VOCATION? PROFESSION? ART?

VOCATION

I am around 10 years old, in the summer in Tunis…everybody is asleep in the afternoon, it is too hot to do anything… The summers are long from early June to the end of August...

 Air conditioning does not exist yet, so we keep wet sheets in front of a fan and that is the only way we can breathe and avoid being in a sauna.

Everybody  “fait la sieste”, everybody is asleep, and as always I am not…I do not have too many friends, for a million reasons, and the summer afternoons are very long…

But I have my favorite past time, I have been buying all the magazines about movie stars and the movies; I remember some of the names, “Cinemascope and Cinerama”. I spend hours reading about the actors and the new movies that I will never see since in Tunis we could get very few American movies.

I look at the pictures and I dream…I dream of being John Wayne in a western (we call these movies “film de cowboys et d’indiens”), I look at the pictures of Ava Garner, Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, Audrey Hepburn, Susan Hayward, James Dean, Kirk Douglas, Jane Russell, Victor Mature, Burt Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Taylor, Cary Grant, and hundreds more.

I cut their pictures from the magazine and sometimes I make them act together inventing new scripts, moving them around, making them fight or fall in love...

I have my own world just imagining stories for the actors and I become all of them, changing my voice if necessary, I could be a bad boy like James Dean or a sheriff like John Wayne, or Marlon Brando seducing a

beautiful woman.

This world of fantasy lasts for 6 years, and then one day I decide to glue them together in a book and they become mute.

But I continue to dream and dream and fantasize.

I imagine that many people had a childhood filled of dreams of becoming somebody…Musicians, Engineers, or Researchers…and try all their life to achieve what they were dreaming…Is this what we call VOCATION?

Are some of us determined by the dreams of childhood? Do we have some genes, some blood stream, and some part of our brain that demands something specific? Why didn’t any of my cousins have that need when they were my age?  Why some people feel from the beginning a call for a profession or a path to follow.

Is it because I was very lonely that I needed to fill my emptiness with the dreams of becoming somebody else?

Is it because I was different from other kids that I needed to create stories and use famous people to make a new world?

Is that VOCATION??????

When I was around 16 years old, we left Tunis and those oppressing hot afternoons and went to Paris… I thought that it was childish and silly so I stopped… I stopped for 6 or 7 years thinking about actors, movies, and theater until my experience with The Theater of the Wooden Sword-read the first posting called THE BEGINNING-

Then it became my profession…

PROFESSION?

Times have changed, yes I know, all older people say the same: it is not what it used to be, everything is different, we were not like that, what is happening, everything goes faster, I cannot deal with it…etc…
I am from a generation which was called the ME generation, the generation of the sixties, the generation of MAY 1968 with all its consequences…Yes, I know my generation was smoking pot, listening to the Beatles, and to be a hippie was a way of life…but we did not believe that we had everything coming to us, we knew that after a few years of the so called “good times”, we would have to change our ways and really make some sacrifices for our profession.

Recently, actually for the past few years, I have been amazed, in shock is a better word, by the way the people in our PROFESSION behave, work, think, and go on with their life.

LETS GO HAVE DRINKS
Is the leitmotiv I hear all day long from singers, musicians, conductors, directors…Until very recently, we were inviting each other once in a while, rarely, for a special occasion, and most of the time Tenors and Sopranos were drinking tea, the invitation was
LETS GO HAVE A DRINK

Reading books or trying to understand what world culture means and acquiring more everyday has been replaced by facebook, twitter and text messages all day long…Maybe I am missing something, maybe facebook and twitter and…are incredible sources of knowledge. Knowledge of others, knowledge of the private life and every move people make, an insight into human behavior.
I should know that it is extremely important to stay in touch daily with half of the world, it is an unparalleled source of understanding to know where so and so went last Sunday and what movie they saw and with whom..
What am I thinking, I do not realize how important it is to know what dress somebody is wearing, and which shoes they bought last week and with whom they went to dinner.

