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| _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
But I don't want to be King Herod
The untold horrors of choral typecasting
by A S H Smyth
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
I do a bit of singing on the side. Y’know, for the big bucks, so’s I can be
a penniless hack the rest of the week.
At school I was forever being cast as Annie (Annie), Tiny Tim (for Royal
Northern Ballet Company), or Rejected Catamite (Class. Civ. workshop)
because those were the only gigs going for a fey streak of piss like
m’self.*
I figured things would improve once I got to university, and I’d start
getting the big roles. Jesus, for example.
I joined the Oxford University Opera Club, not least because their
Freshers Week flier seemed to indicate that the first meeting of the year
would involve some combination of pizza, beer, money, sex, and a Young
Persons Railcard. Looking back, I recall being overwhelmed by a feeling
of smugness as I considered all those fools who had chosen to attend
universities in central London, where they would get absolutely no
mileage out of a Young Persons Railcard.
It turned out I didn’t have the hair for Jesus, and anyway he was a
tenor. And besides, after my year in South Africa I was a bit tanned,
and the powers that be thought the appearance of a ‘dark’ Jesus might
provoke start some sort of socialist revolt in Blackbird Leys. But I stuck
with it, doing all the roles no-one else wanted – Dr Mengele. Papa Doc.
The Virgin Mary – reasoning that through hard work, perseverance, and
sleeping with ugly directors my Messianic day would dawn eventually.
What dawned, though, was the realisation that the parts were dished
out alphabetically, like hurricanes (I maintain that the role of the Virgin
ought to be filed under B) and breast-sizes (ditto). It was going to be a
long time before we came round to J again – there are a lot of operas
about Xerxes – so I decided to move into character roles and dazzle
everyone with my versatility. It was good while it lasted.
It lasted 6 days, during which time I performed a critically-acclaimed
one-man show called Satchmo in Cambodia, in which I had to play Louis
Armstrong, Armstrong’s cornet, a B52, and the voice of Henry Kissinger.
The show won the Nobel Fringe Peace Prize, but on the 6th day I had to
give myself an emergency tracheotomy with a Biro casing: people in the
audience seemed to think that crossed the bounds of good taste, and
the show closed.
I spent 4 months in the John Radcliffe Infirmary, where many of the
nurses seemed to have a tremendous interest in naked bathing,
progressive abdominal exercises, and something quite intimate they
called ‘circular breathing’. Calls began to flood in, asking me to play all
the bounders and cads. On one occasion I was asked to play both the
moustachioed Albanians in Cosí, and all my friends seemed to think this
was tremendously funny: I still don’t know what that was about.
But I turned them all down, and decided to direct my attention towards
church music. Best decision I ever made. I was looking for the quiet life,
the kind of gig where there is no type-casting and the only heckling is in
Latin. Besides, after learning roughly 380 technically (and morally)
challenging roles, utilised for an average of 1.4 nights each, I had taken
a quick look through the church repertoire and discovered that there
were only about 4-8 parts, depending on the show. Bass Two cropped
up frequently, and was an uncomplicated type of fellow who more-or-
less always fulfilled the same function. Also, the role could usually be
managed even when hungover, ill, tired, or unenthused.
I was taken on by an improvisational musical commune called the Oxford
Spetsnaz. They were travelling to Worcester and needed someone who
had the role of Bass Two down and was willing to sleep in a field with a
man who had brought pre-ironed shirts (with hangers).
Give or take the odd nocturnal experience involving a portaloo, we had a
great week. We foraged for our food in the woods around the field, and
in the little fridge in the stables where the landlord kept his Grolsch. For
our spiritual sustenance, we were dependant on the cathedral staff and
their hilarious ability – according to the courage, eyesight, and
imagination of the reader in question – to render the name of our choir
as the Speshashtri, Spinstery, Sphincterslice or
JohnPatrickMashonShpecialShchoolofShcottishPronunshiation. I imagined
that this is what it must have been like to live in simpler, more
wholesome times, when no-one could read and everyone’s teeth fell out
before they were 17, as nature intended.
I’ve been with the Spetsnaz for some time now, and using it as a
springboard from which to quietly re-launch my solo career. But recently
I’ve begun to spot a worrying trend developing.
