Festival at Canari, 2010: Singing

Corsican Idol: In concert during a Festival singing competition.
Front row, left to right: Jacques Scaglia, Michèle Command, Gabriel Bacquier.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.
Coming soon: Photos from this year’s Festival.
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The culmination of every Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari is a public concert in the sanctuary of the 505-year-old Convent of Saint-François. In odd-numbered years, the concert takes on a Star Academy atmosphere, as the young singers who have competed all week perform one last time and receive the verdict of the judges — and of the audience. In even-numbered years, the kids who have worked all week in master classes with Michèle Command and Gabriel Bacquier show us what they’ve learned.

This year, I was struck by the progress made even by those young singers in whom I hadn’t seen much progress day-to-day during the course of the week. Something about performing in front of an audience (and a sold-out, appreciative one, at that) seems to rally the internal forces of a young artist. Bits and pieces, individual lessons, discrete phrases, and sheer adrenalin come together to create a satisfying whole. There’s a lesson in that. In at least one case, I worried that the lesson might be negative: struggling with a sore throat and only just beginning an intensive technical study, one young singer nevertheless knocked our socks off. “Now that you know you can do it, you don’t have to do it again,” I said afterward.

One reason for such prudence is that all of us — all of us — hope that these kids will be knocking our socks off ten and even forty years from now. Both Michèle and Gaby stress the need to say no to roles and repertoire; they’ve seen too many young singers pushed too far, too soon, with burnout the inevitable consequence. Deploy your resources wisely, though, and you can sing your heart out, over the course of a long, rewarding career.

Michèle, la Belle
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

That’s why I hope that all the young singers in Canari this week paid special attention to the example Michèle set at the concert, when she sang for us on Friday afternoon.

She hadn’t sung publicly in about eight years, she told me, and, after a run-through, she declared, “Not bad for a 63-year-old woman!” Seeing my consternation that she’d admit to such a scandalous (in the view of most French women) thing as her own age, she shrugged: “Je m’en fiche.”

Surely no one who heard her on Friday would have guessed her age. With the indomitable and inspired pianist Sylvie Lechevalier-Bartoli as her accompanist, Michèle gave us Reynaldo Hahn’s “Si mes vers avaient des ailes” (If my verses had wings, to a text by Victor Hugo*), and then, to my indescribable satisfaction, three songs from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été.

Waiting for the next performance:
Music-lovers outside the Convent of Saint-François
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

As she took the “stage” of the chapel of the Couvent de Saint-François, following the first round of student performances, she admitted to a case of nerves. But she was completely confident for the Berlioz songs: fresh and supple in the Villanelle, sonorous and sorrowful in “Sur les lagunes,” then buoyant for “L’île inconnue.” In sum, this was a kind of Helen Reddy moment — Michèle was Woman, we heard her roar, in voice too luscious to ignore — the performance of a lifetime, and I was overwhelmed.

Literally so, as it happened. Seated on the floor next to a stack of folding chairs, I fell against them. BAM! Michèle looked my way, but there was no damage. Sometimes music has a powerful effect on me, physically, and this was one of those times.

Having watched her dance and act during the master classes all week long, I began to dream of the projects she might undertake tomorrow. (Surely an astute choreographer or director could devise a theater piece for her like the Winterreise that Trisha Brown created for Simon Keenlyside.) This much seemed clear: we haven’t heard the last of Michèle Command, and thank goodness for that.

The Festival lived up to its international title yet again this year, with singers from Canada, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, Armenia — and oh yes, also from “The Continent” (a.k.a. France). Another veteran singer (his age somewhere in between Michèle’s and the students’) took the stage at Friday’s concert, too: Corsican native Carlo Ciabrini compensated for the mysterious dearth of tenors on the program with four arias that also give an idea of the range of repertory we typically hear in Canari, from Le Roi d’Ys to La Fanciulla del West. Seated in the audience was the legendary French soprano Renée Doria, gorgeous and charming.** In all, a festive occasion, and a triumph for Jacques Scaglia.



*NOTE: The French words for “verses” and for “worms” are the same — for reasons that defy explanation. But now you know why I can’t help but think, each time I hear this lovely song, “Si mes vers à moi, eux, avaient des ailes, il seraient des mouches!” Please understand nevertheless that Michèle’s verses were assuredly birds, and not houseflies.

**I didn’t get much of a chance to talk with Mme Doria, but perhaps that’s just as well. For one thing, I was awestruck, and for another, my French accent flew out the window whenever I came near her. I sounded like a tourist. I couldn’t possibly have said anything that would interest her in the slightest — and I can’t imagine why she’d want to speak to me at all.

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Festival at Canari, 2010: Teaching

You gotta have heart: Bacquier (seated at left) with a student,
in the 12th-century Church of Sainte-Marie.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

At the reception following the final concert of this year’s Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari, I spoke with most of the student singers. In particular, I was intrigued by the Japanese singer who was participating in the Festival for the third time, as well as by the Armenian singer, who struck me as having substantially more training and practical experience than the other students in the master classes. What brought them here, I wondered?

The desire to work with Gabriel Bacquier and to learn both from him and Michèle Command about French repertoire, the students answered. As they spoke, I realized that I hadn’t taken nearly enough notes during the master classes, and I’ve already reported on several of Michèle’s lessons. But herewith, I offer a few more words of wisdom from Michèle and Gaby.

Michèle, running through several vowel sounds, all based on the letter E: “There’s a whole palette of colors there. It’s very expressive. People always say, ‘Oh, it’s hard to sing in French!’ I don’t think so.”

Later, however, listening to an Asian student’s struggles, Michèle admitted that, “Believe me, if we were singing in Japanese, we’d have the same problems you’re having.”

Michèle: “Work with a mirror. Watch the gestures, the attitude, the face.”

Gaby: “The voice isn’t here [indicating his throat], it’s here [his mouth]. So it’s here [the mask] that you have to look for the sound.”

Both Michèle and Gaby are constantly on the lookout for images that will help singers visualize the lessons they’re trying to teach. This extends to gesture and dancing, but also to verbal metaphors, and in Gaby’s case, the language can get pretty salty.

Trying to get one young singer to relax, Gaby argued: “If you want to take a shit without feeling it, you’ve got to open up. It’s the same with singing.” Then, looking around the 12th-century Church of Sainte-Marie, Gaby added, with a shrug of his peerlessly expressive shoulders, “It’s an image.”

Gaby, to a young soprano: “You’d rather sing tears than coquetterie, right? It’s possible that, in a season or so, a director will say to you, ‘Why don’t you sing Sophie [in Massenet’s Werther]?’ And you’ll say yes — for the money. You’ll make an effort to be Sophie, but only for the money. The role won’t last long in your repertoire.”

Gaby, to a student who protested that “It’s complicated!”: “No, it’s not.… You have to work, but you have to use what’s natural for the voice.”

Gaby, to a student: “Technique bores me. It’s theater that interests me.” He turned and saw me taking notes. “You can write that down,” he advised me.

