I mentioned in my last blog a video found on You Tube that features a singer holding a note as if she were showing off a superhuman ability. When a singer does an easy-peasy thing like singing a sustained tone and receives such approbation, I wonder about her competition. Does she have any? It is just plain funny.
No matter how long a singer holds a note, it will always be nothing more than a trick. I have already told a long note story: HERE. It was one of my tricks, and I have to say that I am not the only one in life who could do such things. I was present for just such a show off performance by another trickery expert.
Bruno Campanella
Once upon a time I was in Paris to do Arturo in “I Puritani”. I learned a ton of stuff in that production, suffered terribly and totally entertained myself all at the same time. Our conductor was my favorite, Bruno Campanella, who was a joy to work with and the number one part of my entertainment. My suffering came from a terrible flu that really put me down. I passed my tenor baton to my team mate Aldo Bertolo who sang my dress rehearsal and I think even my opening night. I suffered and recovered, got back to work on stage, and then June Anderson fell victim to the same flu that put my voice down for the count. She was forced to cancel one show and because her tag team partner, Michelle Lagrange, was doing synchronized sneezing from the same virus, the Salle Favart flew in Mariella Devia to take the strain of keeping the ticket holders happy. Bruno knew her, told me I would love her and in that prediction he was a perfect prophet. At the end or her aria she took her final high note on a walk into the wings. I have no idea how long she held the note, but it was long enough to make me smile and expect every decibel of explosive applause that resulted when she finally stopped singing or maybe she
Mariella Devia
just closed the door of her dressing room. Experts are hard to find, and she has continued to confirm that she is an expert high on a very restricted list.
One can be an expert in almost anything, The Petomane comes to mind. He became famous just down the street from the Salle Favart albeit in a previous century. I know about this particular performer from my wife’s family. Her Great Grandfather knew about and wrote about him because he was of the same generation and owned a string of Vaudeville theatres in the American west. It is sad that Debbie’s Great Grand Dad never had the chance to book The Petomane for a tour.
Getting back to notes long held, once upon a longer time ago than the Paris “I Puritani” with Mirella, but nowhere near as long ago as The Petomane’s explosive career, I was privileged to work with an expert bass-baritone who hails from just north of me in Quebec, Claude Corbeil. He is an expert stage personality with a richness of voice a tenor can only admire. One of the many fun incidents I have in my memory bank that include this great and flexible artist is wedged in among my many memories of doing “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”. We were cast together in Ottawa and an opportunity for this tenor to show off 
and have fun presented itself in a rehearsal. Because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control, Claude missed a few late staging rehearsals leading up to our Orchestral Stage rehearsals and no one seemed to have given him the word about how the staging had changed while he was away. I was already initiated into the great tradition of On Stage Pranks, and when we reached the “Buona sera, mio signore.” in the third act quintet, Claude was way on the other side of the stage from me. He was doing a great job of maintaining his Don Basilio character while pestering our Don Bartolo stage right. The newest staging called for Basilio to shake the hand of my Almaviva,,, sorry,,, at this point in the Opera, still my Lindoro doing Don Alonso, well you get the picture.
I’m supposed to sing “Buona sera” to him. Then he was to go shake Rosina’s hand as she sang her “Buona sera”, then Figaro’s hand during his rendition, and finally to Bartolo when Don Basilio himself has his turn to sing the melody. The four of us were equidistantly spaced across the stage with me far stage left. At first, I thought I’d wait for Claude to make his way across the stage before launching into the new section of the Quintet so that he would have a chance to do the stage movement required by the Director. The silence that ensued, as I waited, became pendulously pregnant, as our Don Bartolo seemed unwilling to inform Claude of the new traffic pattern. I began to feel the eyes of our conductor burning holes in the left side of my head as I watched
Claude do what he does so well. When a cat is in doubt, he grooms, but Claude improvises. At the moment the burning sensation of eyes upon me overcame my admiration of Claude’s unflappable stage presence, I was hit by malevolent inspiration. I took a deep breath, extended my right hand, for shaking, in the direction of stage right and launched into the first note of “Buona sera”. Now Claude is one to carry his character throughout anything, including disastrous on stage train wrecks. So I was confident he would figure out the situation and make his way over to my outstretched hand so that the melody could continue and our stage movements could return to the pattern that our traffic planner had invented. I made a bet that I could hold that note long enough for Claude to travel all the way across the stage before I ran out of air. As it turned out, even with Claude greeting a few people on his way across the stage while maintaining the character of his very memorable Basilio, I survived the wait. When our hands met, I still had enough air left over to carry on singing the first phrase of the Quintet while furiously shaking Claudes hand. To an outsider it would have seemed all part of the plan. I loved it. No idea what anyone else thought, but this improvised stage traffic did not actually get incorporated into the production. So…….
Claude is a model acting expert. I encountered many more experts and I may get around to unpacking a few more memories of super fun, silly, happy, fulfilling and warmly appreciated events that pepper my time line. I hope you like reading about them. I’m now over my thousand word limit. So I have to stop here.
I’ll be back.