7.

‘Ladies’ chorus, this is your call to stage for the fight scene’

Sharing the spotlight

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want the occasional principal role to come my way. Yes, I’m in the chorus, but there’s still a soloist lying within who wants to be let out on occasion. Getting these roles is completely out of my control. I can do all the right things, do stage auditions, request regular coaching sessions, talk to the right people and knock on the right doors – ‘playing the game’, we call it – and sometimes it works. But sometimes it doesn’t. These decisions are made by management, and if you sat down and tried to work out how or why they are made, you’d drive yourself crazy.

My first roles and covers came from an audition I did back in 2010, which stands out as my most entertaining. I decided to sing an aria I’d performed both in concert and in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. About halfway through ‘Una voce poco fa’, I completely forgot the words and, worse than that, I couldn’t seem to get them back. Despite the accompanist prompting me by practically yelling the words from behind the piano, I continued singing, selling my performance while making up some very interesting Italian. After nearly three pages of complete gibberish, I finally got myself back on track; when I did, the audition panel applauded. After acknowledging this with a small curtsy, I managed to get to the end of the piece.

Wonderful things then came my way for a good number of years. They still do trickle in, but if I want to be considered for the roles in the future, I need to get on that stage and audition again, because my voice sounds different to how it did fourteen years ago. This is a natural shift that comes with age, vocal maturity and, dare I say it, ‘the change’. Also, I don’t think they see me as the young, coquettish courtesan anymore, now that I’m over 50. I couldn’t play a twentysomething unless you ironed my forehead and got rid of the wrinkles! I have had to find audition repertoire from roles that are more, shall we say, ‘age appropriate’. It can be a very ageist industry, especially for women, as younger singers are constantly coming up through the ranks, and there is a real fear that you’ll be knocked off your perch.

I know it shouldn’t be like this, but it is. There just seems to be more men of a senior age in opera choruses than there are women in the same age bracket, and I would like to see this change – experience and vocal longevity should still be embraced and nurtured. At my next stage audition, I will be critiqued in a new light and considered for different roles – still fun ones, I hope – and I will also be seen through the eyes of new management. This can play a huge part. You may find that one artistic director favours you, then the next person in charge might not like you as much. There are just so many factors beyond your control, and sometimes this can be difficult to accept.

For a while, I think I kept receiving offers off the back of previous opportunities I had been given and executed well. I gained a reputation for being a solid and reliable cover, happy to take on extra work and hardly ever saying no. Initially I was too afraid to turn anything down, for the fear of the opportunity going to someone else who could potentially do a better job. It never occurred to me that a role might have landed in my lap because someone else had been offered it but turned it down. I needed to be seen – and to be seen doing a good job.

Naturally, there’s always going to be competition among the ranks in the chorus. We all started off as soloists at some point in our careers, and some are still wanting to follow that path. Before I joined the chorus and started getting certain roles, you can be guaranteed that someone already established within the chorus had been singing those same roles. Then I came along, and some of them started coming to me; now they’re going to someone else. It’s like a relay race. Some people will gladly hand over the baton, others will make you work for it, and a few will hit you over the head with it.

It is a gift to step out from the chorus and perform principal roles. I never know if there will be more to follow, so each time it happens, I’ve decided to embrace it, form a partnership with the character and execute the role to the best of my ability. And that’s all you can do, right? If they like it, great; if not, well … As in everything, there is an end date, but until that day comes, I cherish every moment I get to bring a character to life.

***

My first role with Opera Australia was in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, directed by Stuart Maunder. I had been cast as one of the ‘Liebeslieders’ – the ‘love song singers’ – and in this production, I formed part of a quintet of two sopranos, one mezzo, one tenor and one baritone. We were like a Greek chorus (the chorus did not appear in the opera as a collective) that glided in and out of scenes, commenting on the action. Even though I had solo lines within the quintet, the need to blend, harmonise and sing as one voice wasn’t a far cry from the way I sang in the chorus. For this to be my first engagement as a principal felt very exciting, and an honour to perform alongside Australian theatre greats like Nancye Hayes, Anthony Warlow and Sigrid Thornton. To be present in a rehearsal room with stalwarts such as these, to watch them create their characters and bring such a high level of mastery to a production, is the best way to learn your craft. The only way to develop as an artist is watch other artists at work, taking a little of what they are doing and adapting it into your own performance or study. It’s not about trying to be that person; it’s knowing what to take away with you to make you a better performer. Their level of artistry makes you work harder; you want to do your best, try new things and approach aspects of your performance differently. I never took a single performance for granted and when the curtain lowered on that final night, I knew I had been involved in something very special. The production – and the bejewelled, beaded gown I wore – were stunning, both designed by the renowned Roger Kirk, and this gown is still one of my all-time favourite costumes.

