CHALLENGES

I recently received a message from a very close and dear friend mentioning that she was going thru very difficult times and sometimes when every problem hits you at the same time, it is very challenging and she was wishing for a tropical island with nobody around.

She added that she needed all her strength and even the strength of her friends to face those moments of adversity. She ended by saying that live can be a challenge.

Yes life is a perpetual challenge

Challenge for life

Challenge for work

Challenge for family

Challenge for friendship

Challenge for love

Challenge for adversaries

And certainly many others

But the winners are the ones who accept the challenges and fight, and sometimes they loose and sometimes win, so that hopefully the outcome will be positive.

That’s life

CHALLENGE FOR LIFE

I was born in a third world country and was part of a small minority; during my entire childhood I had to deal with many, many hardships, difficult times and big challenges. We had to leave that country when I was 16 and arrived in France where life was also very difficult, and personal tragedies prevented me from having a normal adolescence and also hurt my first years as an adult; I finally arrived in this country in 1972 barely speaking English and had to build a life for myself.

Life we believe is not always fair, and some have greater advantages: better health, better family surroundings, better education, better intellect, better physical appearance etc… BUT IT IS IN OUR POWER TO TRY TO FIND WAYS TO REMEDY WHAT WE ARE LACKING.

We have to learn how to respect others but also to respect ourselves.

Yes, life is a perpetual challenge but ALL OF US must deal with it, and the struggle makes us stronger and more experienced.

CHALLENGE FOR WORK

I was recently in my house in New Jersey and on a wall in the entrance hall there was a poster of one of my season in Montreal.

The season was

Don Carlo , La Traviata, Carmen, Manon, …new productions

and

Susannah,The Consul,La Gioconda

That extraordinary season 98/99 was not from the last century but during my tenure in Montreal as general director.

I constantly hear from most of people that the opera world is in trouble, that companies have lots of financial problems, cannot raise money, cannot sell tickets, seasons are always changing, productions are canceled, 

I constantly hear that productions are not what they were, that singers are not as talented than 15, 20, 25 years ago, that conductors are amateurish, that directors are incompetent, that designers have no idea of what the opera is about etc…etc…etc…

I hear all day long that we need something NEW: NEW operas, NEW approach, NEW novelty, NEW EVERYTHING.

I constantly hear that there are too many singers arriving on the market, too many young artists’ programs, too many directors, too many conductors, too many this or too many that.

What happened to the opera world? Yes, we are in a crisis: new operas that the audience does not want to see, old operas that the audience has seen too many times with no GREAT PERSONALITIES to attract aficionados.

Yes, work is a perpetual challenge but ALL OF US must deal with it, and the struggle makes us stronger and experienced.

CHALLENGE FOR FAMILY

I mentioned before that family challenges in any profession could be very difficult…

Challenges with parents who want something else for us, with children who need more of our attention, with family who look at us as if we are demented or at best, strange…We have to juggle our profession and our aspirations under other people’s scrutiny and the judgment passed by the REAL people who have a REAL job, according to them.

As an adolescent and a young adult I did not have to deal with this problem since my family was reduced to almost nothing, but in adulthood my new family became very important to me and at last, I had to deal with it just like everybody else.

We cannot ignore our family and it lasts forever, until our departure to the other world. Even that other world is not the end, we will live on for a while in their memories, we will have influenced their thoughts and they will carry some of us with them.

We have to do the best we can, the best we are able to give, and that is a hard task.

Yes, family is a perpetual challenge but ALL OF US must deal with it, and the struggle makes us stronger and experienced.

CHALLENGE FOR FRIENDSHIP

Sometimes people tell me: You must have a lot of friends after all these years. You are a lucky man. All that traveling and making friends all over the world. Do you keep in touch with all of them?

Unfortunately my answer is: I do not have many friends, the friends of my childhood have disappeared in other countries, the friends of my adolescence have gone into the smoke of life and turned into shadows of my imagination, the friends of my young adulthood have vanished in the need for survival and I would probably not even recognize them now.

Do we miss the ghosts of our past that we called friends? Do they still influence our actions, our life?

Do they challenge us by their absence?

Friendship??? What does that really require?

Somebody who enjoys having a good time with me?

Going regularly for a drink or dinner with the same people, are they friends?

When we spend all night with some people rebuilding the world, are they friends?

How can I define what friendship is?  Somebody I see rarely but who can be there for me in difficult moments?

Who are my friends and where are my friends? Who can I really trust? Who is ready to be next to me when needed?

