Yes we can!!!!

Friday at 11 am, I left New York, my apartment and my office to go to my home in New Jersey, a long trip, 25 minutes with no traffic.

I am now sitting in my garden. The same garden as in 1986 but everything is so much bigger, luxurious and invading my space, my imagination: the trees, the plants, the flowers and the dandelions.

Nature has a special gift to remind us who we are, what we became, and how much time has passed, I wish I had grown as much as the trees around me and learn more about the purpose of life, about who I am, what I want and what I am still dreaming.

A million memories are invading me, memories of the past 30 years. We bought this house the year of Diana’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera and my first appointment as general director of an opera company. I knew nothing about gardening, fixing appliances, talking to contractors or taking care of the plumbing.

All I knew was literature, theater, opera (relatively new), and above everything I knew how to keep talking for hours about nothing, convincing people that my intellect was superior, that my ideas were worth it.

Whatever the subject was I had an answer, French accent helps sometimes to convince people of the importance of what we are saying.

I learned with time to apply the old proverb:

LA PAROLE EST D'ARGENT MAIS LE SILENCE EST D' OR 

Talking is silver but silence is gold

All these years I tried to combine my work, my dreams, my ambition to achieve and fulfill my artistic desires and my personal life. But I always kept in mind the line from my idol Samuel Becket " I AM ON THE EDGE OF BECOMING SOMEBODY".

Beckett was right; we never become somebody but only reach an approximation of ourselves, and we spend most of our lives trying to blend aspirations and reality, always thinking that next year it will happen.

 I made a million mistakes, I made the wrong choices many times, I made many enemies ... that is a sour subject for me, because quite honestly I really don’t know why I made enemies...I believe that I was never unfair to people, I never tried to hurt anyone; I feel as though I helped many people in their life and was a presence when needed, but probably most of us think the same way and has good reasons to do what they do. 

In any case, I am now sitting in my garden with a glass of Sauvignon blanc, I am still very active -too much for some people- and I wonder...

How can we combine work, dreams, ambition, personal life, without having doubts, without regrets, without hurting others, without failing sometimes? Is it really possible?

Does time arrive at one point when we have to make a statement about our life or should we try to think about it every year?

Every three years?

Every five years? 

Did my father do the same? Did he at one point sit by himself, thought about his life and his struggles, his pains, the injustice of fate and the death of his pride, his son, my brother dead at the age of 26?

Is that why he died heartbroken a few months later at the age of fifty-nine?

When is it the right moment to reflect on the past? Do we have to continue without thinking in order to be alive? Are memories for most of us more painful than happy? Why do we have to remember the bad ones and swallow up and digest the good ones?

How many terrible moments influence our life as an artist? The more we are hurt the more we want it.

To escape reality?

To try to have a different life? 

We are the conglomeration of all this, we have to bring all of it in our artistic side, we cannot be afraid of living the painful moments again, we have to use them as a cure, as a second chance to be complete.

I am sitting in my garden and I see all the friends who were here, most have disappeared from my friendship swallowed by work, by other interests, by other friends, by life…I am thinking of them and I miss them.

Where are they? Where did they go? Are they happy? Are they at peace with themselves? Sometimes one of them resurrects from the silence or his absence and I feel so full of joy, so rejuvenated, thankful that he contacted me.

It seems that in our profession friends disappear a lot

or is it the same for all professions?

Some are not even with us anymore; my dear friend, my brother Mark Flint is gone... How is that possible? Why? Why? He was my alter ego, my musical side, his musicianship was a daily lesson, his generosity was overwhelming, and his humor was unique. I learned so much from him.

He was my neighbor, he was here every day in the summer and we dreamed together about our profession, our projects, and our retirement sitting on the porch of the house and laughing…

These days did not and will not happen, he left too soon.

I am sitting in my garden and I think about my daughter running around at 8 years old, thinking about my wife and her first Tosca, her first Manon Lescaut, her first Angelica, and myself preparing my next production in Italy or in Monte Carlo. How exciting this all was, how fulfilling...All the dreams together, the love for each other and the love for what we were doing.

We were young, full of energy, full of life…what a wonderful ground for happiness...We were lucky to be able to fulfill our dreams.