A gorgeous friendship came out of that production through working with Sigrid Thornton, and I count myself very lucky that our paths crossed. I am sure if we hadn’t been involved in this project together, we would have never met. She is one of the most insanely talented, unpretentious, funny, kind and generous humans I know, and whenever we spend time together, there is always a lot of laughter, and stories shared over indulgent amounts of tea and cake. Very early on we discovered we shared the same astrological star sign, and we had an ability to laugh at the same jokes, no matter how lame. Sigrid also took great joy in my New Zealand accent. One night, while discussing our love of various cleaning products, we laughed so hard we could hardly breathe. After a few moments of trying to calm down, I said ‘You know what? I love Jif.’ Sigrid misheard it as ‘You know what? I love Jeff’, thinking I meant one of the guys working backstage. That was it; we were gone, and Sigrid has called me ‘Jif’ or ‘Jiffy’ ever since.

Three years later, being cast as Cupid in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld gave birth to a friendship, this time with another renowned Australian entertainer, Todd McKenney, who had been cast in the role of Pluto. With a stellar career in the entertainment industry spanning 40 years, Todd continues to be hugely successful across all platforms, while remaining an incredibly humble, generous and caring individual. I’ve had the pleasure of performing alongside Todd at his high-tea soirées, and took part in one of the many charity events he performs at, which fulfil his passion for using his celebrity status for good.Once again, I’m so grateful our paths crossed. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at work as I did during Orpheus, from that very first rehearsal. Rachelle Durkin, the Australian soprano performing the role of Eurydice, was such great fun. Her vocal fireworks, comic timing, and wit both on and off the stage are something to behold. We would sit in the corner of the room when we weren’t required and find ourselves being fully entertained by the rehearsal taking place in front of us. One day we sat in our usual spot, phones on our laps, watching Todd’s every move on the rehearsal-room floor as he created one of his scenes. Every time he sang the lines ‘Do I smell bergamot, and lavender and jasmine, in a most exquisite potpourri?’, we activated the fart apps on our phones, pushing all the different buttons and falling over ourselves with laughter as the grotesque sounds reached Todd. Extremely unprofessional! Certainly not what Todd expected opera singers to be like, and he couldn’t sing for laughing.

Every performance felt like a massive party, and it didn’t feel like a job at all. I also covered the principal role of Eurydice, which kept me very busy, especially when both characters were onstage at the same time. In rehearsals I’d be acting out Cupid but straining my head at every opportunity to get a glimpse of what Eurydice was up to, or where she had been placed in the scene. At times I felt like I needed eyes in the back of my head to keep tabs on her. Originally designed by Ignatius Jones, this adaptation had been blessed with an updated libretto by the genius pairing of Jonathan Biggins and Phillip Scott, with costumes by the incredible Mark Thompson. Every single design was outlandish, giving us infinite ways to create our characters. One could say they were rather risqué, with some members of the company adorned with nothing more than a few pieces of leather. I adored my costume: thigh-high vinyl boots, black fishnets, red knickers sporting a glitzy love heart, a brocaded jacket, and a voluminous, curly blonde wig to complete my look. Once in that costume, finding the character came naturally.

***

Not all my solo engagements have taken place under the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Being cast as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Oz Opera, the touring arm of Opera Australia at the time, came with the added bonus of becoming a tourist. To sing a principal role while travelling across this vast country, stopping in towns and cities I probably would never have otherwise visited, gifted me the best of both worlds. With travel and accommodation paid for, not to mention the per diems we received towards food and living expenses, the only costs were of my own choosing, like tourist attractions, galleries, museums, car hire or purchasing some of the most joyously hideous fridge magnets I have ever seen. With most of us being double cast – meaning that one night we would perform our principal role, then in the next performance we would step into chorus roles – we all got a bit of a breather, meaning we could pace our vocal commitments throughout the tour. At worst, if someone became sick, we were always covered as we essentially understudied each other.