Gaby: “Mélodies you can sing by yourself. In opera, you have to find partners, which is a pain in the ass.”

Gaby, to a student singing about Palermo: “I want you to see Palermo. It’s not complicated.”

Gaby: “Don’t sing ‘Ah!’ just as ‘Ah!’ Sing it with the color you see in your mind. Dolorosa, in this case. The ‘Ah’ must express your thought. You could just as well sing ‘Oh,’ but the note is there for a reason.”

Gaby: “Sing with your heart.”

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Festival at Canari, 2010: Listening

Michèle Command, foreground, teaches us how to listen.
Seated to her left: Bernadette Bolognesi, Ange Dolémieux.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

“You hear everything!” a student told Michèle Command during a master class at the Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari the other day — and then added, “It’s very annoying.”

For my part, I find it wholly admirable, and one of the signal pleasures of this year’s Festival has been the opportunity to watch Michèle as she listens to the young singers who appear before her, hour after hour. She’s up, she’s down, she’s singing along, she’s dancing, but always completely absorbed in the students’ work. I don’t know how she does it; I’m worn out, mentally, physically, and aesthetically, after only an hour or so, and I have to go out to breathe the fresh Corsican air. But Michèle keeps going, and it’s true: nothing gets past her.

At the 505-year-old Convent of Saint-François
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

When she was a student, Michèle tells me, she was expected to attend all the lessons, not merely the one prior to hers and a few minutes of the one after, while she packed up her music and left the studio. This helps to explain how, even before she began her own career as a singer — and later, as a teacher at the Paris Conservatory — she had developed a thorough knowledge of multiple repertories, in every voice type, from every period and culture. It’s almost impossible to stump her, though a few students do try.

Today, even Michèle’s own students in Paris sometimes are out the door almost as soon as a lesson is over. “I have an appointment across town” or “I have another lesson now,” they say, without seeming to understand that they could learn something from the work of other students.

“You have to listen first,” Michèle told the students here in Canari. “Get the music in your ears before you start to sing. Otherwise, you’ll wear yourself out.” It’s advice she follows when she sings: the other day, she played us a recording of a concert performance of Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne she sang in Amsterdam, with a vast orchestra behind her. I was struck by how natural her expression seemed, whether the song called for her to incarnate a simple shepherdess or a quasi-Wagnerian force of nature. How had she arrived at this ease and (seeming) freedom? Did it just come to her? How long had she worked to prepare these pieces?

“A while,” she said. “I started not just by studying the score, but also by listening to other people’s recordings, not to copy them, but to get the music in my head. When I was ready, I started to sing.”

Students listen, too.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

She’s quite a dainty little thing (but don’t be deceived — she’s tougher than she looks), so the power she deployed really was impressive as she sailed over the orchestra. This wasn’t a studio recording, where microphones are positioned to put the singer’s voice forward; we heard what we’d have heard live in the concert hall. Much of this strength comes from correct respiration, but it’s also a question of personality, of rising to the occasion. (Something Marilyn Horne emphasizes, too, when working with young singers.) “It’s necessary to nourish the sound,” Michèle says.

“You have to have the size [grandeur] as if you were singing with an orchestra,” Michèle said to a young soprano the other day. “Right now, your sound isn’t reaching any further than this.” She gestured about two feet in front of herself. “If you’re singing in an auditorium, you have to reach the audience sitting all the way in the back. This isn’t a studio in the conservatory: you have to be able to sing in big halls and little halls, with different acoustics.”

To another soprano, she said, “You want to sing what? Salome, Elektra? If you keep singing like this, you’ll never get there. You have to start smaller, really work on the fundamentals. It’s like climbing a staircase. You get to one step before you rise to the next.”

I’ve been struck by the widely varying levels of training among these singers (which in turn makes me appreciate American training all the more), and Michèle is alert to this, as well. One reason she dances, she says, is that too many of the young singers don’t seem to feel the rhythm in the music: they’re just hitting the notes. But as she sways, Michèle is also indicating legato, shape, and character.

If she hears a defect in technique, she pounces — literally. She grabs the student, puts her hands where the breath should be coming from, pushes the air out. If that demonstration isn’t sufficient, she places the students’ hands on her own body, then sings. If the flaw is in the articulation, she pokes her fingers in the student’s face. I’ve seldom been more conscious of the physicality of singing: it’s really an athletic exercise, and after a good lesson, the students are energized and glowing.

Michèle’s patience is extraordinary. She’ll listen to a phrase over and over, insisting on repetition until the singer gets it right — then asking for another repeat or two to make sure the phrase is really locked into the singer’s memory.

These ladies really know the score:
Michèle Command & Sylvie Lechevalier-Bartoli with a student.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

Not everybody is an apt pupil. Some simply don’t have the fundamentals yet, and as Michèle says, “Sometimes you have to step back. In two or three, or even seven days, we can’t achieve miracles.” In music as in any other field, some people simply learn better than others do, and I’m finding in Canari that some of the young singers are so deeply invested in their own techniques and interpretations that they block out whatever Michèle and Gabriel Bacquier are trying to tell them. (Sort of makes you wonder why these kids are attending a master class in the first place.)

By contrast, my hero this week is a very young singer who fell in with the wrong teachers and arrived here with dubious technique that seemed designed exclusively to force the kid into the wrong voice type. The results were uncomfortable for singer and for listener: on high notes, the whole body tensed, the shoulders flew up and the chin dropped down, while the voice was directed toward the shoes. But because this kid is willing to learn, I’ve watched phenomenal progress in just a few days, as bad habits fall away and a genuinely attractive voice is liberated.

There’s still a lot of work to be done, but the kid is on the right track at last, and all because of a terrific attitude: the kid is listening as intently as Gaby and Michèle are. It’s beautiful to see.*

Bacquier got hold of the kid first, and tried to demonstrate how, with correct breathing, even an 86-year-old baritone could sing an aria in the kid’s Fach. (Indeed, another of the great pleasures in Canari is hearing Gaby assail repertoire other than his own: his Despina, in 2006, remains one of the highlights of my career in the audience.) But the kid had too much bad technique for this particular lesson to stick, and Gaby’s emphasis in master classes is interpretation. “Go see Michèle,” he advised the kid. “She’s got the patience for this kind of thing — I don’t!”

Gabriel Bacquier: The master in action,
in the 12th-century Church of Sainte-Marie.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

For her part, Michèle says that generosity, rather than patience, is the key element in teaching. (Certainly Gaby has generosity, too, in abundance.) Teachers have “to give something of themselves,” Michèle told me, “to forget one’s own career and to give of oneself. You have to be able to receive. I hear when the students are going to crack, and I try to stop them [before they embarrass themselves]. I can hear how they’re feeling — even over the telephone. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’ ‘But how do you know?’ ‘I hear it in your voice.’”

It’s a spiritual connection, she says, though it may be genetic, too. Her father was a doctor and an excellent diagnostician, and she seems to have inherited his gift.

