Pity the poor operatic bass. He is most commonly cast as the dark-voiced villain, the troubled monarch, the buffo clown or the gruff-but-kindly father figure. Rarely, if ever, does he wind up with the girl. Seldom–no matter how skilled or intelligent he may be as a vocal artist–do his performances excite the popular imagination the way those given by most leading sopranos and tenors do.
Yet Paul Plishka, who returns to Lyric Opera to portray the vengeful Alvise in Ponchielli`s ”La Gioconda,” opening Tuesday at the Civic Opera House, is not complaining. Critics regularly praise the lyrical beauty of his voluminous voice, along with the nobility, fervor and authority of his performances. He is a mainstay of opera theaters throughout the world and a concert singer who is much sought-after by major orchestras. At 45, the hardworking artist is an American product through and through, one who now enjoys the rewards of an international career built entirely in this country. When you sit down to talk with the stocky, curly-haired singer and observe him going through his operatic paces, you are forcefully struck by two things. One is that Plishka`s voice conforms not at all to the ”Russian bass” stereotype the public likes to associate with low male voices. The other is that, in an age when so many singers of his generation are showing the dread symptoms of premature vocal burnout, Plishka finds himself at the peak of his vocal form, his healthy instrument a reflection of careful and discerning career management.
”People have said to me after hearing me sing, `Oh, you have a Slavic voice,”` says Plishka, who has Ukrainian blood in his veins and a sonorous speaking voice to match his singing voice. ”I always felt it was a very Italianate sound, warm and mellow. That`s my training. My teacher, Armen Boyajian, and I are very enamored of the Italian style. When I sang Verdi`s
`Nabucco` in the Canary Islands, a couple of young Italian singers told me I sang with the schola antiqua–the old Italian school of singing.”
As a matter of fact, it is the great Verdi bass roles–Nabucco, Padre Guardiano in ”La Forza del Destino,” Ramfis in ”Aida,” Philip II in ”Don Carlo,” Procida in ”I Vespri Siciliani,” Wurm in ”Luisa Miller”–that form the core of Plishka`s operatic repertory. ”If I had my choice,” he says, ”I would take a steady diet of Verdi any day.”
And he insists he wouldn`t trade places with any of the divas or divos who currently whoosh across the operatic firmament.
”A bass is more fortunate than other opera singers in that he gets to sing major roles, little roles and everything in between. You can start with the conspirators Tom and Sam in `Masked Ball,` who are on stage all night long. If you play your cards right, you can make these characters stand out. All these roles are stepping stones. Your management, also the public, sees you in each one, they like what you do and they want to see (your career)
grow. And if you protect it, take good care of it, it can grow.”
Although Plishka (whose grandparents came to America in 1910) considers himself more Ukrainian than American physically, the Old Forge, Pa., native says he feels ”totally American” in spirit. And his direct, easygoing manner seems to underline that feeling.
”It`s strange,” the singer says, laughing, ”that just because you are Ukrainian, people think you should be singing Russian music. Galina Vishnevskaya, the soprano, told me that the greatest basses came from the Ukraine. That made me wonder how Russian I really am.”
The Plishka voice–a singing bass, spinning out a long-breathed legato, rather than the blacker, deeper, more dramatically biting profundo that one associates with such great Russian basses as Feodor Chaliapin–is a cultivated instrument. Plishka has been particularly admired for the ringing strength of his high notes, a quality that the American singer attributes to his work with Boyajian: ”I approach my high notes the way a tenor does, which gives me a more exciting, ringing sound than the hollow, growly kind of sound most people expect to hear from basses.”
At the same time, Plishka has been canny enough about his own capabilities not to rush the development of his voice, nor to risk permanent damage by taking on operatic roles for which he believes himself unsuited. ”I have a very placid, slow-molasses kind of personality, which helps a great deal in this business and helps a great deal vocally,” the singer has said.
For example, Plishka declined Herbert von Karajan`s request to sing the title role in the conductor`s Salzburg production of Wagner`s ”The Flying Dutchman” because ”I knew it was wrong for me and potentially dangerous.”
It takes a stout-hearted musician to say no to Karajan, but the American bass clearly values vocal longevity over immediate fame.
By the same token he waited years before tackling Boris Godunov, one of the biggest and most grueling bass roles in the repertoire, and a
quintessentially Russian role at that. Plishka now sings the Mussorgsky part selectively–”It takes too much from the voice, chips pieces off the marble.” You can be certain he will be carefully guarding his precious marble when he portrays the guilt-ridden czar in March at the Metropolitan Opera.
