Category: voice

Danke, meine Damen!

On June 1, 2017

In Berlin, classical, Europe, music, opera, voice, writing

Looking up at the Komische Oper. (Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.)

Trips to Berlin always seem like a whirlwind. My first visit in January was essentially just that, part of a larger two-week European winter opera jaunt that also included explorations through Belgium and France. In the four nights I spent in Berlin this past winter, I ensured visits to the Komische Oper, Deutsche Oper, and of course, the Berlin Philharmonic, even as temperatures dropped and Siberian winds made me glad to have brought my mukluks and wooly sweaters.

Returning to Berlin in spring, visits to productions by these organizations were a foregone conclusion, but because I had the luxury of more time this particular jaunt, I included others as well (notably the Staatsoper Berlin, as well as NYC’s Metropolitan Opera, at the very end), which yielded a bouquet of thought-provoking experiences. Of the panoply of cultural riches I experienced over the course of my recent two week trip, what connected everything, and stands out in retrospect, were incredible performances by women. Longing, love, loneliness, intimacy, identity, community — all of these themes were covered, in moving, creative ways that felt all too familiar and close at times. Each performer embarked on different types of journeys that would intersect, move apart, race in parallel lines, only to twist and turn again. Looking for love, finding love, rejecting love; looking for self, finding self, reinventing self; seeking kindred spirits, finding those spirits leaving or being abandoned by them — all this, plus narratives of dedication, deception, and rejection, helped to elevate the performances I saw from mere entertainment into real (and very familiar, for me) human experience. Despite the cool and rainy Berlin spring, there was something warming about all of it. That isn’t to say everything I saw was comforting, though some of it was certainly entertaining.

The work of Komische Oper left a strong impression, visually, sonically, and theatrically. This fine company (which translates literally as “comic opera,” though the work it presents isn’t strictly comedic) impressed me during my previous visit, when I attended opening night of its whimsical double-bill production (working together with British production outfit 1927) of Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. Vibrancy, color, and imagination, together with a deep respect for the scores and great, rave performances, left me wanting more.

Returning to Berlin, I saw three productions at the Komische, which is located just steps from the famous Brandenburg Gate. Ball im Savoy (Ball At The Savoy) is a fun, naughty 1932 operetta by Paul Abraham, a Jewish-Hungarian composer who enjoyed immense success in the 1930s with a string of musical hits and big screen adaptations. Originally presented by the KOB in 2013 as director Barry Kosky’s closing work to mark his first season as Chief Director for the company, this was a fantastic, uproarious production, filled with solid performances, beautiful designs, and smart commentary on the nature of human relating, particularly within the sometimes complicated sphere of sexual intimacy.

L-R Katharine Mehrling, Dagmar Manzel, and Christiane Oertel in Ball im Savoy.
Photo: Iko Freese / drama-berlin.de

I especially appreciated the casting and performance of Dagmar Manzel a well-known, deeply entertaining German actor who, like many artists in Berlin, goes totally against the Hollywood aesthetic of young, cute, and Instagram-hot; Manzel is pushing sixty, broad-shouldered and large of laugh, with a raspy, sexy, low voice and a a wonderfully confident stage presence. What a treat it would be to see her live again; Manzel is an eminently watchable performer, who ably delivered a smart, nuanced performance playing Madeleine, the just-married wife of Aristide (Christoph Späth), a man with a past, and who seemed frequently more attached to his fear than to his wife. The scenes between the two crackled with a spicy, natural chemistry and volcanic verve. As Opera News reviewer A.J. Goldmann noted in his 2013 review of Ball im Savoy, “Not only is the KOB an ideal forum for rescuing such works from obscurity; the works themselves — and the worthy productions they come packaged in — add immeasurably to the company’s luster.” No kidding.

Manzel will appear at Komische Oper next season in two productions, both of which I’m keen to see: as the lead in the 1923 musical Die Perlen der Cleopatra (The Pearls of Cleopatra) by Oscar Straus, in a production directed by Barry Kosky (which she’s also doing this July as part of the KOB’s Summer Festival); and in another Straus work, this one from 1932, helmed again by Australia-born director, Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will! (A Woman Who Knows What She Wants!). The latter will be staged this fall, when I am planning on possibly making a return visit to Berlin, so… stay tuned.

Gunter Papendell as Don Giovanni.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus

More color and entertainment at the Komische came in the form of a very surreal, commedia dell’arte-influenced staging of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which was sung in German, a choice which I found myself initially stunned at sonically, but grew to eventually appreciate, even adore. Very purposely leaving the lyricism, romance, and poetry of the original behind, director Herbert Fritsch, together with conductor Jordan de Souza, produced a raucously entertaining spectacle that, while not offering any emotionally moving moments for me personally, did offer a bold canvas onto which Fritsch painted his garish vision.

Philipp Meierhofer’s Leporello, costumed in baggy black but clearly embodying a Pulcinella-style characterization and presentation, was the sort of wise man figure to Günter Papendell’s Don Giovanni, a lithe, foppish figure with clear visual references to the Joker and, more directly, German actor Conrad Veitch in cinema classic The Man Who Laughs. Singing a feisty, sexy, diva-tastic Donna Elvira was Nina Bernsteiner, whose steaming middle voice and glassy tones perfectly reflected both Fritsch’s opera buffa-first approach, as well as the earthy nature of the woman behind, or perhaps physically manifesting, the fabulously grand Victoria Behr-designed yellow gown; Elvira wasn’t playing at being a needy diva, she simply was a True Actual Diva (and she made sure her purple-suited Lothario knew it). From its surreal opening, featuring assorted smashings, to the indelible image — Giovanni’s outstretched hand — of its sudden close (a nod to Mozart’s alternate ending), this was a strong vision for a work that aways provokes strong opinions. Was I moved? Not especially. Did I have a new appreciation for the characters? Yes. Was I entertained as all hell? You bet. Sometimes it’s nice to see something you thought you knew very well, to be surprised by it in new ways, and find out there is still yet more to discover; this was one of those moments.