 We renounced a multitude of things like being together at important moments, but our thoughts were always about one another. Loneliness was an everyday trauma, loneliness filled by the moments spent in a rehearsal room or on stage or with other lonely people, but our loneliness was fed by the joy of knowing that the other one was happy.

All this…

IS IT WORTH IT? 

It is more and more difficult for all artists to try to combine ambition, self-achievement, dreams and personal life. The life of being another under the mask of a character or the mask of a director is not enough, we have to try to have a full life, it is difficult, it is challenging, it is sometimes painful but we have to try.

If our call to be an artist is the only priority, it‘s fine… but for the majority it is not and they do not know how to handle everything. It is not an easy issue ...especially with the world we are living in, where do I go? What do I do? What is the next step? What if I do not make it? What? What?

Sometimes obligations become the reason to accept failure, I could not continue to want to be an artist I HAVE A FAMILY, I have to take care of them. Sure, yes, of course. 

Is it the same dilemma for all professions? Yes probably but even more with professions dealing with human heart and soul because basically we are tormented, dissatisfied, and searching. 

     

I am sitting in my garden and I wonder: are we chosen or are we cursed? We, the so-called artists? 

Can we try to have it all? Yes

Can we aim for the full spectrum of existence? Yes

Can we really demand a personal life, an achievement in art, and a satisfaction to our ambition? Yes

Can we be happy at the age of reason to have had as much as possible of all this? Yes

Are we so special that we can have all this? Yes we are

Are we capable of handling it all? Yes we can

But it is not an easy path, it is a daily labor, a daily struggle, a daily choice, a daily doubt…

But we can!!!!!!

It is now in your hands

I DESERVE IT !!!!!!!!!

The nights seem to be shorter and shorter, life goes faster and faster, it seems that it is yesterday that I was trying to become another, and today I am still the same: An attempt to find a justification to my desire to be another, with at the same time the belief that nobody deserves everything more than me.  Because I am talented, because I know, because it is my destiny, because I am different, because I deserve it, because it is MOI.

Years have passed and I am still the same and completely different, I am what I became, what others want me to be, what my image became created by the look of others. 

Is that what all of us think too often? At 20, 30, 40 years old? or forever?  Are we lost in the hurricane of life? Trying desperately to be heard as an artist, to share what we know, to give our talent, to cease to exist as a person and become a way for others to see themselves thru our failures, our successes, our desire to be.

Are we perpetually led by the need to have a life thru the expression of our artistic side?
If yes, how can we continue to believe in our task and duty to share ourselves if we do not believe that we are special, that we are different, that we have something to say, that we are ONE…
If yes, we deserve to be successful because we are unique, we know the answers, we know what others do not even approach in their thoughts, and it cannot be just a dream of achievement, we are more talented, we are more knowledgeable, we DESERVE to be at the top of the artistic world.

Unfortunately, NOBODY DESERVES ANYTHING, all this is part of the dreams of childhood, the dreams of adolescence, and tragically the dreams of maturity and beyond… Can we spend our entire life dreaming of what will never happen? Can we justify to ourselves and to the ones surrounding us to spend our life in the quest of a life that will never be ours?

Do not be confused, dreams are only a hidden reality…the reality of the surreal…
Who can decide that dreams are less important? Who can impose that dreams are not real life?
We are for life sitting in the waiting room of achievement, never totally satisfied, and we wonder or more exactly we have a perpetual attack of self satisfaction.

I have been thinking about all this forever, for 5 or 10 or may be 50 years:
Why do some people have success very young or very early in their career and some Wait for Godot.
Sometimes to try to understand or to accept it  we say it is luck, no it is a lottery, oh no it is real talent, no, no, no it is who we know, who can push for us, or may be it is who is paying for us, or what we look like, who we sleep with, or may be it is the ghost of somebody protecting us, may be it is the friend of my friend who talked about me,  may be it is because I am Italian or American or French or Russian or Chinese or an inhabitant of the planet called earth.

