Rod Gilfry ranks among the top classical singers performing today. He never planned, however, to become the leading interpreter of new operas. It is a serendipitous turn in a career that began two decades ago, a career that displays as many facets as Gilfry’s “vibrant, honeyed, and virile voice” (Los Angeles Times).
If you’re in Santa Fe, N.M. this month, you might hear the baritone sing Prospero in the American premiere of Thomas Ades’ The Tempest, one of the few roles in new opera Gilfry didn’t originate. Since 1998, when Gilfry dazzled opera cognoscenti with his magnetic portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, he has introduced a “Who’s Who” of characters in important premieres—from Nathan in Nicholas Maw’s Sophie’s Choice, to Tsar Nicholas in Deborah Drattell’s Nicholas and Alexandra, to Edward Gaines in Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner. Another premiere looms this November when Gilfry will portray Jack London in Libby Larsen’s Every Man Jack at Sonoma City Opera, and he’ll sing a principal role in Howard Shore’s The Fly, at Los Angeles Opera in 2007.
While enlivening new operas with his charismatic singing and acting, Gilfry continues to win kudos for his work in the standard repertoire. A Mozart specialist renowned for his Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva, Guglielmo, and Papageno, he’s also an acclaimed Billy Budd, Pelleas, Oreste, Doktor Faust, and Count Danilo, a role he’ll reprise at Los Angeles Opera in April of 2007. He has recently begun to add heavier roles, including the Marquis of Posa in Don Carlo, which he performed at San Diego Opera in 2004.
“Gilfry was in perhaps the best form of his career,” wrote Opera News, “looking every inch of Posa and singing gloriously throughout the evening, right up to his moving final scene.”
With his rugged looks and vocal fearlessness, Gilfry embodies the trailblazing spirit of those who settled California. He was born in Covina, grew up in West Covina and Claremont, earned vocal degrees from Cal State Fullerton and USC, made his debut at Los Angeles Opera, and bought a home for his young family in Rancho Cucamonga. His sense of adventure, for instance, was one reason he chose to “learn by doing” in the regional houses of Europe, an apprenticeship that might have daunted a less-determined artist or strained a less-nurturing relationship than Gilfry has forged with Tina Estupinian Gilfry, his college sweetheart whom he married in 1980.
If the baritone’s talent was the engine driving his early career, Tina Gilfry’s support was the emotional fuel that helped him persevere after the couple moved to Germany with their small daughters, 2-year-old Carin and 3-month-old Erica. With his first big contract in hand, Gilfry was supposed to sing 11 roles at Frankfurt Opera in the 1987-88 season, but several days before his November ’87 debut, an arsonist completely destroyed the Frankfurt Opera House.
“Maybe God was trying to save me from all the stuff I shouldn’t have been doing back then,” Gilfry jokes.
At the time, however, this setback was no laughing matter—all but four of his productions were canceled. Practical aspects of the move proved difficult, too. The Frankfurt Opera didn’t pay enough for the Gilfrys to rent a decent apartment, and they didn’t speak the language. Even the weather was grim: six sunny days in the first six months.
“It was a struggle,” the singer admits, “and while Tina and I don’t have any regrets, we don’t look back on Germany fondly. I’d been offered the Merola Program in San Francisco, and in retrospect, the Merola would’ve been a very good thing to do.” Gilfry chuckles. “I was just lucky that I got into an ‘A’ house, and they were not rigid about the Fach system. I was also lucky that Frankfurt’s intendant and music director was Gary Bertini, an Israeli conductor who loved young singers. The first important production I did was Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Bertini was so good at saying, ‘Don’t take a breath here,’ or ‘Sing from here to here, sing more in a line.’ That kind of thing was really helpful.”
With characteristic pluck, Gilfry launched an enviable career. After honing his chops in Frankfurt, he made his debut as Mozart’s Figaro at Hamburg State Opera, and in 1990, he began a five-season contract with Zurich Opera.