We travelled the length and breadth of Australia in a Murrays coach, or plane when the distances were too vast to go by road. Over two years, we toured for three months at a time – the ‘Hot Tour’ and the ‘Cold Tour’, depending on what part of the country we were performing in. During the first month alone we crisscrossed three states, performing in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT; then we returned to New South Wales, went back through Victoria and across to South Australia, and finished the tour in Victoria. In the second year the distances were even more extreme, when we took in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The canvas of the landscape changed dramatically as the bus drove along motorways, highways and country roads, and into inner-city chaos. I saw everything from the lush bushland of Victoria and the vast oceans of Western Australia to seemingly infinite vineyards throughout South Australia, and the Red Centre around Uluru and Alice Springs, with its termite mounds as far as the eye could see.

I touched all four points throughout this vast country – extreme north, south, east and west – and lost count of the number of remote roadhouses, taverns, public toilets and long drops we stopped at. Opera aside, I set myself goals throughout the tour – one being to never use the toilet on the bus, a challenge many of us had set ourselves the first day we boarded our coach. I became like a police dog – I could literally pee on demand when we eventually pulled up at a place where we could relieve ourselves, most of us running off the bus with our legs crossed after hours on the road. Before that tour I had never seen so many toilet rolls padlocked to the walls and doors of public-toilet cubicles.

Along the way, though, I had the most wonderful encounters. There’s too many to mention, but they included an eye-opening cruise down the Murray River in Renmark, riding on a homemade raft with a hilarious and patriotic Aussie retiree; a woman who ran out of the roadhouse in a remote part of Australia when she saw our tour bus pulling up across the wide expanse of red dirt, telling us to move on because she didn’t have enough food to feed us; an elderly lady in Albany who baked scones for the passengers on a whale-watching tour, then secretly handed me two extras; a local miner in the queue at an RSL in country New South Wales telling me, ‘I was born in a hole, I work in a hole, and I’ll die in a hole’; purchasing the best alien tea towel I’ve ever seen, from the Wycliffe Well Holiday Park between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek; the emus that chased me at the Erldunda Roadhouse, not far from Alice Springs; and the wonderful Bruno Torfs of Marysville, who gave me a personal tour of his incredible art and sculpture garden in Victoria’s Yarra Valley while describing the devastation caused by the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. Singing in the newly built community centre that evening turned out to be one of my most emotional yet humbling performance experiences of the tour. Every member of that town had been personally affected by the fires, and as a mark of respect, we decided to change the ending of the opera, with Don Giovanni being shot rather than descending into the flames of hell.

As I walked across bushland, oceans, red dirt, deserts and farmland, I thought every stick had the potential to be a snake, but by the end of the two years I still hadn’t spotted one in the wild. As a complete arachnophobe, I had a nasty encounter with a white-tailed spider, and struggled at times when I met red-back spiders that had established permanent residences on the screen doors of some motel rooms, which housed some of the biggest cans of insect repellent I had ever seen.

Very few places we stayed offered us the opportunity to cook our own food. Most of the time, our only appliance would be a kettle, maybe a toaster, and if we walked into our motel room and saw a microwave, well, that was very exciting. (Some members of the company came up with ingenious recipes that they could make in the microwave, from risotto to birthday cakes.) In a handful of places, we were given serviced apartments with our very own kitchens. We took advantage of communal motel barbecues, even if it meant standing outside in the middle of winter in regional New South Wales to wolf down a sausage and salad off a paper plate.

We performed under so many challenging conditions, and by the end of the tour I never wanted to drag my suitcase up another flight of motel stairs, make toasted sandwiches with an iron, or eat tuna out of a can, carrot sticks with hummus or microwaved vegetables with rice ever again. I lived on the stuff. Trying to manage sleep deprivation, twelve-hour bus rides and vocal fatigue through constant changes in air conditioning, climates, temperature and humidity tested us all. Many of us travelled with our own pillows in the hope that this would allow us to get a half-decent night’s sleep as we bed-hopped our way across the country.

