John
McVeigh
The
singer discusses
his unique identification with Will Tweedy
By Robert
Wilder Blue
It
took a month and several e-mails, but USOperaWeb finally tracked
down tenor John McVeigh in Montpelier, France, where he was performing with
Christophe Rousset. In April 2000, John created the role of Will Tweedy in
the world premiere of Cold Sassy Tree by Carlisle
Floyd. John talked about his background and about the opera, and as he
did so, something odd began to happen. As he revealed the many similarities
between his own life and the fictional life of Will Tweedy, we constantly
had to backtrack to clarify whether John was talking about himself or about
Will.
"There are so many parallels between Cold Sassy Tree and my childhood
life. I grew up in Manchester, Connecticut, in a large, extended family, German
on my mom's side and Irish on my dad's side. My grandfather, my mom's dad,
had a farm. Most of the family lived within a 200-yard radius of his house;
our house was next door and I had aunts and uncles and cousins who lived down
the street. It was always a family event at grandpa's house -- we would walk
in any time of day or night and someone was always there and there would always
be food on the stove. The feeling of the whole family being together at grandpa's
house was always something very special.
"Everyone helped with the farm work. On Memorial Day, the whole family
would come and plant the fields (my favorite thing was riding on the tractor
with grandpa) and throughout the summer we took turns caring for the crops.
At the end of summer we harvested and sold the produce and Labor Day was the
time for tilling the earth back under for next season. During the winter,
grandpa had an enormous greenhouse where he used to germinate young plants
for the spring as well as raise houseplants to sell.
"I remember my grandfather as an old, crotchety, but strong, German man
with a full head of hair and a belly from drinking and eating too much! Sometimes,
he could be stern and very harsh. I remember I used to roll cigarettes for
him in old-fashioned rolling machine.
"The last time I saw my grandfather was on a break from college. He was
dying from cancer and was thin, hairless, feeble and soft! -- soft being the
key word. It was a very hard day for me. The death scene in Cold Sassy
Tree is so difficult for me as a result. When we were doing the production
in Houston and we finally
got into costume and makeup to rehearse the scene where Rucker is on his deathbed,
I looked down at Dean (Peterson), who was playing Rucker, and I saw my grandfather.
And tears were coming down out of my eyes. It was a neat moment. I sang at
my own grandfather's funeral, so the funeral scene in the opera is also very
real for me.
"Even though my family wasn't musical, I always had an interest in music.
I could sing from an early age and I did all the school things. My grandpa
never encouraged my singing (in fact, he didn't know much about it) but he
never discouraged me from doing anything either. I was fortunate to have a
couple of teachers in high school who encouraged me to take it seriously.
I started taking voice lessons and I did the competitions - all-state, all-New
England and those things, and was ranking top in them. In my senior year,
my voice teacher asked me what I was thinking of doing after high school.
I was in a rock band at the time and I knew that was short-lived. I had done
all the musical theater productions, but I didn't think that was for me -
I thought that if your eyebrow was out of place, you weren't going to get
hired. That left opera; but I had never even seen an opera. So, I went to
see Madama Butterfly in Hartford, Connecticut, and as I was sitting
there I said to myself, 'I could do that!' So that's what I decided to do
and damnit! I was going to do it! I set out to prove to myself and to everyone
else that I could do it.
That intense focus served John well while he was pursuing his training and
his early career. "In 1996, I was sitting across the street from the
Met with my then-manager, and I pointed over to the Met and asked her what
I needed to do to get there within five years. I wanted to know who I should
sing for, what repertory I needed to learn and what steps to take to accomplish
that. I had a contract six months later! I really had blinders on during that
period. One thing was interesting: Allan Glassman had sung Pinkerton in that
production of Butterfly in Hartford and when I made my Met
debut (as Pang in Turandot), I was wearing his costume!
John was accepted in the Houston Opera Studio and it was there that met Carlisle
Floyd. He was singing the role of Elder Hayes in the Houston Grand Opera
production of Susannah. "Cold Sassy Tree was being talked
about then and they put me on hold for the role of Will. But, it wasn't until
after I had left the Studio and returned to do Billy Budd that it was
definite and they said that they wanted me to do it. Carlisle called me and
asked me to come in to read the libretto for him. So I read it with him and
I thought it was amazing. Carlisle asked me if I had read the book and I told
him I had started it. He told me to stop. He said it wasn't the same as the
libretto and he wanted me to come up with my own ideas about Will Tweedy."