Peter Renz, Katazyna Wlodarczyk, Talya Libermann. Photo: Iko Freese / drama-berlin.de

This year being the 450th birthday of Claudio Monteverdi (an important moment for opera), I couldn’t resist seeing The Coronation of Poppea (Die Kronung der Poppea), the third Komische production I attended, and easily the one that left the strongest impression. I’m going to be exploring this work, and the KOB’s very sexy, very disturbing production in a future post which will feature the talented German baritone Dominik Köninger (who sings Nero in the show), but suffice for now to say that of the seven operas I saw in Berlin, this one has stayed with me the most. The story of the Emperor Nero, of his decadent world, and his ruthless murder of Seneca (Jens Larsen), his casual tossing-aside of wife Octavia (Karolina Gumos) and his lust for (and with) Poppea (Alma Sadé), were staged with class, intelligence, and vision. That’s not to say there weren’t some shocking scenes; Nero’s coterie includes some fully nude celebrants (male and female), and Seneca’s murder featured both frontal male nudity and a copious (/ disturbing) amount of (stage) blood.

Monteverdi’s original, stately score has been given a very creative re-working by composer Elena Kats-Chernin that features modern instrumentation (the orchestra includes a banjo!) and the transposition of not only instruments but roles (including Nero, from a counter-tenor to a baritone), bringing a new-meets-old sound that places firm emphasis on music as storytelling, and perfectly matches Director Barry Kosky’s decadent, stylish production and Music Director Matthew Toogood’s detailed approach. Presented as a remount for the KOB (Poppea is part of a Monteverdi cycle by the company, originally done in 2012), the piece kept a perfect respect for Monteverdi’s original vision while contemporizing its subtext; there was something alarmingly timely (and of course, timeless) about the ruthlessness and greedy ambition of its sordid cast of characters, and, led by Köninger’s snarling, sexy, utterly magnetic performance this was a coronation that felt, at times, far too close. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything so highly charged on an opera stage in a long time. More on this one soon, but for now, in a word: WOW.

Curtain calls for La Traviata. Photo: mine (via). Please do not reproduce without permission.

There were more big “wow” moments this trip, too. Verdi’s La Traviata was given a high-concept treatment that made liberal use of sand (truth: if I see another heavily symbolic, time-is-running-out-for-Violetta production, I will scream) but the singing, specifically that of Ailyn Perez in the lead, and Simone Piazzola as Giorgio Germont, was gorgeous. Her rendering of “Sempre Libera” (“Always Free”) specifically, was defiant, almost angry, a nice contrast to the puffy, cute, la-la-la interpretations I’ve seen over many decades now. (I kept hearing Perez’s version play, over and over, in my head on the plane ride home, in fact.) Soprano Perez’s Violetta was indeed defiant, angry, — and also, I felt, tired: tired of her life, tired of the fake people around her and the phony relationships, tired of the obsessive little boys she attracts. Her scenes with baritone Piazzola, in particular, brimmed with humanity, and highlighted an intriguing subtext, that perhaps Violetta had met her equal not with Alfredo (tenor Abdellah Lasri), but with his father. There was an emotional rawness to the charged, dramatic scene between Germont Sr. and Violetta, where he comes to beg her to break things off with his son for the sake of his family’s reputation. Piazzola (who sang the role in a circus-themed production directed by Roland Villazon in 2015) offered a poetic portrayal of a man who’d perhaps had fatherhood foisted onto him far too young, and who had little to no real relationship with the son whose reputation he wants to protect. These were wonderfully alive, complex, human performances, and I am looking forward to seeing more of Perez and Piazzola sing again soon. (Ernani at La Scala next September is certainly tempting, if a bit far off!)

Cristina Pasaroiu as Magda in Deutsche Oper’s production of La Rondine. Photo: Bettina Stöß (via)

Other performers I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing again are soprano Cristina Pasaroiu, a beautiful, bell-toned lead in Puccini’s beautiful La Rondine (The Swallow) at Deutsche Oper, and soprano Dorothea Röschmann, whose portrayal of the Countess in the Staatsoper’s Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) was one of the most honest portrayals I’ve ever witnessed. Both performers gave truly memorable performances, with Pasaroiu providing a lovely focal point for Rolando Villazon’s gorgeous, colorful production of Puccini’s 1916 work, and delivering a searing rendition of the famous “Chi il bel sogno di doretta” aria. Confession: I ruined my mascara at Pasaroiu’s interpretation; she captured the deep longing at the heart of this aria so, so perfectly. (Saturday night’s alright for crying, clearly.) Even standing still, watching Ruggero (Vincenzo Costanzo) in a club, or leaving him at the opera’s close, Pasaroiu said so much with such simple, elegant body language; I got the impression, in watching her, that she would have been a great silent film star. The Romanian soprano projects such rich poetry with her every gesture (and in Rondine‘s case, a beautiful sadness), which clearly translates vocally, something conductor Roberto Rizzi Brignoli sensed at a very intrinsic level, particularly with his careful shaping of the string section.

Another conductor with a very deep sense of relationship with his performers, Pablo Heras Casado, led a buoyant if equally thoughtful orchestra in Jurgen Flimm’s very funny (if occasionally tiresome) production of Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) at the Staatsoper Berlin, a remount of a production from November 2015, with the same cast intact. Heras-Casado kept all the drama and tension (particularly hierarchical ones) of the original play (by Pierre Beaumarchais) fully intact, employing a rhythmic undercurrent that powered the score while keeping players inspired to provide a true heartbeat, and some needed counterpoint, to the slapstick-like follies and shenanigans that characterized much of Flimm’s production.

Anna Prohaska and Dorothea Röschmann in Staatsoper Berlin’s Le nozze di Figaro.
Photo: Staatsoper Berlin / Clarchen and Matthias Baus (via)

Dorothea Röschmann, reprising her role as Countess Almaviva, offered the most authentic characterization I may have ever seen Hers was a woman who loves, or wants to love, deeply, who is deeply saddened at the way her position, and the ridiculous behaviour of her husband the Count (Ildebrando D’Arcangelo), by extension, has separated her from this desired intimacy. Röschmann proved her acting chops in small but powerful ways; the way she gazed at Cherubino (a fantastic Marianne Crebassa) at points, the way she squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed her words in admitting to the Count who was hiding in the closet, the way she looked at him when the great reveal finally happened — all were highly theatrical moments that offered small slices of humanity amidst a zany comic staging. Her’s “Dove sono i bei momenti“(“Where are they, the beautiful moments”) was lushly voiced and achingly human, her scenes with Susanna (a sparky Anna Prohaska) brimming with vitality. This was a smart, nuanced, adult portrayal, and even with the nearly non-stop comedy that filled Flimm’s production, Röschmann’s Countess came off as authentic, sincere, and truly, deeply heartbroken, even at the opera’s end, when all is supposedly forgiven.