But what a wonderful experience, and I wouldn’t take it back for a second. At the end of the two years, we organised our very own awards ceremony, and I won the Dora the Explorer Award, due to my sometimes overly extensive research of every town and city we visited. I certainly made excellent use of my days off, hiring cars and travelling to any tourist attraction I could reach. I must have visited nearly every beach, art gallery, antique shop and second-hand store from one side of Australia to the other. This tour also allowed me to continue my slightly-illegal-but-sometimes-acceptable tradition of signing my name (including the show and year) somewhere in every theatre I have performed in. Some of the wonderful regional theatres have dedicated entire walls, even the insides of lifts, to this art form, giving touring company members the opportunity to add their little bit of performance history. When this option isn’t available, somewhere in, under or around my dressing table offers the perfect location. I have certainly left my mark in many performance spaces throughout the world. (I would like to mention that I have never signed my name in a church or cathedral!)

I also felt honoured to learn about many of the Indigenous cultures across Australia on that tour. I stumbled upon the most beautiful cultural experiences, always welcomed to observe painting, singing and music presentations, or sitting down and listening to stories about Country. These moments weren’t on my tour schedule, but visiting some of these remote towns, and getting out of the big cities, certainly opened my eyes, giving me a wider appreciation of First Nations cultures. An unexpected gift.

After the tour concluded, Opera Australia connected me with a journalist working for the German edition of National Geographic. They wanted to present an article about Australia, and I was selected to take part – quite funny having a Kiwi being interviewed for a German magazine about my travels across Australia, and my encounters with the white-tailed spider! I felt extremely honoured to feature in such a high-profile magazine; being an avid photographer, I have always been in awe of their images. Receiving my hard copy of the magazine in the post and finding my article felt quite surreal. I needed someone to translate it for me, but hey, I got to feature in one of my favourite publications – a nice way to end an incredible tour of Australia.

***

At times, the vocal requirements of a role in an opera are much easier to navigate than the staging, challenging you in other ways. This was certainly the case when I was cast as Papagena in Mozart’s The Magic Flute in 2014.

The Magic Flute is a bit different to other operas in that it has individual musical numbers connected by dialogue. This is known as singspiel (‘song-play’). Our production, created by American director Julie Taymor, was initially performed in full at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and Opera Australia decided to present the shorter, more family-friendly, hour-and-a-half version in English. Julie Taymor’s stage adaptation of The Lion King has been enjoyed globally since it debuted in 1997, and The Magic Flute shares many of its design features, revealing itself like a fairy tale with bears, birds, giant serpents, a wicked sorcerer, spirits, a princess and an evil queen. The makeup and costumes are vibrant and awash with colour, looking like individual pieces of wearable art. They were definitely a lot of fun to wear.

Papagena first appears in the guise of a hunched and rather inappropriate old woman before she is revealed in Act Four as the true love of Papageno, a bird-catcher who desperately wants a wife or girlfriend. Vocally, I didn’t find it that difficult – until I started singing in English. In the duet that Papagena performs with Papageno, we would repeat the words ‘baby chicks’, which instantly highlighted my Kiwi accent, as everyone kept hearing ‘baby Chux’. As entertaining as this was for those in the rehearsal room, I had to switch to my best Aussie twang to make sure I wasn’t singing about dishcloths.

Kiwi accent aside, the real challenge would be in the staging. In the first season of this production, I was double cast in the role with another soprano scheduled to perform the first block of performances. I would be in the second cast, which meant that unless the soprano in the first cast fell ill, I wouldn’t have an opportunity to rehearse on the stage properly until the show opened – and even then, I wouldn’t have long to familiarise myself with the set and all its tricky corners. By the time the second cast’s opening night rolled around, my anxiety levels were so elevated that that opening night still holds the award for the most terrifying one of my career in a theatre. Period.

In any production of The Magic Flute, Papagena’s entrance in Act Four is bursting with excitement, passion and expectation. She’s about to be in the arms of her lover, Papageno, who will whisk her off to live happily ever after. My opening-night entrance in this scene ended up being completely devoid of passion. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only emotion that shone through my face was absolute fear.

About seven or eight minutes before I appeared onstage, dressed in lace gloves, heels and a costume encased in a bamboo cage, I had walked up a ladder in the wings and stepped onto a narrow platform, which was then balanced on the shoulders of three very strong male dancers. As I grabbed the hand of the stage manager to help me with my balance, the dancers slowly walked down towards the front of the stage, then turned so we could move straight out onto the stage. (I have to say that all the dancers and the stage management team that assisted me every night were so patient and supportive. I needed them as much as I needed the air to breathe!)