How can I keep friends when my profession calls me to different places all year long? Will I spend my life making friends and then losing them?

Many questions, many doubts, many hesitations, but understanding comes from questioning and doubting and hesitating.

Yes, friendship is a perpetual challenge but ALL OF US must deal with it, and the struggle makes us stronger and experienced.

CHALLENGE FOR LOVE

Love of one person, love of children, love of friends, love of associates…

Some people dedicate their need of love by loving pets, fine.

This is an eternal challenge and even more acute in some professions.

We are supposed to give our love to a chosen group of people. But too often our profession demands that we give our energy, our love, our resources of feelings, our need to share, to others, people we do not even know, that will pump our heart and soul for the name of art… We do it in the name of art, without thinking, because actually we do it to fulfill OUR NEEDS and not the needs of others.

But what is left? Do we have enough left for the real ones, the ones who are really important, the ones we need and who need us…How much can we still give?  Do we have the right to tell them that we are tired, that we are not in the mood, that we are empty?

We must challenge this and find the balance, after all we are the chosen ones and capable of having a heart big enough for all.

Yes, love is a perpetual challenge but ALL OF US must deal with it, and the struggle makes us stronger and experienced.

CHALLENGE FOR ADVERSARIES

This is probably the most challenging because very often we are powerless with our adversaries.

What can we do when people do not like us?

If it comes from bad things we have done, mistakes we made, bad behavior, lack of consideration for the needs of others, let’s try to modify our bad judgment, let’s make amend, let’s try to remedy, let’s talk to the adversary and change his or her mind by new actions, new thoughts, new attitude.

But I hear very often the following statement:

He/ She does not like me, I do not know why… What have I done?

Why he/she does not like me?

I did nothing, I am/was just myself. But that is precisely the reason, some people do not like who we are, what we do, what we represent, what we say, what we do not say, what we wear, the color of our eyes, our French or southern accent, the way we walk, the way we eat, the way we talk, the way we, we, we….

In these cases, we must go on with our life and not try to change the mind of the adversaries; they are the bigger losers not to appreciate us.

Yes, adversaries are a perpetual challenge but ALL OF US must deal with it, and the struggle makes us stronger and experienced.

CHALLENGES FOR ONESELF

NO COMMENT.

All of us have reasons to be what we are, all of us are challenged by life, by too much experience, by lack of experience, by being too protected or by being too lonely.

All of us grow too attached to certain necessities or ignore the basic of anything.

ALL OF US ARE CHALLENGED.

GOOD LUCK

TECHNIQUE AND TALENT

Technique and Talent

Recently I was listening to a recording of this singer I loved so much when I was in my twenties.

Her name is Barbara.

It took no more than a few minutes to be transported in another time, almost another life.

The amount of images assailing me, invading me, flooding me, while listening to her was incredible…

Suddenly and very fast my youth in Paris, my first friendships, my first pains, my first victories, and my first failures all came back to me, and were again part of me.

I felt alive, alive and thankful of how life had been good to me, how I went thru it with so many feelings, so many thoughts and so many experiences, so many adventures, so many joys.

At the same time I felt also very sad touched and pensive, full with regrets and missing those who are gone, trying to recapture the images of those I loved who were not around anymore.

These images, these feelings, these memories, brought back to the present are part of who I am today, what I have become… I am carrying with me all this every day without being totally conscious of it, and even sometimes at some moments, ignoring them or refusing them. So it was wonderful to listen to Barbara who was able to resurrect things, which I believe, were buried.

DON’T WORRY NO MORE OF MY HEADACHES IN THIS POSTING.

BUT THOUGHTS ABOUT…

All this came to me because I was listening to a pop singer named Barbara…

How strange! How can she have this power?

Of course, sensorial memory plays a role and listening, seeing, and if we believe Marcel Proust even tasting or smelling also play a part. But sometimes I also listen to other pop singers popular in my twenties and none can really send me back into this other world.

What does she do to provoke this strong reaction?  Is it Technique, Talent? Both?

Do all performers have this magic? Or SHOULD have this magic?

Why when listening to performers on stage or in an audition we can be swept up in a few minutes or unfortunately be invaded by instant boredom?

Why do some people have the power to trigger in us an avalanche of emotions, of thoughts, good or bad, just by entering a room or just saying a few words while others, probably the majority, leave us almost indifferent until we REALLY know them or believe we know them or even project on them who we are.

Is it Talent? Or a Technique they have mastered, a serie of tricks they use like a well-oiled machine?