Sacrifice is a dirty word, all of us deserve everything, are entitled to everything, have more talent than anybody, so we SHOULD BECOME SOMEBODY without too much effort.
Lets go out every night to be in the circle of those who know, and let’s sleep late in the morning but never after 11 am…This is normal, after all I work at night, even if I sing 12 nights a year.
Of course it is a generalization and I am sure that many, many PROFESSIONALS have still the sense of what should be done to enter this career, and to last in it and to prolong it; a life of sacrifice, of perpetual learning, of incessant battle for improvement.
The Profession must be the center of life, an entire life devoted to the theater with demands and obligations and limits and choices to be made constantly….
If we cannot accept that, it is fine, but it becomes a hobby, not a profession…I admire people who have decided to have hobbies like singing, playing the piano, fishing, or cooking… But it is a HOBBY… with no demands, no sacrifices.

PROFESSION: “ A paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification”
That’s the definition given by some dictionaries.
I think the key for artists is “PROLONGED TRAINING”, I would change PROLONGED by INFINITE training.

I often give an example:
Do I admire a painter because he has brushes and colors on a palette? Do I think he is a great artist because he has the tools for his ART? Must I believe that somebody is an ARTIST because he has the tools for his ART?

ART??
Do we respect the Art of a musician because he has an instrument and a music score? Do we have to admire a singer because he knows his music and the words of his role?
So, what defines ART?
I remember 30 years ago, a famous singer who asked me while we were in rehearsals for Carmen, if I wanted to accompany her to a coaching she had that afternoon.
I said yes of course.
I learned that afternoon what ART could mean…in her specific PROFESSION AND VOCATION.
She spent 4 hours on one line of the role…trying every possibility, vocally, musically and dramatically.
She tried every possible way, she reminisced every possible personal event to be the closest possible of the character in this line, again and again; every possibility was legitimate, she was always giving herself completely and always differently.
Her ART was not a lottery or a moment of luck, or a gift from the Gods…Sure, the Gods had given her the incredible voice and the natural talent to express herself…but her ART was the result of a total giving of herself and of her knowledge.

ART, ARTISTIC, words that we all want to honor! But please let’s remember that is not only a gift from the Supreme Being, it is a constant devotion, a perpetual work within ourselves; to become an artist is to enter an order in a religion and to renounce everything else. Difficult choices to make, many sacrifices and very often a very lonely life. To be an Artist is to accept to be different, to be seen as a lost cause by most people, to accept that the search for the hidden truth is never ending.

TO HONOR

I have decided to create a FUND for singers named after my brother and father….

It will be called the Fabien and Henri Uzzan competition…For people who wonder why two Zs in their names, when I have only one Z in my name…the explanation is simple, everybody in my family has two Zs, I am the only one with a single Z…
Some Uzan with one Z did exist in Tunis, and when my name was written officially, the employee of the administration put just one Z.

I am a mistake from the beginning…. how ironic, I do not even share the same name as they have… It’s as though they never existed, as if they are not part of me, as if they were just a figment of my imagination.

I have already talked about this in preceding postings, but this one will be different.
We all have our headaches, and memories of pain and suffering.

During the past few months for whatever reasons I have been thinking a lot of my brother and my father. I had for so many years canceled their memories, and even obliterated their existence for reasons I don’t know.
Is it possible that for almost 50 years we can refuse to see, to admit, to realize the truth of some events??????

Can we spend an entire life denying the painful events of the past in order to survive, to make a new life, to BE???

Why did I ignore that reality for so long? Why did I continue to exist, to live as if nothing happened?
What was wrong with me? What is wrong with me?
In the course of the past few months I have been invaded with memories of my childhood, of my brother, and father.

In my early years we had a good life in Tunis. We were Jews but had assimilated there, in that country for more than 300 years, even before most of the Arab invasion, and then everything changed suddenly in the fifties, we became strangers, enemies, and JEWS.

