Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / A Tenor, Straight-talking and Superb

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A Tenor, Straight-talking and Superb · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome to Q&A.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jay Nordlinger, coming to you from the Salzburg Festival in Austria.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm podcasting on behalf of the Salzburg Festival Society.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our guest today is an American tenor,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Eric Cutler,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: who has sung all over the world, pretty much, in all the major opera houses.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: In Salzburg this year, he is singing in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxus.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Eric Cutler, hello, and what a pleasure to meet you.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard you many, many times.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I said you've been in every major house.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of went down the list.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think you have been.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you missing any?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's some, yeah.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Scala, I haven't sung it yet.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Believe it or not, I haven't sung it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a minor Italian.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that little one.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, screw Scala.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't made it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I've sung with the symphony in San Francisco, but I never sang it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: With the opera there, and I haven't sung in Barcelona.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: That leaves a lot of the rest of the world.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean most of the other theaters I've sung in, most of them, most of the large ones.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: What's Salzburg like, Eric, for a performer?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is it sort of a little summertime Disneyland where everyone gathers?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what's it like to sing in Salzburg?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: For classical musicians, yes.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, the geography is just remarkable.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much to do here, the lakes.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But, I mean,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: all of the musicians that are gathered and the repertoire,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: the broadness of the repertoire...
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're just walking down the street that could try to Gaza or something.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: you meet there's Lang Lang or there's,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: a famous musician or so many colleagues,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know, for those of us that have been doing it a long time.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you just run into them.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: But and also, I mean, it was Strauss's festival that he started himself.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's, you know, in that way, it's sort of.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's a parallel to Bayreuth, of course, and it's just an enormous honor
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: to be here.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to talk about you and Wagner in a minute, but I want to ask you this.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of enjoy asking this question I have over the years.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you sing in front of Austrian audiences, British ones, American ones, etc.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any Japanese ones, Eric?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, I haven't.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: My wife's been to Japan twice.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've not been to China or Japan.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was supposed to go to Korea last year, but got terribly sick and I had to cancel.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was so disappointed because I was supposed to open this new hall in Busan
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: in South Korea, and I was really looking forward to it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: But no, I've not been that far.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned your wife, also a singer.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yulia Klaita is my wife.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Soprano.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: The Soprano, yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: German Soprano.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think we had in this series last year, the year before.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Julian.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Her cousin.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: As I say in my Midwestern English, Julian Pregardian.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's her cousin.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Christoph
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: must be her.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So these are famous German tenors, father and son.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Julia Kleiter, Julia Kleiter.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is Kristoff's niece and Eric's wife.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of singing.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any rivalry or is it all very friendly?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can share your existence with them.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, not just the singing, but the existence of being a singer, which is a bit nomadic.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: It can be lonely.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just an understanding there that is really cathartic in a way.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful to have that support of people who understand exactly what we do.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And not just repertoire-wise, but I mean the actual lifestyle.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you and your wife sing together on stage?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have maybe three times that when we met,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: which was 20 years ago in Edinburgh,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: and then we did Idomeneo together,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: and then we did Freischutz together in München, and that's it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: What was the opera in Edinburgh?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Magic flute.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a happily fateful... Yeah, with Claudio Botto conducting.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was wonderful.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was 20 years ago.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to imagine.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about singing together on stage.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: But even more important, I want to know, how about at home?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's a lot of singing at home.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of preparation.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the kids are just so used to it now.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So is our dog.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots of singing.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Does a dog ever sing along?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: He'll howl and, you know.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of dog is he
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: or is he?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's a Havanese.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Pablo's his name.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's wonderful.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: He was one of those COVID gifts,
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: there was finally time in our lives to be normal human beings, so we got a dog.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you where I was going with the opera houses and the different publics.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are the differences in the publics?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Italians, the Germans, the Austrians, the French, the English, the Americans, is...