In the opera, Will is the grandson of Rucker Lattimore, the leading citizen
of Cold Sassy, Georgia. Three weeks after his wife dies, Rucker marries Love
Simpson, who is young enough to be his daughter. Nearly everyone disapproves,
most of all Rucker's two daughters. But, Will comes to know Love better and
to understand the relationship between Love and his grandfather.
"It is very a through-composed character. A lot of the part is narrated
by the "old" Will Tweedy. It's a really interesting character line
to play -- he takes kind of a hairpin turn. The "young" Will Tweedy
ends up at the end of the show where the "old" Will Tweedy - the
narrator - was at the beginning of the show. It is the most complete role
I have performed, both musically and dramatically.
"During the development process of Cold Sassy Tree, there was
a presentation with two pianos, one playing the orchestral accompaniment and
the other playing the vocal lines. There was no singing, but we all had scores
so we could read the words. After the playing of the scene in the second act
where Love Simpson confesses to Rucker that she had been raped, people were
in tears. Every rehearsal I have been in for that scene, whether people are
singing full-out or not, there has not been a time when I didn't cry during
that scene, and everyone watching cried also. That is a great testament to
Carlisle and the power of his music. Can you tell I am a big fan?
"But he writes some damned hard music! He has my character jumping all
over the staff. There are moments where it is really light and lyric, because
you have to sound like a boy. But then there is an aria in the last act, after
his grandpa has died, that is a full-out dramatic aria.
"The most challenging aspect about the piece, however, are the narratives
Carlisle has written for Will, the spoken dialogue over the orchestral accompaniment.
He has notated the speech pattern rhythmically. That caused me many sleepless
nights, I have to tell you, even the second time I did it, in Austin.
Carlisle was in Austin for the first reading and we got to one particular
monologue and I stopped and said, 'Damn-it, Carlisle, I thought you were going
to change this.' It was so hard to make it sound natural and unaffected and
not like it's in metered time.
"Carlisle's operas are very special and unique, there's no question about
it. I think that he touches on subjects and goes to an emotional place that
many composers avoid. I remember having a conversation with him when I was
doing Little Bat in Susannah at the Met, before we had started working
on Cold Sassy Tree, and we were talking about the role and growing
up in the mountains in the Southeast. I asked him how much of Susannah was
him. He responded, 'All of it.' The same could be said of Cold Sassy Tree.
Carlisle never had a great relationship with his dad - it was his grandfather
he was close to and who always pushed him to do what he wanted to do. And
here is Rucker in Cold Sassy Tree, who is similar to Carlisle's own
grandfather. So Carlisle has written himself, at least partially, into the
character of Will Tweedy. I think that is why it rings so true and sincere
and is so heart-felt, because it comes right from him."
It would be hard to imagine a better cast of singing actors than was assembled
for the Houston premiere. Bass-baritone Dean Peterson
was Rucker Lattimore, soprano Patricia Racette
played Love Simpson, and Margaret Lloyd was Lightfoot McClendon. "The
interaction between Dean and I was wonderful. We had this uncanny relationship
on stage. It was wonderful to have this strapping, strong, masculine man come
up to me after an aria and be crying and hug and kiss me and tell me that
he loved me. It was a really special relationship on stage. Dean is an amazing
individual. I have been very lucky to work with him in two productions of
Cold Sassy Tree. Dean has a wife and two little kids and is such a
dad, such a strong figure. But he can be soft and gentle like Rucker. He brings
so much to the character and is able to identify with having a grandson."
"Will's relationship with Love is more subtle; a lot of it is played
in his mind. The way I have developed the character in the opera, Will certainly
loves and admires Love. In my own life, I could remember being fifteen and
having a couple of teachers who were in their late 20s/early 30s, which would
be about Love's age, and looking up to them and wanting them to respect and
like me. There were moments during the opera where I'm sure no one else on
stage or in the audience could see I was looking at Love in that way. Pat
(Patricia Racette) brought some very interesting sides to Love Simpson, not
to mention that her singing was spectacular. There were a couple of times
during Rucker's sermon, when the three of us were on our knees praying, and
I looked up at Love and saw how pleased she was with Rucker and it made me
happy to see my grandpa happy. There were so many things to play in this piece.
