Friday
Sept 23, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 38
 |
Monday, Dec 01, 2008
08:23
|
 |
| site map |
| NOTE** finding non clickable links? Sorry these columns are not featured in this weeks edition - |
 |
 |
Touched by a 'God:' An interview with Greer Grimsley |
||
 |
||
| Touched by a 'God:' An interview with Greer Grimsley | ||
| By Rod Parke
- SGN Contributing Writer
As Wotan, the chief god in Wagner's epic Ring cycle of four long operas, Greer Grimsley wowed audiences for three straight weeks this August. He also wowed my 17-year-old friend Ashalyn Sims and me when he met with us for an hour at Seattle Opera's offices. Grimsley is tall, dark, more than a little sexy, with long black hair. His speaking voice is as impressive as his singing. My impression is of a beautiful man inside and out. SGN: Your voice is like no other, at least not since George London in the 50's and 60's. Like his, yours has phenomenal buzzing overtones. Have you ever had it analyzed on a scope to see which overtones are being so reinforced? GREER: No I haven't. That would be interesting! I attribute those noises to the major focal point of my face! (He pointed to his impressive nose.) SGN: You have an immense power to affect how people feel. How does that make you feel? GREER: Every time I'm about to step out onto the stage, I take a quiet moment and think about what I'm going to do. Live performance is sharing. I'm sharing with the audience, and they are sharing with me and giving me their attention. I don't take that lightly. I am trying to serve the music and the drama. In doing so, an amazing thing happens. It's a kind of group catharsis. Live theater is working stuff out together whether it's near death experiences or whatever; it's a wonderful thing. It can be spiritual as well. SGN: Are you still living in New Orleans? GREER: Most of my family still lives in New Orleans, and my sister and mother evacuated before the hurricane, but my wife (Loretta Bybee) and daughter live with me in Pennsylvania SGN: How long have you been singing? GREER: About 25 years. SGN: So, you're 40-something? GREER: 49. SGN: I was told that Speight (General Director of Seattle Opera) asked you to sing Wotan back in 2001. Is that true? GREER: I just wasn't sure about taking it on yet. Even when I first did 'Lohengrin' 11 years ago in Seattle, it was an experiment. But when I ended up doing all the performances because the other Telramund was sick, I found that it went just fine. (Telramund is a gut-buster role that has laid low more than one baritone.) SGN: At a singers' panel back then, you said that singing Wagner was like being given permission to sing the way you felt was natural to your voice and than you had felt a little constrained in other roles. I know that you and Jane (Eaglen) are going to do Verdi's 'Macbeth' in Vancouver soon. Do you feel constrained singing Verdi? GREER: Verdi is a different style, and you have to be true to the style; but no, I haven't ever felt restrained in Verdi. I've sung in 'Aida' and 'Il Trovatore.' Singing is singing, no matter what the style. SGN: Now that Wotan is such a success for you, are you at all worried that you might become type-cast, as Jane has found, and miss opportunities to sing other than Wagner? GREER: I don't think so. When I thought about that, I looked at James Morris, and he certainly has kept up with other roles. I will work actively at keeping the diversity of roles because it feeds everything. SGN: Who were your early teachers? GREER: I was most fortunate to have wonderful teachers from the beginning in New Orleans. Charles Paddock was my first teacher, and I also studied with Anthony Laciura, one of the Met's longest-term singers, who was studying at Loyola. It was a basic bel canto technique. Breath is the bow of the instrument and is supremely important. SGN: Do you still take coaching? GREER: Oh yes, I need outside ears. My wife has been doing some teaching, and she has been invaluable in giving me feedback, especially in working on Wotan. We know each other so well and we are there for each other to help. SGN: What are your best and worst experiences on stage? GREER: Well the best by far so far is this Wotan. The support from Speight, my colleagues, and my family enabled me to be my best. SGN: What 3 opera houses would you most like to sing Wotan in? GREER: Well, of course the Met, Covent Garden, and Bayreuth. The next Wotan is a La Fenice in Venice. SGN: What attracted you to the role of Wotan? GREER: As I worked on it, it felt great in how it fit my voice. But what attracts me to the role is that you have a unique opportunity for character development, spread out over a 3-opera span. You get to show his turmoil through these situations, his conflict and resolution finally in Siegfried. SGN: At the end of 'Gotterdammerung' all the gods reappear in a celebratory mood, withered and gray, but happy that the ring has been returned to the Rhine. This seems ambiguous in that they could be seen as happily accepting their END as they die with Brunnhilde in the fire and water, OR they could be survivors (rather against Wagner's intention). GREER: Yes, for me it is ambiguous. In most religions fire and water