Renee Fleming at the curtain call
for Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera.
Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.

This post about my latest opera travels wouldn’t be at all complete without briefly exploring its incredible conclusion: experiencing Renée Fleming and Elina Garanča at the Metropolitan Opera in the penultimate performance of Der Rosenkavalier for the season. Seeing the two singers together in what amounted to a beautiful exploration of love, loss, aging, and acceptance felt like the apotheosis of a trip that carried with it strong undercurrents of disappointment and sadness, but also discovery and quiet renewal. I felt tears brimming listening to Fleming, especially as her character, the Marschallin moved between ponderings on the capricious nature of men (“Da geht er hin…” / “There he goes…“ ) and her relationship with the young Octavian (Garanča), to the inevitable (and cruel) passing of time (“Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding” / “Time, it is a weird thing“) at the end of the first act. She didn’t just act the role of the aging, glamorous Marschallin here, or churn out something mediocre, maudlin, or in any way predictable; she was living her soul, bearing it, live, in front of the Metropolitan Opera audience, and it was breathtaking to behold.

Tired but happy me in Berlin. (via)
Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.

Fleming’s signature creamy soprano was lilting, spinning, soaring, twisting and arching, and joined with Garanča’s gorgeous, chocolate-toned mezzo in a seemingly effortless series of tiny tornados that spun in, around and through the audience. Both women were fiercely confident and utterly loving in their embrace of Strauss’ poetic score, and fully committed to Robert Carsen’s beautiful vision of a world about to completely vanish, in both micro and macro ways; these ladies surely vanished into their respective roles, musically, dramatically, spiritually. Bye composer, bye mascara… by God, bravissime!

I’m saving my symphony-going experiences for a future post, but suffice (for now) to say that seeing conductors Mariss Jansons, Herbert Blomstedt, and Daniel Barenboim live was very special; I had my mind changed about Sibelius and Bruckner in ways I never thought would happen. Danke Berlin…. Danke NYC… you ladies especially made it very beautiful, very memorable, and very worth every tube of mascara. Wahrheit!

“The True Sound Of The Human Voice”

By Catherine Kustanczy

On May 4, 2017

In music, opera, voice

Being in Europe again is a special sort of a treat; there’s an overwhelming number of cultural options at any given moment, and it can be easy to choose one thing, only to find out later there’s something else at the exact same moment that you just can’t miss.

One place I’d really love to be right now is San Francisco, specifically because of Berlioz, and more specifically, because of who is singing it. Thursday (that’s tonight), Friday, and Saturday (May 4, 5, 6), Maestro extraordinaire Charles Dutoit leads the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in performances of Berlioz’s magnificent Requiem, which features none other than American tenor Paul Groves, whose work I so thoroughly enjoyed on my last opera trip to Europe in February, when I heard him sing another work by the great French composer, his immense La damnation de Faust at Opera Royal de Wallonie.

I’ve always loved French opera, but Groves’ performance as Faust (which he stepped into at the eleventh hour, after the scheduled lead was ill) brought a whole new level to my appreciation, with his incisive phrasing, beautiful diction, and warm tone not only complementing the intricacies of Berlioz’s challenging score, but highlighting its power and poetry. It was exquisite, divine.

A proud New Orleans native, Paul was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious National Council Auditions in 1991, and is a graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program. He has an impressive roster of performances to his credit, and has appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Madrid’s Teatro Real, Theater an der Wien (Vienna), Opéra National de Paris, and the San Francisco Opera, among many others. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera in NYC this December, as Danilo in the very fun, apologetically frothy The Merry Widow.

I had the chance to catch up with Paul as he prepared for his next Berlioz in San Francisco. Just like the man in person, Paul is forthcoming in his opinions, unpretentious, funny, generous, and warm, and like I said, he has a knock-your-socks-off voice, too. Bien sur!

What do you think the big differences are between French opera and other forms, like Italian, and German opera?

There are a few big differences between French opera and other forms, but the biggest has to be the language itself. French operas are built around the language more than any other forms. This is why it’s is so difficult to translate into other languages; I’ve never heard or sung a convincing translation of a French opera — whereas I have sung many wonderful translations of German, Italian and Russian works.

Therefore, it is particularly important to pay close attention to diction and vocal production when studying, and finally performing, French opera.

What kinds of demands does French opera place on you vocally?

I feel the language is very helpful for vocal technique — the closed vowels tend to keep the voice gathered when pronounced correctly. The demand comes from the extended tenor range of many French operas. A majority tend to be at least a step higher than most Italian or German romantic operas.

One of the reasons for this is the tenor technique was completely different at the time these operas were written. The tenors these roles were written for approached the high notes in a supported head voice, and the modern tenor technique is more of a chesty, manly sound in the high register. Now, this makes singing the role more difficult, but it’s also much more thrilling.

Why is Berlioz so special for you?

Berlioz was many years ahead of his time when you consider what was coming out of France and Italy at the time. His music wasn’t well-accepted until later in his life, and still today, many musicians have their doubts about what he intended with his orchestration. I’m doing one of his pieces at the moment which has a bass trombone-and-flute duet. Strange, but amazing when performed correctly.

In his operas, the drama is written into the orchestration and text is not necessary to feel the full power of the drama. An example is “The Ride to Hell” in the last part of La damnation de Faust.

Describe your first powerful opera memory.

Well, my first powerful opera memory is Pavarotti’s recording of Canio’s aria. My father, who was a conductor, brought home a Pavarotti album and after hearing it a few times, I conveniently added his album to my collection of records, which was mostly a Led Zeppelin and Beatles collection.

I was completely blown away, but had no idea that all opera singers (tenors) didn’t sound the same. I found this out when a traveling opera company came to my town a year later to perform the complete opera. I was so disappointed in the tenor’s performance. Looking back now, he was probably fine. Who could live up to my expectations at the time? Only one guy!!!!!