It all changed even more when we had to leave Tunisia in 1960 to go to France in a new country where we were trying to survive.

Yes, my brother died when he was 25 years old in car accident, when I was 19 …We were just arriving in Paris from Tunis, we were poor, we were alone, we were Nothing…
AND HE DIES!!! In a stupid car accident!!! Why? Why??
I was at the university studying French literature with a specialty in theater and Philosophy…
Philosophy??? What a joke, it did not help. Descartes, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and all the others did not really help.
I did not go to my brother’s funeral, I was not at his burial; I had an exam that day…
An exam??????  To become another specialist in French literature or Philosophy??? Another joke in my life…

He was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Paris and I was not there, I was not there…for my brother, so I could become a specialist in French literature.  It really helps tremendously in life, being a specialist in French literature!!!!!

I do not think I cried when I learned about his death, and I did not cry for 50 years, I ignored it, I deleted it, I refused to accept it, I went on as if nothing had happened, I behaved for 50 years like I never had a brother and I went on with my life, my struggles, my challenges, my obsession to become somebody.

I am crying now…I cry because he died, I cry because I did not know him, I cry because I imagine what life could have been with him next to me in all these years of struggle. I cry…

Six months after my brother’s death, my father died… He died because his heart was broken, he died because he could not deal with life anymore …He was a Jew in the thirties and early forties under the German occupation, he was a Tunisian Jew when Tunisia fought to be independent from the French, and then the French wanted nothing to do with him when he had to expatriate himself from Tunisia …

He was a lost soul arriving in Paris at the age of 54 with two sons, one who died four years later in a fucking car accident and another one, me, with all my problems of a missed childhood and being an unbalanced young man in his teens…so he died…and left us, my mother and I…Alone in Paris, refusing to admit, denying reality, enclosing myself in my issues.

I am just thinking of my brother and my father more and more.
They never saw me acting, they ever saw me as an adult, they never saw me happy or unhappy, they never saw me directing a play or an opera, they never read what I wrote, they never KNEW ME… and they are gone…

Why???
Why all this???? I do not know, and I really do not want to be better understood or tolerated by the people who do not like me.

Now they are coming back to me, they are present in my memory, my thoughts, and my every day feelings. I see them more and more…Fabien the handsome tall young man with blue eyes, and how much as a child, I wanted to be tall and have blue eyes… Henri, my father, a very stylish man, with his elegance and his incredible ways of charming people…I can see you both, but I cannot remember the sound of your voice, you are like mute figures in my memory….

I wish you were here Fabien and Papa, you would be proud of me, of what I have achieved for myself, for us, for the family name …Yes, you will be proud to know that your younger brother and your son is …
What am I? I still do not know… I probably will never know…

I wish you could have shared some of this with me, share my joys and my achievements… for some people my achievements are insignificant and I am just one more person who tries to be, and they are probably right.
But for us it means something…I did it, for me but also unconsciously for your memory, for what I missed sharing with you.

So we will have a competition in New York for singers and we will honor them with prizes and acknowledgments. 

You will live again in a world that you do not know at all, the world of music. It will be music for the heart, music for the memory, music for the soul. And you will be there for me and for them…

I mentioned many times that we all have our traumas and our bad experiences and our life is sometimes difficult …THAT IS WHY WE ARE PERFORMERS… I beg all of you to deal with it as soon as you can, as soon as you are ready… Use these traumas to enrich your life, to make your life fuller and your life on stage stronger…
Do not wait 50 years to deal with it, have the courage to confront it, but only when you are ready…It is a challenge to know when we are ready, but it will come when you do not expect it, and at that moment do not block it anymore, do not deny it, deal with it and even cherish it.