About 6 months back my agent rang and said I’d been asked to sing the
role of Pilate in Bach’s St Matthew Passion. There was nothing wrong
with the part, except that it was about the fourth Biblical bad guy I’d
been asked to play in succession.
I’d done a cameo as Barabbas in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ,
which was fun what with all the frothing at the mouth, but the Aramaic
eye-rolling was a bit of a drag to learn. Then I’d done Pharaoh in Joseph
and his Technicolor Yawn (which had enabled me to dust off my Pulitzer-
winning Elvis impression). And then there’d been Joseph, father of Jesus.
Yeah, I know he doesn’t seem like a bad guy; but when the local council
is funding the production, any character who knocks up his girlfriend
before the big day and then pretends God did it (and makes her back up
the story) can only be played one way.
Truth be told, I wasn’t all that impressed by the offer of Pilate. ‘Was
Judas taken?’ I asked, all casual like.
‘Nah, countertenor innit,’ says my agent.
‘Weirdo.’
‘Definitely.’
I washed my hands of it. Reckoned I’d only have got expenses, anyhow.
Then last weekend I was called upon to sing Herod in The Christmas
Oratorio. Frankly, I was offended; I’d been putting the finishing touches
to an elaborate conspiracy theory involving a protracted beard joke at
my expense, and this was the last straw. But I’ve been more than
usually hard up of late and I needed those expenses so badly I was
desperate enough to go all the way to Oxford to get them. I was also
willing to overlook all the problems with the last-minute casting. First,
it’s not Bass Two, and there wasn’t time to brush up on the minutiae of
the part… like the notes. Second, it’s in German, a language designed by
the Linguistics Department at Guantanamo for the sole purpose of
driving inmates insane with frustration, and so finely-tuned that a slight
tickle in the throat can result in your renting a stretch Humvee for a
month when what you actually wanted was someone to help you take
off your ice-skates.
Nomatter. It’s easy to be convincing in German (especially if you have
obtrusive teeth, a bad cold, or a blond side-parting). The bits I had to
sing were all Recits, anyway – a musical term that means something like
‘grouting’ – and they’re meant to be high-speed gibberish: by a miracle
of good fortune, this is easily achieved by trying to perform the original
German with minimal rehearsal. Also, under a secret NATO deal, the only
people who can speak German are all working at Guantanamo at present,
and they’re hardly the concert-going type.
So I sang, and most of the time just tried to make it sound like I was
ordering spare parts from the Krupp armaments catalogue over a
particularly bad phone line.
When I wasn’t singing – in the rests, for example – I reflected on other
things. Spalding Gray used to do a show called Interviewing The
Audience. I thought that sounded like a corking plan, but it also seemed
like a lot of hard work, only to have the audience take most of the
credit and a whopping cut of the loot in performance royalties. Besides,
how’d you get them to learn their lines?
Then there was a kid in the second row, over to the left, who looked for
all the world like the brother of a very nervous physicist (tautology?)
from my school. I felt kindly towards him, not least because when you’re
playing the part of The Orphaned Boy for the 8th year running, the one
thing that gets you through the day is having a physicist to pick on.
There was also a guy in the balcony who looked like an unkempt Sean
Connery. I didn’t spend too much time on this though, partly because
the orchestra were looking at me like I ought to be singing, and partly
because I reasoned that it was more likely to be Rowan Williams.
When I had finished, I strolled back to my seat. A German family in the
front row gathered their children and hurried away, aghast at what I
planned to do with 18 cases of grenades, a massive serrated knife, and
a marmot (which I’m pretty sure was not in the catalogue): and the
conductor gave me a look (which might have well have been).
So, new rule. No more bad guys, and no more German. You gotta cut
your pocket according to your losses.
Still, things are looking up. I’ve just had a call from someone who’s
staging a musical of The Golden Compass and reckons he’s got just the
part...
--
* Advice to our younger male readers: if you are blond and can sing,
you’re gonna be in trouble at least until you leave school. Stick with it
though: the more flak you get for being an artsy poof, the more
attention you’ll get from the girls. (Unless, of course, they also think
you’re an artsy poof – then you will have to wait for university, where
you can ‘come out’ and everyone will pretend to be frightfully surprised.)
