Quinn Kelsey on 'Rigoletto' – at San Francisco Opera, 5/31–7/1

Quinn Kelsey on 'Rigoletto' – at San Francisco Opera, 5/31–7/1
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
QUINN KELSEY – as Rigoletto. SFOpera (2017).

QUINN KELSEY – as Rigoletto. SFOpera (2017).

Cory Weaver

San Francisco Opera opens its summer season tonight at 7:30pm with Verdi’s Rigoletto – a revival of the 1997 opus designed by Michael Yeargan – and starring baritone Quinn Kelsey in the title role. An alumnus of the 2002 Merola Opera Program at 24 and a subsequent veteran of what proved to be the final tour of SF Opera Center’s Western Opera Theatre – Quinn Kelsey returns to San Francisco as an internationally acclaimed Verdi Baritone. “By the time we finished that tour,” he said, “we could have done Bohème in a bathtub!”

Quinn Kelsey (as Marcello). SFOpera, 2008.

Quinn Kelsey (as Marcello). SFOpera, 2008.

Terrence McCarthy

“Half the time we had a full stage. The rest was a mishmash of different-sized stages. We went from a full stage that fit the entire set to a 10x10 portable stage in the downstairs restaurant of a hall – in Santa Rosa, I think – that was being renovated! But, it was everything young singers need to know. How to deal with traveling and living very closely with your colleagues, how to maneuver the different spaces we were subjected to, and what to do in the down time.”

Now 39, Rigoletto is at the core of Quinn’s impressive and varied repertoire. His role debut happened six years ago in Oslo at Den Norske Opera. Later that year he was in Toronto to perform it at Canadian Opera Company with stage direction by scrappy revisionist Christopher Alden. Since then he has sung Rigoletto at Opernhaus Zürich, English National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Hawaii Opera Theatre, and Oper Frankfurt. Come October, Quinn and the Yeargan production will travel to Lyric Opera of Chicago. The performances will be staged by E. Loren Meeker who assisted Francesco Zambello last season in SF Opera’s exciting new production of Aïda. I asked Quinn about the potential appeal of Verdi’s Rigoletto to today’s younger generation.

“The way I go about shaping my performance in any one production is that I try to put myself in the audience’s shoes. What do I want to see? What do I want to hear on the stage? What is going to keep my attention and keep me from growing bored or nodding off? Whatever that happens to be for whatever production I’m in – that’s what I do in order to have it make sense for me, to find that organic quality. Then I can transmit that to the audience.”

QUINN KELSEY as – Rigoletto. Oper Frankfurt (2017); Opéra National de Paris (2016); English National Opera (2014)

QUINN KELSEY as – Rigoletto. Oper Frankfurt (2017); Opéra National de Paris (2016); English National Opera (2014)

Monika Rittershaus (1, 2); Alastair Muir (3)

“The 2016 production at Opéra Bastille [conducted by Nicola Luisotti, directed by Claus Guth] had a good amount of regie-theater or ‘Eurotrash’ as it is referred to in the English-speaking world. I respect the European directors for being able to step outside the bounds of the story itself in order to tell it in a different way. For me, that can be so difficult at times. I’m sure I speak for a good number of my colleagues – you have to find something organic from which to draw your characterization. You have to find some meaning that makes sense in order to not just stand there and sing two-dimensionally – or nobody will want to come.”

Quinn Kelsey as Rigoletto (center), Amitai Pati as Borsa, Anthony Reed as Ceprano and Andrew G. Manea as Marullo. SF Opera 2017.

Quinn Kelsey as Rigoletto (center), Amitai Pati as Borsa, Anthony Reed as Ceprano and Andrew G. Manea as Marullo. SF Opera 2017.

Cory Weaver

“With this last production in Frankfurt, we really came together and turned out a product that I know we were all happy with. But there were times when that organic component was not reachable. There were moments when the creativity was not allowed to flow easily enough. You’re singing about how much in love you are with your love interest and you’re standing there hugging a tree! It just doesn’t make sense. I ran into problems with the production team. (“What is so hard?”) I’m saying one thing and doing something that’s totally in the opposite direction. ‘Well, forgive me for feeling like I’ve hit a snag!’ But I had.”

