Music News
‘Martern aller Arten’: Singing Through Paralysis
Soprano Heidi Moss’ Norina in the Pocket Opera production of Don Pasquale last month was a triumph in more ways than this listener had thought. Here was a lively, sparkling vocal and comic performance, fully appreciated after wondering momentarily — and forgetting — about a slight immobility in the singer’s face.
Several postperformance e-mail messages later, and after reading her biographical note in the program (”In 2007, [Moss] came down with a rare version of Bell’s palsy, which left half of her face paralyzed”), I realized that rather than hiding her condition, the singer willingly discusses it — with the objectivity one would expect from a trained scientist (which she is), and with the courage that’s the hallmark of a true artist, a real mensch (of any gender).
Heidi Moss
However young and willowy Moss looks, there is an eventful life already behind her, including a double degree in biology and music from Oberlin College, and work as a research biochemist at Rockefeller University, where she met Andrej Sali, her biophysicist husband.
The couple moved to San Francisco five years ago, where he works at UCSF Mission Bay and she sings with numerous companies in Northern California and gives lectures on molecular biology at Foothill College. Then the real busy time arrived with the birth of Ava three years ago, and of Hana last year. Through it all, Moss sang leading roles with Pocket Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, West Bay Opera, and the San Francisco Opera Center.
Moss’ reviews came from soprano heaven: “As Zerlina, Heidi Moss contributed her lovely, lyric soprano and an appropriately girlish sexiness …” (Michael Zwiebach); “Foremost were the four principals: Heidi Moss as the lost lady, Constanze … her long, difficult aria ‘Martern aller Arten’ (Every kind of torture might lie in wait for me), was the pinnacle of the evening, delivered with both finesse and fury …” (James Keolker).
Moss as Zerlina, with Nikolaus Schiffmann as Masetto
But then, real torture came, suddenly and brutally, and Moss responded with Constanze’s pluck and iron determination. But first, of course, was the shock:
As she told a reporter recently, it was in February 2007 (she was in her third trimester with Hana) when Moss awoke one morning to find the right side of her face completely paralyzed. “I couldn’t blink, talk well, eat neatly or smile … it was just a horrific, droopy, unexpressive mess.” Suspecting a stroke, Moss went to the emergency room where doctors diagnosed her with Bell’s palsy, a condition that causes the seventh cranial facial muscle nerve to die.
A video close-up from the May 24 Don Pasquale, submitted by the singer, is an image totally different from my experience seeing her perform
Most such cases actually resolve themselves in a few months, but Moss was in the unfortunate minority: Her injury was severe, with peripheral nerve damage. Doctors told her there was also a high probability that she had developed synkinesis, a condition in which nerves grow into the wrong muscle, manifesting in crossed facial signals such as squinting when smiling.
“I had a period of mourning,” said Moss, “but then I would look at my daughter Hana and I would see that I gave my smile to her; she is a very smiley baby.” It took a while, but Moss “finally got used to the stares, of meeting people for the first time and seeing the look in their eyes of ‘I wonder what is wrong with her’?'”
When she decided to return to her singing career — “so much of opera singing is about losing tension, and fate had me doing this naturally” — the stares and “wondering” translated into rejection from the same companies that had welcomed her before the onset of the illness.
Norina on May 24, looking more like the way the audience saw her
Moss understood some of the misgiving: “I cannot fully blink, nor smile properly, and my eyebrow and forehead are completely frozen. Obviously, this is a killer for an opera singer, and in the small rooms where most auditions occur, the disability is even more apparent. I could completely understand their hesitation, but I was heartbroken at the prospect of abandoning the art I love.”
So she didn’t give up, kept auditioning, and then Donald Pippin and Pocket Opera broke the spell, giving her the role of Norina.