“I started out doing Mercutio in Romeo and Juliette,” he explains. “That was a fantastic production, and I made a good impression. Then I did Guglielmo in ‘Cosi’ and the Count in ‘Figaro,’ and after that I had quite a few roles each season.” Gilfry laughs. “The sun came out when our family [now joined by son, Marc] moved to Switzerland. We had more money and an infinitely nicer place to live. The Zurich opera house was beautiful and so was the city. I still go back and sing there every year.”
The Absolute Foundation
On a cold sunny day in February, Rod Gilfry, clad in a cotton sweater, jeans, and running shoes, has asked me to lunch in the suite where he’s lodged during his run in Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Margaret Garner, the groundbreaking work that has brought him from Cincinnati, to Detroit, to Philly. The baritone is tall, fit, and film-star handsome, with an incandescent grin. He’s also friendly and open, a regular guy who likes technology (“Macintosh rules!”), golf, and his ’91 Mitsubishi sports car. Self-assured but not self-impressed, Gilfry infuses many of his comments with wry wit, such as when I tell him he stole the show in last season’s Magic Flute at Washington National Opera.
“If Papageno doesn’t steal the opera,” he quips, “something’s wrong.”
Gilfry is a gourmet cook. He plans to make two of his own recipes later on, but right now we’re chatting in his living room, which overlooks historic Penn Square. I ask if he has a guiding philosophy.
“There’s a saying that I really love,” he replies: “‘Life is too important to take too seriously.’ I like to apply that to other things, such as a big opening night. If you take it too seriously, you shut down your creativity and your freedom.” After a long pause, he adds, “I also believe that when you’ve worked hard and you’ve put it all together, it’s not all about you, even though it’s you on stage. Most of the great performers I’ve met share this conviction. They are thankful for their gifts and understand them as such.”
As a boy, Gilfry discovered his musical gifts when he realized he could play some of the many instruments that his dad, a school bandleader and former music store owner, kept in the garage. His mother, a teacher and trained soprano, encouraged the baritone and his siblings to sing in the church choir, but it wasn’t until Gilfry snagged the title role in his high school musical, Li’l Abner, that he glimpsed the rewards of his future vocation.
“I felt a kind of power I had on stage,” he says. “I could manipulate the atmosphere and the mood, and that was very exciting. I could do physical humor and deliver lines, or sing songs in a certain way, to elicit a response from the audience. I suddenly thought, ‘Man, this is cool. I enjoy what I’m doing and they enjoy what I’m doing.’ It was a real sense of communication.”
His parents encouraged his ambitions, and Gilfry fell in love with performing, but it took years of training and hard-won experience before he could tap the full potential of his distinctive tone and timbre. Today, at 47, he says he’s singing better than at any other time in his career—and he’s happy to share what he’s learned with young singers. He often teaches masterclasses, and he especially enjoys advising one special mezzo, his daughter Carin, who’s training for an opera career at the Thornton School of Music, where Gilfry earned his master’s.
“I’ve come to this conclusion recently, and I’m absolutely sure it’s true,” Gilfry says, “that the most important thing for a young singer is not to have a great resume, or great photos, or a great website, but to learn a really good singing technique. Because the one thing that distinguishes opera from any other art form is the way we sing. It’s a self-amplified voice in a classical style, and that is a really unusual phenomenon. Who would guess that the human voice could make the sounds that it does? You hear these incredible singers and you’re just amazed at what they come up with!
“Opera is an amalgam of so many art forms: singing, costuming, set design, lighting, choreography, and a symphony orchestra in the pit. Musicals are similar, but one thing that distinguishes opera is we don’t use microphones. Since the orchestras are big and we sing in big halls, a really solid technique is the absolute foundation of an opera career.”
Gilfry began to build his own vocal foundation as an undergrad at Cal State Fullerton, after which he worked with the formidable French baritone Martial Singher for six years.
“Singher was the only teacher I studied with in a concentrated way,” he says. “He taught me how to present a character and know your role. But although he was a wonderful interpreter and a real guardian of musical quality, he did not like the word ‘technique.’ He would talk about having a ‘singing skill,’ but he would never talk about the larynx. He would never talk about anything physiological. It was all imagery.
