September / October 1999

 

Bruce Ford is an American tenor of the same generation as Jerry Hadley, Richard Leech, and Neil Shicoff who makes his career primarily in Europe. Bruce is arguably (or better, inarguably) the preeminent Rossinian in the world today - along with some Donizetti, Bellini, and a whole handful of splendid roles by Mozart. I was delighted to learn he was recording the title role in Otello (the Rossini version of course) and when I was invited to photograph the recording sessions, promptly adjusted my calendar to take advantage of the opportunity. What began as a routine request for interview turned rapidly into "featured tenor," entirely because of Bruce's warmth, openness, sense of humor and approach to his work.

- ML Hart

Bruce Ford shared star billing with another American - Elizabeth Futral as Desdemona. While there are many other musicians in this ensemble piece and many fine artists working behind the scenes to make the recording a reality, the focus here is on the tenor and his point of view.
Here are excerpts from my journals, kept during the week of recording sessions I attended in the autumn of 1999:

The hall is gorgeous - a church in its former life - rather beat up on the outside with little available parking, a serene, classical rectangle inside, restored or still in very good shape. It will be perfect for photographs, with plenty of space for me to move around, yet be out of the way. The hall turns out to be perfect acoustically, too. The entire setting and the company couldn't be better, in fact.

The studio, the command center, is a cramped, slightly-too-warm room at the back of the building: here are the monitors, the consoles, the master scores for the producer and engineers. They can see what's happening in the hall by way of an unmanned video camera, immobile at the center of the choir loft... they already have dozens of microphones in place to hear what's happening.

The first session, I've found a spot upstairs to one side of the video camera, leaning over the choir-loft rail to observe. The chorus straggles in 2 or 3 minutes before the start time; principal singers are, of course, already here, standing on risers between the orchestra and chorus; orchestra dressed even more casually than the chorus. Bruce's long-time music teacher, Mary Gillas, in town for the duration of the recording session, sits off to his side, slightly behind him. The hall is damp and chilly in the early afternoon, the weather gray and rainy outside: welcome to autumn in London...

Recording sessions are an exercise in energy management. There are generally two or three rehearsals of each segment to be recorded, varying from about one minute to four or five minutes at a time. The singer must sing full out at least one of those times - though in fact, they rarely marked.

They rehearse the section again, with anywhere from 3, to 7 or 8 or more minutes inbetween - and most often the adjustments have nothing to do with the singer. He must wait and wait yet still be ready to go. He has to give a top-notch performance, balancing character interpretation, phrasing, diction, breathing and (always) musicality, just as he does onstage - and without the momentum of the live performance and audience to help carry him along.

Elizabeth Futral pulls her hair into a ponytail, lets it down, goes over the score... and so they all wait in their own fashion. One of the engineers comes out to move a microphone - evidently the timpani, located next to the tenor, are too loud, obscuring Otello on his entrance.

The take ends - it was more intense, noticeably more "on" than the practicing. The singers sit or chat with each other; Maestro looks pleased. Orchestra members go back to reading magazines, maybe reviewing the next section or asking a question of Maestro.

They do three full takes of this one section, plus about 75% of it yet again, and then move on - it's done. They're rehearsing the next segment. Another thing immediately obvious about making a recording... it's like filmmaking: everything is out of sequence, depending on when the chorus is needed, which parts of the orchestra might be added for a particular scene, and whether any of the principal singers might only be available for part of the two and a half weeks scheduled for the recording.

The intro to the spectacularly beautiful duet (how often do we get a tenor duet?) is surprisingly difficult to get right - surprising, because it sounds as if they're just tossing off casual conversation. It's meant to sound that way. Bruce is relaxed but intensely determined. Frequently frowns and shakes his head while he's singing. Looks to be unhappy, perhaps with "space" (or lack of) from Maestro, perhaps with his own execution of the phrasing - after the second take, he leaves the room and goes back to the studio. Long pause. We all wait.

Never mind. As in the opera house on any given night, they do the best they can. A few frantic months of editing later, the recording is available in stores, coinciding with Bruce's onstage appearance at Covent Garden in the same role.

Bruce Ford and Patric Schmid work on interpretation of a phrase.

It's immediately apparent from the relaxed atmosphere in the studio that most of these people know each other, have worked together many times before. Opera Rara is a family kind of company - I was told early on that singers who "aren't wonderful people" simply don't get hired again - and that makes for a secure environment. Everyone knows his or her role, no one has to throw their weight around in order to bolster their own confidence or impress anyone else.

This is by no means to imply that the sessions are not run in an efficient, businesslike manner. At approximately £6,000 per session, two sessions a day, time is definitely money [note: in 1999]. Nor are the singers indulged to excess - but for those who have had the experience of recording with the "major" labels, the fact that here they're treated with respect for their artistry instead of as a faceless, interchangeable commodity, is one of the things that make this company "rare," indeed.

The primary reason for all this is Artistic Director Patric Schmid, a California expatriate living in London. I asked him to tell me why. Here's his take on it:

"So I bend over backwards to give them all the opportunities I can to somehow recreate - on their own vocal terms of course - the music in front of them. If I have anything to offer, it's a kind of vocal intuition that I tune to each singer individually in order to get the best out of them, to get them to realise the musical picture I have in my mind. They sense this and respond. This seems to produce a feeling of mutual trust – and that trust, I think, is what makes the atmosphere so wonderful in the studio.

"The atmosphere affects the orchestra and chorus as well, of course, but my main focus is always on the singers and showing them how to achieve more than they thought possible with a completely unfamiliar and untried piece of music. And although it's basically my vision of the work we're doing, it isn't a power trip... it's a collaboration."

- Patrick O'Connor, The Guardian

"But the performance was dominated by the towering figure and voice of Bruce Ford, the only really possible casting for this nearly impossible role today.
...he sings throughout with a burnished, baritonal tone and quite astonishing agility, and he bestrides the stage with the nobility and authority of the
Shakespearean model. For this superlative vocal and histrionic performance, Rossini's Otello is not to be missed at Covent Garden."

review by Hugh Canning
The Sunday Times
February 6, 2000

Interested in more? Just below, there's basic information about enjoying opera in general... there are photographic essays in connection with individual operas with links to stories of the operas... there are more pages in this Tenor Book section... and in Words & Music you'll find detailed profiles about many of ML Hart's favorite singers throughout history. And still more. Wander through, and enjoy.

Principal Singers & Singing
Invitation to the Rehearsal Hall

INDIVIDUAL OPERAS IN PHOTOGRAPHS... AND MORE

BRUCE FORD Profile
and recommendations for listening

coming soon: 19th CENTURY TENORS / SOPRANOS
the creators of the music that Bruce Ford often sings

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THE ART OF MAKING OPERA

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original content © copyright 1999-2006 ML Hart and images/graphics © copyright 1999 ML Hart
except where noted
excerpts from book reviews can be found in context here

Bruce Ford as Otello, Pesaro: photo by Amati Bacciardi

excerpts from Patric Schmid obituary in The Guardian, November 16, 2005
by Patrick O'Connor

exclusive excerpts from ML Hart's interviews with:
Patric Schmid - November 1999
Bruce Ford - September 30, 1999

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