You have to believe in yourself. You must be able to say: ‘I’m worth taking the risk to contact these people. And you never know whether or not it will work.’”
Networking is something that Greer Grimsley, like so many other up-and-coming singers, takes pretty seriously. The bass-baritone has had a number of career milestones in the past few years, including his Metropolitan Opera debut during the 1994-1995 season, and is looking forward to a number of exciting future engagements. But he’s not standing around just hoping that one project will naturally lead to another.
“The landscape changes so quickly–and the things that were true when I was a young singer are not necessarily valid now,” Grimsley told me. “For instance, I take my laptop with me–it keeps me organized, and it’s a way to keep in touch, hooked into the grapevine. It’s great for keeping your finances organized, but also your schedule. If someone calls me, I can use that information.” How? “For example, I can’t say what job I’m talking about because we’re still working on it, but it all started when a friend e-mailed me and said, ‘Listen, my agent just recommended you as a Wotan at this particular house. Get in touch with your agent.’”
So is that the way it works? It’s all about who you know? “I think the more you prove yourself, the more people know you, and the more they can recommend you. And that’s the catch-22 of this whole situation–people won’t recommend you if they don’t know you, and yet they won’t get to know you if you don’t work for them… and that takes a recommendation! It’s still very much word-of-mouth–if your craft is good, and you are reliable….”
So networking is a critical element in finding that all-important Next Job? Grimsley shrugged. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. One of the reasons I think networking is such a buzzword right now, especially in the arts, is because there is such a huge amount of oral tradition that is being lost these days. I spoke to Sherrill Milnes recently about his early days at the Met, and asked him who if anyone was a mentor to him–took him under his wing. ‘George London,’ he said immediately.
“I didn’t have that mentor–that early tradition. I’ve pretty much had to put my head down and do most of this on my own, and it goes to show, to some extent, just how much this business has changed. That’s why networking is such a popular word. If someone who is younger than I am asks me for advice, or asks to sing for me–I feel it incumbent upon me, as an artist, to do something. It is a tradition–and we are passing along those traditions to each other. When that starts falling apart, as it has in more recent years, you begin losing chunks of tradition.
“And frankly it’s gotten so dog-eat-dog that nobody wants to tell anyone their secrets. There’s no voodoo about it–you work to be the best artist that you can be. It’s in sharing–we perform because we want to share, and it doesn’t stop at the footlights. You share with your colleagues as well. But it’s gotten so competitive that that’s why people are looking for networks.”
So is it purely a business issue? Considering how many technically amazing singers we turn out these days, and how few jobs are available–how successful can networking really be for opera singers?
“That’s a very valid point, both because of the present competitive climate, and because naturally everyone wants success. Young lyric baritones want to be Thomas Hampson, or have that career, and everyone’s fighting to get there, as opposed to sharing and learning. Talent is not any guarantee of anything, and more so now than ever before. We’ve all seen it, and it’s true. You have to say ‘What are my strengths, and is this what’s selling now?’
“We also get caught up in labels. You grow by stretching–if you’re always in a box, you don’t grow. It’s all part of the craft–learning your limits, learning what is really your area, what’s your best. You gain a certain amount of power.”
What about singers who are really good at networking? “I do know singers like that. They’re very good networkers–worth studying, in fact! But in the long run, it does take a certain amount of energy. And if you have a family, along with everything else–you have to say, ‘This is what I can do; this is what I will do.’ There’s actually a certain amount of networking that happens rather naturally. Let’s say you’ve worked with a company, and you did a good job and parted on good terms with them. Then certainly it does make sense to stay in contact. They liked you, first off, to hire you–and with e-mail, you don’t have to spend a lot of time working on it. E-mail is probably the easiest way of networking in that sense, just to stay in contact and let them know what you’re doing, and find out what they are doing.
“It’s as true for singing as with advertising: Out of sight, out of mind. In this business, you want people to think of you first when they’re casting a role.”
Clearly a lot of things are going very, very well for Grimsley, and the New Orleans native credits that success in no small part to his teachers and peers. “I’ve always remembered something my first voice teacher said to me. ‘We can spend hours in this studio, but you’re not going to really learn anything until you watch someone do it–until you watch and learn. Then we come back to the studio.’
“You can learn from any artist, whether you think they’re good or not; if they’re out there doing it there’s something to be learned. Everyone is looking to do the ‘right thing,’ for competitive reasons. But I think people want to see an individual, not a pre-packaged product.”
