Whether the call comes five days, five hours, or five minutes before curtain, being prepared for the possibility of going on stage to replace a first-cast singer is a crucial part of building a career. Dependable cover singers who are punctual and fully prepared for rehearsals can build solid relationships with personnel at many levels within an opera company, thereby building a reputation for themselves. Along with the possibility of performing, they earn extra income by being available for each performance in a run.
Whether or not a cover singer is called to take the place of the principal, covering begs the question: How do you prepare for a role when you have limited rehearsal time and must be prepared to step in at a moment’s notice? Three singers spoke with Classical Singer to share their experiences, tips, and techniques.
Philip Webb
Tenor Philip Webb had covered 70 performances at the Metropolitan Opera over a period of seven years before he made his unexpected debut as Manrico in Il trovatore this past March 13. He replaced Marcelo Álvarez for the second half of the performance.
“When it comes to the Met, I’ve been willing to cover because I wanted to build a relationship with them. For me, [covering at the Met] was going to lead to performances, and that’s why I continued to do it,” he says. Since 2002, he has covered La forza del destino, Andrea Chénier, Il tabarro, La gioconda, Macbeth, Norma, Tosca, Luisa Miller, and La bohème, among other operas. Webb’s official Met debut had been planned for Calaf in Turandot in January 2010.
As fate would have it, he originally was not going to cover Manrico during the 2008-09 Met season—he was supposed to cover Enzo in La gioconda, Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, and the Prince in Rusalka, but it turned out that the Met needed a cover for Manrico who would be available for the entire run. Because he was already comfortable with Manrico and would have had to learn the Prince in Rusalka, which received fewer performances, Webb exchanged those cover performances for Manrico. “It was a good thing for me to do because it meant more money and I didn’t have to learn a brand new role,” he says.
On the nights when he is covering, Webb is almost always backstage in the theater, by choice—the Met does not require him to be backstage. On March 13, he was sitting in the Met’s cafeteria during intermission and preparing to go downstairs to a rehearsal room to study other repertoire. A member of the music staff approached him, calmly put his hand on the table, looked at Webb, and said, “[Marcelo’s] agent says he’s not feeling well and he may not be able to finish the show. I think you need to come upstairs.”
The next 20 minutes were intense. Webb put on his costume and makeup, and conductor Gianandrea Noseda entered his dressing room with an accompanist so that Webb could sing through part of the third act.
“My situation was unique because, for this particular run-through, Dolora Zajick was not doing the last two performances [as Azucena]—Luciana D’Intino was. For two days the previous week, I had rehearsed the staging with Gianandrea and Luciana so, for the entire fourth act with Azucena, Gianandrea was already comfortable with me, and I was comfortable with the staging. Things weren’t complicated,” Webb says.
The rehearsal process is the time when the art of covering becomes subjective, in terms of how cover singers choose to prepare themselves. At the Met, for example, cover singers are not officially called to rehearsals—but that does not mean cover singers do not attend.
“Preparing yourself is up to the individual person and their own work ethic,” Webb says. “If the person I’m covering is rehearsing, I’m going to be there, especially for an opera I’ve never done before.”
He says that, usually, the companies do not want covering to be the time when a singer starts to learn a role, unless they already know the singer’s work ethic and reputation and are confident the singer will be prepared. Which segues to Webb’s first piece of advice for younger singers: find difficult roles that not many people sing and get regional experience in those roles. Then you can sell yourself to an opera company as an available and ready cover.
Next, he says, be completely prepared musically and off-book for the first day of rehearsal, even if you are not called. Anything can happen the first day—people can be late, planes can be late, and people can be sick. If that happens, you are expected to be able to step in at the rehearsal.
Request coachings with the music staff, and be open to fixing any areas that are requested. Take staging notes and find time to walk them on your own. “One of the reasons I go to each show,” Webb says, “is to review the staging, and it is a great time to find an empty rehearsal room and do some work on your own. After the show opens, you may go for weeks with no rehearsing, so do it on your own.”
Review coachings that you have recorded, and request coachings if you need the role refreshed in your voice. A few times, the entire cover cast has asked the music staff for musical run-throughs in the middle of a run.
One of Webb’s discoveries over the past few years is that the Met’s reputation for not creating positive experiences for its cover singers is not accurate. On the contrary, he has found that covering at the Met opens doors at other theaters, and his Met assignments have benefited his career. Singers need to be busy to survive in a difficult business, and Webb believes that covering at the Met, if the opportunity presents itself, is a smart choice to make.
“If you are always there, always prepared, and always willing, you are going to get opportunities to work with someone and to be heard by someone,” he says.
Gary Lehman
During Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Met this past spring, tenor/baritone Gary Lehman substituted twice as Siegmund. Those who were in the theater or listened to the live international radio broadcast of Die Walküre on April 11 heard his first-ever complete Siegmund—which he sang on four hours’ notice, replacing Johan Botha. The call had come at 8:10 that morning.
