No one has been more influential in encouraging, supporting, and preserving the art of the vocal recital in the United States than Marilyn Horne, through the Marilyn Horne Foundation. Each summer the Foundation sponsors a competition to identify and promote outstanding young singers in various recital venues throughout the country. Classical Singer recently talked with baritone Nicolai Janitzky, a 2002 recipient of a Marilyn Horne Foundation sponsorship award. His work through the Foundation has resulted in recital debuts in Texas and New York, the latter being broadcast on WQXR.
On May 24, Janitzky performed the opening recital for the Cleveland Art Song Festival. The Festival was founded in 1985 to bring world-class singers and their collaborative pianists to the Cleveland Institute of Music for a multi-day round of recitals, coachings, and master classes that are open to the public. Only 10 singer-pianist teams—chosen through auditions—get the opportunity to participate in the coachings and master classes. It was quite an honor for Nicolai Janitzky to be chosen to sing the opening concert, and it came about through his Marilyn Horne Foundation sponsorship.
CS found Janitzky in San Diego shortly before the Art Song Festival, where he was singing the roles of Kuligin in Janácek’s Katya Kabanova and the Baron Douphol in Verdi’s La Traviata.
Where are you from originally?
I was born and raised in Davis, Calif., near Sacramento. I’m a first-generation Russian-American, and grew up in a bilingual household: We spoke Russian at home and English in school and the community.
My grandparents lived nearby—my grandfather came here in the 1950s to teach Russian at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey—and my brother and I studied Russian with them whenever we could.
Did you receive your musical training and attend college in California?
Yes, to both. My father was music director at the Russian Orthodox church in Sacramento and I sang there as I got older, and I attended the University of California at Davis, originally as a Russian Studies major. I took some music history classes for electives and was exposed to opera, really for the first time. Listening to Mozart operas turned on my interest in singing, and I joined the UCD choir just for fun.
I took some time off from school for a while, [and] did a lot of performing locally in the San Francisco Bay area. Since I didn’t finish my undergrad degree, I studied and took lessons, and was admitted into the certificate program at Yale. I never expected to end up in a conservatory environment down the road!
Who were your teachers?
Well, I studied with Stephanie Friedman at UCD, and later privately with Gregory and Marcie Stapp in San Francisco. They were wonderful, because Greg focused on technique, while Marcie polished my repertoire through coachings. I still work with both of them whenever I’m in the area.
I met Richard Cross through a friend at Glimmerglass the summer of 1998, and that’s what put me on the performance certificate track at Yale. Richard works both technique and coaching aspects with me, depending on what I need at the moment. New repertoire that I’m just learning often requires a more heavily technical approach than older, more settled rep that I’m reworking for an audition or competition.
I also worked at Yale, and continue to work, with Éric Trudel. In fact, Éric will be my accompanist at the Cleveland Art Song Festival.
Do you think you have a “natural” technique?
Well, I’ve often been told that by other people, and I feel like my voice just required time to let it grow, and of course, plenty of practice. I think that a pretty good technique was already in place; I never had to struggle too much to make it work. When I first started singing, I could never have sung a high G, but in time it came and now it’s pretty much there, unless I’m sick or something. For many singers it’s just a matter of age and time, and for me it was just a matter of working on it and adjusting it as my voice matures. I usually feel I can rely on my voice when I sing.
Who has been influential in your developing career?
Whew! That’s a big question! I would say Marilyn Horne was and still is supportive. I spent three lovely summers working with her and others at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara [Calif.]. Winning the competition the second summer I was there and getting a New York recital was so important. She’s so generous with the Foundation in getting young singers recitals, which is very difficult these days. I’ve had some very good lessons with Sherrill Milnes, who was teaching at Yale while I was there…I had a good relationship with him and learned so much from another baritone with such vast experience. I would also have to list Warren Jones, in terms of recital repertoire at Music Academy of the West. He’s very accessible as a human being and as an artist.
Your repertoire for the Cleveland Art Song Festival is centered on the Russian repertoire, for obvious reasons. Do you think it’s important for today’s singers to have a working knowledge of that language, in addition to French, Italian, and German?
Well, it’s getting more and more important, because they’re starting to do Russian opera in the regional theaters, not just in the big houses. In the last 10 years more and more Russian singers have come out of Russia and are exposing us to the glories of their music. American singers do tend to face some challenges with Russian. The Cyrillic alphabet is the biggest one, but that’s easy to get around.
What’s the dead giveaway to you that an American is singing Russian?
It depends on the singer. Some singers do it very, very well, but often some combinations of consonants and certain vowels are not quite native-sounding, because English just doesn’t have those sounds. But it is so close to correct that it just doesn’t bother me.
I think when an Italian sings Russian it’s a little bit closer in some ways, because Russian and the Latin-based languages have more in common than Russian and English or German. The flow of the language is more naturally close to Italian. Also, sometimes American singers tend to over overexaggerate the consonants, almost like the singer is working too hard, harder than he needs to. American singers are very versatile and are known to be more adventurous in singing in different languages.