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are some audiences sort of quieter, more attentive?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Some audiences more boisterous?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get a different feeling or is an audience an audience, would you say?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you're singing to a public in its native language,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: there's always,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who said that,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: but if you speak to someone in a foreign language,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: you're speaking to And I would say that there's always a noticeable difference
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: if you're singing in the native language of the country.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's no delay in terms of if you're doing something funny or if there's just
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: an extra level of attentiveness that's not there otherwise.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: But, I mean, the Spanish can be... Passionate?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: They can be boisterous.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: If they don't like something, they'll let you know about it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: The Italians, too.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: The Italians will, too.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Parma is said to be notorious.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been there?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was booed there.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was booed in Reggio Emilia.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was booed in Venice.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, pretty much everywhere.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, screw them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's just part of the job.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is my 26th season.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So over the course of decades, you develop a pretty thick skin.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eric, when you're in the audience and there's an opera, you don't know very well.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a letter you don't know.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say there's average diction, not bad diction.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can you understand the words?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I often want to know.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: How much should we be able to understand?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people complain of not being able to understand the words.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I sometimes reply maybe flippantly, too flippantly, go to a play.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Singing is a little bit different, especially higher up.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: The higher the voice is,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: the harder it is for them to sing true vowels, like the closed E and A vowel.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: For a soprano, I mean, they can't really make that sound up there.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like the sound A or E. Yeah, that's correct.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: The closed vowels, they can't really phonate that high, so they have to modify those vowels.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's hard to completely understand.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: But the lower voices,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know, basses,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: baritones,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: even some tenors,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think most tenors, I think you should be able to understand that.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: 70 to 80% of what we're singing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, opera singing is, I liken it to, you know, it's like World's Strongest Man.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even like Olympic weightlifting.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you're seeing some guy pick up the back end of a car and lift it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: To sing as loud as...
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: We need to sing,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: especially the dramatic repertoire,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Strauss, Wagner, even Big Verdi and things like this.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're making an incredible amount of decibels with two very small muscles.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And most people,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think they think of it as just singing,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: but operatic singing specifically is something that is,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: it is the world's strongest man of
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: There is no amplification and you're singing over a hundred people playing in an orchestra pit.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely remarkable.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are the two small muscles?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: The vocal folds, you mean?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the vocal cords.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, they are muscles.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: They are, you know, I mean, they're, I think it's 70% collagen, but...
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: But they are muscle.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: It takes years and years and decades of training so that you're able
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: to Make those types of sounds,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: but then make them over the course of four
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: or five hours is absolutely extraordinary.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the Iron Man of singing.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, yeah, you should be able to understand the majority of what is being sung.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: But like you say,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think even I as a listener can't always,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: always understand,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: especially like I said,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: the women,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: the higher the pitch gets,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: the harder it is for them to To be able to sing correct vowels.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's pretty tough.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: On the subject of loud and amplification,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have much of a chance to go to a Broadway show
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: whether you want to,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: but they all have sticks next to these little microphone sticks.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really like them sort of barking into those mics myself.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what you think is a little bit I don't know, I was about to say cheating.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I wonder, I hope that doesn't come to opera.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it has started to sneak in.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think there are,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: certainly there are a few opera houses that have to amplify just because the Of
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: the acoustics of the house.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: The house wasn't necessarily meant and built as an opera house.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It may have been built as a movie theater or something like this.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so then they will mic the stage.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that has a different type of sound.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: But micing each individual,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the majority of the DVDs that we have, for instance, they'll do that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: They'll mic the individual singer.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then they can do what they need to do in terms of levels so that everything is balanced.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell friends all the time,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: you just can't get an idea of What a singer truly sounds like on a DVD or
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: on YouTube,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: you need to go into the hall and hear that voice thrust at you over the orchestra
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: or not thrust, you know, to get an idea of what it really sounds like, you know.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But for the Broadway singers, you know, I have a couple very, very close friends who do that.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, their schedule is just daunting.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Eight shows a week.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean...
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, you can get away with things that opera singers,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: of course, couldn't ever get away with, but I don't really think of it as cheating.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just part of that art form.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: there's so much dialogue as well that I don't know how they would do that
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: without being mic'd.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, doing Sauberflurte years ago at the Met and having to, you know, Wo bin ich?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Just yelling.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out the words.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm just yelling this dialogue.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's just all sort of part of it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the day that...