Regularly I wonder why a few years ago I was directing in San Francisco, in Zurich, in Dallas, in Toronto, Vancouver, and then it was Palermo, Detroit, Montecarlo, and then Seattle, Miami, Germany, Baltimore… why do we go to places and then suddenly we go somewhere else… Do they become tired of us, do they need new faces,do they want younger people and we belong to another generation, are we becoming a threat, are we behaving badly, or do they change administration and the new one brings their own friends.

I know that to be fashionable is very important, we all wonder WHY this one is now everywhere and I am not?
“I deserve it, I deserve better.
I am better.
My high notes are better.
My low notes are darker.
I am a real director and he is not.
He is not good with the orchestra and I am, so why not me?
Why I am not at the metropolitan, I am better than most of THEM there, why I do not sing there when everybody tells me how talented I am.”

Guess why?
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT.

We are in a production where everybody tells us that we are wonderful and amazing,
HOW COME YOU DO NOT SING EVERYWHERE?
Suddenly the entire world owes us to hire us, our management is not doing enough, not PUSHING enough.
I love the expression PUSH…you have to PUSH for me… what does that mean? We push all year long.

Why do we suddenly wake up from an eternity of self-indulgence, believing suddenly that the world owes us something…every day, some of my friends, singers, conductors, directors, after a long time, too much time spent in non action, in satisfaction of who they are, in limbo of the anti chamber of success, believe that they should be hired by everybody because they are rehearsing something somewhere and everybody tells them that they are fabulously talented.
The years of neglect and passivity, of waiting for Godot, do not count anymore…they deserve to be everywhere and if their management believed in them, they will act consequently and PUSH for them everywhere…their talent HAS TO BE RECOGNIZED immediately by all, they deserve it, actually companies should be happy to have them.
Yes, I know that self confidence has a lot to do with all this, and artists have the right to doubt, and sometimes they reach their maturity later, and everybody is different... but in that case do not wonder: why not me? Accept that YOU have delayed the verdict, that YOU were the one who did not take the passing trains.
And remember the very important words: You can doubt about everything and everybody but do not doubt about yourself!  (I do not remember who said that)

So, what do we do to believe it is still possible and doors will still open, and trains will still pass?

It is the same thing than acting… some people have it inside them but the majority do not. A career for the majority is based on a long time of work… where is the cult for work, the cult for perfection?  Or at least the attempt for perfection?
I know singers who arrive to the place of work not prepared, they are in important companies and DO NOT KNOW THE ROLE THEY ARE SINGING OR COVERING? And then they wonder, why was anything else not offered?
And when confronted they answer: ”But I knew my role after a few coachings!!!!!!”

Amateurism is not acceptable in our work, the competition is becoming challenging, more ARTISTS on the market every day, less productions every day, singers singing the wrong repertoire and not enough opportunities to progress by being on stage.  Locals filling the comprimari roles, assistant directors directing, and even conductors directing and directors conducting.  Young artists programs flooding the market and young artists after a summer somewhere believe that they now are full professionals and deserve a career….

All this is wonderful because it creates a vibrant surrounding of possibilities but….

Yes, some have a voice and know their music and the words, so what? How can we call that prepared? A painter has his hand and his brushes and his colors, should I be in ecstasy about it? What he will DO with the brushes and the colors is art.
The knowledge of the words and the music are the brushes and the colors, what you will do with it could be art, sometimes.
The tragic difference is: When a painter looks at his painting and believes it is bad, he throws it out…for performers, it is too late…

REHEARSALS give you this opportunity; rehearsals give you the possibility to throw out what is not good…
Day after day, for three weeks or six weeks, try new things, always try to go further with the guidance of conductors and directors, do not be satisfied with what you believe is good…
I have done the role, I know it, I do not need rehearsals…PLEASE NO!!!! Your colleagues are different, the production is different, you are different from the last time you did it, it is always a new experience.

We do not deserve anything; we earn it by working, progressing, building a reputation, and gaining the trust of colleagues, of companies.

To be an artist is to be self confident, but also to question ourselves all the time about who we are, what we know, where we go.
BE SURE TO DEVOTE THE TIME AND THE YEARS TO LEARN, TO PROGRESS, TO BE and remember this is a rule of life whatever you do or whoever you are.

the WHY???

