San Francisco Classical Voice

"Digital delivery" still sounds vague and futuristic, but in fact it is something specific, likely to become part of the fabric of everyday living soon. There are already examples of existing digital deliveries: reading newspapers or browsing through encyclopedias online, for starters. Now think of your record/cassette/CD/DVD collection, the many years of finding, acquiring, indexing, storing, and updating all that. The simple and painless alternative: virtually unlimited music collections online, available for browsing, listening — everything but making it your own by downloading, and that is sure to come yet.

This glimpse into the future that's here was prompted by coming across the Naxos Music Library, at www.naxosmusiclibrary.com, streamed from the company's Hong Kong site. It is the most comprehensive collection of classical music available online... for now. Competition is certain to be hot and heavy. Naxos president Klaus Heymann disagrees. He told Classical Voice that to his knowledge no other company has all the rights to the recordings they issue. Still, it seems likely that a way will be found around thorny problems, in order to take advantage of such brilliant technology.

There are some 5,000 albums in the Naxos collection, scores of new releases added each month, instantly available. A drawback: high-speed (broadband) connection is a must. A big advantage: you can read program and biographical information while listening to the music, instead of jeopardizing your sight with the tiny font used in the usually insufficient documentation included with CDs.

For now, the Naxos Music Library is available to organizations and educational institutions, but surely the future of commercial distribution of music is right here, online.

The $4 Million Violinist

It was memorable, back in 1995, to hear Corey Cerovsek play the Berg Concerto in Miami, with MTT's New World Symphony "training orchestra," a 20-year-old, with an ordinary violin that he made sing brilliantly. Older, wiser, more famous, and with an EXTRAordinary violin now, Cerovsek is the Marin Symphony's guest artist this week, playing a Mozart concerto on the 1742 Guarneri "Wieniawski" Del Gesu violin, named after the Polish composer and virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski. Described variously as "priceless" or worth $4 million, the violin is certainly worth hearing, but I really appreciated Cerovsek even with an inexpensive instrument. Marin's March 7-9 concerts, with music director Alasdair Neale will feature Jennifer Higdon's Blue Cathedral and Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3, with organist Charles Rus. For information, see www.marinsymphony.org.

A Case Study: How a Young Singer Became 'The Man'

When Daniel Okulitch was in a San Francisco Opera training program a couple of years ago, those keeping watch over the Merola Program described him as a "good singer and a sweet young man." Those are fine attributes, but unlikely to put one high up on the billboard, especially early in one's career. And yet, Okulitch is now scheduled to sing nothing less than the title role of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, in the opera's 2006 Canadian premiere, in Calgary.

An e-mail said: "This is the kid from two years ago, who sang the Confession Scene from Dead Man Walking at the auditions for Pamela Rosenberg, without realizing the opera came from San Franciso, commissioned here by the previous general director, Lotfi Mansouri . . . but that's not how he landed the role." Sensing a "story" and wanting to hear what it's like to fight for an opportunity and succeed, Classical Voice asked Okulitch to tell it all. He did so, with much enthusiasm and relish.

"How much have I wanted to do this role! I've been working at getting it for nearly three years. I first came across the score while I was an apprentice at the Cincinnati Opera, in 2001. The chorus master was affiliated with Opera Pacific, which was scheduled to present the opera the next year, and so he was studying up on it. I borrowed the score for a quarter hour and photocopied as much of the solo music for Joseph DeRocher as I could. I'm always looking for new repertoire to present in auditions, anything that might separate me from the herds of baritones and bass-baritones out there.

"I was especially drawn to the final aria Joe has where he finally confesses to Sister Helen his role in the murder and rape he is being executed for. I knew that no one else would necessarily have the guts to do this particular scene in an audition, it flies in the face of what you're supposed to present. One, most likely no one would have heard it. Two, it had no melody, no real climactic high notes. Three, the subject matter was very provocative and risque. Four, if it wasn't acted utterly convincingly, it would fall on its face.

"I started working on it, and it fit my voice and temperament like a glove, I even started opening with it at auditions. It was at my Merola audition that it made the best impression, I assume, since I was invited to be a Merola artist for the summer of 2002. That spring I was in Calgary, performing Benoit/Alcindoro in La Bohème, when I learned that the company may present the Canadian premiere of the opera.

"Next summer in the Merola Program, all the apprentices sang for Pamela Rosenberg and an invited audience of patrons on the main stage of the Opera House. I sang the Confession Scene, and remember hearing some murmuring in the audience when I announced the piece, but really didn't think much of it. After the performance, people told me they were surprised: 'You've got a lot of guts singing that piece here!' They also told Jake about me, and he spent time with me, discussing the piece, the character, and I gained a lot of insight into who DeRocher was. Jake also called Calgary, recommending me for the role . . . and I got a chance to audition for it.

"Calgary is more than just a company doing the opera. It's my home town where I had my operatic debut at age 12 in Amahl and the Night Visitors. Over the years I've been back to perform small roles, but this was the first audition with them for a major engagement. Being the home town boy would only carry so much weight, since an all-star cast was being assembled from across Canada for the premiere. My audition last October went fine. I was asked how many pushups I can do (Joe has to do a total of 37 during his Act 2 aria), but I didn't know what will happen. It's funny how literally years of preparation and hope can be distilled down into a 10-minute window of opportunity, and then all you can do is wait. One tries not to think too much about it, or trust to hope. I purposely had to make myself stop wanting it so much prior to the audition. That kind of energy is destructive and distracting to a performer. In the months that followed, I would get surges of desire to find out yes or no, images of what I would like to do with the role and the thrill of performing it in my home town . . . but I press them down and let them simmer. The wanting was too strong.

"So when my agent called with the news that I would be performing the role in 2006, I think I babbled incoherently and shouted praises to the heavens for a good 10 minutes. The waiting, and I suppose the wanting, paid off. It was a strange series of events that led to me getting the role, with so many people pulling for me and helping to coach the music, or put in words of praise to the right people at the right time. For a young singer, the biggest hurdle is often getting a company to take a chance on you, because once someone does, then other companies will take that as a sign that you are indeed ready to be taken seriously. I've been lucky to have a network of people to help me along that tricky transition from young artist to professional artist. Luck plays a factor, but as they say, luck is when preparation meets opportunity. If I wasn't ready then, I wouldn't ever be. That's the story; the novel is due out later this year . . ."