Fabien and Henri, you will be present in spirit, I am sorry I had erased you from my memory for so long but you will be present in spirit and very close to my heart

bernard uZZan

STAGES

I am scared and happy…I am open to all possibilities but see very little results, I am going to school in TUNIS
I am a Jew in an Arab world in a French colony.
What will the future hold for me? For us?
Will we stay here in Tunisia? Will we move to France?
I am starting to look at girls, trying to know and understand them a little.
Sometimes I like to be alone; sometimes I like the company of friends…but not too many friends.
I wonder what I will be as an adult.
I have a brother but do not speak to him very much, my father is distracted by his problems, and my mother is an inattentive mother of the 1950s.
Do I know what I really want? I don’t think so, I am just trying to understand what life is about, what the purpose is, I don’t think about the next steps very much.
I write short stories…that nobody reads.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
           Questions about life
I AM IN MY TEENS


I am walking in the streets of PARIS, wondering …and wondering…
What should I do with my life? I have practically no family (they all died by the time I was 20) except for my mother whom I rarely see, so I had no obligations there.
After all those years at the university, I could go into teaching but the idea of becoming a professor of young adults like myself made me very dubious.
After all my time in the theater I could choose the acting profession, or become a director … I love the theater, but are there any real possibilities there?
What should I do with my life?
Many people tell me that I am a talented actor, a talented director, a talented whatever, but still, I don’t know what I should really do.
I have become an actor in Paris, trying to make a name for myself, trying to be famous, trying to be relevant. I performed in many theaters, I am the French voice of famous American actors, I haunt the hallways of television studios hoping to be discovered, I go from audition to audition convinced that I am the best and not understanding why the part went to someone else.
I am tempted to become a gangster, some of my friends have already taken the wrong direction, but others seem to be picking the right track…
I am not really alone, I can meet whomever I want, and I do… But none of the experiences and adventures satisfies me… I wonder what will come next?
I am walking the streets of Paris, wondering …and wondering… and I travel all over the world, exploring, trying to understand, and making tons of mistakes.
And I have a great time being in Paris and enjoying every aspect of all life, maybe too much.
I am writing plays and movie scripts…that nobody performs.
I drink wine but always keep control of myself.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
  Questions about other people’ life
I AM IN MY TWENTIES

I am now in BOSTON, I teach at the university, I am the director of the French Theater in America, I am also the head of a school, I am a father, I made some choices, I am now responsible for many, many things and people.
I think about my daughter and play with her for hours every day, I want the best for her, so I get up at 6 am in the morning and work at all those different jobs to 11 pm every day…
I need to make money, I am a responsible adult, I work and work and work.
Did I make the right choices?  If not, still time to change?  No, I think I made the right choices, may be not?
I am teaching, acting, directing, running a theater company…I am asking so many questions about myself, others, and I work and work.  Time to acquire everything, time to know, time to think about my next choices, and time to be ME.
I make many friends and as many enemies without understanding how or why but I go on and I try to be everywhere, and do everything, to become somebody.
It is not easy always being the foreigner, the guy who is different, with this damn French accent, I will never lose it, how ironic, I am not even really French…. Some laugh at me, imitate me, some think it sounds cute…cute? That word doesn’t describe my personality at all.
I think about investments, I buy my first house, my first condo in the mountains; I am thinking of the future, I am thinking of becoming financially independent.
I write short stories that nobody wants to read.
I am often angry, impatient, demanding, and egotistical.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
  Questions about my life
I AM IN MY THIRTIES

