and unique. Ponnelle inspired me with the value of the visual and the drama in the visual, taking it to the limits, and not editing.
I realize how many of them are lost to us forever, and I feel obligated to pass on their legacy to singers.
Did you ever have a stage director ask you to do something that you weren’t comfortable with?
No, I don’t think so. Regardless, I never would have told a director that I didn’t think my character would do that. As a devoted observer of human kind, I have seen people do everything you can imagine. I believe that limiting yourself that way is really more a matter of self-protection. One of my pet peeves with artists is that when they “protect” themselves they inevitably edit themselves out of interesting choices. They become predictable and generic.
Do you think being a singer first gives you a unique perspective as a stage director?
Certainly I believe that my experience as a singer helps me understand the singer, but I am less tolerant of the singer who is inflexible. My genuine goal in relationships with singers is to be encouraging and nurturing but always challenging. Hopefully, they agree. I believe that they really trust me and understand what I’m working to accomplish. I’m not trying to embarrass them, nor am I trying to shock the audience. I am sincerely searching for the truth and striving to be faithful to what I perceive to be the original intention of the work.
When did you begin directing?
I began as a graduate student at Oklahoma City University (OCU). A dear older lady who taught at a community college in the area asked me to join her teaching voice part time. Then she would twist my arm and ask me to direct an opera, too. That’s how it started, and I loved it! Fellow students at OCU also asked me to direct projects for their master’s degrees.
You had close connections to the summer program Opera in the Ozarks before you directed there. How did that relationship begin?
I won the National Federation of Music Clubs’ full-tuition scholarship in 1975. My wife had won [the scholarship for] Oklahoma. We sang there as students for two seasons. Then, the third year, the 86-year-old artistic director had fallen and broken his shoulder, was wearing a cast in a sling, and seriously needed help. He gave me two of the four productions to take some of the load off him.
You eventually ended up as artistic director of the program for 14 years. How did that come about?
On my way from singing in Des Moines to Dallas to sing Ernesto in Don Pasquale, I stopped at Opera in the Ozarks. After the death of its founder, the program had been floundering, and I found myself being asked to accept the role my elderly mentor had vacated. I feared it would be career suicide, so I declined.
Though a health club near my host’s home in Dallas was being renovated, I went just to soak my head in the steam room. When I walked in, 15 percent of my body was instantly injured with major second-degree burns. It cooked me like a head of broccoli.
That was a moment of epiphany. “I’m not going to live forever or sing forever.” The accident could have damaged me vocally or disfigured me. And I thought, “I need to be able to do something else.”
A friend from Opera in the Ozarks called—didn’t know about my accident at all—and asked me again if I would reconsider helping them. This time I said yes and became their artistic director. It was a tremendous learning experience for me. I had to be creative with less money, recruit young talent, and discover people that could be imaginative and make a lot out of nothing. It was wonderful!
And you were still singing while artistic director?
I was singing all through that time. For the first seven or eight years, very few folks knew that I was stage directing. I kept a low profile. I only directed in the summer. It was completely hidden under the rug. I didn’t want anybody to be confused about my identity as a singer.
Was there a point when you made the conscious decision to stop singing and stage direct full time?
I wish I could say that I was brave enough to have made that decision, but I wasn’t. I would say, “I like singing; I’m not ready to give it up!” Then I wouldn’t sing my best—not that there was anything wrong with me, but I was out of shape. I spent sleepless nights studying and working on other things and let my tiredness—being overwhelmed by ideas and research and “directing” priorities—I let myself do that as if I were digging a vocal grave. The decision was made for me by my burning the candle at both ends. I didn’t wake up one day and say, “I’m not doing that anymore,” even though I should have.
Why did you decide to join academia?
My experience prior to that had been as a guest artist at some top schools—the Cleveland Institute of Music, University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory, Michigan State University, and Rice. When my wife was singing in Europe, she hurt her back, falling as she tried to get on a bus in Berlin. I needed to settle down where I would have full health benefits which, in turn, encouraged me to embrace academia as I did.
You then joined the faculty at the University of Tennessee where you spent the last 15 years. What were some hallmarks there?
Having Carlisle Floyd for a week in residence when we were doing his Susannah was important. Robert Ward came for a week and attended Roman Fever. Then we recently had Stephen Paulus come to help with The Village Singer. (I knew Stephen very well from singing Wilson Ford in Minnesota Opera’s production—the second—of The Village Singer and from the world premiere and subsequent performances of The Postman Always Rings Twice.)
Knoxville Opera Studio was also an important part of the UT program. We had a unique relationship with the professional company, Knoxville Opera, which occasionally embraced the university program and presented us in their subscription series.
The greatest thing about Knoxville was that my wife and I finally felt settled enough to have children, so it was at that time that we adopted our son Adam, the most important thing we have ever done. Adam is now 13, huge, 6’4”, and beautiful—a marvelous kid. He has been an enormous part of our lives.
You have now assumed a new position at Georgia State University. What instigated the change?
My work as a director for the past three seasons with La Musica Lirica in Novafeltria, Italy, was my first introduction to talent—faculty and students—in GSU’s vocal area.
The endowed chair, the Valerie Adams Distinguished Professor in Opera, at Georgia State University was a big part of our decision to move. It said so much to us about Georgia State’s intention for their program, what they were willing to invest in us and the program that I would guide. My wife, Kay Paschal, is on the faculty. They wanted the best, and they got it. She is a stunning teacher. Nepotism is not an issue when it comes to excellence.
The fact that Atlanta is a larger community than Knoxville also encouraged us; there’s a lot going on here artistically and operatically. I would love to have greater rapport with Atlanta Opera. It would be so special for us to interact as Knoxville Opera and UT did.
In addition, Georgia State University is the host of the Harrower Summer Opera Workshop, for which I serve as artistic director—an added responsibility and benefit of GSU’s director of opera. I am very optimistic about future plans for this program and have particular pride in presenting Ms. Denyce Graves this summer as our special guest artist.
How do creative inspirations come to you? How do your ideas spring to life?
History, politics, faith, fate, nature, art, literature, music, rhythm, orchestration, tempi, lyrics—they all inspire me. Everything that I have ever seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted is spinning around in my head like some recipe on its way to the oven—or someone’s stomach. I never know what musical gesture or specific word will whet my appetite for more indulgence, for more internal intercourse that may produce my wild or winsome offspring. When all else fails, Kay is a fountain of beauty and intuition.
Has your directing evolved a lot through the years?
At first, I really heard and felt every detail of the music and text. I wanted the artists to feel it as I did—for it to manifest itself in their bodies the way I envisioned it. I was a bit more particular about those details.
As I’ve gotten older, perhaps I’ve become more trusting. I’m better at understanding their ability and banking on that and about inspiring them to come up with the idea themselves. That way they take ownership of it.
Anyone who’s worked with me will tell you that we have fun, that I try to use a sense of humor, and that it’s more collaborative now than it was, perhaps, when I was younger. I am very comfortable with my instincts about making choices for the sake of the health of my cast. I can see where people are a bit stressed or a little bit stretched, and I’m better at judging the pace.
You have so much energy. You do so much!
I probably have the most incredible adrenal glands that God ever made. But I think they’re nearing their death. They can’t go forever at this pitch—[but] I can still do cartwheels!
I remember as a kid working with Bernstein, John Reardon, and Beverly Sills, and thinking, “When my career ends and my voice changes, I am doomed to an ordinary life!” But my adult life hasn’t really been any more ordinary than my childhood. It’s been awesome!