In my bank, there are five tellers…One of them is my favorite, she is not prettier, she does not have a more engaging smile; she does not know her job better than the others; her technique as a teller is good but not superior, I think SHE HAS TALENT.  She has the gift of communicating without saying anything!!!

I can see that people try to go in her direction, so I am not the only one.

In my theater days we used to called that:  to have a PRESENCE, she has PRESENCE…

What does that mean? PRESENCE!!!!

The gift some people have to give, share, express, communicate, without even saying a word? Are they the chosen?

Are we born with it? Can we develop it? Can we learn to acquire it?

I already in a previous posting talked about this; the accumulation of knowledge, of experiences, is certainly a very useful tool, and we become what we know, what we experienced, what we lived… Except for a few gifted people who have it as a gift from the great architect of the universe or by being reborn with somebody else’s genius.

Do some people use technique to have talent or are they two different entities?

How can I define Technique? I am not talking about vocal technique, but the technique of any profession.

Is Technique to know what to use from our acquired tools to be able to express what talent can express without doing anything?

Can I communicate what is needed with no talent, just by pure technique? Can I communicate what is needed with no technique, just by pure talent? I really do not think so; both are required to really be an artist.

When Picasso painted ”Les demoiselles d’Avignon” , he had already behind him all the technique of a figurative painter, when Ionesco wrote “Les Chaises”, he had already behind him all the technique of a traditional playwright.

We should constantly revisit the work of Stanislavski and the work of Diderot (Paradoxe du comedien) who certainly discussed this point at length.

Yes, we need both…

Technique can be acquired by a lot of work, an incessant desire to learn, to improve, and not to believe that we know enough to justify our presence in every aspect of life or what we call sometimes our art. Technique is acquired by doing, by observing, by thinking, by working, by repeating, by obsessing on it.

Can we acquire talent? Can we acquire PRESENCE?

If we are not part of the chosen, the ones who are born with it, must me give up? Must we accept our fate? Should we aim for mediocrity? Do we have to believe that our future will be oscillating between the one who would like to be and the one who could have been?

How can I really imagine a life, where I am always on the edge of becoming somebody?

No, this is not acceptable…

I think Talent and Presence can be developed, can be improved. Yes, it will become part of the technique but the technique of building WHO I am.

Yes, talent can be built….

It is a very long process, and actually it is the duty of our entire life to acquire day after day, year after year as much as possible, the elements that some of us have as a gift of god or the devil.

Can we then be part of the chosen? Can we be the center of attraction when we enter a room? Can we go on stage and feel that the audience is immediately conquered? Can we be the teller in the bank that all customers want to deal with?

How do we do that?

By being curious about everything, about every possible experience (with the limits of decency and honesty of course), by reading everything from the old masters to current hacks, by building our MOI thru the experiences of others, by becoming a master of the heart, of the soul, of the human behavior. Our personality will be enriched by life, we will build who we are and what we project. Too many people do not know who they are and what they project to the outside world … How can they be performers if they do not even know what they project to others and to the ones who have to deal with them as a bank teller or a character on stage.

 The feeling of being, of knowing, of accumulating experiences is a tremendous asset for Talent and really a major reason for being. Then we will be able to give back to others.

Yes technique learned and acquired talent can be our weapons! So let’s try not to fall in the traps of today’s existence, full of wasted time in sometimes silly occupation like broadcasting through social media about our last evening with cousins or a drinking party evening with so-called friends.

Let’s build our talent, and let’s acquire technique.

THE ONES IN OUR LIFE!!!!!

I have been talking about myself in this blog, may be too much, about friendship, colleagues, sometimes about enemies or people who fail us for reasons beyond our reach, may be because we failed them, willfully or not… I hope most of the time with no intention to deceive or betray.

What about the people who really are “the ones in our life?”

How to deal with spouses, children, siblings, parents and family?

How to deal with friends who are in the business and the ones who are not in the business? For the moment I will let that aspect of life aside and talk only about two persons who have been keys in my life for the past 30 years. Two persons who have their own dreams, their own personality, their own successes and failures but who are intimate part of my everyday life, of my growing as a human being and as an artist.

May be later in the coming months, I will address the men and women I met during my already long life and who have been also instrumental in my growth, my understanding of the human heart and the social behavior. These people are always present in my mind, they are part of who I am, and they have helped me by their presence and their trust in me for growing and thinking.

