CAST SYSTEM.(Opera News, overview)(Brief Article)(Column)

An odd thing about opera-lovers is the weight they give to who's singing rather than what's being sung. For longtime fans, this seems as natural as baby's teeth: the voice is why they go to the opera. But talk to people who have attended only one or two operas, and you'll find that their priority is exactly opposite: for them, the play's the thing, and if casting occupies their thinking at all, it reflects a concern that the singers look credible, not that they sound sublime.

Preoccupation with physical suitability for a role is no longer something that just newcomers worry about, and in this issue of OPERA NEWS, we examine this question from the point of view of both the director of an opera company and a music professional who's also a major fan. For the director's point of view, read David Schiff's interview with the canny impresario of Seattle Opera, Speight Jenkins, which begins on page 28. For him, looks matter, but they're way behind voice and, for want of a better word, impact. For the highly personal view of an unquestioned expert, read Steven Blier's "The Fit Lady Sings," starting on page 12. Awareness of physical attractiveness is natural, Blier notes, but overemphasis on it brings manifold dangers for singers, especially those just beginning a career.

My own view on the subject of physical casting evolved from two periods of intensive operagoing in my late teens and early twenties. My first opera was a Met Tosca that included Zinka Milanov, Flaviano Labo and Leonard Warren. Casts of the same high vocal class were astonishingly common during my college years, and it never occurred to me to ponder whether Richard Tucker looked credible in a doublet or Joan Sutherland was built to sing Amina in La Sonnambula. After college, I lived for few years in Munich, where the roster did not glitter with quite the number of front-rank stars, particularly in the Italian repertory, and several respected singers were clearly over the hill. In Munich, however, dramatic values were a serious matter. The ...