As I watch her listen, I’m reminded of how great artists can elevate an entire performance just by listening to the others onstage; there are few things more dismal than a singer or actor who engages only when his own mouth is open. What a prodigy Michèle must be onstage!

But there’s a lesson here for other arts, as well, and for life. If I don’t listen to other people, I can’t hear their stories, and so I can’t write them; if I don’t listen to my friends, I’ll never know whether they’re happy or sad, or whether they need me. As I say, I come to Canari to learn, too, and not only about music.

Michèle has been in excellent voice this week, and we’re hoping that she’ll favor us with a few numbers, perhaps at Friday’s concert. In fact, we’ve already picked out (greedily?) the numbers we want to hear: Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. As it happens, Sylvie Lechevalier-Bartoli, who accompanies Michèle’s master classes, has a wonderful feel for these songs. I’m crossing my fingers and making offerings to the gods of music.

Her Command is my wish.
Photo by Rita Scaglia© Used with permission.

*NOTE: I regret to say that I see nothing of myself in this young singer. In writing workshops, I have become absurdly defensive at even the most benign criticism (only later, and privately, to admit the value of the advice I’ve been given). Please permit me to take this opportunity to apologize to the esteemed novelist and teacher Mary Gordon and to promise her that, next time, I’ll try to behave myself better.

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The Festival at Canari, Part 5: Interview with Jacques Scaglia

Photograph by Elizabeth Scaglia©
Used with her sister’s permission.

In writing about Jacques Scaglia, the founder and presiding genius of the Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari, I’m reluctant to refer to Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo. After all, I’ve never seen the movie. Moreover, Klaus Kinski isn’t known for play nice, sane people like Jacques. Still, there’s something more than visionary — something outside the realm of everyday imagination — about bringing operatic singing to a remote location like Cap Corse. Jacques didn’t try to carry a steamboat over a mountain, but he’s done just about every other kind of heavy lifting. Not many other men would do as much.

The results are a great success with the public, and, as I hope I’ve made clear, the Festival has provided me with indelible memories and a closer understanding of music.

Were I to write about Jacques the way that I once wrote about Gabriel Bacquier (in Gaby’s own estimation: “The Americans must have loved reading it, all that sentimental stuff”), then I might describe him as a man in a constant process of giving something back: to music, to Corsica, to youth. It says something about a man who reared five daughters, yet who wants to stay involved with the development of young people’s talents.

Listening to him, I’m struck that his experience closely resembles that of the director of an American festival: Jacques must worry about funding, in a way that other European impresarios seldom do, and the pursuit of sponsors occupies a great deal of his time.

At the close of last year’s Festival, I sat down with Jacques on the terrace of the restaurant Au Bon Clocher, in the hope of learning more about how he got this far, and where the road ahead may take him.

Classy Masters: Scaglia and Bacquier
Photo by Rita Scaglia©
Used with permission

WVM: The seventh festival will be ending soon. Are you happy with it?

JS: Very satisfied. The level of the singers was — with regard to many other competitions — very high. Even the singers who came from abroad and participated said, “We didn’t think to expect this level of skill.” I think that they may have come — and this is my own opinion — thinking, “Oh, if we didn’t win over there [at other competitions], maybe we’ll win in Corsica, because it’s not the same thing at all.” And here they found themselves facing competitors who were even tougher.

WVM: And judges who are very demanding, shall we say? Very serious.

JS: Yes, they’re highly competent, and what’s more, they get along well together, even though it isn’t always the same panel. And for example this year we don’t have only singers. We have, first of all, Gabriel Bacquier; that’s a monstre sacré of judging, with real heart. We see it clearly, between rounds: he takes the singers aside to correct their mistakes, which is terrific. But we have a conductor, who has led all the great forces, from the opera in Berlin to La Scala in Milan, all the great forces. He has conducted often at the Opéra de Paris — New York, too. There you have a man of sovereign judgment, intransigent, who has seen everyone, and listened. [Also, there is] Michèle Command, a great vocal technician, and a great lady, besides. At this competition, there have been quite a few of her pupils. But she has judged with an open mind, without playing favorites at all.

And then, for my part, what I have appreciated this year is to have among the members of the jury a phoniatrist. Because, for one thing, this is a man who has sung, who took singing lessons with good teachers, and what’s more who has [as a physician] cared for many great singers. This means that, a great phoniatrist, in hearing a voice, can say, “This one is forcing, this one isn’t flexible enough, this one is too tight.” And it’s true that this is very important, because it’s really the musical judgment of a doctor. Because a phoniatrist is someone who takes care of the sonority of the voice.

WVM: Exactly. The health of the voice.

JS: So I’m very glad that he’s come, because moreover he’s a very nice guy. I know that this evening he’s going to join us for dinner [at the home of Jacques’ daughter Rita and her husband, Pascal Dolémieux].

“When I started out, people said to me quite simply, ‘In Corsica, if you’re going to do this, you must be crazy.’”

WVM: I know that you want to continue the Festival for as long as possible.

JS: Yes. Of course. Even after my time is finished, if that’s possible.

WVM: So what is the future of the Festival, then?

JS: The future is to find someone who will come after me, and become just as crazy about it as I am. Because you’ve got to go the limit. To do things in Paris or elsewhere, it’s almost easy. But in a setting that is — not hostile, you know, but it’s not really the setting where this sort of thing happens ordinarily — you’ve got to believe a little bit that anything is possible. When I started out, people said to me quite simply, “In Corsica, if you’re going to do this, you must be crazy.” And you’ve seen for yourself that now the whole gang is on board. Truly on board.

So that permits me to think that people are going to say, “You’ve got to teach me how to keep this going.” Because once things are underway — it’s difficult to make things happen, but now, things are already in place. So for the future, so long as I’m in good shape, the Festival will continue in the same fashion, and I hope better and better. Difficult though that may be.

“The Festival lasts one week, but it’s a full year of work. And a full year of worries.”

I’ve already got a few people who are open to the idea. But it’s necessary to be not just crazy but also a bit self-sacrificing. Because I can assure you, the Festival lasts one week, but it’s a full year of work. And a full year of worries. Because the dossiers [grant proposals] — without money, you can’t do anything. We looked for sponsors this year, we made requests to very important people … we got nothing. For the past couple of years — and this makes us very happy — some entities have helped us, including Air France. But apart from them, as far as financial sponsors go, we’ve gotten nothing [new]. But on the other hand, the merit of this is that, the proposals being put together, and we submitted them to the [inaudible] officials. So if they answer, “Okay,” for us, it’s the comfort that comes from reliability. Because it will encourage, over the long term, the events to take place conclusively.

We’ve been doing this for seven years now, and this is the first year that I haven’t had any concerns about the funding. There hasn’t been money to throw around, but for the first time I could distribute the prizes to the singers without having to worry. I could even make arrangements here, during the week — while sometimes there were so many prizes — we could nevertheless convince other people to appear before the audience [to present the prizes]. I even escaped, because you know I don’t like compliments, people who say, “Merci, bravo,” and all that. Before, I used to wait for them. But now, it wears me out more than anything. [Laughter] So everybody understood. And I got away this morning. — And you, how did you find the level of singing?