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Singers are amplified in the opera house is the end of the art form,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: if you want my honest opinion.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know what you mean.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience, some singers record true.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean is they sound like themselves and some don't.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And here are my two usual examples, two extremes.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Renee Fleming sounds on her many recordings as she does in the hall or the house,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: in recital and in opera.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: She, if...
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Generations from now,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: someone says,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: here's a Renee Fleming disc, or whatever we're going to call it at that time.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's how she sounded.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: My counterexample is one of my favorite singers,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: possibly retired now, I'm not sure, Olga Borodina, the Russian metro soprano.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I heard her lots and lots in recital and in opera.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she didn't really sound like herself on recordings.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid people will say, what was the big deal?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: What was all the fuss about?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well...
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: She was amazing.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: She was remarkable, yeah.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it really comes across.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed this, this idea of trueness in recordings?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's no doubt that certain voices just record much better than others.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we...
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel I haven't really heard Birgit Nielsen.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry to interrupt you, Eric.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even she made a million recordings.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, eyewitnesses, earwitnesses say, oh, you should have been there.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Weirdly enough...
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of believe I know how Caruso sounded,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: even though he sang into this horn in the 19 aughts.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow I feel like I know how he sounded.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can hear his essence.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure, of course.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard to say.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways, I feel like those turn-of-the-century recordings...
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways you get a better idea of,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: the Germans use the word cairn, or the core of the instrument, what it sounded like.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: You lose a lot of the high parcels in those recordings,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: so you don't really, some of the shyness taken off, I guess.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the recording is starting in the early to mid-90s.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's really when things were switching from analog to digital.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, there's just this enormous world of possibilities.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I think that... How do I say this?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: It just took away from...
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: The honesty of the sound.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds doctored.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it's not rooted.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like the sound does not come from anywhere.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, then I'd rather hear a recording that is just live.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Either the space is recorded or it's mixed well.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I did one of those recordings back in 2003 for EMI.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was close to what I sound like,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: but
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: don't think it was necessarily honest completely.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And look,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: we also had an entire wave of singers through the early 90s into,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know, for 20, 25 years that...
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Were just recording singers.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: They were recording artists that didn't translate necessarily very well to
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: the concert hall or to the opera house.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people would say, well,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: that that's what contributed to the loss of great dramatic voices,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: dramatic singers, because all of a sudden we became very interested in early music.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: We became very interested
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Intimacy.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of caressing the
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: mic.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden we lost this way of talking about and training young dramatic voices.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you can see that now in my generation that a lot of the singers that...
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Managed to survive were singers that maybe didn't have the most dramatic instruments.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Those people fell to the wayside.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we may have lost some of the great dramatic voices of my generation because of that.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's good and bad.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: We got out to a large audience.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the three tenors concerts and these things brought a lot of people to the art form.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was very positive.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think if I go back and listen to the,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know, those Met recordings of the late 70s and through the mid 80s, late 80s.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: There were a lot more great Verity voices,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wagnerian voices, more dramatic instruments in the market.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're very thin on the ground now.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: No pun on thin intended.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is correct.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is in part due to the recording industry into that early 90s.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you think about it, sort of...
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yanni and Kenny G and Easy Listening sort of overlapped with classical music.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we sort of, because it was huge at that time.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was huge.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of jazz musicians think that was the end of an idiom, you know?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think rightly so,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: the classical genre sort of I've piggybacked on that a bit,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I don't think that we necessarily stayed completely true to what
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: the art form is,
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: and it became a bit of, I don't want to use it, but I will, poppera.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're not legitimate,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: World's Strongest Man competitors,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: but they can make a classically somewhat trained sound.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was having lunch with a fellow friend of mine, knows a lot, an hour and a half ago.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: He said, how would you cast Aida today?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Who'd be your Sprana, who'd be your tenor, who are the other two?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: How would you do it?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Man...