“I first met him when I was at the Music Academy of the West, and he was giving a masterclass. I was sitting there in the back and he said [Gilfry imitates Singher’s French accent], ‘And so, when I wish to sing with a bright tone, I sing with a bright tone [Gilfry demonstrates]. And when I wish to sing with a dark tone, I sing with a dark tone, out of my intention to sing with a dark tone [he demonstrates again]. And I was listening to this, and I said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Singher, when you do the dark tone, aren’t you basically just lowering your larynx?’ I looked around at the class, who knew him very well, and they were shocked because I’d obviously said something wrong.
“Singher glared at all of us [Gilfry imitates a scornful laugh] and said, ‘My dear, I do not have a larynx.’ And I said, ‘I can see it from here.’ And he said, ‘I do not think about my larynx or any other parts of my voice. These are involuntary muscles, and I cannot control them voluntarily.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, this is different.’ Because my whole thing had been learning about the different muscles and what they did. I’d started voice lessons my first year of college, and things weren’t always explained very well.”
Gilfry’s progress with Singher caught the attention of his soon-to-be first manager, Thea Dispeker, as well as Peter Hemmings, the first general director of Los Angeles Opera, who gave the baritone one line in the company’s 1986 Otello and nurtured. Gilfry’s career until Hemmings’ death in 2002. (In that Otello, Gilfry also met Placido Domingo, who became another key mentor.)
Throughout the ‘90s, Gilfry sang principal roles at his “home base” in Los Angeles and other major houses in the United States and abroad, but despite a raft of glowing reviews, he was not satisfied with his vocal quality or consistency. In 1999, the baritone was rehearsing Cosi Fan Tutte at the Met, and he decided to study with Armen Boyajian. After only four lessons, Gilfry noticed an improvement in his tone, so he returned to Boyajian’s Manhattan studio 15 times over the next five years.
“Armen Boyajian is the first teacher I’ve worked with who makes it clear and simple—and singing should be that way,” says Gilfry. “He has a specific approach and you go from step one through step 250, and you don’t skip anything, and when you get to the end, you’ve got something. His other students—Sam Ramey, Paul Plishka, and Gerald Finley—are wonderful singers.
“What Armen Boyajian does is help you find the optimal way to sing every vowel for every note and every dynamic level. And that just about covers it. If you can do that, you have a very consistent and beautiful sound that’s free and reliable.” Gilfry grins. “I’d be very happy to go back to Armen and study, study, study, study, but it’s just not practical. He moved out of New York and lives in the boondocks in New Jersey, so my plan is to search for a great teacher in San Francisco.”
I ask Gilfry how he protects his voice during the tension of rehearsals.
“Rehearsals are a dangerous time,” he says. “Usually what directors are interested in is not beautiful singing. The director wants to get the character established, so you may start to practice performing a role without thinking about how you’ll approach it technically. It’s easy to become distracted from technique, so I find that during rehearsals it’s necessary for me to get some time alone in a practice room to work on technical things.”
And how does he manage to do his best work during the pressure-cooker atmosphere of performance?
“Good question,” he says. “So many times I’m in my dressing room and I practice something and think, ‘Yes! That’s exactly how I want to do it.’ Then I get out onstage and think about something else and it doesn’t happen. The answer to this problem is focus—but it took me a long time, until fairly recently in fact, to realize it’s OK to go out onstage and really think about my technique. In fact, it’s preferable, because the most important thing about opera is the singer’s voice.
“Not long ago, I talked to a very successful colleague, a relatively young singer who does a lot of romantic and dramatic roles. She is known as a wonderful actress with great charisma and presence. I asked her, ‘What do you think about when you’re on stage?’ And she said, ‘I think about technique. I think about technique in every breath, every note, and that’s all I’m thinking about, and I’ve found a way to do that while being the character.’
“I’ve started to do the same, and what I’ve discovered is that when I begin an opera just focusing on technique, I suddenly think, ‘This is feeling pretty good.’ I become more relaxed; I become more of the character; I have more choices. I can do more things spontaneously, both with the character and my voice, because technically things are right.”
Cooking—With Song
It’s time for lunch, so we move into the kitchen, where Gilfry starts snapping the stems off green beans. As he works, he explains why he changed his performing name from Rodney to Rod last year.