What specific problems do American singers have singing Russian?
The two major errors I hear are a misunderstanding of the “ya” syllable, the letter that looks like a backward R. The connection following a consonant is not always smooth, like in the word “teb-YA,” which is often sung because it means “you.” The tendency is for the singer to insert almost an additional syllable in there, and pronounce it almost like “te-bi-YA.” But it’s very similar to Italian when an /ia/ follows a /c/ or /g/; the glide of the /y/ sound is imbedded in the consonant before it and doesn’t need to be emphasized. The other difficulty is that dark /i/ vowel, which presents problems, depending on the consonants and other vowels around it.
Do you think Russian provokes more tongue and jaw tension than other languages?
No, not really. If your technique is good, and you’re already keeping your tongue relaxed and down, Russian shouldn’t present any problems.
You had a wonderful career boost with a Russian opera at Santa Fe recently, didn’t you?
Yes, I was an apprentice the summer of 2002, covering the title role in Eugene Onegin when the contracted singer had to cancel. Luckily, I was ready and even had time to run through the staging and work with the conductor before the performance. I’m hoping that down the road this opportunity will help my career. People have noticed and remembered, so I’m hoping more performing opportunities will come, as people connect me with the Russian language and the repertoire.
In fact, you’re really emphasizing the Russian repertoire in your recital work.
Absolutely! I’ve done so much of the standard Russian song composers that now I’d like to study more contemporary composers, such as Shchedrin, Sviridov, and Rekhin.
What are the most important elements of a good coach for you?
Well, knowledge of repertoire is very, very important. Éric Trudel has been extremely helpful in French repertoire, since he’s from Quebec; he also knows what will work well together in program building. Language knowledge is very important, too. Marcie Stapp is marvelous in working with mechanical things like language and style, particularly in the opera repertory.
Do you have any hints for singers and collaborative pianists?
It’s a natural thing, I think, just feeling comfortable with each other, finding the right musical blend, the right personality blend. When I’ve worked with someone with a personality radically different from mine, there’s always a small barrier. Finding the right coach/accompanist is much like putting colors together in a painting.
How much of your career is spent in opera and how much in recital work?
I’m just starting out, so I’m doing lots of opera auditions, and at this point, nothing is scheduled opera-wise for the 2004-05 season—but of course, I’m hoping that will change! But I’ve got several recitals lined up for this coming season. Next October I’ll be doing a Horne Foundation recital in Brownville, Neb., for the Brownville Music Series, then I’ve got two recitals with the New York City art song mini-festival (“The Song Continues…”), one at Merkin Hall and the other at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Those are both in January, then in February I’ve got my Weill Recital Hall debut. There’s plenty of time to learn new repertoire, but it will still be very heavily Russian-based. I like to perform some new repertoire, some old repertoire, trying to find a good balance so I won’t be so nervous. My brain handling so much new stuff at once can be scary!
What are your career goals and aspirations?
I would be happy concertizing, but the pay is better in opera, so I hope to find a good balance between recitals and operas. And I would love to work in Europe.
Have you found management yet?
Yes, I’m with Ken Benson at Columbia Artists Management. Ken has been wonderful, one of those relationships that happened naturally. He heard me at Yale for three years. Ken looks long term, looks for consistency in a singer, and doesn’t seem overly aggressive in wanting me to try repertoire I may not be ready for yet.
What about your personal life?
Well, I’m married to a French horn player. We met at Yale, and she teaches elementary school music. We still live near New Haven [Conn.]. I like New York City a lot—but I’m always happy to come home to our basement apartment in a big house, where we have a big yard with a pond, and lots of friends in the area. That feels very comfortable right now.
Do you still struggle with the day-to-day aspects of a singer’s life?
Oh, yes. It’s very difficult, financially, to survive. My wife’s stable job really helps; my income is more a supplemental thing. These two months in San Diego have been great, but it’s short-lived. These last few months have been particularly difficult, because I had the Wigmore Hall competition in London last October, and then I did auditions in France.
Even for people who have “made it” a lot of careful planning must be done, because the income is never steady. And that’s hard emotionally, because you’ve put all this money, time, and effort into getting there, doing the auditions, and you often don’t hear anything for a long time, if at all. I have a good coach-friend at the Met, Eugene Sirotkin, and we often talk and share hardship stories, and he always says, “Whatever you do, don’t give up.”
Do you ever get discouraged?
Sure, I get discouraged. Sometimes, when you read about singers in the past, you realize they paid their dues as well and many of them had it worse than you do. As long as I have something ahead of me it’s easier to handle.
I’m very grateful to San Diego Opera for giving me the small roles I performed there this spring. Discouragement with me is always a temporary thing, and there’s always the music itself to lift me out.
Yes, I do get discouraged, but I try to remember the good feedback I’ve gotten, the encouragement, and I just keep going. A lot of it is luck. You just have to wait until somebody takes a chance on you—but the only way to get lucky is to keep working hard.