What Moss doesn’t mention is that Pippin didn’t require an audition, it was she who insisted on it. “It was not a matter of taking a chance,” Pippin told me. “Heidi sounds and looks lovely as ever; there is a radiance about her. In no way are her powers diminished nor does she look impaired. I have just looked at the DVD [of Don Pasquale], and was struck by the liveliness, the illumination she brings to the role.
“She has always done well by us,” Pippin says, “from Gilda to Susanna to Constanze. As to her face, the problem is barely noticeable. It even gives a certain piquancy to her appearance. It’s also wonderful to have her in the cast because of the sense of happiness she conveys, so thoroughly positive, never a moment of self-pity.”
Three months after palsy struck. “It is one of those photos where I started to blink when the flash went off, but you can see the paralyzed eyelid doesn’t move.”
Moss is deeply grateful to Pocket Opera, “willing to take a chance, and with one of the most animated characters, no less! … and I was so happy with the feedback from audience members. [NEA Chairman] Dana Gioia gave me the best compliment of all: He said I was his favorite Norina!”
She adds: “Perhaps the distance the stage brings makes my disability less obvious. I do hope to portray the character in a way that ‘abled-face’ singers could. I have been working a great deal at creating better symmetry, mostly by relaxing the ‘healthy side,’ so it looks better, although when I overexpress, smile wide, laugh [the problem] is very apparent …”
Moss in The Grand Seducers, with Eugene Brancoveanu
With bravery that encompasses puns in the worst possible taste (were they to come from anyone else), Moss is working on an essay about the illness from a singer’s point of view, to be titled “Bell’s Canto,” and possibly subtitled “Face the Music.”
Scientist and singer, Moss manages to find something positive in palsy:
The purpose of the facial musculature in the art of singing is twofold: It is a resonance structure (as in “the mask”), and an expression vehicle (diction, animation, emotion). Obviously palsy affects the latter; however, in the case of the former, in fact, I find palsy to be of service.
We singers are reed instruments, a reed structure with a column of air flowing through. Granted, it is a complicated column, but like the woodwind, it is perhaps acoustically ideal to have a more rigid body (not tense, just rigid), with the vibrations and alterations in pitch coming from the purest and simplest manipulation.
I was fortunate to have a teacher in recent years, W. Stephen Smith, whom I discovered while still a scientist at Rockefeller. I was the resident page-turner for the University’s noonday recital series, allowing me to turn for the likes of PDQ Bach, Patricia Racette, the St. Lawrence String quartet — it was a fabulous lunch break. When I turned pages for the baritone Scott Hendricks, I was so enthralled by his technique that I asked him who his teacher was. (I had been frustrated by many of mine, who relied on imagery, external manipulation, and slogans such as “pretend you are swallowing a horse head,” “lift your mask,” “smile for the high note,” and so on.)
With Stephen it was simple: chords and air. He didn’t even talk about the face. My only understanding was that any facial tension or manipulation beyond speaking the words as simple diction (not over-enunciating) and expression of the emotion was unnecessary and actually a hindrance. We did simple exercises isolating each — chords and air — then bringing them together. I started out as a scientist taking lessons for fun, and he turned me into a singer who could actually perform in public. (He has a book called The Naked Voice, and there is a blurb in the back about my “conversion.”)
Back to the present: My palsy has helped my vocal production by alleviating unnecessary tension in the face. It was easy to mirror that relaxation on the healthy side, given the template for comparison, and I just felt by focusing on chords and air I could sing easier than before. This may go contrary to those advocating using facial muscles in production, but as long as I can pronounce words I feel I am fine. Fricatives are still hard, but I manage.
Of course, palsy has its drawbacks. I do get adhesions where the skin starts to fuse with the muscle underneath. That kind of rigidity does impact the “mask,” and the same can be said for synkinesis, which leads to inappropriate contraction, which then can lead to tension. But both of those are manageable with massage and exercise. I see a physical therapist weekly. There are also headaches, other pains, and ear ringing (I have a tympanic membrane synkinesis where my ear rings like hell when I smile, but it is like anything — you get used to it).