You’re going to be at the Met next season in The Merry Widow; how do you approach performing comedy versus tragedy? Do you have a preference?

I don’t have a preference between comedy and tragic opera, but I get to do comic opera so infrequently that I really look forward to the fun and laughs, not only from the audience, but in the fun we’ll have in the rehearsal room. I’m playing opposite one of my best friends and opera soulmates, the lovely Susan Graham.

The challenging part for me and most singers is always the dialogue — how to make it real and heartfelt. We’re so used to relying on the music to help, but when the music is missing, it feels like we’re standing up there with our pants down!!

The one thing all newcomers to opera should know is…

… be prepared for the power of the unamplified human voice! This is the one thing that newcomers are so shocked about.

It is my life and art form, but I still get goose bumps when I hear a powerful, beautiful, natural voice. This is what separates opera and classical singing from all other art forms. Amplified performances can be enhanced, tuned and sometimes lip-synced. That’s not the case in classical singing; what you hear is the true sound of the human voice with all its flaws and gloriousness.

Andiamo!

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 30, 2017

In classical, Europe, interviews, music, opera, teaching, voice

Matthew Rose as Baron Ochs and Renee Fleming as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier
Photo: Royal Opera House / Catherine Ashmore (via)

If you had asked my dear mother what she would have wanted to be, more than anything in the world, she would have quickly responded, without hesitation: a singer.

Having been a talented child singer and never developed (or rather, had the opportunity to develop) her gift, she turned to the administrative and financial worlds (with much success), but her intense love of singing — and singers — never abated, and expressed itself throughout her life. Introduced to opera as a teenager (via CBC Radio broadcasts, as well as vinyl recordings), she balanced her passion for one art form while enjoying others, including rock and roll and jazz — though it must quickly be noted here that all the artists she loved in those genres (Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Dean Martin) had equally beautiful voices. Things like fach, squillo, and vibrato were foreign concepts to her, and though she was always open to learning new things, she also felt that too much critical listening would hinder her pure appreciation of the art form; I confess to being frequently exasperated by this, my line of thinking being that one’s enjoyment is only deepened through such detailed knowledge, but… there is, in contemplating some of our past opera-going experiences, something really moving and pure about her direct experience of wonder and joy in listening to music, and voices in particular.

Photo: Lena Kern

Listening to bass Matthew Rose, I’m brought to that same place of pure enjoyment; like any singer, in any genre but most especially in opera, he’s spent countless hours practising and perfecting his craft, and yet, so often I’ve found, when he opens his mouth… pure joy comes out. The word in German, “freude,” referenced (and conjured) so much throughout the choral section of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and it’s a quality I think that largely defines Matthew Rose’s approach to his craft, as well as to my own experience of it. A native of Brighton, Matthew began his career studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and from there, became a member of the Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In 2006 he made his debut as Bottom in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in what became an award-winning (and much-vaunted, oft-repeated) performance. He has a wide catalogue of roles he’s sung, from King Marke (in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde) to the title character in Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and the villainous Callistene in Donizetti’s rarely-performed Poliuto. As you might expect, Matthew’s worked with a range of great conductors, including Antonio Pappano, Gustavo Dudamel, a trio of Sirs (that would be Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, and Carles Mackerras), and future Met Opera Music Director Yannick Nézet-Seguin, and won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for Britten’s Billy Budd, in which he sang the role of the dutiful (if doubtful) officer Ratcliffe.

I had the privilege of seeing Matthew Rose perform live last fall at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was appearing in the revival of Michael Grandage’s 2011 production of Don Giovanni, as an exasperated Leporello to Ildar Abdrazakov’s confident, eyebrow-waggling Don. This was a lively, vivid interpretation, not at all cliched or cartoonish, but sad, exasperated, hopeful and cynical at once, his approach to the famous catalogue aria a scintillating mix of musicality and theatricality, and his chemistry with fellow bass Abdrazakov entirely charismatic. Matthew’s Leporello was warmly, recognizably human, truly touching. Those in Dresden are wise to run to the Semperoper soon, because he’ll be singing the role again for two dates in April.

Romeo et Juliette bows. (Photo: mine; please do not reproduce without permission)

Having recently seen him perform live yet again at the Met as Frère Laurent (Friar Lawrence) in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, Rose delivered a mix of authority and heartfelt gentility, his strong voice and clear diction embracing the complex demands of the Shakespearean-based work. One got the feeling watching him that the character was rooting for the put-upon lovers wildly inwardly, while going through the motions of his station outwardly. New York also saw Matthew give a recital at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, which featured Matthew briefly reprising the role of the boorish Baron Ochs (from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier) as an encore, a role he’d performed onstage opposite superstar soprano Renee Fleming at Covent Garden as part of the ROH’s Winter 2016/017 season.

On Friday (March 31st) and Saturday (April 1st), he’ll be performing with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, in a delicious-looking program that includes works by Strauss, Beethoven, and Schubert. Even more time will be spent in Europe this coming summer, however, when Matthew will be leading a course in singing at the Scuola di belcanto in Urbania, Italy. What, teaching? Italy?! Why now? Well… why not?

Photo: Scuola di belcanto (via)

How did you become involved with the Scuola di belcanto?

Twenty years ago, as a 19 year-old who didn’t know much either about singing or what I wanted to do in life, I attended a month-long course in Urbania, in the Marche region of Italy. The course was at a language school, Centro Studi Italiani and there was an opera singing part of the course with students and faculty from Juilliard, Curtis etc. It was here that my path to becoming an opera singer was cemented; I was first exposed to what real singing was, and met some very important people in my life, including Mr. Mikael Eliasen, who runs the voice department at Curtis. I ended up, very luckily, studying at Curtis and becoming a professional singer, something that would not have happened, I’m sure, had I not done this course.

Last year, Centro Studi Italiani asked me if I would consider doing a course there. About three hours later I had worked something out and the people that I thought would make a great team and now it looks like we are all set for the first one this summer.

Who is this course for, specifically?

It’s for people who want to further their singing — we have talented students coming, and some professional singers who want to add tools to their armour. This is a business where you can always improve, and I’m glad there is this range of people attending.