WVM: The level of singing? Very, very high. Very professional, in fact. But just to linger on the subject a little longer, normally, when we speak of the development of a festival — and yours is still quite young — we speak of expanding it, making it bigger. And here, I wonder whether — the church, for example, doesn’t hold many people.*

JS: I’ll tell you, yesterday I got a bit angry, because there were people talking about the setting, and getting a bigger theater, and there we could do things better. And I said, “Well, we have a way of to do things better.” …Let’s say, let’s put on one concert [at the conclusion of the week of master classes], and the next day a second one, for people who can’t make it to the first. If that happens, the students will really get something out of it. They could get back a little of what they put into the master classes. And for the audience, people who can’t attend the Friday concert, because they have to work, they can take advantage of a show on Saturday evening. That, we’re seriously thinking about. As far as the opera is concerned, when there’s a competition, we can hold the finals on Friday, and the Saturday we’d put on a concert with the prizewinners.

We’ve thought about [producing additional concerts] elsewhere. But I’ll tell you one thing. Rita will say, “Papa, you’re always saying the worst.” But, with respect to what I say, or what others say, look, it’s so little, it can’t put a brake on passion. And it winds up costing nothing. Because for me, my dream is that eventually, the competition winners from Canari will put on a concert in Bastia, before a large audience. I’ve talked to a few people, it’s complicated — for now, I’ve let it drop.

“The intimacy is irreplaceable … as soon as we supersize, we’ll lose that human quality.”

WVM: But it’s a way to enlarge the Festival a bit.

JS: That’s right. What’s happening is that, now, the theater in Bastia has taken notice of what we’re doing. They’re interested. Now, to associate themselves with us, even though it’s not the same area, we have different operatic activities, there’s talk of copying us, and that pains me, because, in fact, we were the trailblazers. But it’s true that, if we work there, if we put on a concert there, we’d get a bigger audience than we’d get [with an extra concert] in the next village over. But it would mean a sacrifice.

WVM: In fact, the charm of the Festival is the size, the intimacy. The chance to get to know the singers very well, over the course of the week, both in the master classes and in the competitions. To get to know Bacquier and Michèle Command, et cetera.

JS: The intimacy is irreplaceable.

“‘What the audience couldn’t see was what went on backstage, that the rivals were affectionate friends.’”

WVM: The chance to get to know the singers and the art, I find that absolutely wonderful.

JS: And as soon as we supersize, we’ll lose that human quality. I saw an article I liked very much, and it ended by saying that “what the audience couldn’t see was what went on backstage, that the rivals were affectionate friends.” That really touched me. Because he said [the singers] were hugging each other. This year, though, we felt that less. I don’t know why.

I think perhaps there were singers who said to themselves, “After all, [winning the prize money] will give me something to live off of for a couple of months. That would be good.” So there’s a connection — a bit of an anti-connection — with regard to the material needs, too, because [the economic climate] is making it more and more difficult for young people who want to sing. So automatically, when they win a competition, they can breathe easier.**

What amused me the most, yesterday, was that the Canadian — you saw her, she’s adorable — when I said to her, “Karin, I have to write out your check,” she answered, “Oh, that’s right, I won!” [Laughter] “That’s right, I won!” We were very happy that this one won. Already at the semifinal she was excited, we weren’t sure she could handle the thrill. But she was so charming, and her singing was so artistic and so musical. She looked good onstage, too.

WVM: I’m looking for my words in French, but if there’s a downside to intimacy here, there are times I suppose when, if an artist doesn’t win the competition or doesn’t perform well in the master classes, it can be difficult. Because we get to know them so well. You have to find something to say, try to be nice. Many of them are very nice, and we know that. Is that hard for you?

JS: No. In the master classes, for starters, we take twelve singers. Which means they all come to the convent. They’re all in the same place, and they’re all studying together. That stimulates conviviality. They can also get together to raise a glass of rosé in a toast from time to time. A few years ago, a Mexican soprano came to the master classes, and at the end she said to me, “What I really didn’t expect was this conviviality among us all.” In spite of everything [stresses, competitiveness, differing critical perceptions of other singers’ work], there’s the sea, the mountain, people who take care to shake everyone by the hand when they run into you. We’re not quite like what you usually find in other places.

“We’re not quite like what you usually find in other places.”

And you can appreciate that. From sunup to sundown, [the singers] have the same enthusiasm, which is perfect. And what’s more, each time we hold master classes, they ask me, “Can you send me the list of the singers, with all their names.” And they correspond with each other. Recently, I received an e-mail from Jean-François Borras, the tenor, who was singing in a production of Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in Rouen. I got such a kick out of it, because it was one of those mass e-mails where you can see all the other people’s addresses — and there were all the singers from the master classes [in 2006]. Really, that’s a holy communion! [Laughs.]

WVM: Let’s say — I’m thinking of one singer in particular from this year, who was eliminated early. She seemed fairly bitter, not very happy with that decision. You didn’t feel any awkwardness around her?

JS: No, because, for starters, nothing’s perfect, but I like people. And above all, I like to help developing singers. Because I know how much singers suffer when they run into a failure. Let’s not even talk about a vocal failure, where you can really feel a singer falling into the abyss. But say a failure where they didn’t win but they felt they did well; they really knocked themselves out. The mistake for them is to say, “This competition isn’t really a competition; there were certain people in collusion, judges — conductors or impresarios — who had an interest in promoting certain other singers.” But it’s true there have been people who felt extremely bitter, and who deserved better than their lot.

“You have to start with what you really are, and then to deepen that by being coherent about it.”

Beyond that, I know the person you’re thinking about, she had a hard time choosing her arias for the elimination rounds. Because you have to build to a crescendo. But in my opinion, you have to start with what you really are, and then to deepen that by being coherent about it, by giving a linear performance. And not by making massive leaps. It’s enough afterward to sustain the impression made at the beginning, to enlarge and to embellish it according to one’s vocal comportment and technique.…

WVM: But they’re judged on their performances throughout the competition, and not only for the finals.

JS: Exactly. But sometimes, you know, at a competition like […], for example, they don’t even get to sing an entire aria. As soon as the judges have heard enough, [they stop the singers]. One juror told me, “Two minutes is enough.” But you’ve also got to feel everything that’s going on, not just the voice. There’s everything in the background.

WVM: The action, et cetera.

JS: Everything else that’s going on. But this year, there were perhaps some singers who deserved better than they got. In my opinion. But there were also some others who surprised me. I used to have a colleague who often said about a particular project, “It’s a big world, and you can’t please everybody.” [Laughs.]

WVM: Ultimately, every judgment is personal.

JS: It’s simplistic, but that doesn’t bother me.

“I like people. And above all, I like to help developing singers.”