My biggest concern about palsy is the ability to express. We do not realize how many emotions are revealed through subtleties in facial expression, and it is the most frustrating for me to lack that. Even my laugh and smile look strange, and any eyebrow lifting results in a frown on one side (my daughters have sometimes asked “Are you angry, Mom?” since they missed the point of my expression. The “safe default,” remaining placid, also has its drawbacks, conveying the appearance of apathy or stupidity.
Based on her behavior and artistry, such appearances have no validity. Besides going on with life at full tilt, and resuming her career, Moss is “interested in creating awareness for Bell’s palsy, which is underreported, yet has such a dramatic effect on one’s being, functionally and psychologically.”
That awareness could not be better promoted than by this case of the disease at its worst, and the singer-patient at her unpretentiously heroic best.
Moss as Oscar in Opera Memphis’ Un Ballo in Maschera
New Performance Space at the Contemporary
When the Contemporary Jewish Museum opens this weekend, among other riches, it will offer the city a splendid new performance space. The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Hall is a multipurpose room, which can be configured a number of ways depending on the event. The 3,500-square-foot room can be used as a theater, via a retractable seating system, or as an open, unstructured space, ideal for film, video, and intimate theatrical performances, including comedy, lectures, discussions, and readings. It accommodates 250 in theater seating.
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Hall
Administration Changes at S.F. Opera
General Director David Gockley has reorganized the company’s administration by appointing Matthew Shilvock as assistant general director, promoting Clifford Cranna to director of music administration, and naming Gregory Henkel as director of artistic administration.
Henkel, coming from a similar position with Los Angeles Opera, “will focus on casting and artist relations, ensuring that SFO has singers, conductors, and directors of the highest excellence.” Cranna, who has been with the company for 30 years, “will formally take on the management of the orchestra and chorus, with Chorus and Dance Manager Jim Meyer and Orchestra Manager Tracy Davis reporting directly to him.”
Shilvock’s role is described to be a “broad generalist, spearheading many of the Company’s new initiatives and working closely with the general director as he has done for the last three years.” Previously, Shilvock worked with Gockley at the Houston Grand Opera.
Clifford Cranna, recipient of the 2008 San Francisco Opera Medal
S.F. Ballet’s Koenig to the Met
Metropolitan Opera General Director Peter Gelb has announced the appointment of Lesley Koenig as the company’s assistant manager, effective Aug. 1. Koenig, general manager of the San Francisco Ballet for the past six years, will be returning to the New York company where she worked from 1980 to 1998, restaging numerous productions and directing a new production of Così fan tutte, which was televised on PBS.
Said Gelb: “In her new post, she will work closely with me in overseeing the mounting of new productions and revivals. She will coordinate the activities of the directors and designers of our new productions; the staff designers, house directors, and stage managers will all report directly to her. Lesley will work in collaboration with Joe Clark and John Sellars.”
Lesley Koenig (with S.F. Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy)
Ethnic Dance Anniversary Blowout
As Jeopardy would put it: Answer — “Depends on who is doing the dancing.” Question — “What’s the difference between ethnic and folk dancing?” Yes, doing the Csárdás in Hungary is folk dance; performing it in San Francisco is ethnic.
For the next four weekends — longer than ever before — the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina will turn into an Olympiad of folk dance, with performances by more than half a thousand dancers. The event, perceived as ethnic dance by a majority of the audience in each case, will draw a crowd for the length of the festival estimated to be well over 10,000.
Raíces De Mi Tierra
Photos by RJ Munar
Nothing speaks more convincingly of the thoroughly and delightfully cosmopolitan nature of the city than World Arts West’s 30th annual Ethnic Dance Festival. One of the largest such celebrations in the world, the festival has brought together thousands of dancers, musicians, and enthusiastic audience members from around the globe, albeit with local roots or connections.