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our list of names wasn't that long?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thin pool.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are a number of people out there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: if you think back to what we now consider the golden era,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening to this recording of Bastionini, Corelli, and Tabaldi this morning.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's 58 years.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you listen to the Compromario singers and they could be leading singers today.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were almost afterthoughts.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think back then,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: back in the 50s and 60s,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: you probably could have cast Aida with, you know, just Compromario singers.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's, like you say, it's thin air.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get a little autobiographical.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where'd you grow up?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up about 20 miles west of Des Moines, Iowa.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: What's the name of your town, your hometown?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Adel.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Adel, Iowa.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: A-D-E-L. That's right.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was about 3,000 people, 2,500 people when I was growing up.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I started kindergarten and graduated, spent my entire childhood there.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And any singers around in your family?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my sister was a great soprano in her own right.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But we had just one of these serendipitous types of things that happen in one's life.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: There was a foreign exchange student who was there for one year my sophomore year.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we became friends.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And his father was a tenor.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he had all of these recordings.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was just mesmerized by, what is that?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I kept saying to him, but what is that?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, it's opera.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but what is that?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the first opera that I ever saw, I was in.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's true of many of your callings.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's...
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the closest opera house is either Chicago or Minnesota.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have Des Moines Metro Opera in the summer, which I never...
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it's just cornfields.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: What was the opera you were in, your first opera?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first opera I did was at college, at Luther College.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: They did Elixir, L'Elysée.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Were you in Marino?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: You started as a star.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, basically,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I won the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions when I was still a junior
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: in my undergraduate.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was 22.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so it became very clear, like...
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: The college needed to do something to help me showcase you and go in that direction.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't just sing a recital and then end up going the next year to
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: the Met Young Artist Program.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it was wonderful that they did that for me.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you went to Luther College.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, in Decorah, Iowa.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is that near Adel?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's about...
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Four hours away.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the very northeast corner of Iowa, right on the border of Wisconsin.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And did you have some people there who could help you?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I had a wonderful voice teacher,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: and Ed Andereck is his name, and we're still very close friends.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we texted this morning.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: But he's still a part of my team, as you would call it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: What was it like going to New York and the Met?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: here's this kid from the sticks,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: from the farms of Iowa,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: and then all of a sudden I'm just let loose in New York in the 90s.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: terrifying, but also just, my world just expanded exponentially.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Those four or five years were some of the greatest of my life, you know.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like every week was just an enormous adventure.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, were you ever a starstruck Pavarotti, Domingo?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you walked in hallways with all those people, I'm guessing.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, I was lucky.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in shows with Domingo and I worked with Pavarotti and,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I got to work with Birgit Nielsen and Renata Scotto and Regine Crispin.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Geez.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because they all came through that MET program and coached all of us,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Benita Valente and so many famous singers.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: But then also,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: the beauty of that was that I started as a Camper Mario,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: really, you know, third guard from the left.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I was in all of these shows with Ben Heppner, you know, Rene Papa and Debbie Voigt and...
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: All the big stars of the time.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we also were allowed just to go and see any opera we wanted to.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I was... You must have learned so much rep.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And just to hear so many great singers from the early 2000s,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know, like this guy Vladimir Galuzin.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: of course.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: What a good voice that was.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, I heard... A Russian Otelo, wasn't he?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: A dramatic, real dramatic tenor.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: so many early performances of Marcello Giardani,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: who was just in the early, the mid-90s.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard a top from a tenor ever like that, still.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: In his prime, he was the real McCoy.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was at the
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Guillaume Tell,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: the William Tell of Rossini at Carnegie Hall that he did with Uni,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: the Opera Orchestra of New York.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with Heath Queller.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when he...