Why bel canto? Why Italy?

I really believe that to be a great opera singer one has to master several very important facets; vocal technique, musical excellence, dramatic intention and language. Italian, being the mother language of opera and from which all vocal techniques are established, is the language all singers should have at least a basic understanding of. So we are doing this course, where participants spend a large amount of time learning Italian and then are coached and taught the other aspects. For the first week I want to do evening sessions, where we do singing and talk about combining these four aspects in the best possible way, without neglecting anything that is wholly necessary. So bel canto in this instance isn’t necessarily the act of singing a specific kind of repertoire, but becoming a complete singer from which great art and music can flow.

How did you go about structuring the program?

This was quite simple: Italian lessons in the mornings, coaching and singing lessons in the afternoons, seminars in the evening for the first week, then coachings and preparation for end of course concerts for the second week.

Photo: Lena Kern

What’s the significance of having the involvement of Rosenblatt Recitals?

Ian Rosenblatt is an amazing man who serves our industry and art form in London in an incredible way. He puts on concerts in London to highlight a certain type of singer who have a great mastery of vocal technique and other performance attributes, mostly coming from the Italian bel canto school. I thought that this initiative would be something that he might be interested in and he has very graciously and generously given a very significant amount of money to make the musical side of the course possible. In fact when the participants come, they will only be paying towards the Italian school and accommodation.

What was the process for selecting the other instructors?

First of all, Joan Patenaude Yarnell, a great singing teacher from New York, and the person who led the course in 1997 when I first came had to be involved. She understands the physicality and internalization of singing better than any one I know. I wanted a stage director and great musical staff, and we have the best in Louisa Muller, a staff director at the Met, Eric Melear from the Wiener Staatsoper, and David Syrus, who is very soon to be stepping down as Head of Music at Royal Opera House after forty years. They’re all professionals of the highest caliber and experience who will get the best and most out of everyone attending.

Matthew Rose as Sparafucile in Rigoletto
© Johan Persson/ROH 2012

How much do you think participants will pick up and absorb within two weeks?

We’ll see, but I’m hoping that eyes and ears and hearts will be opened. There is an awful lot of time in two weeks to absorb, and people coming from very different backgrounds and ideologies. I really wanted a nice mix between American-trained singers and British singers. There is so much to learn and understand from how we do and think about things so differently.

How does teaching influence your work as a performer?

I do believe I have learnt so much from teaching and coaching the last few years. I have always wanted to help young singers, in the ways I was so fortunate to be helped by a whole swath of amazing people all through my journey as a singer. I really want to help the next generations of singer be the best they possibly can be for our wonderful art form to flourish. With the best possible things happening onstage, there should be no doubt why these amazing pieces should not exist and flourish, always.

Darling George

By Catherine Kustanczy

On December 27, 2016

In music, Non-Classical Writing, opera, personal, popular culture, remembrance, voice, writing

I have known and loved the music of George Michael for almost as long as I have known and loved opera. The sound of that creamy tenor has been as omnipresent in my life as the sounds of Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti. It was strange, and strangely satisfying, to see the idol of my youth aging and growing as an artist, cultivating his talents while expanding his range, repertoire, and sound with quiet determination.

The grimness of 2016 intensified with news of his passing on Christmas Day. I learned the news as I imagine many others did, on Facebook, noticing the update, “RIP to the best pop star of my life” from music writer Maura Johnston. I didn’t need to click on the link she’d posted to realize, with an awful sinking feeling, who she was referring to. Maura and I share a deep, abiding love of George and his music; we had traded tweets and notes about it over the years, and I had even contributed a piece to her magazine about that passion, which became part of a multi-issue, George-Michael-focused release. Maura has penned a perfect tribute for TIME and another, more personal piece for The Guardian; the latter is filled with smile-worthy memories and brilliant observations, this one striking so many recognizable chords:

While I was initially drawn in by Ridgeley’s cheekbones, I stuck around through Wham!’s breakup, and Michael’s eventual solo career, because the songs were thrilling, spinning like tops perched on a ledge, ready to fly off in another direction at any moment. Michael displayed reverence for all the right things – compositional craft, searing vocals, kindness, writing pop songs to make the world feel, briefly, like everything was OK – while also feeling ambivalent toward the aspects of his job that distracted from them.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect I am the only classical writer who contributed both to that all-George issue of Maura, and to Torontoist, in the form of a live concert review — which strikes me as funny and quite delightful, especially since one of George’s most memorable concerts in the last decade happened at the Palais Garnier. Indeed, George (it feels strange for me to call him anything else, though I never got the opportunity to meet him) was the first contemporary artist to play the historic opera house, and, all things considered, he seemed eminently suited to it, not only because of his then-recent Symphonica release, but because his deep and continuous cultivation of musicality, music history, the ever-changing pop idiom, and his place as an older artist.

As a current opera writer with a pop-loving past, I tend to live in multiple sonic worlds that embrace rock, funk, R&B, hiphop and country right alongside classical. My current work and the way I’ve grown to listen and pay attention to performance and voice have opened the door for a broader appreciation of the musical gifts George Michael offered over his almost four decades of output. That magical tenor of his was far more agile, sensitive, and expressive than has been sometimes been acknowledged; over the years I’ve heard it called “flat,” “bland,” “too smooth” and “devoid of emotion.” Such criticism always struck me as facile at best, and snobbish at worst; they pointed to a kind of passive-aggressive whisper of, “that music isn’t real music” and “he isn’t a real musician.” As a teen, I’d hurriedly point out he played all the instruments on Faith and even did the backing vocals; it wasn’t vanity, I said, it was talent, an intentional exercise in creative control. What is “real” music anyway?! There are any number of overwhelming examples to point to that might explode such a ridiculous accusation, but more potent than all of them was the live experience.