This year, there will be an unusual mix of local and invited guests. Five hundred dancers from the Bay Area will rub elbows with 50 famous masters of the genre, dancers and musicians such as Sindhu Ravuri of San Jose, the festival’s first Indian kuchipudi artist (classical Indian dance form from the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh), who will perform to the accompaniment of her gurus Raja and Radha Reddy, two of India’s foremost kuchipudi masters who were favorites of Indira Gandhi. Allassane Kane, a master drummer and dancer from Senegal, will join Oakland’s West African dance collective Ballet Lisanga, directed by Renee Puckett, Kane’s student for many years. Also in town will be a live pin peat orchestra from Cambodia that will accompany Charya Burt Cambodian Classical Dance company, as well as musicians from Korea, China, Tajikistan, and others.
Na-Lei Hulu I Ka We-kiu
As usual, the variety of the shows is stunning. Take the first program, performed three times, June 7-8. It ranges from Chinese children’s dance from the Dongbei region, to Mexican marimba masters accompanying Chiapas dancers, to Miriam Peretz’s Tajik art from Central Asia, to the Charya Burt Cambodian Dance company, to a premiere work by the extraordinary Na-Lei Hulu I Ka We-kiu (”the many feathered wreaths at the summit, held in high esteem”) about Hawaiian celestial navigation, to South Indian, Korean, Flamenco, Afro-Cuban/Afro-Haitian dances — and that’s just the first program.
Four artists are honored this year with a special award: Miguel Santos of Theatre Flamenco, Ann Woo of the Chinese Performing Artists of America, Carlos Moreno of Ballet Folklorico Mexicano de Carlos Moreno, and Blanche Brown, who performs with Alafia Dance Ensemble.
Shabnam
“The San Francisco Bay Area,” says Festival Executive Director Julie Mushet, “is home to the greatest ethnic dance community in the world, with many thousands of people sustaining gorgeous dance forms from cultures near and far. On this year’s stage, there will be evidence of the many lineages nurtured over the years, with masters and their accomplished students performing throughout the entire month of June.”
Northern California Korean Dance Association
Black & White & Blue
The San Francisco Symphony’s Black & White Ball is for a good purpose (supporting music education), and mostly it’s good fun. But this Sunday’s biennial edition was nearly botched up by the moronic action of some people who really should have known better.
Rather than an open Civic Center and the use of all the buildings around it, this year’s Ball was limited to courtyard tents, the west side of Van Ness, and the buildings between Davies Hall and the War Memorial — about one-third of the usual space. Still, that could have worked. The moronic bit came from those in charge of directing (or, rather, not directing) foot traffic. Across the street from City Hall, squeezed between elevated booths for special parties, a food court, and a fence, there was a 10-foot-wide path for thousands of partygoers going in both directions. The pushing, the shoving, flaring tempers — this was not a party, more like an involuntary Pamplona setting.
All because of the neglect to put up a rope to channel traffic in two directions, or post a couple of guards straightening out the matter. No such rudimentary assistance being available, the situation kept getting worse as the night went along … by that time impatience fueled by the generously available booze of all kind. When you have a crowd like that, you want to disperse, not squeeze people together. Negligence or incompetence could have turned a fun event into a disaster. Perhaps two years from now, attention will be paid.
Like this, but in black & white, and going in all directions
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
Heidi Moss’ explanation of using the injured side of her face to help inform the healthy side as to unnecessary tension, and so rebuild her technique around the concept of “cords and air”, is a tribute to her tenacity as a singer and performer.
Posted by Cheryl Keller on June 5, 2008 at 8:51 am
At the end of this elite Black & Blue Ball, at midnight, Janos Gereben’s “morons” unleased a barrage of concussive fireworks, awakening surrounding neiborhoods, terrifying infants and children, sending pets under beds and triggering car alarms. The moron(s) who directed this imperious midnight mayhem should apologize and resign.
Posted by Howard Miller on June 6, 2008 at 1:39 pm