A Singer’s Life: Seattle Pt1

As we all emerge from the monastic gloom of Covid 19 and Lockdown, my mind has turned to the memories of a career as an opera singer which has spanned a period of over 40 years and which has taken me to some of the most amazing places on earth. Unlike David Attenborough or Michael Palin, my travels have been to almost exclusively urban venues, since operas and concerts are rarely possible up mountains or deep in jungles (no, I have not been to Manaus), nor in polar regions. However, I have been very lucky to have performed in some fantastic places, and, by the very nature of opera rehearsal periods (see A Singer’s Life Part 7), have had time to explore the hinterlands and byways of many fascinating towns and cities. It occurred to me that you, dear readers, might be interested in some tales of my opera-related travels, so I have made a note of my favourite places and have drawn up a small world tour in several parts which I hope will hold your attention as we move into the autumn of 2021, still largely unable to travel much. My unfortunate accident in 2018 in Vietnam, when I broke one of my vertebrae, has to all intents and purposes brought my operatic career to an end, as the rigours of long rehearsals in foreign cities could not be tolerated. I do hope to continue singing concerts, recitals and operas in concert form in Britain and, possibly, western Europe over the next few years, but the whole rigmarole of the opera singer’s life must now be conducted in my mind and my memory, and this new series of articles will rekindle moments and places from the last 40 years.  

I thought to surprise you by beginning in the marvellous city of Seattle in Washington State, USA. Surprising because, as many of you will know, I am a great Europhile, and have been known to speak disparagingly of that great but complicated country across the Atlantic Ocean. For many years, I vowed never to go back, after a difficult trip I undertook, while still at school, to the East coast in 1972. I had visited once before in 1968 with my school choir, and had loved the experience, but when I went back five years later, staying with friends I had made on that first trip and a few other relatives, I was overwhelmed by the whole country and its ethos. You must also remember that I was a naive 16 year old only child, from a sheltered middle class Scottish background, who had never travelled alone before, and that American cities in the early 70s were, quite frankly, terrifying places, with high levels of violence and drug-taking. The Flower Power revolution of the late 60s had been transformed by the Vietnam War and the backlash to the permissive society into something more invidious and threatening. Racial and social unrest meant that a society which was escaping from, firstly, the rigours of the Second World War and, secondly, the social experiments of the 60s, had not really come to terms with the vast changes in attitude that typified life at that time. People literally did not know how this modern society was going to work, so began by making up their own rules. Scotland, and the UK in general, was struggling to come to terms with the changes in working lives and social mores, and this seemed to me to be magnified many times in America. Consequently, for much of my time in eastern USA in 1972, I was scared stiff. Travelling around on my own by Greyhound Bus, with no mobile phones, from New York to Washington, to Boston and then to Long Island, I was in constant fear. Now, this was probably largely paranoia, as most Americans weren’t being stabbed or otherwise maimed daily, but that didn’t help me. My nadir was on the Staten Island Ferry, with my friendly host family from Long Island, suffering from an upset stomach, finding the gents loos with no doors and full of weird men muttering to themselves and masturbating openly. This was, frankly, awful, and I remember thinking that things could not get any worse. Returning to the leafy suburbs of Long Island that evening, all I wanted to do was curl up and cry, but, no, there was a jolly barbecue in my honour, after which the son of the household wanted me to join him in a spliff, and take part in a jam session. The American Dream! 

I only returned to the States in 1985 with Fran, when her company at the time, Texas Gas, invited her and her boss, plus partners, for a week in Houston. I reckoned that Business Class travel and the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston might be an improvement on my visit in 1972, and I was right. Money talks in America, and it was talking to us! I did find Texas weird, and Houston, this shiny place in the middle of a desert, unreal, but at least I wasn’t scared, although the lap dancing club that Fran’s colleagues took us to one evening was interesting, in a bizarre way. “Get your tricks at Rick’s”, it said outside, and the mixture of overt sexuality combined with a very strict no touching rule was somewhat surreal. When Roger (Fran’s boss) was sat on by a very curvaceous, scantily clad girl, she seemed surprised when his girlfriend warned her to scram, or else. The next day provided more evidence of double standards when we went for a trip to Galveston (oh Galveston!) and did that very British thing of changing into our swimming costumes on the beach. Our hosts’ horror was instantaneous, as we were warned that we were liable to be arrested and thrown in jail for public indecency! 

These experiences meant that, for much of the rest of our visit, as Fran and Roger discussed the finances of oil drilling, Geraldine and I largely sat by the Four Seasons pool, soaking up the sun and drinking Piňa Coladas, using the company American Express Card. I don’t know if the Four Seasons is still as good, but that week there was amazing – food, drinks and service of top quality! 