I have been extraordinary lucky to have Diana, a great singer, a great artist, a great woman, as my wife;  I have shared incredible moments of creativity and artistic pleasure with her. We worked together on a magical number of operas we were creating for the first time… Faust, Romeo and Juliette, La Traviata, Butterfly, Tosca, Angelica, Fedora, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mefistofele, Manon Lescaut, Manon, Carmen, Tabarro, and many more.  For each of them we gave together our thoughts, our passion, and our soul.

We discover and confirm in each other during each experience, the great joy of artistry and the wonderful feeling of being TOTALLY ALIVE because of those moments of total abandon, total immersion, and thorough re-creation of ourselves.

In the same time we had the opportunity to know each other more deeply, to understand each other with more compassion, and our love grew stronger year after year.

What may be called sacrifice for most people was not for us but on the contrary became a way of life, a way of knowing, a way of becoming one.

For more than twenty years, we travelled together all over the world to work and to try to be the absolute best … sometimes in difficult situations…but most of the time leaving Italy, or France, or South America

or Germany with incredible memories, and many fabulous moments we shared…

Of course, the business of Opera sometimes separated us for months and year after year, and that was sometimes difficult, but always we brought with us the smile of the other, the knowledge of the other, the hope that this experience will enrich our relationship even more when we were finally together again.

The great artist, the great singer, the great woman is now a great teacher who is giving back to others what we have acquired together and that again feels me with joy, pride, tenderness and also with the feeling of how lucky have been 33 years ago to accept to direct dialogues in Boston for a production of Faust, my first contact with opera, and to meet the singer called Diana Soviero who was singing Marguerite.

Diana, thank you

I have been extraordinary lucky to have as a daughter, Vanessa, an extraordinary young woman, an artist in her own way, a leader, a magical brain.

I have shared with her for 10 years now, in probably the last adventure of my life, a management company.

Certainly it will not be the last adventure of her life.

I have been accustomed all my life, sometimes unhappily, to always having to be in charge, to be always the boss, to be always the one who believes (often wrongly) that he is making the right decisions about everything… As a young man trying to succeed or even to survive, as a director, as the general director of a company, I have been in charge of my destiny and most of the time of that of others.

Vanessa was always special, already as a child she knew what she wanted…she learned how to play the piano in a few months, she learned how to be on a horse in a few hours, she wanted to study film production and she did, and she was able to do everything she wanted to achieve. 

She was as a child, as a teenager, the one who was always in charge, the one who instinctively KNEW.

She became as an adult a young woman who fills me with admiration, with love, sometimes with incredulity that this amazing person is of my blood.

She learned about the opera business at an incredible speed and I can say without any hesitation that she knows about the repertoire, the intricate functioning of the business, more than I do. She became in a very little time the helm of our ship, the center of our operations, the engine of this new, incredible, difficult adventure in my life.

I can go on with all my activities, directing, management, writing the next novel, and all my dreams because a young woman called Vanessa, my daughter, is in charge of the new adventure and still supporting me, caring for me BUT always remaining herself, letting me know when I am wrong, when I am pushing, when I am too much MYSELF.

Thank you Vanessa.

The world is not easy for people who want a career.

How can I manage a family and a career?

How can I express myself as an artist when I have my young children who need my attention?

How can I avoid competing with my spouse who is also in the same business?

How can I deal with loneliness when I am away on a job?

How can I dismiss temptations when away alone?

How can I explain to my family my need to do it?

How can I be a responsible human being in charge of a family financially and…?

How can I look at myself in the mirror when nothing is happening in my career?

How can I justify to the world around me that I am not yet a STAR?

How…?

How…?

All these questions have to be asked, thought through, and dealt with.

Not an easy task!!!!

Should I bring my family when I work somewhere? I know most of companies do not like that even if they act like they do, but what choice do I have.

Should I refuse work when my family needs me at that time? But how can I have a career if I do that, the competition is already incredible.

Until when should I try to really make it in the profession I want? And may be waste so many important years of my life with the ones I love.

Should I? Why? How? Until when?

Do I have answers to all this? Unfortunately no… each case is unique, each personality has to deal with it, and there is no recipe, no rules, and no formula. WE have to know what is the best for us, WE have to think, feel and make CHOICES about what is REALLY important.

Life, society, relationship, has changed drastically in the last 15 years, and will continue to change even faster…

To continue to dream the possible dream is correct but we need the support, the understanding, the sharing, the common sacrifice of the ones in our life…without it, the dream will become an impossible dream and something as to change or we have to go in another direction.