“I used Rodney as a young singer,” he says, “because it sounded more sophisticated and formal. I later realized I’m much more concerned about what happens onstage and how I sing, and that’s more of a ‘Rod’ kind of thing. Also, I’ve been moving into other kinds of performing, and ‘Rod’ seems more approachable.” Gilfry mentions that he wants to launch “a cooking show with song” in the future, on either PBS or a California cable station. No stranger to broadcasting, Gilfry and mezzo Suzanna Guzman used to host a radio show, Los Angeles Opera Notes on Air, which ran for three years on KMZT-FM in Los Angeles, and he hopes to revive that program in a new format.
A singer who lately views himself as an entertainer, Gilfry mentions the one-man cabaret show he developed with his friend, actor/director Charles Nelson Reilly, which he often takes on the road. Since his show features numbers from musicals, I ask how he alters his technique.
“What you do,” he says, “is keep the cover out of it. You don’t want the stuff in the back; you want the sound to be slim and in the front. The cover, of course, is a very high resonance in the front. When you get a really high resonance and everything else is open, it naturally covers and the sound gets a kind of dome on it. That’s what creates that bigger, rounder sound for opera, but it’s too much for Broadway. Also, because of the microphone, it’s completely OK to sing ‘off the voice’ when needed.”
Singing show tunes is a return to the idiom Gilfry loved in high school, and he has recently ventured into musicals, starring in Oklahoma, Carousel, and The Most Happy Fella in Los Angeles, and the City Center Encores! production of New Moon in New York. His future goals include doing a limited Broadway run, which might happen after his son, Marc, a high school junior, leaves for college. Daughters Carin and Erica are away at universities, which means Gilfry and Tina, a kindergarten teacher, will soon face the empty nest.
“My wife might take a year’s sabbatical so we could move to New York while I do a show,” he says, and you can almost hear him thinking, “Broadway—the next frontier.”
These days, Gilfry tries to arrange his opera gigs around his family’s schedule.
“There was a time when I took everything that came along,” he says, as the aroma of boiling vinegar fills the air. “I thought it was my job and I had to work. But I changed a few years ago when I realized I was going to be home for two-and-a-half months out of the whole year. Now I try not to be gone for more than six months total, and I also try not to be away for too long in one stretch.”
While putting the finishing touches on his meal, Gilfry observes that his career has been a team effort from the start.
“You have to have a wife who’s really cooperative, who’s willing to make sacrifices, and who’s able to be the ‘Chief Everything Officer’ when you’re gone. Tina is incredible!”
Gilfry enjoys cooking for his family, which is how he developed his recipes for poached salmon with dill and capers, and green beans with toasted almonds and balsamic reduction. (See sidebar.) After he sets these elegant dishes on the table, I sample each and decide that Gilfry’s culinary skills match his vocal prowess.
Opera Roles to Savor
While we dine, Gilfry mentions the operatic roles he’s dying to sing.
“I’d like to do more Bel Canto,” he says, “especially Donizetti and Bellini, and two Strauss roles: Barak, the dyer, in Die Frau Ohne Schatten, and Mandryka in Arabella. I want to do Escamillo, Di Luna in ‘Trovatore,’ Germont in ‘Traviata,’ and more Marcellos. And I’d like to be doing a lot more Mozart. I think I do a really good Don Giovanni and a really good Count, and I’d now like to ‘graduate’ to Alphonso in Cosi.
“It’s unfortunate that during the Mozart year I don’t have a single Mozart engagement. I think it’s because I became identified with modern music and new operas, and people have stopped thinking of me as a Mozart singer.” He adds that his 1994 Don Giovanni recording was nominated for a Grammy.
I mention that his Don Giovanni in the 2001 Zurich Opera DVD strikes me as a louche predator, and the baritone says, “I get into this place in my mind where Giovanni’s really mean, and the danger of that is that he loses his sense of nobility. Mozart’s concept is that he’s a nobleman with terrible behavior, but you can’t take the noble out of a nobleman.” Gilfry laughs. “Years ago, when I was doing Don Giovanni in L.A., I thought it was necessary to really live the character offstage, to still continue to talk and act like Don Giovanni—and not just his charming side. I’d tend to be in a bad mood and want things to be done now because I deserved it. And at one point, our daughter, Erica, turned to my wife and said, ‘I like him better when he’s doing Billy Budd.’”