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
Also by A S H Smyth:
The untold horrors of choral typecasting
by A S H Smyth
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
I do a bit of singing on the side. Y’know, for the big bucks, so’s I can be
a penniless hack the rest of the week.
At school I was forever being cast as Annie (Annie), Tiny Tim (for Royal
Northern Ballet Company), or Rejected Catamite (Class. Civ. workshop)
because those were the only gigs going for a fey streak of piss like
m’self.*
I figured things would improve once I got to university, and I’d start
getting the big roles. Jesus, for example.
I joined the Oxford University Opera Club, not least because their
Freshers Week flier seemed to indicate that the first meeting of the year
would involve some combination of pizza, beer, money, sex, and a Young
Persons Railcard. Looking back, I recall being overwhelmed by a feeling
of smugness as I considered all those fools who had chosen to attend
universities in central London, where they would get absolutely no
mileage out of a Young Persons Railcard.
It turned out I didn’t have the hair for Jesus, and anyway he was a
tenor. And besides, after my year in South Africa I was a bit tanned,
and the powers that be thought the appearance of a ‘dark’ Jesus might
provoke start some sort of socialist revolt in Blackbird Leys. But I stuck
with it, doing all the roles no-one else wanted – Dr Mengele. Papa Doc.
The Virgin Mary – reasoning that through hard work, perseverance, and
sleeping with ugly directors my Messianic day would dawn eventually.
What dawned, though, was the realisation that the parts were dished
out alphabetically, like hurricanes (I maintain that the role of the Virgin
ought to be filed under B) and breast-sizes (ditto). It was going to be a
long time before we came round to J again – there are a lot of operas
about Xerxes – so I decided to move into character roles and dazzle
everyone with my versatility. It was good while it lasted.
It lasted 6 days, during which time I performed a critically-acclaimed
one-man show called Satchmo in Cambodia, in which I had to play Louis
Armstrong, Armstrong’s cornet, a B52, and the voice of Henry Kissinger.
The show won the Nobel Fringe Peace Prize, but on the 6th day I had to
give myself an emergency tracheotomy with a Biro casing: people in the
audience seemed to think that crossed the bounds of good taste, and
the show closed.
I spent 4 months in the John Radcliffe Infirmary, where many of the
nurses seemed to have a tremendous interest in naked bathing,
progressive abdominal exercises, and something quite intimate they
called ‘circular breathing’. Calls began to flood in, asking me to play all
the bounders and cads. On one occasion I was asked to play both the
moustachioed Albanians in Cosí, and all my friends seemed to think this
was tremendously funny: I still don’t know what that was about.
But I turned them all down, and decided to direct my attention towards
church music. Best decision I ever made. I was looking for the quiet life,
the kind of gig where there is no type-casting and the only heckling is in
Latin. Besides, after learning roughly 380 technically (and morally)
challenging roles, utilised for an average of 1.4 nights each, I had taken
a quick look through the church repertoire and discovered that there
were only about 4-8 parts, depending on the show. Bass Two cropped
up frequently, and was an uncomplicated type of fellow who more-or-
less always fulfilled the same function. Also, the role could usually be
managed even when hungover, ill, tired, or unenthused.
I was taken on by an improvisational musical commune called the Oxford
Spetsnaz. They were travelling to Worcester and needed someone who
had the role of Bass Two down and was willing to sleep in a field with a
man who had brought pre-ironed shirts (with hangers).
Give or take the odd nocturnal experience involving a portaloo, we had a
great week. We foraged for our food in the woods around the field, and
in the little fridge in the stables where the landlord kept his Grolsch. For
our spiritual sustenance, we were dependant on the cathedral staff and
their hilarious ability – according to the courage, eyesight, and
imagination of the reader in question – to render the name of our choir
as the Speshashtri, Spinstery, Sphincterslice or
JohnPatrickMashonShpecialShchoolofShcottishPronunshiation. I imagined
that this is what it must have been like to live in simpler, more
wholesome times, when no-one could read and everyone’s teeth fell out
before they were 17, as nature intended.
I’ve been with the Spetsnaz for some time now, and using it as a
springboard from which to quietly re-launch my solo career. But recently
I’ve begun to spot a worrying trend developing.