WVM: You also used to sing, and I’d really like to know whether there are moments when your experience as a singer helps you in managing the Festival.

JS: I’ll tell you, I think you already know this, I’ve had a highly atypical life. When I was young, I was able to find some good teachers, such as Vladimir Karavia, who was the partner of [legendary Russian bass Feodor] Chaliapin, who was a formidable man. He expressed admiration for me when I was 18. That’s crazy, somebody who inspires admiration at the age of 18, that doesn’t happen. So I had that to start out with, and then there was a Romanian tenor called Emilio Marinescu, who sang with the opera in Marseille. By then I was 19, and he said, “But it’s incredible. The voice is beautiful.” I had been to Conservatory [in Marseille], but that doesn’t mean anything.

And then what made up my mind was that I came back to Corsica. [The local people] helped me out, so that I could study in Paris or — and then, my poor mother, who was a widow by this time, and my brother said, “But after all, why not give Milan a shot?” I left for Milan, I studied for three and a half years at La Scala, where I acquired a technique typical of the 1950s.

“During the rehearsal, I had my head stuck between [the soprano’s] breasts, and I really thought I had no business being there.”

After that, circumstances demanded that, first of all — this was the era of Gabriel Bacquier in 1958, at the Festival d’Aix [en Provence], when he made his big splash. One of the directors was Gabriel Dussurget, who heard me and said, “It’s an interesting voice.” And his friend, a great specialist, said, “Yes, but Gabriel, he’s a midget!” [Laughter.]

That had no effect on me, but the second trauma, as far as my height goes, was also in France. I had some friends who were taller. And this was at the Opéra de Marseille, when I auditioned to sing Silvio in Pagliacci. The Nedda was a soprano who was as tall as this. During the rehearsal, I had my head stuck between her breasts, and I really thought I had no business being there. I thought, “I’ll never get out of this.”

And I won’t try to hide it, I had stage fright. Every time I had to sing, I’d get sick two days before. Sick, but so sick — you can’t imagine the stage fright. Was I insecure about myself? It’s possible. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had that stage fright.

So, I quit singing, I abandoned it to pursue something completely different, you know.*** Then, by the time I turned 53, it was time to think about my retirement. I thought, “What’s going to happen?” The retirement age is 55. And then I had the idea to take up singing again, after all. So there I was, in Paris, in front of a mirror. And two sayings came back to me.

“It was time to think about my retirement … and then I had the idea to take up singing again.”

One is when we singers were working with the maestro in Milan. And when I dug into a song, it wasn’t horrible, but physically, it didn’t make me happy. Discouraged, I thought of José di [?], who said this to me — I was 23 at the time — “You’re 23, but you manage your voice like somebody who’s been in the business for 20 years.” So that encouraged me for a while.

And then my wife, Evelyne, was saying, “But it’s crazy, don’t you realize? You never wanted to [sing] before. How are you going to manage?” You see, on the one hand there was the part of me that wanted to sing, and on the other, it seemed as if the moment had passed. Then, by accident, one day in Paris, I was singing “Eri tu” from Un Ballo in Maschera. She opened the door and said to me, “That was wonderful! I thought you’d never do it.”

Jacques Scaglia found a pianist in Paris to accompany his lessons, and in turn he started to give singing lessons to her boyfriend. One thing led to another, and soon, he had 20 students.

JS: …And that’s how I met Michèle [Command, who teaches voice at the Conservatoire de Paris]. She said, “Who is this baritone that I keep hearing about all day?” And so we became great friends.

When I got to the village [in Corsica], I had a student who sang very well, but because she was my daughter, as soon as I said anything, she’d contradict me…. I called Michèle, and I said, “I’ve got a girl with a superb voice, a real musician. But she’s so stubborn, we wind up arguing over nothing for an hour at a time. Can I send her to you?”

She said, “Listen, what the heck do you expect from her?”

“She said, ‘What are you waiting for? Why don’t you start a singing competition?’”

In those days, I didn’t have the cats.**** I had my voice lessons, I had students who were coming from Bastia, and I’d go to Bastia. I wasn’t bored….

[Michèle Command] said, “What are you waiting for? Why don’t you start a singing competition? If you start a singing competition, Gaby and I will come.”

In the meantime, the mayor had asked me to come before the town council.… The convent had just been restored, and he said, “Do we have any ideas?” I said, “I’ve got an idea: a singing competition.”

WVM: So it was really an evolution —

JS: A number of things that came together. The restored convent — do something that could be promoted, but there wasn’t much space. We needed to find an event sufficiently interesting on a cultural level, so that we could obtain the necessary funding. That’s why we’re funded by the Centre Culturel.

“From the first year, we were in luck.”

So then, from the first year, we were in luck. Even at the town council, a guy said to me, “I believed in it. If we can’t do this, we can’t do anything.…”

It takes a lot of work, you’ve really got to throw yourself into it. You’ve got to enjoy it. In these cases, the grant proposals have to be very reliable, they have to signal professionalism, so that they don’t give the impression you’re just somebody putting on a village fair. And here I think that, from the beginning, we’ve been lucky — a bit crazy though I may be — in our commitments, in everything I commit to do, I’m very meticulous, very careful. That takes a lot of time, because I’m slower than somebody whose skills are more directly related than mine. But in the end, by applying myself, it’s working out. This year, for example, they gave us funding even before it was brought up at the meeting. And the Conseil Général gave me money even before I submitted my proposal….

So I said to myself, “Hey, this is good.” It gives me peace of mind. …I’m talking a bit about the technical side of things, but it’s to tell you what kinds of difficulties when you want to create something of this kind, and you’re in a small village, and especially when it’s something new.

WVM: The idea of a festival here is at once perfectly logical and crazy.

JS: With regard to what you have to do to make it happen.

WVM: It’s fascinating to hear this. And frankly, I didn’t know what to expect, the first time I came here. I didn’t know you in those days, and I said to myself, “Hmmm, a singing festival in a little village like that?” It’s true that Bacquier’s reputation inspired me a bit.

“In the competitions, each member of the jury brings something important … and that adds more and more.”

JS: Among other things, what pleases me very much, in the competitions and the master classes, Gaby and Michèle are brilliant. But in the competitions, each member of the jury brings something important. They’re expected to bring something, and that adds more and more.

WVM: It’s really not just some little festival or other, at the far end of the world. Not at all. As I say, it’s simultaneously logical and crazy.

JS: Yes. There’s something magical about it.

WVM: Yes — but without the improbable aspect [of magic].

JS: An integrated mixture of [musical] material and setting. And tomorrow, we’ll have a change of scenery. Yesterday, I was worn out, I went home. What was funny, I said to myself, “Good, tomorrow we won’t have any kind of reception.” But everybody followed me. My wife, and all these people. So I didn’t really get away from anybody. Just as well. [Laughter.]

WVM: Congratulations, and thanks for speaking with me.