I wish to all of you a Diana and a Vanessa.

THOUGHTS!!!!!!!!!!

I have received many, many comments on the blog sent to me directly, many compliments and sometimes even revelations about aspects of life for a few individuals.

Others comment that some posts are being often sad, bitter or sound as coming from a depressed soul and these people worry about me, asking If I am all right, if all is ok.

Most of the comments about sadness come from people of my generation and not from the younger one, why?

Is it that the twilight of life generates fear? This twilight, darker by the day, becomes more somber, denser. Are we older people still able to think?

Can we still distinguish what is true, the meaning of truth, or even the nonsense of today life? We are hanging on lost moments, which cannot be recaptured... we feel that our creative forces are disappearing, are welting, are lost in pathetic daily routines.

Why do we believe that everything can or must last forever? Hours, days, years pass so fast and appear to be different and yet are still the same…

Was that sad, bitter, depressed enough?

Let me go on, so I can explain.

Do we go to rehearsals asking ourselves the reason of our presence, or the meaning of our absence in every day life?

We aspire to be number one, the "I do not know what" that everybody reveres and we succeed in being only a semblance of our desire, the approximation of a mirage.

Are we becoming a machine that pours fake knowledge for those who are  " hungry for knowledge" artists around us...and do they believe us?

They look at us and smile at the pleasure of being connected to the one who knows, or smile politely thinking that they were told to be good colleagues.

Was that sad, bitter, depressed enough?

Here comes a little more.

They look at me and wonder.

In the good cases: how does he know all this, where does that come from, he has so much energy, he invents all the time, he creates in a few minutes… they do not know, do not understand that everything is prepared, chewed, digested by years of repeating the same ideas, the same truth churned by an old mill serving cheap beer.

In the bad cases: I have to deal with this character for three weeks, I am glad I know what I am doing, god help me to endure the coming days, the end of this torture will be over soon.

I think I was enough of a sad, bitter, and depressed soul. Some can now say "you see what I mean, I was right"

BUT THE REALITY IS:

I am not sad, I am not bitter, I am not a depressed soul. I have to disagree with that, there is a difference between being depressed, sad or bitter and being clear about the world we are in.

Everything has many possible approaches, many possible interpretations, many possible ways of living it, many explanations. The difficulty is to find OUR INDIVIDUAL TRUTH, OUR PATH, OUR SECRET KNOWLEDGE.

Yes, the dusk of life is sometimes frightening but becomes exhilarating if we use it to share what we know, what we learn, what we believe. 

The creative forces are not melting: they are and should be channeled in the right direction, the direction of helping those who need it.

Hours, days, years pass but are not the same, one hour of total truth in a rehearsal, one day of giving is an accomplishment, one year of knowing that the pyramid of our life is higher even one inch IS WORTH IT.

We are not repeating the same ideas because ideas are never the same; they become colored by the one who receive it.

We are not pouring fake knowledge over virgin souls, we are giving our knowledge always adapted to the one who receives it.

And it is never the same.

They do not smile because they are connected to the one who knows, they smile because they just found with our help another layer inside them, another possibility for existence, another way of expressing a moment, something they did not now about themselves or about the character.

They do not smile to be good colleagues but just because they wait to see if this experience will be rewarding.

Yes, we create all the time because the others give us enough to rethink, to relive, to reinvent what we know, it is an exchange, a gift to each other, we feed each other by the mechanism of rehearsing, It is a constant growing.

So many times we feel that a new light sends meaning into a dark corner, even if we know this corner extremely well, because the other, the director or the conductor or the performer opens himself to the others. 

Is there anywhere a bigger joy that living these moments?

When a chorus sings at the end of an ensemble "Freedom" and all raise their hands and look up on that word and we tell them "why do you do that? Is "freedom" in the air? Up in the sky? Or does freedom have a different meaning for each of you?

Think about what Freedom means for you and let yourself go! And suddenly 50 people bring to a word 50 possible feelings and interpretation, and they are totally alive and the scene has an incredible impact!

When Carmen uses the third person in talking about herself, to really reach for her other self and her personal story to deliver a specific line, it is chilling and NEVER the same thing. That creates a new interpretation of the moment, a new interpretation of the same Carmen and we made that happen!

Is anything more rewarding??

We are not pouring cheap beer, it is feeling what somebody or a group can do, can feel, can express and showing them the result of our assimilated knowledge, and they deliver it with their soul and heart and the understanding of what we do, who we are, what we want and where we go begins to grow again.