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Finish the fourth act aria with I don't know how many ICs.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: we just came out of our seats,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: it was electric and he had to sing it again,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: and yeah, I mean,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: it was a time really before HD crept into the art form
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: and we were casting more physically,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: visually, and it was still a time where the art form.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't Giordani.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't Marcello Giordani that he, yeah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you didn't look bad.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, you didn't look bad.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't look bad.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't look bad, but
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jose Carreras.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: But now I think, you know, it was 70 to 80% of the art form was just the singing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was a singing art form.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And now we've sort of, we've gone away from that.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that was a wise decision.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think the art form is 80% singing.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think we need to give performances that are concertant
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: and we stand there and sing with pretty backgrounds behind us.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that singing and our audiences want to be amazed by the singers
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: that are standing on stage vocally.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't get away from that.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what's the old saying?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Opera is music in a theatrical context, not theater in a lyrical context.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: a little debate.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: We mentioned a few great tenors.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: You won the Richard Tucker Award in 2005.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: That was kind of a big deal.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was enormous.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at that time in my life, my gosh, I was 30.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was just enormous.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the biggest honors of my life.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Still is.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it still is.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think there was a time, and historians might, music scholars might debate this.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a time when the world had, including America, had trouble accepting American singers.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: They liked singers with exotic names.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever run into that?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or were all sort of highways open to you?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very good question.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Giovanni Martinelli is the name of a tenor.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're Eric Cutler.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of American singers that changed their names.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Aprile Milo.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is that April Miller?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was her name, yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: But there were a number of Franco Farina,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: are these people from,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Jersey that all of a sudden have Italian names and they sing Italian repertoire.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I used to joke with my wife and others that,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know, that, yeah, I mean,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: there is an, okay, how do I talk about this in a way that's, Diplomatic, yes.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: But truthfully, yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: There is, of course, a level of xenophobia in the business.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: It is a European tradition.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is a European art form.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it is an art form that is subsidized by the government.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't exist necessarily, I think, on the scale that it would if it wasn't.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so, of course,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: those governments want representatives who are natives singing that music
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: in their country.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I completely understand that.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you'd be a fool.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: To not, I think at my age and place in the business, to accept that and understand that.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yes,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: there are times even now where,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: why is it that every single review has to start with,
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: they're Americana Chitinua, you know, they make a point of saying, you know.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell them, look, music is not a democracy.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: We could cite so many examples.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think the best Gypsy Songs of Brahms I ever heard was sung by Aline King Price
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: from Laurel,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Mississippi.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: A musician's a musician.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Remarkable.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you, of course, we spend
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: maybe more time on coaching the language than we do on music.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: On the music at times.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: You want to become as native as you possibly can.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: we overdo it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever hear Victoria de los Angeles sing Blow the Wind Southerly?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a hard thing for a Spaniard to say.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: No one cared.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: No one cared.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was so beautiful.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was so touching.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, things have become, well, like, I mean, we see that reflected in politics.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, things have become,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: well, it's populism.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and we...
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are on one of two sides.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, uh, and I,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: that, that I see that reflected in, in our business and, and in our market as well.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a strong push for singers to,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know, not be, um, Well, to just be native singers.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And whether that's in Italy, Spain, Germany, France.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, every country is guilty of that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not by any means being critical of that because I understand it's their right.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the taxpayers are paying money to hear, you know, singers that they want to hear.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can't sing Gershwin and Copeland and Barber all day.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're all wonderful, but...
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: The world is wide.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: But what I think at the end of the day,
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: what I come back to is
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: think it says more about where I am as a singer
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: and what I've done over the last 26 years that I am where I am.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a little bit of that xenophobia against me.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen it with other non-native singers.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be Americans.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I'm being honest,
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of the truly great helden tenors in the world right now are Americans.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they always have been.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: They always have been.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Canadians are North Americans.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: We have a real tradition of that.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And from Britain too.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a touchy subject.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it does mirror what's going on in politics in a way.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: That things are just very polarized.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody wants to talk about it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is that we have to talk about it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: We must talk about it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the purposes of this little show we're doing.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about you and your career.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought of the Canadian-German tenor Michael Schada.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we had him on this series 20 years ago, 25 years ago.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he was talking about what he saw in his career.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was known as a beautiful lyric Mozartian tenor, which he was.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: He said he wanted to be like Antoine de Mota, he said.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Rolls get a little heavier, and a little heavier still, and he ends with Wagner.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted that sort of trajectory.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if you could tell us
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: How your voice has changed or maybe grown is a better word than change.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Developed.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Evolved.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I remember I was standing there after a performance in 2012 in Santa Fe.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the great American tenor Richard Croft and I were having a conversation.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: you need to make a decision which one of those three voices you have you're going
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: to use.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was devastated.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: I said, what do you mean?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, yeah,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you really, your voice is just split into three, you know, different things.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you,
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: you have this,
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: this Kopfstimme,
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Voixmix thing,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: which you,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know, it's like a falsetto that I, you know, that I could use and mix into.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then this.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just say for the audience, a head voicey thing.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And this sort of, uh,
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: lyric tenor voice that I was producing incorrectly,
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: with a bit,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: what we call a necktie tenor where the,
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: the larynx tilts forward and Tilt a little too high.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden...