Consequently, when in 2009 my agent got me a contract for Seattle Opera’s summer ‘Ring Cycle’ as understudy of Fafner and Hagen, I was able to make the easy decision to go to the Pacific north west coast. Good decision!! 

The first thing I had to do was obtain an American visa to allow me to work in the USA. I was going to be in Seattle for a couple of months, as ‘the Ring’ is composed of four operas and we were starting from scratch. The main cast had been rehearsing for a few weeks before the understudies arrived, so the whole summer was booked for Wagner. 

This was all before the nonsense of Brexit, so I had rarely needed a visa before, as all European work was treated as if working at home, with specific tax regulations applying to each country but easily negotiated. To work in America, even as an understudy, I had to go personally to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London, with all the travel and accommodation costs borne by me, submit to an interview after filling in masses of paperwork, pay a large fee, leave my passport with the Embassy (tough luck if I needed to work anywhere else in the interim), and pay again for it to be sent to Scotland, duly stamped. The only good thing about this rigmarole was that I received my passport, duly visa-ed and stamped, declaring to the world that I was “an alien of extraordinary ability”, which sounds pretty cool. 

Eventually, I flew to Seattle from London, flying over Greenland, Hudson’s Bay and the Rockies, arriving at the airport to be met by one of the marvellous Seattle Opera volunteers, who drive the artists all over town every day, whenever necessary. This instantly brought home to me that I was in an entirely different artistic community from Europe, with no state subsidy and an army of delightful middle-class Americans giving up their time for the Opera. My apartment was within easy walking distance of the magnificent newish Opera House, which is set in a lovely area close to the famous Space Needle (of which more later), and not too far from downtown. It immediately occurred to me that, in the 40 years since I had first gone to America, the country had become bi-lingual. Every notice and advert was in English and Spanish, and nearly all the staff at the apartment block were Hispanic. Now Washington State is not nearly as close to the Mexican border as California to the south, but the change into a bi-lingual country was quite marked. This is something that is rarely mentioned in articles and news about the USA, but it hit me rather strongly. I’m not saying that all Americans are bi-lingual, far from it, but I had not realised the extent to which administrative life had become a matter which needed almost every document to be in two languages. 

I had to register as an alien and sort out all the work papers involved with singing in an opera in the USA. It also amused me considerably to find that to be able to rehearse and perform in the Land of the Free I had to join the American musicians guild, AGMA, and that I couldn’t even get near a stage without being a member. Ironically, it had been Mrs Thatcher, in the 1980’s, who had got rid of the closed shop in stage life in Britain, when Equity ceased to be compulsory for all singers in opera. After her changes virtually all British singers left Equity, as the union was not designed to help solo operatic performers and had become a waste of money for us. Originally, we paid a token sum and were happy to do so, but after Mrs Thatcher’s intervention the union decided to charge us a percentage of our earnings, and singers left in droves. However, in the free market nirvana that is the USA, all stage and screen work is heavily unionised, and membership of AGMA is compulsory. They even tried to keep taking money from me when I left Seattle!  

Once I was signed up, we started rehearsals, both watching the main cast and having our own cover rehearsals, and I was delighted to find that the production, by Steven Wadsworth, was set in a glorious quasi Germanic world, closely related to the scenery of the Pacific North West in which we were performing. It looked fabulous, and the main cast was superb. The tradition of performing a Ring Cycle in Seattle in the summer was a long- standing one. Rather like Wagner’s Bayreuth Festival, they put on either a Ring Cycle or a pair of Wagner operas each year, starting back in 1975. The administrative director for many years, Speight Jenkins, had insisted on a traditional production, flying in the face of modern practice in Europe, but there was nothing old-fashioned about the acting and singing. In 2009, led by the American baritone Greer Grimsley (great name) as Wotan, who I had met 20 years earlier at the Wexford Festival in Ireland, the performances were of a high standard, and looked fabulous. There was even a real horse for Brunnhilde’s appearance on her mountain top. The forests and mountains of Washington State were lovingly recreated on stage, but it must have cost a fortune! Given that they were paying a decent fee for me simply to understudy two roles, along with free travel and cheap accommodation, they must have been paying the big stars serious money, and the sets and costumes were beautifully made. Even compared to the budgets of Covent Garden, La Scala and the Paris Opera, Seattle seemed to be awash with dollars. It was only when, on the first night, it was announced that Seattle Opera were grateful to their main sponsors, Microsoft and Boeing, that I began to grasp what US opera is all about. Of course, these two mega companies are based in Washington State, along with Starbucks – you can visit the first ever Starbucks at the waterfront in Seattle – and that’s where the money comes from! I wasn’t objecting. 

Next time, I’ll look more closely at the region around Seattle, and write a bit more about the production.