The House Pro

When I was growing up the term "house pro" referred to a  person who was proficient at his trade that is, a professional but not quite good enough to make a real name for himself or to become a star performer. In many name hotels there was the "tennis pro" or "golf pro".  He was generally called upon to teach and improve the proficiency of the varioius hotel guests who could afford his fees.  He  was signed up for a season and his only duties were to teach.  He was sometimes well paid and was respected by both guests and management. House pros came and went though sometimes they stayed on for several seasons in succession.  Some of them were really good and could give more successful pros a good run for their money in real game situations.  All this notwithstanding, "house pros" were more likely than not looked down upon as second rate professionals who just didn't have what was needed to make it big.

Way back during opera's Golden Age at the beginning of the twentieth century, the above concept had a different meaning and with it a different connotation.  In those days singers could have glorious careers while being associated with one opera house.  the most famous of those was probably the fabled Enrico Caruso who debuted as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto on opening night at the Metropolitan House in 1903.  He was to open every Met season except 1906 when the great American soprano Geraldine Farrar made her debut. Caruso opened  seventeen of eighteen seasons as the Met's number one tenor.  There were other tenors on the roster but Caruso predominated.  For all intent and purpose Caruso was the "house pro" or tenor in this case.  Geraldine Farrar was paired with Caruso most often and their performances were generally sold out.  They were the Met's number one attraction. Their onstage rivalry was legendary and they took every opportunity to upstage each other.  But they brought in the fans.  Caruso died in 1921 at the age of 48;  Farrar retired at the age of 50 a year later in 1922, I believe.  Both were superstars while spending the bulk of their careers at the Met though they performed elsewhere as well.  There were other great singers at the Met who could be regarded as "house pros" without the negative tags mentioned above.  The great Giovanni Martinelli spent his entire career at the Met and shared many roles with Caruso. Ezio Pinza, that marvelous basso cantabile who was regarded throughout the 20th century as THE Don Giovanni and Figaro in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro came to the Met in 1926 and stayed until the late 1940's. Richard Tucker, Lawrence Tibbet, Leonard Warren, Zinka Milanov and other stars of enormous magnitude also were "house singers".

There seems to be a contradiction between my earlier statement and the description of great opera careers.  But times have changed.  Travel time then was long and sometimes arduous.  Caruso came to New York by ship from Naples ;  it made more sense to stay in one place for the season than to spend much time  traveling about. The baritone Antonio Scotti for example, took up residence at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Manhattan for many seasons.

Nowadays opera's most sought -after singers can get around with great ease. Some may sing two or three performances in New York and then fly to London's Covent Gardens for a short stint and then move on to La Scala.  The sky is literally the limit.  Careers are made or broken on the basis of jetage travel.  The physical toll, not to speak of mental fatigue is tremendous. Long careers are not as prevalent as they were in the early and middle of the twentieth century.  Martinelli sang for more than thirty years at the Met. Richard Tucker had a 30yr. career.  Leonard Warren sang twenty five seasons at the Met until his tragic onstage death on Fri March 3, 1960; he was 49. I doubt there are more than a handful of singers who can boast of such artistic longevity let alone in one opera house.

There are many talented and outstanding singers on today's opera stages - none of them are "house singers". How do the singers of today match up against those of bygone eras?  That is a subject worth exploring.  Another time.

One Man's Opinion / Does Anyone Really Care?

During the past opera season I went to see Pietro Mascagni's masterpiece one act opera "Cavalleria Rusticana"at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The traditional setting or venue is a rustic village somewhere in Sicily circa 1900 (the year of the opera's premiere).  The present production, directed by Giancarlo Del Monaco, takes place in a stone quarry. How odd, how strange and how unrelated to the content of the libretto?! Oh yes. The music was definitely Mascagni's. But the sets and the design concept had absolutely no relation to the opera. So? The concept is different; it's fresh; perhaps even original!  What is wrong with being innovative? After all, we want to bring the audience into the opera house and we want to give them something different and not old hat.  But are we giving our operagoers Mascagni?  Is the music the only thing that matters and is it detached from the story and the text that is, the libretto? 

Mascagni like all opera composers chose a specific story - not a concept or comment on social mores - to compose music to. This music is intended to depict and describe life in a typical Sicilian village in place and time.  As such his melodies paint a picture in various hues and shades in order to bring out the special flavor of life in rural Sicily.  These are plain folk honest, hearty and hard-working.  Theirs is a simple life and includes the human side of daily existence which include the possibility of adultery, infidelity and vendetta. The church is the center of social and religious life. The story takes place on Easter Sunday, a time of religious devotion and family togetherness.  People dress in their finest clothing. Mascagni's music reflects and describes open fields, flowers. The glorious chorus sung outside the church in the village square is a masterful piece of music composition that describes beautifully religious piety, fervor and devotion.  What does the setting of a stone quarry have to do with the atmosphere that is described so artfully by Mascagni's music in the original and intended story??  Who would think of spending Easter Sunday in a quarry and an entire community at that?

My point is this. Opera is a living art form.  It describes true -to-life situations in music and words. It is not abstract; it is not a world of make believe! As such  opera lives and breathes.
It has substance, texture and a smell all its own. Music and text are wedded, welded together into an inseparable whole. Innovation and freshness can work only by taking into account all the components that make up the total product.