To do an opera 15 times, or to be at an information desk to answer questions for 15 years is always a new adventure IF WE LET PEOPLE EXPRESS THEMSELVES AND IF WE ARE READY TO RECONSIDER WHAT WE KNOW.

Memories of childhood, difficult experiences of life expressing a pessimistic view on the world and society, criticism of others do not come from sadness or bitterness or a depressed soul but from a human being who is always trying to know himself better, to understand his actions, to grow in a society in perpetual movement and evolution.

Somebody who wants to be an artist has to always keep in mind and in front of him his failures and successes, his hesitations and strong choices, his sorrows and joys, while he has to stay open to others, ready to accept, willing to change his Credo if necessary, and always prompt to give.

On the long way up to life, let's keep our spirit open, let's try to look at the world with generosity and tenderness even if sometimes it brings sadness or bitterness, we are after all HUMAN.

Yesterday was "Yom Kippour", in French "Jour du Grand Pardon".

Second Intermission:THE RETURN

After 12 years of absence it was exciting to think about my return to Canada…invited to direct Carmen in Ottawa…See old friends, work with new singers, exist here again, and prove to myself that I still love the country which has been so good to me for 14 years, my tenure in Montreal.

Canada where I directed my first Romeo, my first Adriane Lecouvreur,  my first Gioconda, my first  at least 20 other operas….Yes, of course, Carmen is no great novelty for me, but …but…

In any case, I was excited and looking forward to renew with my other life, my past in this country…

IT DID NOT START TOO WELL.

I explain myself:

As always, I am early everywhere, an old habit of mine...Not only out of respect for other people’s time but also my anguish of possibly missing something; the result of my youth when I had the feeling that people will not wait for me because they did not really want to be with me…so I leave my apartment in New York at noon for a flight at 3 30 pm from La Guardia.

The traffic in New York was horrendous, the driver did not stop swearing and screaming in a language unknown to me, perhaps a mix of Swahili and Javanese. He drives very fast abruptly slamming the brakes every 15 seconds projecting me against the window each time in the back seat; I try to tell him to be careful but he ignores me and continue to scream in Swahili.

I finally arrive at the airport one hour later but still 2 and half hours too early and the driver suddenly told me in a perfect English that I was his last customer after a long night and he could not wait to go home, he tells me that he cannot accept credit card because his machine is broken and requires cash… Already exhausted I do not argue and just to get rid of him and begin my RETURN more positively I give him fifty-five dollars while he throws my luggage on the sidewalk.

Carrying my big bag, my smaller one and my computer briefcase, I go thru a group of screaming adolescents disguised as vampires and monsters of all kind, and finally reach one of the machine to check in. I insert a credit card and of course after four attempts it is denied and the machine indicates that I have to go check at the Air Canada desk.

The lady, no a woman, at the desk looks at me with disdain, may be because I no longer look like a movie star anymore, and after 45 seconds of silence, she whispers: Yes?????

I tell her that I am going to Ottawa and she smiles and smiles, almost laughs. Politely, I wait and wait…

She smiles again and says: Your flight has been canceled, the next one is at 7 30 pm or you can take a flight to Toronto and then another one to Ottawa but you will arrive at the same time that the one leaving at 7 30 pm.

I look at her and she smiles, an ugly smile full of teeth of a huge mouth, with lips covered with purple lipstick.

I tell her I will take the 7 30 pm flight, she laughs and says: “have a good trip.”

After a leisurely 45 minutes on the security line, I reached the other side of civilization, the no man’s land of  the airport where everybody is either the phone or eating delicious fast food  for an army of Huns destroying the countryside of Europe.

I decide to spoil myself and buy a coffee…of course, it is from the night before and tastes like ink… I sit with the satisfaction of a man who had fulfilled his duties by accepting with resignation my canceled flight and followed all the rules of our organized society.

An old lady (older than me, really old) comes closer to me to whisper something in my ear and pours her burning tea on my pants. Those pants that I had saved for the journey, pants well ironed and straight from the cleaner, in order to give the impression to everybody waiting for me at the airport that all is in order, that I am fine, that I am in control of my life and destiny. The old lady mumbles something and tries to clean my pants with a shaking hand hurting my private parts while she spits on my face some leftovers of the sugary nectar she was drinking.

She is sorry, she is so sorry, I tell her not to worry and I get up and walk away.

I spend the next 7 hours away from anybody, playing with my phone, playing with my Ipad, playing with my computer, incapable of concentrating on anything useful, after all I am human and can sometimes blend into today’s world doing nothing most of the time.