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, would that be for like Pinkerton and Rodolfo?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's more just a technical issue.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's not role specific?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, never mind.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I was doing that to be able to sing those roles, to sing those lyric roles.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then he's like,
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: and then you have this, you know, Jugendlich Helden tenor voice in your bottom...
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you need to figure out which of those you want to use.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he was 100% correct.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth was,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: is that I wasn't, you know, I thought of myself always as a bel canto lyric tenor.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And my voice just kept going in my body in a direction that was frightening.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know how to manage.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that fall, I started working with a tenor in New York, Michael Paul is his name.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we spent the next 13 years basically just retraining and opening
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: and allowing my voice and my body to be what it probably truly is.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm six foot three.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so enviable from my point of view here.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I was only really singing from my collarbone up.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I really wasn't utilizing- Is that a necktie tenor?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's a necktie tenor, as the
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Germans call it, a knudel.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: and I just made the- It's like
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: people say about a golfer,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: bad golfer like me, his swing is all arms, no turn.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think over the course of certainly the last decade,
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: that was my 10 years ago in Chicago was my last Romeo.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: And from like 17, 18 on, I've basically been focusing on the Germanic heroic repertoire.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Are you speaking of Romeo and Romeo and Juliet by Guinoza?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was one of my favorite roles.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Of lyric tenor roles and um you know and the thing is when you when you make
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: that adjustment and you decide that that's the way that you're going
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: to sing there's really no going back you know you can still sing lyrically and
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: but you're training a whole other set of muscles and um and it was
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: in some ways it was a difficult moment but At the same time, I mean,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: it's opened up worlds of,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just sang my first Tonheuser in Zurich and it was just exhilarating.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that I never thought I would do.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that I, I mean,
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't Misha, Shada, who was thinking, oh, this is what I want to do one day.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was never even a consideration for me.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what Matthew Polanzani said on this series?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: You just made me think of it when you mentioned Tonheuser.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is different, but He said this beautiful lyric tenor.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I could sing Siegfried.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling for the audience.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: He said,
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I could sing Siegfried every note,
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: every single note, but you wouldn't hear it through the orchestra.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was very blunt.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you're charming.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: I have all the notes.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't hear him.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: You'd see my mouth move.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's great.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any roles on your wish list?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd like to sing Samson, the Saint-Saëns.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: I am thinking about Pique Dame,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: and I think... Just tell your audience, it's a Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like eventually...
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe just sing Tristan.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's... Why not?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the thing is, I've been working towards these things and it's like...
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: I should have did.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not on stage, but he recorded it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: He recorded it.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he sang Tannhäuser first.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you sing Tannhäuser and then you
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: basically...
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Parsifal is like...
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's 30 minutes of singing.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not... You're on stage all night.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: But just in terms of...