I am now in NEW YORK, I have become an opera director and soon the general director of opera companies, I love what I do, and I made different choices, I moved from Boston, and do not see my daughter as much and miss her…why did that happen to me? No, I did it to myself, I chose a new life for myself at the time, AGAIN, with the advantages, and the failure, the joys and pains.
Have I reached my limits? No, I continue to try to learn.
I have become confident about my profession, now I know, I know my strengths and my weaknesses, I try to stay on top of my own doubts, people look at me and some wait for the first sign of weakness or lack of knowledge.
There have been victories and some defeats… sometimes I disguise my ignorance of certain subjects by being aggressive or funny, I play the roles they expect from me, and the damn French accent is still there.
I attend concerts and make believe that I am a connoisseur of Brahms and Mahler, I play all the games.
My training as an actor and a specialist in literature helped me a lot to convince people of what I know.
In just a few years, I have directed over 50 operas and wonder where that will lead to.
I travel a lot and spend too little time in New York, but I know that soon something must happen; soon I will make it big, now I have all the tools to achieve just that, I am ready for next big step…
I have sold my properties and bought a house in NJ…Diana is making her debut at the Metropolitan and her career is growing immeasurably in Europe… We are now sailing into the possible zone called “success,” and we want more, always more… I am not walking in the streets of some city anymore, I am not HAVING A GOOD TIME WITH FRIENDS, I became what I despised when I was twenty, a careerist thinking only about success, money, and achievement.
I stopped writing because I have no time.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
  NO  Questions about  life
I AM IN MY FORTIES


Now I am the one telling everybody what to do, what to think, how to behave. I am often lost in the duties of being the big boss.
I live in MONTREAL.
General and artistic director of a big opera company…I am yet again a foreigner, that fact will never change, I still have a French accent in French for the Quebecois instead of a French accent in English for the Americans.
I am using all I know to be better, to give what people expect from me, I have doubts sometimes about what I know, who I am, where I am going. But on the outside I am strong; I let no one suspect my doubts, I cannot give an impression weakness or even uncertainty.
My daughter turned into a teenager, and sometimes I have the feeling that I don’t know her, that I should have been more present, more available for her…
I spend my time taking care of the opera company and directing all over the world, all too often alone, wondering whether that is really what I wanted.
I have lots of real estate but do I really care?
I go to conventions wearing a suit and tie, I am important, I am respected and at times hated, I have very few friends, I am alone most of the time, Diana has her own career and we see each other only when we work together, and that is difficult.
I have almost everything I wanted to have and wonder if that is really what life is about: To have what we want to have.
My Mother died, she was the last survivor of my family for thirty years, and I wonder what death means?
All the others died when I was young and I didn’t give it much thought, too taken up that I was by my own existence. Now my mother is dead, and I think about my brother and my father or is it because I am reaching the age of uncertainty?
I still don’t write.
I don’t read anymore and am no longer learning.
  Questions about the meaning of life
I AM IN MY FIFTIES


I am back in NEW YORK.
I left the Montreal opera, I am just a freelance director and started a management company with my daughter Vanessa, Diana is retired from singing and is happy successfully teaching voice.
I still love to direct after all those 385 productions I have put my name on.
I am thinking a lot about life, especially after a dramatic health warning.
I am happy and at peace, I never loved people as much as I do now, I try to give back as much as I can.
Give back knowledge, experience, friendship, and love.
For the first time in my life I am interested in “causes”, I try to help many organizations and many individuals.
I became generous of my thoughts and of my time and…
Sometimes I wish I could have done that earlier, instead of thinking only about myself but that’s the way it is…
I am thinking about what will happen to those who will be around after my death, forgetting the great line.
“The cemetery is full of people who believed they were indispensable”
I am writing again, novels, opera libretti.
I have more friends than I ever had; I finally have more time for them.
I really care about some of my friends and do everything I can for them.
I tried to reconnect with some people I had problems with, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I have many projects; I hope to carry them out. But they are not the kind of projects I had during the past fifty years,
They are not centered around my needs, my desires but more about what others need.
Sometimes I am still impatient and demanding and impossible but that’s part of my nature, and I regret that but I know deep down that I am at peace with the world and with others now.
I am reading again and learning, about other people…
   Questions about ??????
I AM IN MY SIXTIES

Next year I will be in my SEVENTIES… and then???

PS I STILL HAVE A FRENCH ACCENT.

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.