”Boris Godunov is one of those roles I decided to stay away from until I felt I could handle them emotionally and vocally,” Plishka explains. ”It doesn`t require a beautiful instrument to sing Boris.” He shifts his stocky frame in his chair and smiles. ”I`ve heard guys with voices that sound like they are shoveling coal go into `Boris` and have a good success. It`s not the two or three performances that kill you. It`s the coaching sessions, the rehearsal periods, all those orchestra rehearsals–there are many more hours going into that than the actual performance time.
”You see, for me opera starts with the voice. I try to make my instrument as beautiful and as true to the music as I can. That`s No. 1. Then I try physically to bring as much drama as I can without hurting my voice, without disturbing the flow of vocalism. Some people can give you more (drama) than others. I go for the musical values.”
It was obvious to Boyajian that Plishka was prepared to give something extra when the 17-year-old singer auditioned for an opera workshop that Boyajian was launching in Paterson, N.J. Fresh from singing Judd Fry in his high school production of ”Oklahoma,” Plishka revealed a light bass with limited range who nevertheless seemed to have good musical instincts. He did more than sing with the company, driving the truck, painting scenery and working with the stage crew as well.
It was during his two years as a voice major at Montclair State Teachers College that he met his future wife, Judy. After quitting school, Plishka supported himself by driving an ice cream truck. Boyajian recalls that occasionally his student wouldn`t have enough money to pay for voice lessons and would guiltily offer a quart of ice cream instead.
At the age of 23 he entered the Metropolitan regional auditions, won a $1,000 prize and in 1965 joined the roster of the now-defunct Met National Company. For a year he took on a variety of standard roles, serving on his home turf the kind of apprenticeship that many a young American singer has been forced to go to Europe to pursue. In 1966, when the national company was disbanded, Plishka was one of the few singers who managed to jump ship to the parent Metropolitan Opera.
His first Lincoln Center stage appearance for the Met, in 1967, was a minor role in ”La Gioconda.” Rudolf Bing, then the Met`s general manager, offered him a contract as a buffo (comic) bass, but Plishka insisted that he be given serious roles as well. Gradually he built a repertoire of some two dozen supporting parts before graduating to such leading roles as Leporello in ”Don Giovanni,” King Marke in ”Tristan und Isolde” and Pimen in ”Boris Godunov.” He spent a lot of time understudying for the Italian buffo bass, Fernando Corena, an experience that he says taught him more than any college singing teacher.
”In that period,” Plishka once recalled, ”they asked me to sing the Grand Inquisitor (in ”Don Carlo”) and Boris when I was 26. I just wouldn`t do it, and I believe in that. I didn`t do my first Mephistopheles in `Faust`
until I was 33, when I felt my voice had reached its final maturity. (Tenor)
Richard Tucker didn`t do `Aida` until he was past 50.
”I think a singer between 30 and 55–whatever his career lifespan may be –should preserve (the voice) as best he can, to do as much justice to the music as he possibly can.”
Having gotten so many smaller bass roles under his belt during that first decade at the Met, Plishka found himself increasingly in demand here and abroad for more important parts. ”I`ve been at the Met now for 20 years and done over 600 performances for them. I owe my debuts at La Scala, Covent Garden and Paris to my relationship with the musicians I worked with at the Met; they took me across the Atlantic with them. And the Saturday afternoon Met radio broadcasts were very important in driving my name into people`s minds around the world.”
Given the high degree of integrity that Plishka brings to his art, it`s not surprising to hear him chastise (though not by name) certain of the radical (politically as well as aesthetically), musically illiterate stage directors who are creating such havoc in today`s opera world, particularly in sensation-hungry Europe.
”I haven`t experienced a crisis yet, but I know plenty of colleagues who have. A famous American soprano recently went to France for a production of
`The Magic Flute.` For the trial-by-water scene the director wanted to turn her upside down and dip her head into a pail of water. She refused. They insisted she do the scene as specified. She walked out. They sued her and won the case in the French courts. She has to pay them the cost of her contract
–just imagine!
”The time has come for singers to protect themselves legally. When you sign a contract for a given opera two or three years down the line, it should be understood that the performance is going to be within a traditional framework. If there is going to be anything out of the ordinary (in the production), the terms should be inserted in the contract. Too many times you arrive at a theater and are presented with a conflict that is outrageous. What do you do? You walk away and are unemployed for three or four weeks.”
As for the operatic personality cult, Plishka mugs an expression of distaste at the mere mention of the PR antics of such superstar colleagues as Luciano Pavarotti. The American bass is content, thank you, to continue along his firmly mapped career path, with the support of an unusually close-knit family. (Plishka and his wife and their three sons maintain a rural home in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.) No extramusical frills, no media blitzes, no stadium gigs for this serious, down-to-earth musician.