I open my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom, god how much I hate this clock indicating 4:15 am flashing from the cable box, hurting my eyes and reminding me again that I slept only 4 hours...My dreams were nebulous last night, only a few people whispering in my ears an unknown language, like ghosts devouring my thoughts.

I turn slowly on the side, and listen to my spouse, my friend...she is still asleep and is snoring very lightly, an ocean of tenderness suddenly submerges me for her, she looks so fragile, and she sounds like an infant.

I am a little lost in the darkness, and start to be afraid, afraid of not having done what I had to do, afraid of having hurt others, afraid of something, afraid of?????

Do all artists have this feeling? Afraid of not having done what we are supposed to do? Is this the engine of our need to be part of another world that our imagination creates?

I get up and go downstairs to make my coffee...why does she buy that silly Starbucks at $11 a pound, it pisses me off...coffee is coffee, I would be content with a $3.95 Maxwell coffee...oh! Well, it makes her happy.

I am checking my emails, the same old story...singers complaining about conductors, conductors complaining about orchestra, directors complaining about cast...and all complaining about their management. A few offers, for the same people again and again and for the others the everyday struggle...

Today I have to fly to another city to direct the premiere of an opera…I have not done too many of them, probably because the people in charge believe that I am from another generation and capable only to deal with what is from the last century or even 300 hundred years ago, after all how can I understand the human feelings and the conflicts of the new generation, younger people must understand better, right?

I arrive in the rehearsal room ...I am full of joy, desire, apprehension...I feel confident and I have fears, I have to make an effort not to run the other way...Like when I was acting and before the performance, arriving to the theater... always asking myself: But why do I have to be here, maybe a strike of the stage hands will prevent us to perform, maybe the theater will be on fire, maybe a few colleagues will be sick and we will not have to do it...and then ...THEN...I enter the stage as Mercutio, or Alceste, or Le Cid and I forget everything. I am totally in control or better I am not me anymore, I just live, full of passion, overjoyed by being another, living a full life with no fear, no restraint, no blockage… The audience is listening to me, they are now real life, they have no preconceived idea of who I am, they are not judging me, I am just a character and I can make them cry or laugh, they want to listen to me , they want to love me or hate me,  they want to share with me EVERYTHING I want to give them, I am the master of the universe.............

I am the first one in the rehearsal room...today we will go through the score, through the text and the music, I have to be careful not to become a teacher in a classroom, not to drown them with information about the style, the period, the story, the genius of the composer, the pain of the leading character, I have to be careful NOT to overwhelm them with what I believe is useful...I have to inform and not to flood them with what I believe I know in an exercise of self satisfaction.

I have to remember what my great teachers told me...to direct is to put in the right direction, not to micromanage every thought, every move, every gesture...it is to guide artists in the direction of the truth of the character and of the picture I have in my mind...

Tania Balachova telling me: you can be a great director but remember the most important...DO NOT impose, make them discover, make them understand the situation, make them understand the emotions, make them understand the relation between characters, make them find in themselves the equivalents, BUT DO NOT IMPOSE , do not make them imitate a feeling, do not feed them like new born...do not impose mechanical gestures on them…Directing is not asking artists to imitate you but to find in themselves the best way to express what the character is at a specific moment, in a specific story, in a specific choice.

I AM READY, I am so happy...I know they will trust me, I know they will know that I know.

I am 45 minutes too early, as always too early, afraid of missing something, my cell phone vibrates...it is a friend, the head of a company. He tells me that he wants to do a new Manon, that he wants me to direct it...so many companies seem to want to bring back Manon, it is time...He tells me that he has a great cast in mind...I ask some of the names...I am in shock...I know we all have different tastes but ...but...he asks for my opinion ...I don’t know what to answer...I don’t want to offend my friend...I don’t mind being in disagreement with a general director but I do not want to offend my friend...I change the subject...I say: I will call you back, I am in rehearsals for the new opera...I can't talk now...I mumble something...something silly...I think I made a stupid joke...I hung up...he must think that I am very strange.

The cast is arriving...all young, handsome singers, willing, ready, open to work and discover and be, what a joy ... the reason we do what we do…we are starting...I have to hide my tears, tears of joy, of pleasure, I see the opera taking shape just because of them, I love them, I love the pain of my leading character, I love to be here.