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Tannhäuser is 90 minutes of singing.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what you need to calculate.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to think like a marathon.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: You've got about two hours of singing in these muscles every day before you start
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: to be like this a little bit.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you just don't have six hours.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: those days where we rehearse for six hours,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: you need to calculate,
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know, when am I going to sing and when am I going to mark?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so any role like Hansaks, Siegfried, these things start to approach that two hour mark.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Siegfried, I think, is just one bit longer than Tristan.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then Tannhäuser's right behind it.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: you start to dip your toe into that water and be like,
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've sung Hoffmann and I've sung Romeo,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: which is long, and I've sung this, which is long, and this, and Lohengrin.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get to Tannhäuser and then you start to think,
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: maybe I can.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I can get up K2 or Everest.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I can.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm kind of eyeing that.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if Othello comes, fine.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: If it doesn't, then I'm fine.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't need to sing Othello.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've sung Aida and these things, and it's not really what I think my voice is.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more of a French and German helden tenor.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a subject, Eric,
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: and my dear patient audience is maybe sick of hearing about this and hearing me,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say, bitch and moan about it.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not all that worried about opera, even in the United States.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little worried.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a little worried.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Much more worried about recitals.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, goodness, yeah.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a huge world of song.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I might have first heard you in a recital.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing a little Googling yesterday.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I still heard it a lot.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: At the beginning.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you say to that?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is the recital healthier here in Europe than at home?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think it is.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, certainly at home right now, where we currently stand culturally, it's...
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a barren wasteland in the United States.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even the opera houses.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just a barren.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: The aforementioned Marilyn Horne sang in all 50 states, all 50 states, usually multiple times.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: That ain't going to happen now.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is it?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was part of her foundation and went out and sang a lot of recitals for her.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean that even here in Europe,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: because my wife does quite a bit and Julian too and Kristoff and they're,
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know, so much more in that world than I am.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: But no, the truth is that if you look at my son's generation, you know, to Gen Z.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, their attention span is how long?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is it three seconds?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Tick tocky.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is it?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: These shorts.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting that way too.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I should talk.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think all of us are.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's crept in.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: I physically have to make myself put all my devices away for many hours a day.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: I make myself do it every day.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're a better man than I am.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: I have to.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have to or I can't.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because being a singer and being an artist of any type is analog.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: You need that time where your brain enters flow state.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it can't with these things.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: It cannot.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is just impossible.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I make a point of, you know, I have to or I can't do my job.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's had an enormous impact on recitals
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: because our audiences just can't sit there for that long and be still.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't have a visual.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: But in the opera house, they have the visual.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your words about opera.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like I said before, I think some of it is...
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm worried about, number one, directors.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we have... That is also just an absolute and total barren wasteland.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have people who are creative and are seeing ways in
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: which we can keep these stories pertinent to today's culture and...
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: The productions are so ugly, Eric.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Need they be so ugly?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just...
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: I long to see a production that doesn't make you wince.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have spent time in the last couple years with directors that come from the theater...
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be involved in opera,
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: but they don't know how to direct because they'll look at the words and think,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: well, you just say the same three sentences, but it's 10 minutes long.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, yeah, this is just part of what the art form is.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so let's let it just be still.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: But modern directors see Netflix and Amazon,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: and we have to make it into some type of series, and it's not that.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: The art form is just too old.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Eric, I don't know about you, but the great put-down phrase is stand and sing.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bark and bark.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So often from the audience who want to call out, Could you just please stand and sing?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: We see in Bayreuth right now this summer
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: with all this artificial intelligence nonsense that's going on in front of
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: the singers while they're trying to sing the ring.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: And audiences are pissed off.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: They are angry and rightfully so.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: This Ariadne I did here in Salzburg every night.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: They are angry and they have the right to be angry.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: They do.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: So number one concern more than anything else is that we start to have directors
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: who take this art form seriously because it is an antiquated art form.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: We can't change that.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a way for us to go forward and keep it...
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Vital and growing.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I think bringing in projections and having people watch TV behind people giving
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: a live performance is not the answer.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here toward the end, Eric, and it's so great to talk with you.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little bit cliched, but I really don't care.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just some of your favorite singers, past and present.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: We won't hold you to a complete list.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to range into the pop field, do that.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Voices you like, singers you like.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up like my,
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: no tenor alive today,
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think, didn't listen to one of the three tenors and relate to one of them.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Pavarotti was...
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: For me that,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: but I really spent a lot of time listening to Wunderlich,
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: to Gedda, but number one for me was Jussi Bierling.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was, and still is, I think, maybe my favorite tenor of all time.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: My father-in-law adored Mario Delmonico, so I kind of came to him late.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: But, I mean, there's all, you know, Rose Vanga and early Caruso, of course, and Tito Schipa.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can just sit here and nerd out about all these.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: You have to throw out a few
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: more.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Collis, of course.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's recordings that are just legendary.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I grew up with Fleming.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, I mean, there's Debbie Voigt in her prime was tremendous.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let's defend that till the end of
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: our days, Eric.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's you and I promise to defend that till the end of our...
