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Samson et Dalila opened at San Diego Opera on Saturday February 16th. I sat down to talk with the man singing Samson, Clifton Forbis.
San Diego Reader: What's your darkest, deepest secret?
Clifton Forbis: Is that thing recording?
SDR: Yes.
CF: So I gotta be careful of what I say?
SDR: No, just a sense of humor.
CF: I always do. Let's see, deer hunting. I use a bow and love deer hunting.
SDR: Okay, Tristan...what's the deal? I've heard it's like singing Otello twice in one night.
CF: Ya, but it's not even that. It's a whole different animal. It's--uh--naw. Naw. Otello twice? No. Five times? That's more like it. It's a killer.
SDR: Besides the vocal fatigue, how do you handle the mental fatigue?
CF: The thing is I love that piece of music more than anything else I sing. So the fact that I love it so much makes it not a chore but it's very emotionally fatiguing. I had a friend call me and ask me--he was fixin' to do his first--in concert. He said, what do I do? I said well, you're going be fine with everything else but the thing that will get you is the emotional toll. Especially because of act III. It never stops. It's just the most incredible emotional 50 minutes in all of opera for me and I love. I'd rather sing it two nights in a row over anything else.
SDR: You also sing Siegmund [from Die Walkure], what else?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NgCbOC-Uy8
CF: Fidelio, Parsifal, Jenufa, let's see, what else?
SDR: No Lohengrin?
CF: No. You see, that's a weird bird. There's a fach system in Wagner just like there is in the entire repertoire. Just because you sing Lohengrin doesn't mean you sing Tistan or if you sing Siegfried it doesn't mean you sing Walter [from Die Meistersinger]. They're written for different animals. You've got to be careful with it.
SDR: Siegfried seems to be very different from the others.
CF: It is. It's very angular. I talked to another friend of mine and told him I had an offer to sing Siegfried and what did you think of it. He said the only reason to sing Siegfried is if you don't have anything else to sing. [laugh laugh]
SDR: Are there any roles outside of your voice type that you would like to sing?
CF: You mean baritone roles?
SDR: Baritone, lyric tenor--Rodolpho [from La Boheme], Pinkerton [from Madama Butterfly]...
CF: Well I sang some Pinkertons early on. There was a lot of Tosca early on. I don't like Rodolpho. Ya, it would be baritone rep I'd like to sing. I love Kurwenal [from Tristan]. That's some of the greatest music out there. I also love Hunding [from Die Walkure]. I mean I could never do that but I love the character and the writing for him is really cool.
Iago [from Otello].
I just think he is such a dastardly dude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwHjFV96XQ
SDR: Ya, he doesn't really have much of a motive for what he does.
CF: He's just a bad dude from the get-go.
There's still some stuff I'd love to do. I'd like to do a Pique Dame. I've done a lot of Russian rep too. khovanshchina, I did Lenski [from Eugene Onegin] a lot early on.
I've done a lot of Pagliacci as well.
SDR: Are there any similarities between singing and bow hunting? People talk about the voice and the golf swing, that kind of thing.
CF: Naw. Golf, now that's a great example. Bow hunting? That's totally separate. Anything that's not singing I try to keep completely separate. [Big laugh].
SDR: Nothing? No drawing the space back in the throat like an archer pulling a bow back?
CF: Naw, that's hooey.
SDR: Right, let's talk about what you do with your voice. I've never heard anyone at San Diego Opera with as much steel in their voice. Well, I guess Greer Grimsely. How do you do it?
CF: You mean technically speaking?
SDR: Yes.
CF: Part of it is the individual characteristics of the voice. I also think a lot of it is the technique behind the voice. All singers use the support system but I think for big-voiced tenors it's different. A lyric tenor concentrates on moving the air through sound. You know.
For big voices it's a matter of regulating the flow of air. Corelli used to say starving the voice for air. It's basically the concept of sub-glotal compression. Where you keep everything as far away as it can be [from the throat] and then you allow just the bare minimum of voice to create the phonetary process. Then you just ride that thing all night long. Sometimes it's easier than other times--like anything.
It's Corelli, del Monaco, Giacommini, all those, they were all doing that...
SDR: ...James King
CF: ...OH, oh, oh! One of my favorite singers of all time--so artistic, consistent. What a voice. His Parsifal from Bayreuth, oh my gosh man, with Gwyneth Jones. That was just freakin' awesome. That generation is by and large not known by younger singers now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Av1PRFcRG0
Samson et Dalila opened at San Diego Opera on Saturday February 16th. I sat down to talk with the man singing Samson, Clifton Forbis.
San Diego Reader: What's your darkest, deepest secret?
Clifton Forbis: Is that thing recording?
SDR: Yes.
CF: So I gotta be careful of what I say?
SDR: No, just a sense of humor.
CF: I always do. Let's see, deer hunting. I use a bow and love deer hunting.
SDR: Okay, Tristan...what's the deal? I've heard it's like singing Otello twice in one night.
CF: Ya, but it's not even that. It's a whole different animal. It's--uh--naw. Naw. Otello twice? No. Five times? That's more like it. It's a killer.
SDR: Besides the vocal fatigue, how do you handle the mental fatigue?
CF: The thing is I love that piece of music more than anything else I sing. So the fact that I love it so much makes it not a chore but it's very emotionally fatiguing. I had a friend call me and ask me--he was fixin' to do his first--in concert. He said, what do I do? I said well, you're going be fine with everything else but the thing that will get you is the emotional toll. Especially because of act III. It never stops. It's just the most incredible emotional 50 minutes in all of opera for me and I love. I'd rather sing it two nights in a row over anything else.
SDR: You also sing Siegmund [from Die Walkure], what else?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NgCbOC-Uy8
CF: Fidelio, Parsifal, Jenufa, let's see, what else?
SDR: No Lohengrin?
CF: No. You see, that's a weird bird. There's a fach system in Wagner just like there is in the entire repertoire. Just because you sing Lohengrin doesn't mean you sing Tistan or if you sing Siegfried it doesn't mean you sing Walter [from Die Meistersinger]. They're written for different animals. You've got to be careful with it.
SDR: Siegfried seems to be very different from the others.
CF: It is. It's very angular. I talked to another friend of mine and told him I had an offer to sing Siegfried and what did you think of it. He said the only reason to sing Siegfried is if you don't have anything else to sing. [laugh laugh]
SDR: Are there any roles outside of your voice type that you would like to sing?
CF: You mean baritone roles?
SDR: Baritone, lyric tenor--Rodolpho [from La Boheme], Pinkerton [from Madama Butterfly]...
CF: Well I sang some Pinkertons early on. There was a lot of Tosca early on. I don't like Rodolpho. Ya, it would be baritone rep I'd like to sing. I love Kurwenal [from Tristan]. That's some of the greatest music out there. I also love Hunding [from Die Walkure]. I mean I could never do that but I love the character and the writing for him is really cool.
Iago [from Otello].
I just think he is such a dastardly dude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwHjFV96XQ
SDR: Ya, he doesn't really have much of a motive for what he does.
CF: He's just a bad dude from the get-go.
There's still some stuff I'd love to do. I'd like to do a Pique Dame. I've done a lot of Russian rep too. khovanshchina, I did Lenski [from Eugene Onegin] a lot early on.
I've done a lot of Pagliacci as well.
SDR: Are there any similarities between singing and bow hunting? People talk about the voice and the golf swing, that kind of thing.
CF: Naw. Golf, now that's a great example. Bow hunting? That's totally separate. Anything that's not singing I try to keep completely separate. [Big laugh].
SDR: Nothing? No drawing the space back in the throat like an archer pulling a bow back?
CF: Naw, that's hooey.
SDR: Right, let's talk about what you do with your voice. I've never heard anyone at San Diego Opera with as much steel in their voice. Well, I guess Greer Grimsely. How do you do it?
CF: You mean technically speaking?
SDR: Yes.
CF: Part of it is the individual characteristics of the voice. I also think a lot of it is the technique behind the voice. All singers use the support system but I think for big-voiced tenors it's different. A lyric tenor concentrates on moving the air through sound. You know.
For big voices it's a matter of regulating the flow of air. Corelli used to say starving the voice for air. It's basically the concept of sub-glotal compression. Where you keep everything as far away as it can be [from the throat] and then you allow just the bare minimum of voice to create the phonetary process. Then you just ride that thing all night long. Sometimes it's easier than other times--like anything.
It's Corelli, del Monaco, Giacommini, all those, they were all doing that...
SDR: ...James King
CF: ...OH, oh, oh! One of my favorite singers of all time--so artistic, consistent. What a voice. His Parsifal from Bayreuth, oh my gosh man, with Gwyneth Jones. That was just freakin' awesome. That generation is by and large not known by younger singers now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Av1PRFcRG0