*NOTE: In fact, the Church of Saint-François is often packed to the rafters during the Festival, particularly for both the end-of-week concert of master-class students and the final concert of the vocal competition, when prizes are announced.

**Scaglia’s implication was that, until the competition was over, the singers were perhaps too tense or too wrapped up in their own work to make connections among themselves, as they had done in previous years.

***Scaglia was for many years an executive with the Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), the entity that oversees betting on horseracing in France.

****Nowadays, nobody is really sure how many cats Jacques Scaglia has in his home; it’s the household equivalent of a wildlife refuge.

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The Festival at Canari, Part 4: Being There

So what’s on the program for this year’s Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari? A surprise guest, for starters: legendary French coloratura soprano Renée Doria will be in attendance. As Stephen Mudge’s interview with her in the August 2010 issue of OPERA NEWS makes clear, Mme Doria is abundantly equipped with insight and opinions, and though she won’t be conducting any master classes, she’s certain to share her perspectives — a rare opportunity to learn, as well as an unexpected treat.

This being an even-numbered year, the Festival will be given over to master classes conducted by soprano Michèle Command and baritone Gabriel Bacquier, focusing on technique and interpretation, respectively. All the classes are open to the public, and culminate in a concert on Friday, 10 September. This provides a remarkable opportunity to watch young artists learning, developing, and displaying their talents over one week of intensive work.

Belle, éternellement: Renée Doria

The program is as follows: Michèle Command will direct the first session with the students (Saturday, 4 September, 3:00 to 8:00 PM), concentrating on vocal technique, breathing, posture, articulation, projection, and placement of the voice, range, and tessitura. You will never again take good singing for granted.

Gabriel Bacquier will guide students toward repertory choices best suited to their vocal quality, color and character, their personalities, timbre, and vocal strength. Throughout the classes, he’ll instruct them in the best ways to interpret the selected repertory. This is a show in itself.

La Master Class
Photo by Rita Scaglia©
Used with permission.

For the next few days, students will work closely with both teachers in morning (9:00 to 12:00) and afternoon (4:00 to 7:00 PM) sessions. Typically, Michèle Command holds forth in the sanctuary of the Convent, while Gabriel Bacquier presides over the cloister. (Sunday, 5 September, through noon on Thursday, 9 September.)

The long break between morning and evening classes is absolutely necessary, not only to the stamina of the artists involved, but also because lunch in Corsica is not (and should not be) a quickie affair.

On Thursday afternoon, rehearsals begin for the big concert (3:00 to 8:00 PM), with a dress rehearsal beginning at the ungodly hour of 9:00 on Friday morning. Most professional singers I know are unaware that there is such a thing as 9:00 AM on the day of a performance, but these young artists are a hardy lot, and they’re not trying to blow the roof off the Convent. Not yet.

Le Concert
Seated in the front row: Jacques Scaglia, Michèle Command, Gabriel Bacquier
Photo by Rita Scaglia©
Used with permission.

At 4:00 PM on Friday, 10 September, the closing concert begins. Seating space is limited, so you’ll want to get there early.

Afterward, there’s a cocktail party (usually in the cloister, weather permitting), where you can compare notes with your fellow audience members and congratulate the young artists, as well as the indefatigable pianists, Sylvie Lechevalier-Bartoli and Olivier Cangelosi, who will have played, hour after hour, day after day, repertory from Gluck to Gershwin, Mozart to Massenet.

What the official program doesn’t fully suggest is how much fun all this is. The physical beauty of the setting — the man-made convent contrasting with the natural wonders of the rocks, trees, and sea — corresponds to the beauty of music, in which natural sound is shaped and directed by art. The air is invigorating, the personalities captivating, the experience pretty much unforgettable. Do you wonder that I’m so enthusiastic?

WVM with Gabriel Bacquier.
I know I’ve used this picture here before,
but it’s one of my proudest possessions. Deal with it.

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The Festival at Canari, Part 3: Getting There

One of the great charms of the Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari is the improbability of its location. Not only is it on an island, it’s in a remote part of Corsica, the Cap Corse at the northernmost tip of the island, accessible only by narrow, winding roads. The old method of getting around — a donkey — has a great deal to recommend itself, but nowadays, most people prefer to drive cars. And most Corsicans prefer to drive fast.

However, you’re not advised to drive to Corsica — at the least, you will want to find some vehicle other than a car in order to cross the Mediterranean. On previous visits, I took an airplane, but last year, I took the ferry back and forth. These represented the longest trips I’ve taken by boat, and while the accommodations on Corsica Ferries are more like those of the Love Boat than those of Caesar’s galleys, I was nevertheless consumed with the romance of that ancient sea.

Preferred transport of Jacques Martin’s Alix

For one thing, the Mediterranean really is that shade of blue that bears its name. One can see the color from the coast, of course, but it’s really striking when you’re surrounded by miles of it. Then, as you approach the craggy shores of Corsica, their rainbow rocks warmed by the touch of the rosy-fingered dawn, you sense what centuries of seafarers, conquerors and pirates must have felt: wonder.

This will, inevitably, put you in the mood to hear good music. So it is just as well that you were planning to attend the Festival.

Canari, with only a few hundred year-round residents, boasts no Club Med, Hôtel Ibis, or other conventional commercial tourist lodgings; rooms can be rented in gîtes (rural bed-and-breakfast accommodations), at the Auberge du Pêcheur, and in the Convent of Saint François itself, but most of these are reserved for participants in the Festival. When you go, you’ll need to scout out inns and B&B — or even bona fide hotels. (The Corsican tourist office can be found here; one specialist in area rentals can be found here.) These lodgings may require a bit of driving when you’re ready to attend Festival events, but on the other hand, this makes it easier to explore the beautifully unspoiled coast.

Sunset in Canari, with a view of the Clocher.
(Photo by WVM)

Dining options in the village are somewhat similarly limited, and the restaurant closest to the Convent, Au Bon Clocher, is packed at lunch and suppertime. Attached to the Auberge du Pêcheur, with a spectacular view of the eponymous bell-tower and the Mediterranean beyond, the Bon Clocher specializes in fresh seafood (diners pick out their fish from a platter piled with the day’s catch) and typical Corsican cuisine, or cuisine with a Corsican accent (such as the Canneloni au brocciu, a local sheep’s milk cheese). The owners, Henriette and Francis, and the chef, Ange, earnestly attempt to adapt their hours to the Festival’s schedule, whereas other local restaurants don’t necessarily make the effort: I have yet to eat anywhere else in town, because most places are closed by the time I emerge from the Festival. In some ways, Canari is still adjusting to the notion that a seasonal international tourist attraction has taken up residence there.

(Photo by WVM)

If you’re traveling by plane, Air France provides frequent service between Paris and Bastia, where you can rent a car. There’s also service from other cities in France.

Corsica Ferries sail from Nice, Toulon, and Marseille, docking at Bastia and Ajaccio — where you can rent a car if you didn’t bring your own.