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Debbie Boyd in her prime, one of the greatest singers who ever breathed.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think she was special, yeah, in her prime.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, Anne-Sophie von Otter was a special singer.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Elegant, smart, versatile.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when Heppner was on, when he was having a good night, it was also thrilling.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know...
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: If he cracked, he cracked.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: Tough.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like being a French horn player.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it happens.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: It does happen.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Simon S.,
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: this is from my home state,
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: and there are some recordings of him back,
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know, in the 60s and 70s that are just amazing.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Tom Stewart and...
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Evelyn Lear, who I got to know.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: They were married.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they were wonderful people.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Marilyn.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Marilyn was, you know...
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even find an adjective.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: She's one of the greatest singers in history.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: In history.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Another name that I got to throw out there was Eleanor Stieber.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: She could sing anything.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was introduced to her in West Virginia.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she could sing any Verdi opera and then turn around and sing jazz and pop music.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: In a way that was authentic.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't want to pay money to go in here.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Knoxville.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: Summer of 1915.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: She was extraordinary.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think of who I...
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was a strange influence,
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: because I think we,
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: for those of us that are Gen Xers,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: we grew up in a time where we were listening to all of these heavy metal rock bands
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: and guys who were singing really high and,
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know, whether it was Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin or, you know...
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: You had these metal bands and then you had the grunge wave come along and these guys
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: that were singing all up at the top of their register.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that did influence me as well.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think having the,
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: being rooted in singing opera,
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: but yet just in my downtime,
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: whether it was Bono and U2 or David Gilmore and Pink Floyd or Who's the lead singer
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: of Super Tramp?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or these guys that I would just,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: and then sing,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Billy Joel and Elton John and all these guys and sing those songs in another style,
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: but with them as a tenor.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think both sort of accompanied me on my musical journey.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: But of course,
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: my great love since I was 15 years old was the feeling of singing
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: an open-throated operatic high note.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it felt like hitting a 350-yard drive or hitting the perfect pitch or just that...
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: That feeling.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hit it flush.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: You just hit it right then on.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: I did the same thing in tennis,
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know, if you hit a one-handed backhand and you just meet it perfectly.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: And singing,
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had that feeling when I was 15 or 16 and,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know, thankfully, I'm still able to do it.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Are you glad you're a tenor, Eric?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, sometimes
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Don't you love those notes?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: when everything's going really well,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: it's like surfing,
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: or it's like skiing, or it's just, and to be in control of it is thrilling.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you know this saying that Matt Palanzani taught it to me.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: There are three registers of the male voice.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: The bass register, the baritone register, and...
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: The cash register.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what a great pleasure.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you're doing what you were meant to do.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and it's, you know, there's been sacrifice, there's been stress.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, in modern life, we tend to avoid that.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: We think, oh, no, that's going to be too stressful.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, that's going to cause me an enormous amount of stress.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: in my 50,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: almost 51 years of life,
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've come to understand that, no, we can't avoid that at all.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: it's really the essential part of our life that
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: it's an oxymoron,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: but it's the thing that makes us feel most fulfilled.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah,
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: this has been I mean,
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've missed out on a lot of birthdays and a lot of funerals and things
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: that you think.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can't miss out on that.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: But in the end, it has been my purpose.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like God gave me this gift and love of singing,
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: and it has given me a purpose in my life that has contributed to my well-being in
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: a way that...
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: I wake up every day and I'm grateful and blessed for the life that I've been able
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: to live.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have met my wife and had these two beautiful kids without it.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like it's been since 15 or 16.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: That was my path.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I know so few people, I think, feel that and have that calling the way that I had.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And because of that, I make sure that I am grateful every day of my life because of it.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, we have been listening to Eric Cutler sings all over the world.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jay Nordlinger doing Q&A for the Salzburg Festival Society here in Austria.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, and Eric, thanks a million.