About 6 months back my agent rang and said I’d been asked to sing the
role of Pilate in Bach’s St Matthew Passion. There was nothing wrong
with the part, except that it was about the fourth Biblical bad guy I’d
been asked to play in succession.
I’d done a cameo as Barabbas in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ,
which was fun what with all the frothing at the mouth, but the Aramaic
eye-rolling was a bit of a drag to learn. Then I’d done Pharaoh in Joseph
and his Technicolor Yawn (which had enabled me to dust off my Pulitzer-
winning Elvis impression). And then there’d been Joseph, father of Jesus.
Yeah, I know he doesn’t seem like a bad guy; but when the local council
is funding the production, any character who knocks up his girlfriend
before the big day and then pretends God did it (and makes her back up
the story) can only be played one way.
Truth be told, I wasn’t all that impressed by the offer of Pilate. ‘Was
Judas taken?’ I asked, all casual like.
‘Nah, countertenor innit,’ says my agent.
‘Weirdo.’
‘Definitely.’
I washed my hands of it. Reckoned I’d only have got expenses, anyhow.
Then last weekend I was called upon to sing Herod in The Christmas
Oratorio. Frankly, I was offended; I’d been putting the finishing touches
to an elaborate conspiracy theory involving a protracted beard joke at
my expense, and this was the last straw. But I’ve been more than
usually hard up of late and I needed those expenses so badly I was
desperate enough to go all the way to Oxford to get them. I was also
willing to overlook all the problems with the last-minute casting. First,
it’s not Bass Two, and there wasn’t time to brush up on the minutiae of
the part… like the notes. Second, it’s in German, a language designed by
the Linguistics Department at Guantanamo for the sole purpose of
driving inmates insane with frustration, and so finely-tuned that a slight
tickle in the throat can result in your renting a stretch Humvee for a
month when what you actually wanted was someone to help you take
off your ice-skates.
Nomatter. It’s easy to be convincing in German (especially if you have
obtrusive teeth, a bad cold, or a blond side-parting). The bits I had to
sing were all Recits, anyway – a musical term that means something like
‘grouting’ – and they’re meant to be high-speed gibberish: by a miracle
of good fortune, this is easily achieved by trying to perform the original
German with minimal rehearsal. Also, under a secret NATO deal, the only
people who can speak German are all working at Guantanamo at present,
and they’re hardly the concert-going type.
So I sang, and most of the time just tried to make it sound like I was
ordering spare parts from the Krupp armaments catalogue over a
particularly bad phone line.
When I wasn’t singing – in the rests, for example – I reflected on other
things. Spalding Gray used to do a show called Interviewing The
Audience. I thought that sounded like a corking plan, but it also seemed
like a lot of hard work, only to have the audience take most of the
credit and a whopping cut of the loot in performance royalties. Besides,
how’d you get them to learn their lines?
Then there was a kid in the second row, over to the left, who looked for
all the world like the brother of a very nervous physicist (tautology?)
from my school. I felt kindly towards him, not least because when you’re
playing the part of The Orphaned Boy for the 8th year running, the one
thing that gets you through the day is having a physicist to pick on.
There was also a guy in the balcony who looked like an unkempt Sean
Connery. I didn’t spend too much time on this though, partly because
the orchestra were looking at me like I ought to be singing, and partly
because I reasoned that it was more likely to be Rowan Williams.
When I had finished, I strolled back to my seat. A German family in the
front row gathered their children and hurried away, aghast at what I
planned to do with 18 cases of grenades, a massive serrated knife, and
a marmot (which I’m pretty sure was not in the catalogue): and the
conductor gave me a look (which might have well have been).
So, new rule. No more bad guys, and no more German. You gotta cut
your pocket according to your losses.
Still, things are looking up. I’ve just had a call from someone who’s
staging a musical of The Golden Compass and reckons he’s got just the
part...
--
* Advice to our younger male readers: if you are blond and can sing,
you’re gonna be in trouble at least until you leave school. Stick with it
though: the more flak you get for being an artsy poof, the more
attention you’ll get from the girls. (Unless, of course, they also think
you’re an artsy poof – then you will have to wait for university, where
you can ‘come out’ and everyone will pretend to be frightfully surprised.)
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
Also by A S H Smyth:
|