One day at the rehearsal during a dramatic moment, during an aria where the soprano had to be vulnerable and lost and with no disguise… She could not do it, she was just a good singer an a good performer but for me it was not convincing, I had the feeling she could go further…

I took her aside and asked her if she was ready to go further… "Vera, are you ready to try to be more?"

"Yes, of course. But what do you mean?"

"Will you go to places you have not reached in many, many years?"

"I do not understand what you mean, but I am ready to try"

We went back to the rehearsal room and started again, all others were a little annoyed to have to do it again…

I held her hands and whispered words to her while she was singing, went with her thru the emotions, communicating to her the essence of the search of the girl she was personifying, transfusing life and pains to her, I did not try to have her imitating me, but sharing with her my deepest feelings and pains, asking her to go back to her most hidden failures and successes, to share with me, with us who really she was.

She started to say different words than the score and while in the situation of the opera and the scene she was using her own words, I left her alone on stage and after a few moments she was sobbing, tears all over her face while she was back to the text and the music of the opera. All the people watching were in tears...

These moments are worth being in an hotel room for 4 weeks even at the Vagabond Hotel and worth a Chinese gourmet buffet...She told me after that she had never experienced that, she felt different, she said:

"I think I discover something about me...I don’t know if I should thank you or feel bad about it..."

"Don’t thank me, and feel good, you just grew, you found new things about you, you were the real you, not lost in the disguise of life, you were the girl living inside you and the one you had forgotten, you were what you are without the obligations of being another, and that is the reason we do what we do."

INTERMISSION

We all travel for what we believe is our work, our call, our destiny as artists…We go from place to place, from hotel to hotel, from city to city, sometimes from Paris to Barcelona, other times and for the majority from Cleveland to Louisville.

Once I was in a city directing another masterpiece that I had done 12 times, and was so excited to do it again with a stellar cast who could not sing it or act it or understand the language.

One evening, after a day spent in rehearsals in the joy of each moment then the pleasures of my life wasted in the room of a second-class hotel, where you cook in a kitchenette and where you wash your clothes in a dirty laundry room, watching news on TV for entertainment, the directors of the company, the general director and the artistic director invited me for dinner, not because they wanted the possible pleasure of my fascinating presence, but more by professional obligation.

I arrive in this restaurant chosen by them, a Chinese “gourmet” buffet restaurant where we can ingurgitate tons of food of all kind, with a guaranteed gout attack the following morning or during the night…the attack when you wake up in the middle of the night with an acute and devastating pain in your elbow, your knee, your big toe, a pain which makes you regret the moments when you could be tortured on a pole by five men who really hate you.

So, I arrive in the restaurant; one of the company leaders is already there, sitting, with an angelic smile on his face of old bandit accustomed to sell genius ideas to a board of directors gaga of the pleasure to be part of the musical creativity of the city.

He welcomes me with politeness and even a hint of enthusiasm and asks me if I have before “dined” in this place of debauchery. Before I can answer, he continues by telling me that he came before with his wife and daughter…he finds this restaurant too expensive, that the price is exorbitant, and that he almost threw up his artistic heart, when the bill arrived last time he was here…but for today he found a coupon in a magazine which will reduce 20% of the bill and he is hoping that the coupon will be accepted…because really this restaurant is too expensive… ALL THIS FILLS ME WITH PLEASURE AND OPENS MY APPETITE.

His colleague, the artistic leader, I will call him from now on the clown, arrives with obviously the attitude of a man who just fought with his wife because of the “gourmet” diner she was not invited to attend…. He sits…looks at me …smiles…and smiles… I smile back.

The waitress arrives, smiles and asks (She is not Chinese but of course she has a Chinese accent since we are in a Chinese restaurant) what we want to drink… The host, leader of the company whispers to me with a voice full of apprehension:

-       Do you drink wine?

-       Excuse me?

-       Do you drink wine?

-       Yes, I do.

-       Aaaah! You do? ( The aaaaah sounded like he had received a bullet in the heart)

-       Yes, I do

He looks at me, breathes heavily, looks at his acolyte and adds:

-       But we do not need a bottle, do we? Since you will be the only one to drink wine.