are purifiers. Here they cleanse the way for a re-birth of nature and mankind. There are several levels to that, and each person can see it as they wish. To define it, one way or the other, almost does an injustice to the work. SGN: What roles do you most look forward to taking on? GREER: Wow, these three Wotans were such a goal that I need to let the dust clear, after which I might like to try 'Meistersinger' (the role of Hans Sachs). Before I even thought about doing Wagner, I was studying professionally at Julliard; and we spent a whole year analyzing 'Meistersinger!' You don't see this kind of operatic genius nowadays. SGN: What's your next gig? GREER: In a month or so I'm down in Portland doing 'Tosca.' SGN: Knowing that your family are church people, I wanted to ask you for Seattle Gay News how you feel about Gay marriage. GREER: I've always thought that you don't define love in terms of the "plumbing." If anyone finds someone to love, that's wonderful. I had an advantage in growing up in New Orleans, where acceptance of diversity is widespread. That Gay marriage is an issue at all is ridiculous. We're members of Americans for Separation of Church and State; long live the Constitution! The more the country tries to fit in only one religious point of view, the more trouble we're in. SGN: I've been telling people that W. is teaching the "Christian Value" of hatred! GREER: (Laughs) In our church we always pray that he'll eventually see the way. SGN: I don't wish him harm, but I do wish him the most excruciating, long-term, public humiliation possible. (I turned to my assistant Ashalyn Sims, a 17-year-old woman who was an intern at the Opera this summer, and asked she if she had any questions for Greer.) ASHALYN: We'll I was wondering, when you're up there and the lights are on you and you can't even see the audience, what goes through your head while you're singing? GREER: Actually, that's a very good question. For as much as you can, you try to be "in the zone" and tell the story, making it seem as though it were happening for the first time. Once you let yourself go into that space, you don't really think about the audience. As Jane always says, "After the first five minutes, I'll be fine!" It takes an incredible amount of concentration. SGN: Birgit Nilsson said that with a big voice like hers, the hardest moments in Wagner were when she was on stage for long periods without singing and the voice cooled off. Do you experience this problem? GREER: Not really. I think it's different for men. Our vocal cords don't vibrate as such a high frequency. SGN: At the end of 'Die Walkure' when you've just sung two consecutive evenings of monster roles, you seem vocally fresh and ready for more. How tired are you then? GREER: The only thing that I feel tired from is the concentration and staying in the drama, keeping the energy level at such a point that I'm able to share with and make it worthwhile for the audience. It's more a matter of body fatigue than of vocal fatigue. The point of the vocal technique, from my first teacher, is that you need to feel like you can go on for ever. His motto was the most amount of product for the least amount of effort. That's classic bel canto. It's not being taught a lot these days, as I'm noticing with my wife's students. SGN: Maria Callas had difficulty being accepted in the beginning just because she was so different. Your voice is like none other today. Does this present a problem in your career? GREER: I decided to pursue singing precisely because I didn't sound like anyone else. And I was so impressed with the uniqueness of each of the great singers on the old recordings. My awareness became that sounding unlike others was a plus. I loved drama and I loved music, and my first exposure to opera hit me with both ALL the time! So, I started to look into opera, but up until my senior year at Loyola, I was planning to go into archeology. To answer your question, yes, sometimes people want me to sound like, for instance, James Morris or a more generic, mellow sound. Some are not going to like my voice, but to try to sound like others is folly. Record companies seem to try to homogenize how we sound, but the great voices were NOT like each other. SGN: Did you recognize in recordings of George London a kind of vocal soul mate? GREER: Yeah, and when I finally heard him, I said to my wife, "You know? I know exactly what's going on in his throat!" He thanked me for the kind things I had said in the SGN reviews and signed a couple photos for Ashalyn and a friend of mine. I invited him and his family when in Seattle to stay in our Jane Eaglen Suite, a wing we added onto our house for guests coming to Seattle to see our productions. As we got up to leave, we chatted. He mentioned that when he is singing, he is physically touching every person in the audience. Dare I say that the thought of being "touched" by this "god" makes me a little weak in the knees?! Reviewer Rod Parke can be reached at: rmp62@columbia.edu |
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
International Readers |
 THE GAY AND NON-GAY PARTNERSHIP WORKING TO WIN MARRIAGE EQUALITY NATIONWIDE |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2005