Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 5, 1993 TAG: 9303050075
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DOES ROANOKE HAVE SINGERS BY THE THROAT?
When Seth Williamson heard that three of the principals in the recent Opera Roanoke and Roanoke Symphony concert production of "Aida" were taking antibiotics even as they sang, he asked himself, "What is it about Roanoke, anyway?"As classical-music reviewer for this newspaper, he has seen singers walk through their roles while last-minute substitutes sang from the wings or the pit in operas including "Otello," "Die Fledermaus," "Don Giovanni" and "The Barber of Seville."
"So many fine singers who have come here have gotten throat infections," he said recently. "I have no idea why."
Popular wisdom says the Roanoke Valley is an exceptionally allergenic place for sensitive visitors and residents alike.
"I have had one performer tell me it hits her the moment she steps off the plane," said Judy Clark, executive director for Opera Roanoke.
But Paul White, an allergist at Lewis-Gale Hospital in Salem, said it's more complicated than that.
Take the matter of the three principals in "Aida." Two of them showed up sick and the third, baritone Craig Fields, got sick in Blacksburg, where he teaches at Virginia Tech.
Infectious respiratory problems like theirs can come on anywhere.
Nor does White think the valley possesses a unique number of allergens. Allergic reactions depend too much on individual sensitivities to say that.
Fields said Conductor Victoria Bond asked him if he thought Roanoke had anything to do with so many singers having trouble.
"I said, `No, it's just roulette,' " he said. "I probably sing five or six things a year, and this hasn't happened since last spring. It happens once a year. No matter where you are, it's going to catch up with you."
The cast in "Aida" managed to perform admirably despite the ills. Other singers haven't been so fortunate. When they've been unable to sing, Clark has had to scramble for last-minute replacements.
"It gives me ulcers and it gets very expensive," she said. "If we have to replace a singer it costs a great deal, because we're in no position to negotiate."
In May 1991, soprano Sarah Johannsen visited a Roanoke ear, nose and throat specialist about 10 hours before she was to play Desdemona in Giuseppi Verdi's "Otello." She emerged from the office with tears streaming from behind her sunglasses. The physician told her not to sing.
Clark found out a little while later and went into a panic.
Fortunately, Fields, the opera's resident director, remembered that Carol Welker had auditioned strongly for the role in New York.
"I called her that morning and said, `I need you tonight,' " Clark said. "She just sighed and said she would come down if I would fly her back the very next day because she had a job in the Met chorus the next day."
Welker sang from the pit while Johannsen moved about the stage. Last May, Welker returned to sing the role of Donna Anna in "Don Giovanni" - for herself.
But Carol Meyer, who was to portray Zerlina, came up hoarse for the first two shows. Roanoke soprano Marianne Sandborg filled in from the wings and won critical praise.
Nicholas Loren dazzled audiences when he played Figaro in "Barber of Seville" in October 1991. But he almost didn't make it on stage. He felt so bad in the final week of rehearsals he stayed in bed to nurse his fever, cold and raw throat.
"If I become ill in the course of a rehearsal period, I stay away from the cast and crew," the baritone said by telephone from New York. "I think a mistake that's often made is the sick singer says, `Well, I can be a trouper and get to rehearsal,' and what happens is their illness is prolonged and they start spreading it around the company.
"Often they end up fine by the performance, but someone [else] is going to be sick."
Loren said colds and flu have posed many hardships for singers in New York this winter. During January and February, he said, people were joking that the Metropolitan Opera should lower a movie screen and sell popcorn, it was so difficult to assemble a cast to rehearse.
"At the Met, you are not to come to rehearsals if you're sick. I've was at a staging rehearsal where even the pianist announced he had a cold and was sent home."
For many years, Fields sang in Europe, where a full slate of operatic performances meant many calls for substitutes, usually by noon of the performance day.
In Mannheim, Germany, he was called to replace an ailing baritone in "Eugene Onegin."
"I'd only sung it three or four times, so it wasn't like it was fresh," he said. "But the money was so good and Mannheim had a great theater, so I agreed to do it."
He spent 20 minutes with the director going over the staging prior to the show, and he focused intently on the prompter, counting on her to help him with the words.
"Unfortunately, she grimaced when she prompted," he said, "and I couldn't read her lips."
If allergens are not to blame for singers' troubles, other factors might be, Clark said. They work their voices hard. Grueling rehearsals leave them physically and mentally tired. And they sometimes cancel for ailments the rest of us would shake off, to protect their vocal cords.
"Just exactly what effect exhaustion has immunologically is a little bit hard to work out," allergist White said, "because so many things play a part, as well."
So far, Opera Roanoke has been lucky. Even performers who couldn't sing agreed to walk through their parts. "If a singer refuses to do that, you're in real trouble," Clark said.
One remedy to this nightmare would be to have understudies ready to step in. But the opera company's budget already is so high that that seems impossible, she said.
White can sympathize with the singers' problems. He sings, too. He was in the bass section of the Roanoke Valley Choral Society during "Aida."
His cords were clear.
"I don't have any allergic disease at all," he said.