Be advised that, when traveling either by air or by boat, you’re subjecting yourself to the vagaries of labor unrest both French (demands for earlier retirement, bigger pensions, shorter hours, higher pay, fluffier pillows) and Corsican (absolutely inscrutable to anyone who isn’t Corsican).

If you prefer not to rent a car, your options are few. Like much of Corsica, this area is frequented by hikers (mostly English) and bikers (mostly insane), but for the rest of us, the exertions required aren’t worth the candle.

And now you’re ready for the Festival!

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The Festival at Canari, Part 2: Michèle Command

Irrésistible.
Photo by Pascal Dolémieux©
Used with permission

At the Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari, Michèle Command is no-nonsense in her master classes (even-numbered years) and even more serious on the jury panel at the Festival’s singing competitions (odd-numbered years). And yet she’s nothing less than delicious — the best word I can find to describe her.

Last year, she gave me a fascinating glimpse of her character when she recalled her childhood. To hear her tell it, she was a sort of Tom Sawyer, albeit French and female. The leader of a small gang of kids, she conducted thrilling expeditions in the forest, raids on neighbors’ gardens, and all manner of contests of physical derring-do at the swimming hole. Though she was brought up in a proper, churchgoing home, she was a child of nature, a spitfire and a bit of a rebel. She still is.

She is so pretty! But don’t mistake her for a china doll. Yes, she has dainty hands — but they’re hardworking, because she’s a visual artist and hardcore gardener, too. (Ask her about her tractor sometime.) Yes, she has beautiful eyes — but watch out when they start to flash. And yes, she has a refined, perfectly placed voice — which she uses not only to sing but to communicate an acerbic, slyly disarming sense of humor.

The more I know of her and her ideas about music, theater, and art — and life — the more I regret that I never saw her in performance. Before coming to Canari, all I knew of her was a handful of (very good) recordings, mostly in small-ish roles. (If she made any video, it hasn’t shown up on YouTube.) Seeing her at work, I understand that the quality of those recordings didn’t come about by accident.

In master classes, she gives hints of what she must be like onstage. The music absorbs her, and she listens not only with her ears but with her whole self. She’s constantly analyzing, questioning, exploring. Physically and vocally, she’s graceful, centered. Her posture is flawless, yet without apparent effort: even when she’s standing ramrod straight at full attention, she’s not posing, she’s poised, ready to leap into action. She will go where the music tells her.

With those who are willing to learn, she shows infinite patience, but not the sort that makes excuses. “Try it again,” she says, making the student repeat passages over and over until he gets it right — and then again, once he understands what he’s supposed to do. Her standards are among the highest I’ve known. (She also teaches at the Conservatoire in Paris.) And yet, when she encounters genuine talent (like the Monegasque tenor Jean-François Borras, who came to the Festival in 2006), she keeps a level head. No gushing, no sighing, and never, ever fawning. One grasps instantly that her praise is carefully considered, fair and sincere, and all the more valuable in consequence.

Certain things are important to her, and she takes them seriously — art above all. That doesn’t mean there’s no room for fun and games, for jokes and stunts and pirate raids. But her very being reminds me that only when you’ve done your homework can you find true freedom. Perhaps needless to say, I’m smitten with her.

And so, if ever you chance upon Michèle Command in a leafy bower, be assured that she’s not a Fragonard shepherdess, just languishing there. She’s landscaping. And by heavy lifting, vigorous digging, and judicious pruning, she will leave that glade more beautiful than she found it.

My photos don’t do her justice.
Photo by WVM©
Used with audacity

NOTE: You can hear Michèle Command in several excerpts from a collection of lullabies, recorded recently with accordionist Jacques Bolognesi, by going here. The warmth and color of her voice really are extraordinary.

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The Festival at Canari, Part 1: Master Classes

A young singer in the Convent of Saint François.
This and all photographs here by Rita Scaglia.©
Used with permission.

This is the first in a series of articles I’ll be posting here on the Festival International du Chant Lyrique de Canari, in Corsica, culminating in an interview I conducted last year with the Festival’s founder, Jacques Scaglia.

This year’s Festival runs from 4–10 September. I’ve been lucky enough to attend three times (in 2006, 2007, and 2009), witnessing both the singing competition and the master classes conducted by soprano Michèle Command and baritone Gabriel Bacquier. This year being an even-numbered year, master classes are again the order of the day, and at the Festival, these are something truly special.

Much of this specialness is due to the participation of Madame Command and Maestro Bacquier, two phenomenal artists bound by a profoundly serious attitude toward their work — and by an equally profound joy in music. Their tastes are exacting, their classes rigorous. Officially, Mme Command focuses on technique, while Bacquier focuses on interpretation, but in practice, there’s a good deal of overlap between the two.

Watching Gaby for even a few minutes, one quickly realizes that, for him, there’s no way to separate technique and interpretation: neither discipline will work properly without the other. A singing actor can’t perform the expressive physical gesture that reveals character, if she hasn’t got the breath support to move while singing a particular passage; an acting singer will lose the audience’s interest (or indulgence) if he’s hitting consistently sour notes or garbling the text.

Bacquier with a student, 2006

Thus, Gaby and Michèle don’t function so much as a perfectly balanced yin and yang, with a distinct boundary between them, but as an organic whole. Yes, their teaching styles are different, on the surface: Michèle is tough but fair, and you don’t hear a lot of laughter in her classes, whereas Gaby is forever interjecting humorous asides, hopping out of his chair to demonstrate whatever idea has popped into his head, playing to the crowd. (While Michèle is very funny, too, she generally saves the laughs for later.) But over the course of a week of classes, one sees that the two masters are coming from the same place, and aiming for the same goals.

“Color” is the goal they talk about most often, the matching of sound to emotional character. It’s a concept I’d appreciated but not really thought much about, prior to my visits to Canari; since then, however, I’ve learned that finding the right color is the nearly obsessive quest of all of my singing friends and of the artists I have always admired most.

The young singers who attend Gaby and Michèle’s classes are at different stages of their careers: some students, some professionals, some amateurs. They bring several arias or mélodies to work on, with the idea that, by the end of the week, they’ll have narrowed their repertory down to a single piece to be performed in a concert before the public. Gaby and Michèle already know every number by heart, which shouldn’t be surprising, given their vast experience, and yet it is, in its way, astonishing. They have devoted their lives to this music, picking it apart, unlocking its secrets, putting it back together, polishing it, and putting it on display. And now they come to Corsica to share their knowledge with a new generation. That’s as a master class ought to be.

Gaby in action.

The classes take place in a convent, connected to a church built in 1505. Most days, when the weather is warm enough, Gaby holds court in the cloister, while Michèle takes the chapel. This may help to explain why I get a sense not only of scholarly purpose (as if I were spying on a music conservatory) but also of an almost priestly devotion. Not all of the young singers are destined for stardom, or even much of a career in opera. But each has made a commitment to the art of singing. For this week, at least, each has a true and sincere vocation.

