SFist Interviews Eric Owens
Eric Owens, during dress rehearsal of Porgy and Bess. Picture by Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera.
When we usually chat with a soprano, we can't tell via their speaking voice they have a striking singing voice. Not so with Owens, who has a deep booming voice that had us wanting to plug a subwoofer to our speakerphone, even though he only chatted in a relaxed and easy manner. Bass singers are usually the evil schemers on stage, but this Philly-born star sounds totally fun and mellow. It's his first time singing Porgy, so we asked, how about that?
Eric Owens This role is actually quite a challenge for me, it's something that even four or five years ago I probably could not sing because of its range, it's got quite a wide range. I'm happy to make my debut in this role with the SF Opera company. It's a company that's dear to my heart, I've done many roles here. I'm happy to be working with the director Francesca Zambello in this production. I've known her for a long time but it's the first time I'm getting a chance to work with her. She's someone who is very passionate about this opera, so I'm glad I'm getting my feet wet with her.
People debated if Porgy and Bess was opera or a musical. Could you define what is opera?
Eric Owens Opera in its literal translation, it means work, like a word that has the root of opera in it, like operation. I do think it's a true opera. It made its debut as a musical, and Gershwin's intention was for it to be an opera. In various incarnations of it, they scaled it down to have music and some spoken dialogues. Until 1976, the Houston Grand Opera was the first opera company to present it. I do feel that it's an opera. It has the scope and the drama, and the vocal requirements of an opera. It's very much an opera. There has been controversy concerning whether or not it's an opera, now it's very much accepted it is. A lot of opera company are now producing it, and I'm happy that they are. It stands up to any 20th century opera masterwork by any quote unquote traditional opera composer.
It was also considered a racist piece for a while, for the way it handled its all black protagonists.
Eric Owens I think that was a controversy that was happening in the 50s and 60s, during the civil rights movement. I don't think that the controversy surrounds it today. I don't think it's a racist piece of work. African-American singers are singing it today, African-American are coming to hear it. We have gotten past this idea of this being an opera that should be shunned because of racist overtones. We're past that, and we should enjoy it as a wonderful piece of music drama with interesting characters and wonderful music.
Most people know the Porgy and Bess tunes through jazz. How do you make an opera orchestra swing?
Eric Owens Gershwin has done that for us, he wrote it into the score. There's plenty of swinging rhythm underneath a lot of the numbers. Especially with Sporting Life, and there is this wonderful duet with Crown and Bess. There is a drummer in the orchestra with a drum set, and saxophones. It's not incumbent on us to make it something, Gershwin already took care of that.
The parts that are supposed to swing will [he laughs], and the parts are that are more traditional, for lack of a better word, will be that . Gershwin knew what he was doing. I don't think it's going to be square. There is a certain amount of freedom that is provided to us to improvise a bit, to add notes, so a lot of what you hear from the singers that is not necessarily written on the page. And you hear that.
Singers add extra notes and some declarations that are jazzy in nature and gospel in nature (but not going off the reservation). When something repeats, you can do it in a different way for all section. It Ain't Necessarily So, Sporting Life will do it a different way. He'll improvise because it repeats three or four times. It's interesting, the Sporting Life who's doing it, he fantastic, every time he's going to do something different not only do something different within the context of the verses, but he'll do something different each night, and the chorus has to follow and repeat what he sings. So it's interesting to see what he comes up with on any given night!
Anything from the jazz performers' versions that influences the performance of the classically trained opera singers?
Eric Owens It can be informed. Good singing is good singing. I mean, I've been listening to Miles Davis, he did this jazz edition of Porgy and Bess and it helps you to understand it more. There are music numbers that lend itself very well to jazz. I'm sure that everybody in the cast has heard these numbers performed by Sarah Vaughan, or Dinah Washington, or Ella Fitzgerald.
Dr Atomic was a huge hit, how did you become part of it?
Eric Owens John Adams wanted me to be a part of the production. I had sung some of his music before. He really wanted me to be part of it. Dr Atomic at the time was in early staging places,and he wrote the part for me. And I feel honored he wanted to do that. It went from SF to Amsterdam, to Chicago, to New-York.
How do you feel about your diet aria becoming such an iconic moment, it's maybe the only moment of levity in the opera.
Eric Owens It's a moment of levity right before the John Donne's Batter my heart. The original intention was to humanize the character of General Leslie Groves a bit, so it wasn't just him screaming at people and talking about deadlines. It showed him in a more vulnerable state, just to give him another dimension.
We were surprised you're in your late 30s, we always see you in older roles. What roles attract you right now?
Eric Owens I'm not young, I'll be 39 in a month. Mostly, the bass-baritone repertoire consist of: either you're somebody's father or you're the king, or you're someone in the clergy, or you're playing this very wise character. That's just the nature of the voice type. You're not going to be the romantic interest, that's sorta reserved to tenors. I'd love to do King Philip in Don Carlo, maybe Gurnemanz or even Amfortas in Parsifal. There is some Mozart I want to sing again, like don Alfonso in Cosi Fan Tutte, a very interesting acting role. He too is an older gentleman, I think that's the nature of the beast with bass roles. I forget who said this, you start out needing lots of make up to age you, and as you go there is less and less make-up needed, and you grow into the age of the characters. On the flip side, you don't see many sopranos who are actually a teen-age when they're playing Madame Butterfly. It's all part of that suspension of disbelief of not being the actual age of your character.
You were studying piano and oboe before singing, do you ever approach at the score as an instrumentalist, or strictly based on the written words?
Eric Owens I think one should approach it from the text, that's how the composer approached it, the text existed first, and the composer wrote music based on the drama. But you can get a lot of information from your character by what is going on in the orchestra, almost as much as what's going textually. The great composers could give you even subtext within the orchestra. Someone can be saying something but meaning something else, and you might not hear coming it out of their mouth, but you can hear it from the orchestra. You should hear it as music and drama and text going hand in hand and it should be approached this way.
The SF Opera has cut some more adventurous productions, and there is a trend towards the conservative while we weather the tough economic times. Do you feel it from your vantage point, would you do more Sarastros and less Handel and Grendel?
Eric Owens In this economic climate, all the opera companies, they have to do what they have to do, to do belt tightening and make sure that they have box office from every production. That may mean, that for a couple seasons they have to be a little less adventuresome in their repertoire picks. As the economy comes back, there will be more funding for more risky production. It is what it is, those things are cyclical. The next coming seasons, I'm not doing a lot of new stuff, but I enjoy doing Mozart and Verdi and Handel and Bach in concerts and Donizetti. Things have to be done to ensure that these institutions stay around.