Sylvia McNair made her concert debut in 1980 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Two years later, she made her operatic debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in Haydn’s L’infedeltà delusa. She has performed at the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden, Santa Fe Opera, San Francisco Opera, and at the Metropolitan Opera. In addition, she has sung with numerous major European and American orchestras.
At the turn of the century, McNair made the difficult decision to leave opera and change her focus to musical theatre and cabaret, genres in which she has achieved considerable critical acclaim. In 2006, she joined the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, her alma mater, where she teaches singing. In her spare time, she reads copiously and is a serious student of comparative religion. She sat down recently with CS to share her thoughts on everything from cabaret to recital singing, to finding the best teacher for crossover, to whether or not belting is necessary.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Mansfield, Ohio. That’s halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, so I was raised listening to the Cleveland Orchestra. As a young girl, I attended many of the student orchestra and chamber music clinics that were offered there. Of course, I was also raised on Ohio State football and Cleveland Indians baseball. I was a slightly nerdy girl who wore glasses and practiced violin five hours a day. Summers, I spent my time playing chamber music.
I think playing a stringed instrument is the best ear training to be had. It certainly teaches you to sing in tune. When I do Charlie Daniels’ “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” I sing and play the fiddle. Although I can’t do both at exactly the same time, I do play and sing that piece.
I started taking singing lessons when I was a junior at Wheaton College near Chicago. Although I was a late bloomer at singing, I had been studying [music] since age 3 and violin since age 7. I had many years of solid musical training behind me. That is absolutely necessary because it helps a singer to be a good musician.
Who were some of your teachers?
I studied with Virginia Zeani at Indiana University and with Margarita Evans at Wheaton College. I have also studied with Gary Magby and Lorraine Nubar. One of my piano teachers was Elizabeth Pastor, who is still teaching in Ohio. After college, I did the Merola Program in San Francisco. That was in 1982, when I also won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Most of my opera career took place in Europe. I only spent four seasons at the Met. I sang seven seasons at the Salzburg Festival, basically in the ‘90s. The main cities in which I performed were Salzburg, Berlin, London, and Vienna. I also did some work in various cities in Italy, as well as in Paris and Amsterdam. Besides the Met, I did three seasons at San Francisco Opera and one at Chicago Lyric Opera.
After 20 years of singing opera professionally, I decided not to do that any more. I wanted to spend more time doing musical theatre, which is something I have always loved. Last summer I did a production of Most Happy Fella. I loved doing that—so much so that I think July 2007 was the happiest month of my life. I got to sing Rosabella opposite Rod Gilfry’s Joey and George Hearn’s Tony. In my opinion, more opera companies should produce musical theatre because there are so many great works from the past. What can be seen on Broadway today just isn’t as good as what was written in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.
I started singing musical theatre and cabaret a long time ago, mostly for fun. Then, in the mid-‘90s, my record company, Phillips Classics, asked André Previn and me to do a whole series of recordings which were to be called “The Great American Song Book.” Unfortunately, we were only able to record two of them before the project was dumped. Now that company doesn’t even exist any more!
Anyway, in the ‘90s, I started doing more of that repertoire, and I just loved it. It really makes me happy to be singing those songs. On our first disc, André and I did songs by Jerome Kern. On the second, we performed music by Harold Arlen. Now we are trying to put the finances together to record songs by Cole Porter. I’ve also done concerts of the Gershwins’ music in Europe as well as the United States. We did tons of Gershwin shows in the late ‘90s. The centennial years for George and Ira Gershwin were 1996 and 1998, respectively.
By 2002, I had sung on the opera stages of the world for 20 years. At that time, I made the very difficult decision to stop doing opera. After all, I had sung it for 20 more years than I had ever expected, but I decided to make myself more available for musical theatre engagements. I thought that if I did not make the change then, I might never make it. Twenty was the perfect number for me. Now, I do one or two musicals a year and a great many cabaret shows in between. That’s where I get to sing all those wonderful songs I enjoy so much.
Do you find there is a relationship between singing cabaret songs and doing recitals?
Yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I will say quite honestly that doing classical art song recitals was never an exercise I reveled in. I did them—sometimes I did them well—but it was always something that my managers had to nudge me to do. It was not a genre that I was all that comfortable with.
Now that I’ve changed to singing songs instead of arias and am singing 20th century American music, I’m having the time of my life. I absolutely love doing it. I do programs of various lengths—one hour, 75 minutes, or 90 minutes—it doesn’t matter how long. It’s the most pleasure I’ve ever gotten from music. I truly love singing it, because I feel like I’m wearing my own skin now. I’m in my own body, in my own voice, and in my own music.
I think the best cabaret show is basically an autobiography. You sing pieces that you love more than life itself and in the process you open yourself up to an audience. You tell your story. You do it through talking to the audience, which I do comfortably. My current cabaret show is called It’s Good to Have You Near Again. It’s basically my story. It tells where my life has been and where it is now. I just open my heart and share it with people.
How does a young singer start doing cabaret?