As an audience member, I learn a great deal from these classes. Because the really good singers make it all look easy (most of the time), I may forget or take for granted how much work goes into a performance. A singer doesn’t just open her score and sing perfectly the first time out; she may spend weeks or even years to find the right color for each note. Instead, she must undergo a process of trial and error, of exploration and study. The great ones have an instinct, and develop it over time, but the work — like the discipline — remains necessary.

Moreover, I come away from the master classes with a new appreciation of even the most familiar music. There is simply no way I will ever spend as much time thinking about the Jewel Song from Faust, for example, as Gaby and Michèle have: with each repetition of the aria, they give me new ways of looking at the song, and of hearing it. The next time I go to the opera house or concert hall, my criteria will be a little smarter and better refined: I’ll get more out of the music I hear.

I never went to conservatory. Since I can neither sing nor play an instrument, and since I have scant aptitude for music, there wouldn’t have been much for me to do there; and as yet, no school offers a degree in Advanced Stage-Door Johnnying. But for these hours in the village of Canari, thanks to the aegis of Jacques Scaglia’s Festival, I can make up for a few gaps in my education.

Oh — and the students learn something, too.

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Gabriel Bacquier

At play in the fields of the Lord: Bacquier in Canari
Photo by Rita Scaglia, 2006.
Used with permission

At 84, Gabriel Bacquier, the veteran French baritone, may be the world’s oldest 14-year-old. It’s impossible to convey in mere words the force of his vitality, his naughty sense of humor, his roguish charm, the sheer fun of him, all the more startling when coupled with the exquisite taste and exacting standards of one of the world’s great singers. Yet I’ve tried to describe him, notably in an article for Opera News that appeared in July of this year. (That article appears in a subscriber-only portion of the magazine’s website, so I can’t provide a link.) Meeting him again at the Festival du Chant Lyrique du Cap Corse, one year after our first encounter, I am more than ever smitten with him — casting aside Dan Rather’s oft-repeated warning that a journalist should never fall in love with a story. But I neither apologize for nor regret my surrender. A combination of Falstaff and Father Christmas, he is quite simply irresistible.

The Festival alternates between a series of master classes one year and a vocal competition the next. The master classes found Bacquier at his exuberant best, in full command not only of his own vast repertoire but everyone else’s too. He knew all the lyrics by heart, and he seldom checked a single note in the score: on those rare occasions, his recollection was proven invariably correct. Very often he’d demonstrate bits of musical or theatrical interpretation, even of roles he never played. Although he insists he’s retired, I’d hire him in a minute for Leporello — or Pinkerton, or (most especially) Despina. His patience with even the least promising singers was boundless, and, as I wrote in my article, he engaged constantly with the audience. Between numbers, he regaled us with anecdotes and bawdy cabaret numbers, the best of which was a meditation on the differing qualities of his mistresses’ pubic hair.

Many retired singers live like Miss Havisham, obsessed with the past, pouncing on visitors to relive dusty triumphs. Their conversation, like their memoirs, takes on a “And then I sang” quality that, so far from justifying our interest in them, seems desperate and sad. “Don’t forget me” is the subtext. There’s none of that with Bacquier. He’s thrilled to have an audience — even nominal retirement can’t change the spots of this theater animal — but it’s not about gratifying his own needs. Entertaining is something Bacquier does for us, not for himself, and he lives entirely in the present. He’s abetted in this by his wife, the soprano and teacher Michèle Command, and by his zesty appetite for life: art, music, food, wine, conversation, flirting with pretty women.

Egalement irrésistible: Michèle Command

The competition obliged Bacquier to take a more sedate role, presiding over the jury at a long table. Even so, he pulled singers aside to coach them. This isn’t kosher at most competitions, because it makes objective judging all the more difficult, as Mme Command tartly observed. But “c’est plus fort que moi,” Bacquier told me.

He pronounced himself pleased with my article, and he repeated that “The Americans must have loved reading it,” because “there was so much sentimental stuff.” I take it that a French writer would not have discussed his affair with Mme Command and its effect on his career, bringing him back to France at the moment his managers wanted to make a worldwide star of him, a French Pavarotti. But all I did was repeat the story he told me, and I wonder how anybody could have done it differently. The French, they are a funny race of music writers, but surely they know a good story when they hear it.

He recorded extensively, and he sings on several of the first albums I ever owned. Most of these are on vinyl, and in storage in Connecticut, so I seized the opportunity to buy a few CDs here in France and acquaint myself further with his work. What’s most striking is the naturalness of his delivery, as if he were speaking a role in the theater. He studied acting under the great Louis Jouvet (“Bizarre, bizarre”) at the Conservatoire de Paris. (Jouvet never took him seriously, because he was a voice student, Bacquier recalls, and he used to drive the singers crazy by pretending to pick his nose, then wiping his finger on the piano keyboard. It's not hard to imagine Bacquier doing the same.) But he says the breakthrough in his interpretation came with two operatic roles, Don Giovanni and Golaud in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. He realized that the real meat of the music lay not in big arias — Giovanni has only a couple, Golaud none — but in Mozart’s recitative and Debussy’s quasi-parlando ruminations. The next discovery was that every role, in every opera, and every French mélodie contained comparable material.

Thus even when he’s singing a big aria, when he’s hitting a money note or executing some elaborate phrase, you hardly notice, so caught up are you in the detailed psychological portrait he draws. No matter how booming the passage, there’s an interior stillness in his voice. His respect for text illuminates every note, and he insists that it’s easier to hit a note if you pronounce the text properly. “The composers knew what they were doing,” he told me, “and they wouldn’t have written the same music to different words. They chose these texts to express their musical ideas.”

I regret that the only role I ever saw him play was Don Pasquale, because his Giovanni, his Leporello, his Golaud and his Falstaff, his Iago and his Scarpia must have been astonishing onstage. (Bits of his Count Almaviva and his Spalanzani show up on YouTube.) His repertory was so vast, from Mozart to Mussorgsky to Charles Trenet, that you’d have to staple yourself to him to see Bacquier in all his facets. But they’re all still with him, not dusty souvenirs but living aspects of his personality. Much of the pleasure of meeting him is like the pleasure of meeting Anna Russell: the artist I admired in my boyhood is still very much present and active.

Though he was born in Béziers and lives near Paris, Corsica seems like the right place for him, and the island’s raw beauty, its extravagant colors, vertiginous contours and bracing air find their match in him.

When Gaby met Billy: Reunited in Corsica

He has begun to call me Billy. In my life, only two other people have gotten away with that. The first was my aunt, Kay Crabb, who died in a plane crash when I was 16, and the nickname pretty much died with her. But once Fredd Tree, like the Mikado, has made up his mind to do a thing, it is done, and he calls me Billy, too. So it’s a select group, the Billy Trio, three people as different from one another as possible in every respect except my affection for them. I daresay they are unaware of one another’s existence, and they wouldn’t quite know what to make of one another if they ever met. Yet they might be pleased by the company, after all, and I have been uplifted by theirs.

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