My hands sweated profusely as the cue in the music heralded our entrance. Doing my best to avoid curtains, lighting, walls and people, I let go and suddenly my shuddering body appeared on the stage, freewheeling it up there in front of more than 1000 people. The platform absolutely terrified me! But this was only the beginning. I still had to sing the duet.

When the dancers stopped at their mark on the stage, I stepped off the platform onto two Perspex staircases that had been fastened together, which is where I had been directed to sing and act. Now, I use the words ‘sing’ and ‘act’ very loosely to describe what I managed that night – more like a squawk, if I’m honest, and I’m sure well below the required standard. I managed to get through the duet, hit my marks and sing the right music while jumping into the arms of Papageno at the correct time, but to call it a ‘performance’ would be a stretch.

No-one ever needs to tell me whether I’ve done a good, average or bad performance. I know as soon as I exit the stage, and in this instance, I knew it had been a complete disaster from the moment it had begun. I had trembled all the way through, even when the scene had ended, and I found myself hugging Papageno as I was wheeled off into the wings. I knew I would need to find a way to overcome this fear if the rest of my season was going to be successful. With the obvious problem being my mindset, I needed to sort it out.

As each performance passed, it did get a little easier, but I could never let my mind wander back to that opening performance or I’d crumble again. I have never had an issue with heights, and I wasn’t really that high off the ground. I think the core of the problem was that I didn’t feel in control. Being in the second cast also had an effect, because I had to use the performances to get used to the platform, rather than the rehearsals. Not ideal!

The following year, I played Papagena for the entire season of The Magic Flute, so I must have done something right. After lengthy discussions one day during rehearsals, the revival director allowed me to change my entrance, this time sitting down and facing the audience, which enabled me to relax into the character from the start and be fully immersed in the role as soon as I hit the stage.

One of the terrors of live theatre is the chance that something can go wrong. When this happens in front of an audience, with an orchestra playing through the score, you must learn to think on your feet at lightning speed. During the duet and leading up to the moment when I had to leap into Papageno’s arms – easier some nights than others, depending on what I’d had for dinner – we would remove each other’s bamboo cage by pulling out small wooden fasteners at very precise points in the music. These would normally release easily, and we’d throw away our cages before the big embrace. In one performance, I don’t know what happened, but baritone Samuel Dundas and I were both struggling with removing the cages that sat over the top of our costumes. Suddenly, we found ourselves dragging parts of the caging along with us as we continued to sing our duet. With the music and text needing to be enunciated and sung at a very quick tempo, we had no opportunity to quickly discuss a plan B.

As the moment rapidly approached for me to jump into his arms, we somehow telepathically communicated to each other that maybe the jump wouldn’t be such a great idea with our cages still attached, and we came to a mutual agreement to do an alternate ending, which, I am proud to say, we executed seamlessly. We managed to alter the choreography all the way through to the end of the number without whispering a word to each other. Genius! It’s this ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ kind of feeling that gives you a rush of adrenaline. But it’s not one I want to repeat very often if I can help it. By the end of the final performance and revival, I had shared the stage with three gorgeously talented and generous baritones singing the role of Papageno, each one making the performance experience a complete joy (especially after sorting out the platform saga)!

I sometimes wonder if being a chorister has made me a better principal, or if it is the other way around. Being in the chorus has certainly built up my stamina, helped me adapt to any situation or musical genre, trained me to sing most days of the year with very little vocal fatigue, and given me confidence to take on a huge variety of characters, always knowing I can get through a tough performance.

In a way, even if I don’t intentionally do it, I can hide in a chorus at times. I don’t always need to be down the front (even though I’m renowned for liking that part of the stage), and if I’m feeling tired, I can ‘mark’ the odd note – not sing in full voice, reserving my voice for other parts of the score that will require my full vocal contribution. I don’t do that often, but in the chorus I do have the choice if I really need it. That’s certainly not a luxury shared by any principal artist. If they don’t sing those notes, who’s going to do it for them? So, by having the opportunity to perform roles and be in the chorus, I really do think I have had the best of both worlds.