We are now called for the boarding…I am in the plane, thank god, soon all will be over…

I see somebody sitting in my assigned seat…I check my ticket, I check the seat number, I am right, it is my seat…I tell the person in a very mild tone of voice that I believe he is in my seat, but the sitting giant does not answer, does not turn around and ignores me …Since I am a very calm, quiet and polite man, I bark that he is sitting in my seat...he still ignores me and closes his eyes ready to fall in a deep sleep since he believes he is right and I have to be just another crazy jerk. The flight attendant joins us at the speed of a cannon ball, checks the tickets, looks at me, looks at the giant and makes her choice…she declares that there is a mistake, but I should not worry, she will find another seat for me.

 Everybody passes by me, hurting me with bag packs, tennis rackets, or just potbellies…

I am still waiting.

And waiting.

Later…

Much later… everybody is sitting.

The flight attendant (when I was younger they were called “Hotesses de l’air”) comes to me, and with a big smile of relief since she found a seat, asks me to follow her and to a seat  in the last row near the toilets… There is no room for my luggage, so she tells me not to worry, she will take care of it and will have my luggage checked.

I sit exhausted, thinking about the little nap I am going to take, a little nap full of happy dreams… I am starting to doze off when the howling of a crying child makes me jump…in front of me, standing on his seat and screaming a three years old Enrico Caruso, looking at me with hatred and an air of revenge… He will scream for two hours while looking at me nonstop…

I am used to screaming in the opera world, so I close my eyes but suddenly the Captain announces turbulence and for the next hour I feel I am on a sinking ship in the Indian Ocean during a hurricane or a monsoon.

I arrive in Ottawa, Canada totally devastated and exhausted…. I go to the luggage carousel and look at all the lovely valises of my travelling companions… the last one is my red suitcase, but no sign of the one I gave to the smiling attendant on the plane… my carry on is not there…They will bring it tomorrow to my hotel.

I go to the office of the airline, fill 6 sheets of paperwork, give a detailed description of the piece of luggage… tell them what is inside, smile, and answer the phone to reassure the people who came to pick me up that I am

alive…

With my bag, I go through Immigration and they ask for my work permit, I explain to them that I do not need one. They are French Canadians and I think that if I address them in French, it would help the situation…huge mistake, they look at me now with mistrust and insist that I need a work permit…they go on a computer and check all the rules, how much money I am to make, how long I would stay in Canada, they discover that I last came in 2003 with a work permit and do not understand that this time I do not need one…after one hour of arguing with them aggressively but gently(of course) they decide to consult their superior…he tells them that I do not need a work permit, he stamps my passport and I leave.

The director of production is still waiting for me on the other side, it is now 11 30 pm, I left my apartment 12 hours ago for one hour and a half flight…He is extremely friendly and feels sorry for my misadventures and says that his car is only two minutes away and he will drive me to my hotel. We get to his car, I sit relieved, soon it will be all over, but…THE CAR DOES NOT START, and he tries many times, THE DAMN CAR DOES NOT START.

He is so sorry, he calls for a cab, gives me some cash, and I am on my way to the hotel.

Forty-five minutes later, I am in my bed wondering if my carry on would be here tomorrow, my score and all my working materials are in it… Since I am a man of peace, I fall asleep fast.

HOPING THAT THE NEXT 25 DAYS OF MY RETURN WILL BE BETTER.

WHERE ARE THEY??????

It seems that too many people disappear from our life after a few years, and we miss them most of the time because we believe they were friends... unfortunately some disappeared because they became famous or important or self important…what a pity to have this kind of attitude, it is really sad, disappointing or even painful to see that human beings can be so low, so ungrateful, ...they believe they have reached a level where we no longer deserve their friendship, they want to ignore the possibility of being thankful for all we did for them, even if we do not ask for anything…

I don’t think I ever forgot my friends or even ignore them because I was lucky and sometimes achieved more than others; if I did and you are reading this, do not hesitate to contact me, to talk to me and even confront me.

If it happened I was not aware of it, I regret it, and will do anything I can to repair the damage I have caused or the friendship I have betrayed.

My family background taught us to help one another, to be loyal in friendship, and even to take risks to help the ones in trouble when times are tough; we were raised as a small minority and the first generation out of the Jewish ghetto of Tunis was my grand father.