Doing the role a second time allowed me to take a different look at Will,
and I discovered that his relationship with Love was more involved than I
originally played it and that the interaction was more intricate. It will
be interesting to do it again with Pat and Dean in San
Diego."
In most of our conversations with singers, the subject of singing in English
comes up. "I definitely feel more connected to an English-speaking audience
singing in English, although I think it leaves you much more vulnerable. Almost
half of my work has been in English and, I have to say, I prefer it. It's
our mother tongue. Unless you are fluent in a foreign language, it is extremely
difficult to achieve the same understanding and acquire the same ability to
project and color the words as in English. However, you often have to choose
whether to make it sound beautiful or to be understood, especially above the
staff, and that's a hard line to walk. If you are singing a beautiful, lyric
aria and you are trying to spit out all these consonants, it's not going to
have the same effect vocally -- it's not going to be as beautiful. Now if
the piece is about text, about words and drama, that's different."
More often than not, the singer is blamed when the text cannot be understood.
However, the ability of the singer to project the text comes directly from
the composer knowing how to set the words. Some composers have been more successful
than others. "Look at Handel. His command of the English language was
awful. Acis and Galatea, for example, contains some things that are
beyond bad. I don't think anyone would dispute the fact that Handel did not
have a great command of the English language and that his settings of text
were sometimes questionable. Certainly from a text-setting standpoint, the
Messiah is not a great work of art. (He sings in half-voice, "thou shalt
dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.") I mean how awful is that?
Musically, of course, it is beautiful."
While in the Houston Opera Studio, John sang in numerous productions of American
operas, two of which we were especially curious about. We wondered what he
had to say about Michael Daugherty's Jackie O. "We can skip that!"
Okay. Well, what about the Robert Wilson production of Virgil Thomson and
Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts. "That was very interesting.
People will argue for and against Robert Wilson. But, when we were asked at
the end of our experience in the Studio, in our exit interviews, what our
best or most memorable experience had been, without fail, everyone said
Four
Saints. Now that doesn't mean I'm going to jump to do another Robert Wilson
production! Rehearsals with him are, if anything, tedious. We rehearsed six
hours a day for almost two months, so it got to the point, with me anyway,
were the movement was part of the singing, almost an extension of it. It worked
for Four Saints, because this is an opera that isn't really about anything.
But Wilson's movements can be very restricting. Without that kind of rehearsal
process, or in a different piece, where I had to sing an aria while doing
that slow, kabuki-esque movement, I don't know how happy I would be about
it."
It is refreshing to talk with John because he speaks his mind with very little
self-censoring. (I don't think he'd mind us revealing that there were a couple
of things we decided not to print.) He has strong views about opera as theater.
"Opera can be so ridiculous! Sometimes the suspension of belief is beyond
me. How can you watch a love duet sung by two singers who are not even looking
at each other - who are just standing straight out and singing as if there
were a giant wall between them - it really is not very believable. If there
is no acting and no interaction between the characters, you might as well
just do a concert version. All this brings me back to the point that Carlisle's
operas are so special and alive and it's why I have turned down other jobs
to do his work. I've done Susannah and Cold Sassy Tree and I
also know Of Mice and Men very well. You know, Carlisle doesn't not
call his pieces operas -- they are musical dramas, and they have to be treated
that way."
What lies ahead for John? "After Cold Sassy Tree in San Diego,
I do a couple of Handel operas, Acis and Galatea and Partenope.
I'll spend the summer in Santa Fe doing Aegyptische Helena, with a
quick trip to Paris for a baroque festival with Christophe Rousset. Then comes
Billy Budd in Chicago and A Little Night Music in Utah for the
Olympics.
"After Susannah at the Met, everyone wanted me for Little Bat.
I turned them all down. That experience was the cream of the crop, with Renée
(Fleming), Sam (Samuel Ramey) and Jerry (Hadley). Can you imagine sitting
up there on that stage and looking up at Renée and hearing her voice?
It was pretty wonderful. It was after those performances that I sat back and
took a look at things and said, 'okay, now my goals have changed.' I thought
about why I was doing this and I reexamined things and set new goals. I didn't
have anything to prove any longer and I needed to be doing it for a different
reason. Now, it's about doing projects that are appealing to me and working
with people I want to work with and singing the music I love. At this point,
I am trying to do as much justice to the music as I can. I'm trying to get
up there and be honest, make the best music I can and have a great experience
with the other singers on stage, and do so with as much integrity as possible."
No composer could ask for more!