I ask the waitress to give me a wine list by glass… I have to choose between a Chardonnay from California and a Chardonnay from New York State…I choose the most expensive, which in a Chinese buffet restaurant is still very affordable.

The leader asks for a beer and the clown asks for a coke.

The clown looks at me and smiles and… smiles again… The leader asks me:

-       How are the rehearsals going?

-       All is great, all are wonderful, I am so happy to be here, working for your prestigious company…

-    We try the best we can, but I know we have a good quality product because we care for what we do, you know when I arrived here the company was not…

He goes on and on about his achievements and the sacrifices he had to do for the company…

I am thinking of my painful fate to be here and to have to listen to all this verbiage and I wish I could be in wonderland or mowing my grass, or even sleeping in my car…

He comes closer to me, and with tearing eyes he adds:

-       But I know we are in the right direction, our product is now at the top of the industry, we recently…

And he starts a new diatribe about all the incredible strength he has to use everyday to convince a sleeping board of directors.

I nod and whisper from time to time: “Yes, yes”… the clown smiles.

The wine, the beer, the coke arrive. I take a sip of the wine, refrain myself to cough, I look at the leader and say: “MMMMMMM”

The clown stops smiling, looks at my glass, at my face and says:

-       This wine looks delicious; I think I will have a glass of it too.

The leader gives him a murderous look and does not touch his beer. The clown does not order a glass of this delicious Chardonnay from Poughkeepsie…

We all smile at each other…We get up and go to the huge buffet and fill our plates with an enormous amount of different food, mixing chicken and fish and vegetables, fried food and steamed food and sweet and sour and mustard and soy sauce since everything has the same taste it is not a real problem,  we sit and swallow and get up again and go back and forth… we eat without exchanging one word ten pounds of “gourmet” Chinese food of all kind, punctuating our chewing with moans of satisfaction in order to show how much we appreciate this fine cuisine…

The clown smiles between each bite, the leader does not touch his beer and look at my glass of wine with obvious anguish, praying in silence for me not to drink too fast and then order another glass.

After more than an hour of stuffing our face, we look at each other and breathe heavily; nobody really burps but only mentally, so we know we are full…

Finally the bill arrives, the clown smiles, the leader becomes green, probably noticing the price of the unique glass of Chardonnay I drank, but he does not mention anything, after all he has class…

He presents his coupon with obvious apprehension not to have his 20% deal, the waitress takes it, looks at it, turns it, the suspense is now unbearable, she finally carries it with the company credit card that he had given, he relaxes and looks at me with happiness and pride, he is protecting the budget of the company, he just saved $25.

After a few minutes of talking about the last movie that none of us has seen and commenting on the acting and the cinematography, we get up, we leave the restaurant, we are in the street, we shake hands, we say goodbye, see you tomorrow, I say “thank you for a great evening” and I walk back to my luxurious hotel room of the magnificent hotel called “The Vagabond”.

I am in my room torn between two desires: The desire to throw up and the desire to burst into laughter…I do neither, I watch TV… a cooking channel about Chinese food.

I wake up the following morning with no Gout attack and I am ready for another day of intense creativity in rehearsals, after all I have been hired and will be paid to defend and protect the great “product” of this company.

And that is the life we have chosen, because we love what we do. We spend most of our time alone in hotel rooms, going to rehearsals for a few hours a day… Talking on the phone and texting people we don’t necessarily like or appreciate just to kill time and loneliness, because we love what we do. Rarely one of us makes it to the top, and the others go on, because they love what they do.

Does an artist have to love what he does?

Did Van Gogh love to paint? Did Mozart love to compose? Did all writers love to write?

Are these few rare moments of love and real joy in rehearsals enough to justify all the silly dinners and the loneliness?

YOUR CALL !!!!!

Lets just try to spend more time learning from the others, not rush out of rehearsals when our scene is over, but observe our colleagues, learn from their mistakes, learn from their successful attempts to create, and try to spend the minimum time in silly dinners or silly occupations…

Time and life go too fast, knowledge sometimes goes under our nose and we do not even notice it, too overwhelmed by our own self-appreciation of our talent. We can learn from almost everybody and we do not, too often we believe we are above, we know more, we have the secret.