“As soon as the phone rang, I knew that it was the Met,” Lehman says. Less than 90 minutes later, the ferry brought him from Staten Island to Manhattan.
Then, on May 5, Lehman literally jumped in for Plácido Domingo. At 5:55 that evening, five minutes before curtain, he was told that Domingo was not feeling well, so he put on his costume and makeup and waited stage right, just in case. “Just in case” happened about 40 minutes into the first act, when Domingo realized he could not continue. Lehman walked on stage in relative darkness in time for Siegmund’s next musical cue, and the act continued seamlessly.
Before these Ring performances, Lehman appeared as Tristan at the Met in two different runs: on December 6, 2008, he filled in for Peter Seiffert on the live international radio broadcast and, in March 2008, he replaced Ben Heppner twice.
These have been Lehman’s most recent cover assignments at the Met, where he started covering Wagner roles in 2006. That year, on three days’ notice, he was asked to be in the house for Parsifal. Last spring, he made his Met debut while covering Tristan (a last-minute phone call from the Met; his official cover was scheduled for Tristan this past fall) and, fortunately, he had just covered Tristan for Los Angeles Opera two months earlier. He has also covered Parsifal for Los Angeles.
It would seem that he specializes in covering Wagner, but Lehman says it works out that way because Wagner is his main repertoire. He started his career as a baritone, sang as a tenor for five years, sang again as a baritone for 10 years and then, for the past five years, returned to the tenor range.
“This [Wagner] repertoire is so difficult and, if you get a safe place to sit and learn from someone who has already done it, and you get paid to learn the role, then it’s a good situation. It is not a bad idea to cover Wagner before getting a production of your own, so my agent has pursued these opportunities,” Lehman says.
Like other singers who cover, he prepares each role as if he is going to perform it. In addition, his onstage appearances have gone smoothly because the Met, which hires a cover for every role in each production, rehearses all of the covers. They rehearse the blocking and staging for each opera, in its entirety, in a rehearsal room with piano. “As a cover, you can’t just do your own thing, because there are other people on stage relying on you to be in the right place at the right time,” he says.
Lehman also watches the rehearsals in the theater, but for a different reason. “I watch the conductor to see how he’s reacting to certain moments in the music so that I know what he’s going to do. I know what they’re doing on stage because I’ve been rehearsed, so I think it’s more important to be able to watch the conductor,” he says.
Years ago, he covered many roles for the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists and appeared in more than 90 performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, so he highlights Young Artist Programs as good opportunities for covering. Lehman also believes that any singer who wants to build experience as a cover needs to target the right companies, especially with the help of an agent.
“As a cover, go out there and do the very best that you can,” he says. “You have much more to gain than to lose. It helps to be in the right place at the right time, but you have to be prepared for that moment.”
Peter Lindskoog
On-call for Scarpia when San Francisco Opera presented Tosca this past June, baritone Peter Lindskoog was covering for the company for the second time, having previously covered the Forester in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in 2004. For that production, he was one of a few singers who had performed the Forester, so he took advantage of a golden opportunity to present himself to the company. For Tosca, he auditioned to cover Scarpia.
In the past few years, Lindskoog has also covered productions for Los Angeles Opera, where he covered and made his debut as Scarpia, and Seattle Opera, where he covered Orestes in Elektra.
At San Francisco Opera, each cover singer observes rehearsals and takes notes, followed by coaching to check his or her comfort with the role. Later in the rehearsal process, the assistant director walks the covers through the staging, and brush-up coaching takes place every week during performances.
The staging rehearsals depend on the production. When Lindskoog covered The Cunning Little Vixen, every role was covered because the opera was unique and rarely performed, so the covers received a complete run-through onstage with the conductor. In the case of Tosca, only Tosca and Scarpia had covers, so there was one staging rehearsal for the two singers with the assistant conductor.
Lindskoog has developed several techniques to prepare for going onstage. One is to spend as much time as possible watching the conductor. “If there’s a spot backstage where I can see the conductor and I’m not in anyone’s way, I’ll watch to see what the baton is doing. If not, I watch the conductor’s monitor,” he says.
Two other techniques are more physical. “I take very specific notes in my score and, literally, walk mentally and semi-physically through the role as I’m singing through it. I also ask the stage crew, while the set is up, if I can walk through the set. I get a feel for the actual space behind the curtain,” Lindskoog says. In other words, he takes advantage of opportunities to help himself. He asserts that if cover singers need coaching, they should ask for it, and they should feel welcome to ask the principal singers for advice.
Ultimately, Lindskoog says it is very important to both respect the person you are covering and understand the job. “Be ready to give the public as good a performance as the person in the program, if need be.”