My first big stadium concert experience was attending the gargantuan Faith tour in the late 1980s. Outside of hearing my favorite singer with tens of thousands of other cheering fans (I recall it being overwhelming at times), hearing that voice, live, was —and there’s no other way to say it — life-changing. Even amidst tends of thousands of screaming teens, with amplification and effects, that voice was incredible; it swung, it swooped, it mewled, it roared. Having seen Pavarotti and Domingo live at the Met as a teenager, I knew the effect a beautiful voice could have — on me, and on others. I didn’t understand technique back then, and I didn’t fully appreciate what I was hearing, but listening back to both his live and album material now, as an adult, I am, more than ever, struck by the myriad of ways George could shape and bend his sound, to say nothing of the length and power of his vibrato to make a sound that glistened, floated, soared, or roared, cut, slashed; George did it all, with class, style, and elegance. He wasn’t a screamer, and he didn’t feel the need to be. In an era where “soft” was equated with weakness, and “sensuous” with vulgarity, he became the object of ridicule. Throughout my high school years, when being out wasn’t even an option, he was laughed at, his music met with eyerolls; George wasn’t “macho” enough for many of my fellow students to like (or at least admit they liked) —but it was always the lack of screaming, the lack of roughness or aggression that I liked.

The fact he was also blessed with good looks, great style, and a clear need to move to a beat helped. When acts like New Kids on the Block and Milli Vanilli cropped up, I curled my nose. How were they more acceptable (or even better) than George? Aside from their music holding no appeal, respective choreography seemed forced and joyless; by comparison, George’s hip-shaking, arm-waving, and bum-wiggling seemed fun, sexy, and frankly, familiar. He seemed like he’d be so much fun to go out dancing with. Also, I couldn’t listen to either Kids or Vanilli for very long; those voices were, to my ears, not good. I’d been so spoiled. The way George had performed Black Cherry’s classic “Play That Funky Music” live, for instance (as part of the Faith tour), was saucy, playful, and very funky, with all of the original’s bounce intact, but a keen awareness of pace and rhythm. It was deeply musical and fun and smart and… you could dance to it! The combination was intoxicating, and remained so, through many decades.

However, the past few years deepened my appreciation of his vocal gifts. George had a warm, wheaty timbre he could expertly wield to accommodate any number of styles, including classic ballads, soul, funk, rock. His skill with balladry was on full display in the astonishing “One More Try” from Faith; he lived the words of that song, lovingly infusing each one with a profound, personal meaning that makes listening to it almost unbearably personal. The halting quality in his voice as he sings “stranger” and then “feet” in the second verse, then the sharp, biting contrast with singing “danger” and “heat” in the second couplet, reveals a world of heartbreak and thwarted hope that colored so much of his later work. It was one of George’s most famously soulful moments, and I feel, one of his most operatic.

Similarly, many will recall his soaring performance of Queen’s “Somebody To Love” in 1992. Who else could have realistically stepped into the shoes of the great, opera-leaning Freddie Mercury, and done such a bang-up job? He wasn’t Freddie — but he didn’t aim to be. “I work hard,” he declares at the start of the second verse, improvising a higher melodic line and threading it in with the main melody. Simultaneously buoyed by a monstrously wonderful backing choir and a regal authority, his was the performance everyone remembered from that tribute concert. (It was lovely to come across a video recently showing David Bowie smiling at that rehearsal.) Near the song’s end, George soars into a smooth if equally impassioned falsetto with the ease and grace Mercury excelled at, bringing a raw vulnerability to a raucous, jaunty rock and roll classic.

Years before this performance, he’d caused shock with “I Want Your Sex” but I suspect it wasn’t solely the title or song’s content that caused controversy. The way George sings it is just deeply, deliciously dirty. His is a throaty, pushed kind of growl, one cleverly combined with whispers, shouts, and whimpers. One of the supreme pleasures of re-listening to the entirety of Faith over the last few months has been how nicely the material, and this song in particular, translates into adulthood. We (us fans) all merrily sang along to “I Want Your Sex” as teens, screamed it back at its creator live, winked and giggled and may have done some theatrical pelvic thrusts on the dance floor on Club Med vacations, but hearing it as a woman, the reaction is (for me at least) less outward, and more quietly confident, a seduction delivered in slow smiles, eyebrow raises, lingering stares. The subtleties of the song — and they are myriad! — reveal themselves in George’s exquisite vocals, which are brilliantly contrasted by the repeated, organ grinder-esque synth lines and a squishy, pumping rhythm. The simplicity of the arrangement echoes that other perfect synth masterpiece, “Everything She Wants” but contains its direct opposite in experiences, while holding the same musical tension and intensity. Near the song’s close, as his own backing vocals provide a rhythmic, staccato-like declamation filled with a sort of hip-thrusting jubilance (“Hua, SEX!“), George’s knowing vocal punctuates the line:

I’m not your father
I’m not your brother
Talk to your sister
I am a lover

These lines are delivered as statements, full stops, declarations; the confidence of the vocal is breathtaking, to say nothing of the beautiful howl that erupts at the end of that, followed by a carefully-pitched, descending moan. Every time I hear it now I think of Camille Saint-Saëns’s famous “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” from the opera Samson et Dalila — each being, for me, a delicious, potion of desire, fever, seduction, even romance — a fervent paean to being alive, a shiny talisman against despair.

And this, in the end, is George Michael’s catalogue to me. I haven’t even mentioned the many beautiful collaborations he did with favorite artists — Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and many others — or the sparkling cover versions he did of of songs new and old. His music (whether it’s specifically his, or music he has made especially his own) isn’t so much a tie to a rosy, cozy pat as it is a flowing river connecting that past with a harsher present, and ever-shifting future. He was magic, he was opera, he was a legend, but he was also defiantly, utterly himself — and in that act, he whispered, moaned, shouted, crooned, and pleaded, with that magical voice of his, for me to be myself. We never got to go dancing (something I’d dreamed of as a teen) and I never got to shake his hand (something I dreamed of as an adult) but he showed me how to listen for the beat, to create my own steps, to choose my own partners, and to walk off if things weren’t working. I owe him so much. We all do. George, you have been loved.

When We Were Young

By Catherine Kustanczy

On December 4, 2015

In music, Non-Classical Writing, personal, popular culture, voice

Lately I’ve set myself the task of slowly cleaning out my house, bit by bit. In the process, I’ve run across a fair amount of stuff that’s reminded me of my younger days: an old sweater, a pair of earrings, high heels.

“I wore this to that show,” I’m reminded, “and I remember loving this look at that party.”

