The scope from backstage was that Mr. Villars in a previous rehearsal told the conductor he was unable to take that particular point in the music at the fast tempo the conductor wished for. The conductor subsequently took it even faster at the final dress.

For the record, I heard a wonderful Bacchus from Mr. Villars in Paris in 2002.

# 86. On January 26, 2009 at 10:36 am, balabanov11 muttered:

re:21 = and one could assume the Villars is using his own costumes in this production, as I understand he is a big burly leather queen.

I have seen and heard Brandon Jovanovich three times in performance: 1) in Jonathan Dove’s Flight in Boston (where he had a hook up with another male character that I wished hadn’t been mostly off-stage); in Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Mines of Sulphur (where he played a hot, violent hunk); and as Turridu at NYCO, doing pretty well, I thought.

He’s a tall, good looking man, with a nicely sized medium weight tenor, excellent acting skills, and a lot of presence. He will definitely not have the same physique du role that we are familiar with in the iconic Grimes of Jon Vickers or of current, excellent Grimes, Anthony Dean Griffey.

Also looking at pictures he seems a bit young – and I might add too good looking – for the role. But that could give the opera with so many levels, one more dimension.

Actually, there is a bit more to the role than just an aria, short duet and ensemble. There is in addition the trio “Euch werde Lohn” with Leonore and Rocco and the quartet “Er sterbe!” with the trio characters plus Pizarro. Of course, Florestan is not a long role, particularly in the helden tenor fach, but it is tiring. I’ve only heard one tenor make it through the aria without losing steam or cracking – Anthony Dean Griffey was quite impressive in the role a couple of years ago in Seville.

I heard Jon Villars sing Bacchus in a concert Ariadne with the Minnesota Orchestra many years ago. Not a bad performance of a difficult role, although I agree with the assessment that the middle and lower voice are produced oddly. I was wondering what had happened to him, hadn’t heard or seen much of him in the last few years. I’m sorry that he felt the need to flip the bird while performing the role of Florestan. Beethoven’s Fidelio deserves more respect and that kind of behavior is uncalled for. If there is an issue, discuss the matter afterwards with the conductor and act like an adult. Respect the music, please.

This is absolutely true. This also applies to concert work where you’ll have the final dress rehearsal on the MORNING OF the performance with an audience in attendance. Imagine being expected by management of an orchestra to sing a Verdi Requiem at 11 am in full voice, and then REPEAT it again that night. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Conductors are generally more understanding about this predicament, but not always.

I’ll add that while I think the ultimate arrival of the final product is most hopefully an even exchange between artistic equals (meaning the conductor and singer), this frequently does NOT happen, and I will ALWAYS err on being on the side of the singer because the singer is the one on the stage having to make a nearly impossible job look easy.

Conductors CAN’T do our job, can I can fairly guarantee we would be able to do theirs.

This is a point frequently forgotten in the industry. Those people a singer is surrounded with during the rehearsal and performance process, and I mean everyone, from costume designer, to stage manager, to general director, to pit musician, to critic, and on and on and on would NEVER be able to do the job that we do on the stage. As in, it would be physically impossible for them to do. It feels very bizarre to be surrounded by people telling you what to do when they themselves could never do it. Is there any other industry quite like this where you have those who could never perform the tasks required attempting to demand things from those who can?

There is a point when you’ve been around long enough where you learn as a singer to listen to very few people. You learn to live in a protective bubble that very little penetrates, and with good reason. I personally allow maybe three people per gig to be part of the process for me, and one of those generally includes my manager who is my outside set of ears and my complaint box, so you can imagine that a conductor, a director, a coach, and many others who just love to be heard are going to have to have a very good reason to be heard by me.

As a singer, you learn to edit quickly and efficiently in order to survive. Sometimes this process runs into problems when a singer’s physical apparatus no longer works. Unfortunately, this is what sounds like is happening to Jon, and when the singer’s “bubble” is burst, things can go awry.

I’m not saying the singer is always correct, so don’t jump all over me about that.

One big problem here is that atavism the “public dress rehearsal,” which generally means an extra performance that the singers grudgingly do for free, pressured to sing full voice. The conductor and stage director too are supposed to take one for the team and relinquish their prerogative of using rehearsal time to stop and work through troublesome parts of the piece. Instead, the focus is on entertaining the “invited” audience with the knowledge that they’re about to go gossipping about the show all over town and all over the web.

On the other hand, La Cieca doesn’t know the run-up to the climactic event here: it may be that Villars had been in full meltdown for a week or more, and the “walkout” served as a useful excuse for the opera company to can him. It remains La Cieca’s opinion, though, that a walkout or firing so late in the game represents a major failure on the part of the system. The purpose of an opera company is to present opera, not excuses.

Willimer, maybe he was just happy to see you.