In other words, his Rigoletto had lost all motivation for being in the room.

“Exactly. It took six weeks to stage. Let me re-phrase. It was allowed six weeks for staging. We took almost all of those six weeks! Then I come to San Francisco and everything is staged in a week and a half – fully and to the point where everybody is happy with what they’re doing. The director didn’t need to repeat things, we could move on. We then started full scene runs, full act runs, full production runs. This production is accessible. It’s easy to follow, everything makes sense, the emotions are pure, and you have all the immediate responses you would expect. It’s not like other productions where they are so far out of bounds with the story that relationships between characters don’t work and reactions to certain very strong ideas don’t make sense. You get to the end of the show and scratch your head wondering what it was all about. I don’t think you’ll have any questions about this production because everything is so well thought out.”

Quinn Kelsey as Rigoletto and Nino Machaidze as Gilda. SF Opera (2017).

Quinn Kelsey as Rigoletto and Nino Machaidze as Gilda. SF Opera (2017).

Cory Weaver

If there is any “down time” during this run of eight performances, Quinn will be found revisiting a score by Jules Massenet. On Saturday, August 26, he is in concert with conductor Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for the Mid Season Gala presentation of Thaïs. It marks the second time Quinn has sung the role of “Athanaël” in concert with Sir Andrew, the first occasion being with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival. Says the conductor, “The opera’s strange mixture of religious fervor and eroticism is what creates its power.” Enter soprano Erin Wall in the title role. Erin is about to make her debut at San Francisco Opera as “Donna Anna” in Don Giovanni opening June 4.

ERIN WALL

ERIN WALL

HarrisonParrott

“From the first time I heard its ‘Meditation’, I felt connected to the music in some way. Later on, I found out why. My great grandfather on my father’s side was a violinist and at one point the conductor of the NBC Orchestra. He played the Meditation from Thaïs for my grandparents when they were married. When I first started preparing the role of Athanaël, I realized I would get to sing that theme – which comes in toward the end. This tickled me immensely.

“French has always had an ease for me – the way that it sits. The first time I heard Posa’s death scene [Verdi’s Don Carlos] I couldn’t wait to sing it. One day I just blurted it out with one of the coaches in Chicago. But the high end was a little tough to get up in there. Matthew Epstein, then Artistic Consultant at Chicago Lyric said, ‘Learn it in French.’ The opera was first composed in French, so everything fit perfectly. The language is so specific. Massenet, Debussy, all the French mélodies I’ve sung in college – it’s great fun. I love navigating the language and Athanaël fits me like a glove. It has so many Verdian moments where you need that broad-stroke in the voice. I can relate to the role so well – even just the function of the role vocally.”

Quinn’s 2015 recital at London’s Wigmore Hall included Rigoletto’s Act 1, scene ii aria, “Pari siamo” – now available on YouTube. Accompanied by pianist Llŷr Williams, the performance reveals the inherent beauty of his rich baritone and an exquisite legato line colored with sympathetic dramatic interpretation. Compare it with his powerhouse performance of the Act II aria, “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata” as broadcast from the Opéra Bastille in 2016. It looks like Rigoletto and Quinn Kelsey are destined to be An Item for a long, long time.

RIGOLETTO – Act I, Scene 1. SF Opera (2017)

RIGOLETTO – Act I, Scene 1. SF Opera (2017)

Cory Weaver

“I was taught to sing Rigoletto well instead of just slamming on it. That ensures I will survive it. I would dare to take it even a step further – that all of this then allows me to take on Athanaël, to feed the role into this mechanism. The great thing about the role is that it’s one I’ve barely done. There’s no muscle memory. So, I can afford to approach it basically untouched, with no bad habits. You cannot fool around with Athanaël or sing it sort-of halfway. You’ll just never make it. I would like to think that part of the success I’ve enjoyed in the past years allows me to add new roles like this in a healthy way. It’s not just the excitement of being able to do Athanaël, but to add it to my repertoire and begin looking for opportunities to do stage productions.”

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot