Interviews - Musicians-Artists A Talk with Baritone Nathan Gunn
| A Talk with Baritone Nathan Gunn |
| Written by Jason Victor Serinus | |||||
| Tuesday, 05 February 2008 16:00 | |||||
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JVS: You have been typecast a lot, because you have this gorgeous body and appear in all these operas with your shirt off. In fact, I seem to have unintentionally followed the shirt-off route from Billy Budd in San Francisco to An American Tragedy at the Met.  NG: You know, Pat Racette was supposed to take off some of her costume with me too, but she chickened out. JVS: [laughing]. She's just a wonderful artist. But getting back to your artistry, when I listened to the recording, the first thing I thought of was some of the classic Broadway baritones, like John Raitt and Alfred Drake. The first thing I said to myself was that you could easily have held your own with any of them. The second thing was, and you'll pardon me, but your voice has this ‘Honey, just lie back and I'll take care of the rest' quality. [Nathan chuckles]. NG: I think that's a good quality. JVS: Oh, it's fabulous. In fact, way back, way before I met my husband David, I discovered a recording of Sir Thomas Allen singing Brahms, and said it was the voice of the man I wanted to marry. So, after playing your recording, I put on Thomas Allen again and said, 'Hmm, tastes have changed.'" But anyway… NG: Wow. Thomas Allen. What an artist! JVS: Yes, his Brahms is just gorgeous. NG: Yes, it's absolutely gorgeous. Have you heard his Winterreise? JVS: No. I have it, but I never got a chance to play it. NG: It's just great. I remember when I first tackled it, I wrote him before I actually worked with him, and said, "You know, this is a piece of music that begins at such a low point. How do you approach it?" He replied, "Think of yourself standing in six inches of snow, and every time you take a step, you sink down further. Yet you still have hope that at some point, you'll be able to get out of it. And it just gets worse and worse." That's the kind of imagination and imagery he put into all of his music. He's such a great musician. And such a beautiful voice. JVS: What he said could serve as a metaphor for Schubert's life. NG: Yes, true. JVS: So many of his songs have that downward pull, but then they can also express joy. NG: I know. JVS: I'm curious. Did you always have this wonderful, unforced resonance in your voice? How old are you now? NG: My birthday is the end of November. I'll be 37 years old. JVS: So you were winning competitions in your early 20s? Was that resonance and ease there before you began voice training? NG: I guess it was. I really believe that everyone has that capability. My teacher was real old school. His teacher Dudley Buck's teacher was Jean de Reszke [also the teacher of Bidu Sayao]. I'll think of it in a minute. What I learned was what was taught 100 years ago or more. He called it nature's way of singing. For the first six months, I was only really learning how to breathe. How to breathe – that was it. Then came how to move the muscles in your throat and mouth so you can make words while still having what he called, not support, but a 'hook-up' always active to get in synch. It was really all about singing freely and singing healthily – that's all he taught. When you do that, you hit a natural resonance that sounds like you. Some people are very afraid to sound like themselves because they have walls all built up around them. They would prefer their singing voices sound different than their speaking voices. But I was taught to maintain the kind of freedom and natural sound that we probably all have from the beginning. JVS: I noticed that you're on the board of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation. I consider her one of my spiritual teachers. I discovered an old Seraphim LP of hers when I was in college. I put on "Dich, teure halle" and was stunned. I'd never heard such ecstasy in singing. How did you end up on the board? Did it have to do with the quality of your voice? NG: I think a little bit. They approached me about it. I've always been a fan. I wish I could have heard her live, but that would have been impossible. [Lehmann stopped concertizing in 1951, and died in 1976 at the age of 88]. Their focus is on recital and beautiful singing, which are something I try to promote. So I agreed. JVS: Do you have many recitals scheduled? I see mostly opera on your website. NG: Yeah. I can't put my actual recital schedule on there until the venue says it's okay. I think I have maybe a dozen recitals scheduled this year. The programs depend on the venue. For example, in Zankel Hall this year, I intend to do a sacred and profane kind of program with that very interesting, kind of bloody part of Catholicism, and that kind of earthy and spiritual stuff. When I was in Aix-en-Provence this summer, I went to this tourist place called the Cathedral of Images. It's this old abandoned limestone quarry with a roof inside a mountain that they've converted into this artistic experience. This year, the theme is Venice. You go in, and they project these incredible images onto the walls of this vast quarry. You walk around while music plays and just experience it. It's really effective. But at Zankel in the early spring – and only in Zankel can you do this – I want to create what in my mind is a modern recital experience that would incorporate something like that and a female modern dancer onstage to meld some of the yin and the yang and give everyone a broader, bigger experience. It wouldn't be a normal lieder recital, but rather a whole experience. That's one venue and one kind of recital. But there are many recital places in the Midwest where they can't do something like that. There, I want to mix German lieder with songs on this disc with a little Charles Ives and maybe a little Tom Waits, and show the similarity in quality between all these kinds of songs. I'm pretty fortunate in being able to do this.
JVS: Do you do the coat and tie routine, and do you speak with the audience? NG: I generally don't speak with the audience because it makes me a little nervous [chuckling]. I don't know why. I try to stick with just singing, and make it just a singing experience. I usually do wear a coat and tie. I'd like to move away from that a bit, but it is somewhat of a formal occasion, and I want the audience to realize that it demands real attention. I wouldn't be surprised if I move away a bit from that and dress in a more modern formal way. But for now, if it's in the evening, maybe I'll put on my Armani tuxedo and maybe wear a straight tie instead of a bow tie. Presenters often want formal dress as well. People are slow to change, and formal attire makes some people comfortable. JVS: The Nehru jacket seems to be a step away from the usual formal dress. NG: I want to warn you that I have a car that's picking me up at 12:30 and I'll have to run off. JVS: Moving right along.. I'd love you to comment on some of the songs and what they mean to you personally. One of them you put in specifically because of your wife. Is it a song for the two of you? NG: It's "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" by Jimmy Van Heusen. It kind of reminds me of how we met, and finding the person you love. It also describes a little bit what she looked like. For whatever reason when I sing it, I always think of her. Another one that's one of my kids' favorites, SONY felt was hard for people to understand. For me, it's a poem that I've always loved. It's "Jam Tart," the Auden poem that Gene Scheer set. I love it. I love all the words, and the images, and the stream of consciousness part. The combo playing it is really a beautiful thing. Which leads to me into of all things, what for me is probably the most fulfilling to actually record -- the musical experience of it -- "The Secret Marriage", the Sting song. Of all things, you would think, how could Sting have the most interesting tonal texture in the music? But that song, for whatever reason, I find so poignant and so moving. And the words are so beautiful, which is another reason I wanted to do it. I think it speaks to many levels. If you want to talk about crossover, I think it speaks to everybody. Crossover music is kind of boring, but crossover text is interesting. I love that song because it speaks to everyone. It doesn't matter if you're married to a man or a woman, and it's not done because of some legal paper or because someone is getting money from a dowry or because it's arranged, but because you love someone. "Just Before Sunrise" I love. I've known it for a long time, and I've been wanting to find a venue for it. I thought this recording would be perfect. It sets the scene for the entire album. It describes what is a very personal thing for me, which is finding (every once in a while in this chaotic life) that moment that is peaceful and quiet. I think I had said once that it kind of feels like that moment between heartbeats, when you're not breathing in and not breathing out, and everything is settled and okay and peaceful. Those moments come and go, and you get glimpses of them all the time. It's kind of Buddhist as I think about it. It's kind of the point of life, when you can take everything in and your heart is exposed and you're available to people. I love all of these songs. "This Heart That Flutters" was a catalyst for everything else. It's beautiful music, written by Ben who is living on the upper West Side. It's modern, yet still communicates to people in a way that I think vocally and textually describes what I do best. JVS: Let me squeeze in a final question. A lot of women and gay men fawn over you. That whole thing – the Franco Corelli phenomenon, where if anybody has a good body and good legs in the world of opera, where so many people don't, people go wild – how has all that attention been for you? NG: I'm one of those people who… Director David McVicar once said to me, ‘Nathan, I don't think you realize how attractive you are.' It never struck me. I guess I don't view myself that way. I don't think too much about it, I guess. I love people, and that's why I do what I do. If what you call fawning over me and how I look brings people into the theater, that's okay by me. I think of it as a complement, and I think of it as flattering. And it kind of ends there, I suppose. JVS: Fabulous. What a perfect way to end.
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Baritone Nathan Gunn's career is on the ascent. Thirteen years after winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition at the tender age of 23, the handsomely voiced artist followed up recent leading roles at the Met, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Pittsburgh Opera, and Aix-en-Provence with this summer's release of his first solo CD, Just Before Sunrise. The disc of contemporary, soft-hued romantic ballads is Gunn's initial release under a new, flexible contract with SONY BMG Masterworks.