It’s fitting that our conversation has circled around to Britten’s tragic sailor. Along with Stanley Kowalski in “Streetcar,” Billy may be Gilfry’s most celebrated role. Gilfry confirms that the twin pinnacles of his performing career were Billy Budd at the Royal Opera House in 1995 and at Los Angeles Opera in 2000.
“Royal Opera was amazing because that was Britten’s home and the place it premiered, and it was the first time they’d done the four-act version. That production was really well received, and it was a big success for me. Oddly, this version, by Francesca Zambello, is the only Billy Budd I ever did. My other peak experience was doing Billy Budd in L.A., which was Peter Hemmings’ final production. That was my opera house from their opening season, and they restaged the Zambello production for me.” He also sang the role in Paris, Geneva, and Dallas.
If Billy Budd was “the epitome of innocence and sweetness,” his Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire was all ruthless machismo and brute force.
“Stanley’s extremely territorial,” the baritone says. “His home is his domain and he’d kill to protect it. His personality type appreciates honesty, and Blanche DuBois is about artifice and deception. Stanley’s ready to take Blanche apart, and he does—he totally destroys her.
“‘Streetcar’ was a turning point for me, because even people who don’t know anything about opera know Stanley Kowalski. There was a huge amount of publicity. I think 10 networks and 100 newspapers covered opening night.” The production, which also starred Renée Fleming and Elizabeth Futral, was televised on PBS and released on CD and DVD. In 2003, Gilfry and Fleming reprised their roles for a concert version with the London Symphony, and he still hopes to sing Stanley at the Met.
Gilfry believes his acclaim as Stanley inspired composer Nicholas Maw and director Trevor Nunn to cast him as Nathan in Sophie’s Choice, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in December of 2002. Later this month, he’ll start rehearsals for the American premiere, which will run at Washington National Opera in September. Gilfry looks forward to revisiting the “fatally glamorous Nathan” (The Guardian), who rescues the ailing Sophie and then persuades her to commit suicide with him.
I tell Gilfry I’ve seen a video of Sophie’s Choice and was moved by his almost painfully rapturous singing.
“My intent is that everything should be a reflection of the character,” he says, “and Nathan has a side that’s completely loving and completely devoted to Sophie. But of course, he’s a schizophrenic, and his personality totally flips and goes to a terrible place. So the beautiful singing is not intended to be the moment where I can sing beautifully, but to be a reflection of his sweet, caring, loving, generous qualities—the best qualities we think about in human beings.”
It’s clear Rod Gilfry takes on roles that require great emotional and physical stamina. Yet beyond cooking healthy meals when he’s on the road and riding his mountain bicycle—the bike travels with him—he has no special regimen to maintain his energy.
“You just decide you’re going to do it,” he insists. “You believe it’s possible. I really think you can always do a little more than you think you can.”
As our visit winds down, the baritone grows pensive while reflecting on the career he launched 20 years ago this season.
“Singing is fulfilling and challenging,” he says. “It’s also fun, and I know I’m using real talents that I have. Frankly, I was surprised I could do something that I love so much and get paid for it. But I never think about the money, I really don’t. Sometimes they bring me a paycheck after a performance and I think, ‘Oh, I forgot about that!’ And that’s nice. That’s the way it should be.
“From the beginning I had success and people were very encouraging. It seemed glamorous, traveling to different cities. Believe me, I’m over that part of it. But I think one of the reasons I’m successful—if I am successful—is that it’s not the end-all and be-all. It’s not something I have to do, so letting it go makes it come back with more value.”
For the sake of his fans and colleagues, let’s hope Rod Gilfry follows the lead of his first mentor, Martial Singher, and sings into his eighth decade, blazing new trails in his pursuit of vocal excellence.
For more information, visit www.rodgilfry.com. The DVD and enhanced CD of Rod Gilfry’s one-man show are available exclusively through his website.