We owed our freedom to come out of the ghetto to an Italian Jewish lady who was traveling in Tunisia and became very upset when she visited the Ghetto. She went to see the French consul who answered to her that it was not his problem since the Jews were Tunisian citizens and not French citizens…so she went to see the Bey of Tunisia, who first told her that he was not interested in the fate of the ghetto people and then told her that he was a big classical music lover …He asked her to go back to Italy and come back with some music as a gift to him, he would listen to it and if he liked it, he would allow the Jews to move out of the ghetto… She did, and returned with some music , the Bey loved it and it became the national Anthem of Tunisia , THE HYMN OF THE BEY, before the independence of the country…Legend has it that Verdi is believed to have written this music.

The doors of the ghetto opened, my grand father came out and a new life began for all of us.

Even if I did not live through those times (I am not that old), it is in my genes not to forget where I come from, who I was, where I went, and who I become without forgetting the friends of my early days.

Unfortunately not all human beings behave that way.

How can people forget where they come from and battles they went through themselves and with their loved ones?

They should learn that to succeed is to be faithful to your friends and not to shut out everything else.

I have a long list of individuals who knew me when they were nothing, when they were beginners, when they were unfulfilled, when they were still in the first pangs of BECOMING.

Conductors, directors, singers, administrators, it seems that this race of people can be found in any capacity.  I will NOT mention names of course since I am a very discreet man by nature, and even more fearful of the threat of being sued for character assassination. I am just going to mention a few stories and the guilty ones will no doubt recognize themselves. 

What about this young, very young, almost a child prodigy “wannabeconductor” who begged me to be hired as a replacement chorus master for one production and since he was really a wonderful musician, I gave him the job…he quickly became the official chorus master for that company. He remained very close to me asking my wife Diana advice about singing and how to handle singers… We were treating him like the son we did not have, he was very close to us, asking daily about what to do for this and what to do for that.

Soon I gave him his first conducting job in a very important opera and yes he was fabulous… Very quickly thanks to my recommendation, he was appointed the artistic director of an orchestra and then …then… one thing after the other, he is now one of the most important conductors around and he is still a very young man.

YES he deserves this entire new life… yes he is very talented… But since his tremendous success, he never tried to reach us, he never answered my attempts to see him, probably because now he is a grand MAESTRO and I am merely a common mortal…I really do not care about his success, no I care, he deserves it and I am happy for him, I cared more about the young man and his desire to grow as a man and become the great human being he could have become but he disappeared from our midst.

SHAME ON HIM, no actually I feel sorry for him, because he must be very lonely.

What about this singer who …after years of free voice lessons, after hundreds of hours of talking even when I was not listening because he was repeating himself without even breathing, after asking me what he should do about his spouse who was jealous of his talent, what repertoire he should sing (I was not in the management business yet), how to act, how to sing, how to conduct himself in public, how to deal with the business, how to be a man, how to eat, how not to drink too much, how to talk to his parents,  how to deal with the competition of other singers, how to breathe, how to dream…suddenly became a big star AND NEVER TALKED TO ME AGAIN…When he sees me , or he either says a faint hello, or changes to the other side of the street.

 SHAME ON HIM, no actually I feel sorry for him, he must be very lonely.

And like I said before, I can go on with directors who were interns, administrators who were assistant stage managers, all were good friends and now give a fake smile when they see the people they knew well and turn their head to talk to somebody else because they are important administrators of important companies and have an important life.

SHAME ON THEM, no, actually I feel sorry for them, they must be very lonely

These successful individuals have learned how to succeed in their craft and have had a incredible talent for net working, talking to the right people, the ones who could do something for them, having four lunches on a row if necessary with different influential people.

All this is right if it is your personality, but only if your ambition does not become self destructive, if you do not forget who you are and who YOU WERE.

 

To be successful is a great life story, but keep in touch with the people from your beginnings, share with them your experience, your knowledge, and your friendship with them. Find the time to answer them, to be there when they need you.

There is nothing more satisfying than to give to those who were not as lucky.

To be real as an artist or an art administrator is to not renounce who we were, or the people we knew.

To be successful is to be confident enough and not to fear those, who were our friends when we were at the bottom of the latter.

To be successful is to refuse to be devoured by a mask, by a job description, by the trappings… Do not grow in your new life alone… Otherwise soon, you will find yourself alone, and you will be miserable when success finally eludes you in the end and you will drop your mask of importance.

I know it is difficult sometimes to make this kind of choice, and to know who really were our sincere friends but the risk is worth taking and very fulfilling.

 Actually it is the only way to BE.