It’s not easy because there aren’t enough venues for it and a great many singers like to do it. The advice I give students is that they should do some of the songs whenever they are asked to sing. Although they may not always get paid, they need to get out there and sing at every opportunity. You need experience and you need to be heard, so you may have to work for very little at first. You need to try out music in front of people, to sing it from memory and to learn to give a fully committed performance. It’s important to see that as many people as possible know how good you are at this kind of music so they can talk about you.
Symphony orchestras all over this country are increasing the number of pops concerts they do. Pops often pays the bills for less well-attended classical concerts. It’s not necessarily true in Chicago and New York City, but it’s what is happening in a great many other places.
The classical music business has changed radically since I launched myself into it some 25 years ago. I have been very busy singing ever since I left school, but fashions change. Singers and instrumentalists go in and out of style. So do conductors. In this country—not necessarily in Europe, but here—performers are trying every possible way of breaking down the wall between the audience and themselves. We have to learn to make better connections to our listeners. You can no longer just sing any program that you think is elevated art. Those days, if they ever existed, are over. You have to program music that people want to hear.
In 2008, concertgoers spend a lot of money to go to the theater. There are many other demands on people’s time and money. Getting them into the hall on a regular basis is tremendously difficult. I am relieved that I am not running an arts organization. I think a great deal of reinvention will be needed to keep smaller companies in business.
Who is your current agent?
I need different agents for different kinds of music, of course. I have an agent in New York City, Jerry Kravat, who is absolutely tops for musical theatre, and another in Philadelphia, Eric Amada, who just programs special acts.
Should you go to a different teacher when you begin to do crossover?
I don’t, but that’s not to say there’s no value in it. When I was in school at Indiana University, I studied pop and jazz with Eileen Farrell, who was on the faculty there. She could do a role at the Met on Thursday and sing at a jazz club on Friday and Saturday. She was very successful on both sides of the divide. I studied with her for two years. She taught me the literature, microphone technique, phrasing, all those stylistic things. She was an enormous help, but at this point I rely totally on my own instincts. Of course, I listen to great singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, too.
I don’t let people put a voice category with my name. It’s just “Sylvia McNair, singer,” or “vocals by Sylvia McNair,” and I often sing songs in lower keys than those in which they were published.
Cabaret is much more intimate then a classical concert or recital. When I did my extended run at the Algonquin, the room only held 90 people. I’ve also sung at Feinstein’s, which holds 100 people, at most. You can’t be singing high and loud in a place like that, so you bring the volume down and do it in a “for your ears only” style.
Barbara Cook, who coaches classical singers in this repertoire, constantly tells them to lighten up their vocal production and lighten up their consonants. You have to make this sort of singing much more like speech and scale down the volume. It needs to be much more intimate.
The great thing about sitting on a stool and holding a mike is that it is like being able to sing for people in your own living room after dinner, except that you don’t have to cook.
Do you have to belt?
No! I don’t belt and I don’t know how that’s done well. I do believe that as long as your throat is open and you keep air support going, you are not going to damage your voice. Whether you are singing a cabaret song or a Mozart aria with high Cs, as long as your breath support is under you and your throat is open, you will be fine. Although I don’t belt, I don’t doubt that there are healthy ways to do it. You can train your voice to get strong at specific things. I sing plenty of low notes, but I sing them lyrically. I think that my lower register is the best part of my voice.
Your students say wonderful things about you.
Well, believe me, I love them, too. This is the part of teaching I was not prepared for: how quickly you fall in love with them, wake up thinking about them, tear up when they share their struggles, or jump for joy when they show you their triumphs! Oh my, what a cocktail of emotion. I suppose it’s part mother, part protector, part friend, and in some cases wanting to be a guardian angel. They’re so young and their journeys are still ahead of them—those infamous journeys with the mountaintops and valleys, the highs, the lows, the joys, and the pain. It’s a tough life! I never know for sure how much to tell them about all that.
Some of my friends (colleagues) tell me I’m “over-invested” in the students. I don’t know. I am certainly invested, and I don’t know how else to be.
Do you manage to have anything of a private life?
I was married for a long, long time, but not anymore. Divorce was not my choice. It was imposed on me. We were not successful at having children and I was in the process of adopting a child when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. For that reason, the adoption did not happen.
Now, I’ve a wonderful pet cocker spaniel named Mabel and some interesting hobbies. For example, I love to bicycle. I’m a long distance walker, so I did the Breast Cancer Three-Day. Unfortunately, we could not finish all of it because of torrential rain. I completed the Big Sur Marathon, though.
I love physical activity because I enjoy the way I feel while I’m doing it. I try to make my body as fit as can be. Of course, I also try to eat healthy food. I’ve trained my brain to like salad and fish. I used to crave pasta and potatoes, but now I’m just as fond of fruits and vegetables.
Now, I get a chance to read, too. These books are on my nightstand now: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love; Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope; and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I love to read about world religions. Recently, I went to hear the Dalai Lama speak. I am trying to educate myself about non-Christian beliefs. I was raised in the Midwestern Christian tradition, but I want to have my world amplified by other religions.
Someday, when I have time, I’m going to go back to school and get a master’s degree in comparative world religion because I find it fascinating. What we all have in common far outweighs our differences.