Alas, I can’t remember quite what I wore to see Stone Temple Pilots when they played Toronto’s historic Masonic Temple (then a concert venue) back in the early 1990s. It was winter, and awfully cold in the hall, at least until the concert started, when it got steamy; whatever I wore, it was layered, and one by one, those layers, like those of my youthful self-consciousness, were peeled off as the show progressed, until I was left in a tank top, shrieking, sweaty, and wild-eyed at an amazing, beautiful, pure rock-and-roll sound that stays with me to this day.

I’d seen other bands in small and big venus before, but the crowd for STP was different — saucier, louder, more diverse, with a whole lot more young women, one of whom, I distinctly remember, mixed high-waisted mom jeans (then deeply unfashionable) with a tight hornet-green tank top and wayfarer sunglasses. She knew every word of every song, and rocked out from her front-balcony position, trading points and gestures with Scott Weiland now and again, as the lead singer stalked around the space, spitting, crooning, gesticulating wildly; seducing us one moment and ready to punch us the next, he was, unlike so many other figures I’d seen live or on TV, seemingly unconcerned with garnering good opinions. And he was, I suspect, for so many in the audience that night, me and mum-jeans girl included, the antihero we didn’t quite realize we wanted, but nonetheless found ourselves gravitating towards. We may’ve been outsiders beyond the walls of the Masonic Temple, but we were welcomed within it that night.

Stone Temple Pilots were just emerging as a loud rock outfit back then, with a few elements of the then-huge grunge sound, trying to get out from under the overbearing mound of Pearl Jam comparisons. They’d made a few videos but no one could quite get a handle on them, except of course, to compare them to others, and to try to strip them of any semblance of originality. Even at the time (never mind in retrospect), it seemed wildly unfair and frustratingly reductive. They were deeply of and yet simultaneously beyond their time. As Rob Harvilla noted, the band became, by the mid-90s, “the armadillo-trousered ’70s arena-rockers of their dreams, a T.Rex for the Jurassic Park era.”

As someone who grew up deep into pop as well as the classic sounds of Motown, jazz, and of course, opera, rock and roll was a bit of at thing apart in my house; Queen was okay, Metallica was not. My gravitation toward rock and roll coincided with the rise of so-called grunge and I loved “Sex Type Thing” and “Plush” the first time I heard them— the raw, bitingly aggressive sarcasm of the former, the swirling, surreal sensuality of the latter (and still do) — they’re thrilling pieces within the rock pantheon. As years went on, my love of the band’s work wavered, but the one thing I always loved, through “Big Empty” and “Interstate Love Song” and “Vasoline” and “Big Bang Baby”, through the cacophony of noise both in and outside the band, was the wonderful husky bray of Weiland’s voice, a lush baritone call that could be romantically plaintive one moment and blazingly angry the next. It was a voice made for rock and roll, made for belting not above but inside the noisy guitars and thumping bass lines and thrashing drums, straight into the minds and hearts of listeners. It’s a voice that still makes me pause in a way that very few in the rock world do. I wish I’d heard it live more often.

Pop culture is littered with figures who serve as torch-bearers for people who feel the world doesn’t understand them. But such a position feels too cliched for someone as vulnerable and self-loathing as Weiland. The last decade or so, he simply didn’t look like he had the strength to be any kind of torch-bearer, much less the desire. He wanted to be a rock star, and he was, but he was much more, too. I watched him slink off the stage that night, long ago, and as the lights were just coming up, a thought hit me, quite suddenly, that he looked so small and so damn lonely. I suspect Weiland cared a great deal about what others thought — what artist doesn’t? — and found himself thrown aside, like so much useless detritus. I’d rather not be the one carrying bones of a beloved antihero into some highly stylized, steampunk version of eternity; unbundling the mundane details of a present reality is always more complicated. Weiland passed away at the age of 48, not 27, and had neither burned out nor faded away, but he was clearly damaged, for so many reasons, many of them made baldly public.

We all carry a certain amount of damage around. As I continue clearing out my house of old mementoes, I’m reminded of the person I was then, and can’t help but compare that girl, with all of her insecurities and anxieties, with the woman I am now. Some of the old worries are still there, but many have been replaced, if not vanished entirely. Damage isn’t something I want to romanticize, but it isn’t something to ignore, either; some very eye-widening things can result from some very horrific things. It’s not my place to draw lines between Weiland’s life and his art, and now, alas, his legacy — but I know one thing for certain: he was the first rock star I saw live who really made me lose my shit, but at the same time, made me think about… everything. I came out into the cold winter air after STP’s show that night bathed in sweat, and, for weeks afterwards, kept thinking about him, his voice, the show, that girl in the mom-jeans. Rock and roll has real power; every time I hear his voice, I’m reminded of that. It’s the most obvious thing in the world, and yet it bears repeating. it’s time to put on Core, Purple, and all the rest; it’s time to feel the power again.

Thank you, Jimmy

By Catherine Kustanczy

On June 13, 2014

In voice, writing

A wave of deep sadness washed over me as I learned the news of Jimmy Scott’s passing. After that, gratitude. I am so blessed to have seen Jimmy Scott sing live.

It was a steamy June evening in 2012, in the basement supper-club of the popular Red Rooster Restaurant in Harlem. Amidst the distant clattering of dishes and the clinking of wine glasses, Scott entered, humble, and clearly moved by his ecstatic reception, wheelchair-bound and physically frail, but with a fierce determination and passion that flickered across his smiling face. A microphone was lowered, and for the next hour or so, Scott closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and had the intimate room spellbound.

I first stumbled across the recordings of Jimmy Scott as a teenager. Some of the artists I admired had mentioned him as an inspiration in interviews, and, trusting them as great arbiters of taste, I followed their advice. This time period coincided with my discovery and embrace of a lot of jazz sounds: Ella Fitzgerald (whom I saw live a few years later), Miles Davis (who I’d already seen live, scant months before his passing), Dizzy Gillespie (who again, I saw live before his passing), Billie Holiday (alas), and Frank Sinatra (who I wish I could take a time machine to see live in the 1950s). While Little Jimmy fit within that jazz world, to say he was a “jazz singer” would, for me, be sticking him in a bin that was a bit too narrow for what he did, and really, who he was. Just as he himself defied norms (not at all by choice), his voice — and the way he used it — defied conventional categorization. He belonged in an ornate church the way he belonged in a smoky jazz club; that is to say, he was a bit of everything, embracing, synthesizing, integrating influences and styles, but then re-making, re-creating and expressing something wholly and entirely his very own. As Anthony Hegarty put it to The Quietus in 2011, he “sings like a sobbing diamond.”

It’s this very individuality and subsequent beauty that so astonishes and quiets us.

And yet, some might argue it cost him mainstream success. Jimmy’s name isn’t as well-known as say, Sinatra, or Dean Martin, or Tony Bennett. He doesn’t have the cachet of his jazz-singer brethren. But again, Jimmy wasn’t just one thing. He worked with Lou Reed and David Lynch; he was in a Hal Willner-produced tribute concert for Harry Smith; he was name-checked as inspiration by a variety of artists, including Nick Cave, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna, the latter saying Jimmy was the only singer “who’d ever really made me cry.”

Lou Reed had said, “we all bow at the altar of Jimmy Scott.” Lou, I think, understood Jimmy in a profound way; both of them appreciated the deep relationship that has to exist between identity, artistry, beauty, and authenticity. Lou got it; Jimmy got it. And, in the brief moments the world had them, we, the audience, got it.

To say the experience of seeing Jimmy live was special would be far too reductive and trite; to say it was akin to going to church would be too predictable. There was something other-worldly, haunting, and wholly transcendent about hearing him live. Recordings may flit at the edges of his greatness, but, like a great opera singer (Pavarotti) or a wondrous instrumentalist (Gillespie, Davis), the nature of art, to say nothing of how we, the audience, experience it, changes in a dramatic way within the live realm. Never mind style; Jimmy Scott’s whole soul — in life, in love, in art, in sound and fury — was expressed in the blessed short hour I and the rest of Ginny’s Supper Club had with him that night. Experiencing Little Jimmy live re-affirmed the centrality of music and culture in my life, and reminded me of my responsibility to the authentic in everything I write and do. Sometimes we are all motherless children; Jimmy made us know, understand, and find the beauty in the pain, the pain in the beauty, always, unquestionably, unapologetically himself.

I Get So Emotional, Baby

By Catherine Kustanczy

On February 11, 2012

In voice

The news of Whitney Houston’s passing went around on Facebook like wildfire, probably mere moments after the first murmurs of her demise began circulating on Twitter. Whitney became famous before the advent of social media, but it seems as if her debut album was issued to every household in 1985. Tonight everyone’s sharing a memory of their younger selves: seeing one of her videos, dancing in their bedrooms, running to buy her record at the local mall. I’m pouring over my own memories too. Whitney was the first female pop star I outright adored.

At the time it wasn’t totally cool -at least in my super-Wonderbread neighborhood -to admit you liked Whitney’s music, so I’d covertly hide my cassette tapes in coat pockets and big bags. There weren’t too many twelve-year-old girls in the ‘burbs who loved opera, Abba, Johnny Cash and Whitney Houston with equal passion. I remember so many snowy days, sluggishly making my way to school, bright red wool cowl around my head, pointy-toed winter boots on my feet, sunglasses in place, making my way along the grey dull suburban streets, with Whitney sweetly singing through the headphones of my Sony Walkman: how will I know if he really loves me? how will I know? Whitney’s music inspired me to investigate gospel. Eventually the LPs of Mahalia Jackson, Etta James, and Aretha Franklin appeared next to the Duran Duran ones. Whitney Houston was my gateway drug to soul and Motown – and to brighter visions of a better, more exciting life, one where being loud, bold, brilliant, and female were rewarded and celebrated and encouraged. I’ve found the greatest love of all…

When 1987’s Whitney came out, I immediately gravitated to the dramatic stuff, with “So Emotional” becoming my mantra, though I had no one to sing it to except the fantasy boys in my head. But Whitney’s vocal urgency, her drama, her sense of excitement, and enjoyment, and sheer joy of singing, were and remain astonishing to listen to. To paraphrase the saucy title character from Bizet’s Carmen, “I’m singing for myself, and there’s no law against it!” Still, as Maura Johnston of The Village Voice notes, “Houston’s voice was criticized by some for being too much—too strong, too showy, an exemplar of the excess that epitomized pop music in the ’80s.” My mother used to crinkle her brow whenever she heard her music pumping out of my bedroom: “That isn’t singing -it’s shrieking!” Her cover of a beloved Dolly Parton classic grated, and the movie it came from, though a massive success, was horrendously bad, a soppy, maudlin embodiment of the gigantic music industry- machine she seemed to never quite fit in with.

As the years passed, she became simultaneously less interested and more desperate to fit in to that world. It was painful to witness. Marriage, addiction, bizarre interviews, bad live dates, frightening photos – it was like a laundry list of public humiliation, made all the more horrifying because of Whitney’s refusal to never, ever play the role of the simpering, whimpering victim, even when she was clearly suffering. There were highs, lows, exposures, embarrassments, headaches, heartaches. It couldn’t have been easy trying to dim your light around a man clearly threatened by your success, or attempting to throw a determined monkey off your back amidst the snide smirks of a public who once worshipped you awaiting your next fall with claws and fangs exposed. I think few knew or understood the nasty nature of fame and the “industry” side of the music industry the way Whitney Houston did.

There have been many, many candidates for the throne of Ultimate Soul Diva. But might look it, but they’ll never be it. Whitney poured her whole life into that voice, sounding sweet one minute, steely the next; she was as confident with the saccharine balladry of “The Greatest Love,” as she was with the survivor sass of “It’s Not Right (But It’s Okay).” It would be too easy to assume she’d made some Faustian deal in order to have a voice like that, but she did have demons. Regardless of who put them there or why they stayed is no matter. Her demons were hers. Right up to the end she seemed determined to remind us of that. We were blessed to have had her voice in our midst, serenading us through all of life’s moments big and small, leading us through the snowbanks and into a place less dull, more bright, more beautiful and big and exciting, where being female didn’t mean being soft, quiet, meek or comforting. Dear Whitney, make you shake the heavens the way you shook this earth. Make thee a joyous noise.