Tenor  Richard  Leech

Two Conversations with Bruce Duffie
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American tenor Richard Leech is one of the most celebrated lyric tenors of his generation. In a performance career spanning more than four decades he has provided iconic interpretations of many of the most demanding and well-known roles of the Italian, French, and German repertoire both on disc and on the stages of the world's leading opera houses and symphonies from The Metropolitan Opera to Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Staatsoper and Philharmonic, to London’s Royal Opera at Covent Garden and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. 

Mr. Leech is featured on more than twenty recordings in many of the roles for which he is so well-known including Rodolfo in La Bohème, The Duke in Rigoletto, and Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera, and his award-winning EMI recording of Gounod’s Faust with Michel Plasson among many others. His solo release from the heart, a collection of favorite Italian arias and songs, can be found on the Telarc label, and his acclaimed Deutsche Oper Les Huguenots, on Arthaus DVD.  [Notice that there are two different recordings of Les Huguenots shown below.  On the left is an audio version sung in French, and on the right is the video sung in German.]


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As a passionate teacher and mentor, Mr. Leech has worked extensively with aspiring artists at all levels of their development throughout his career. He is currently Associate Professor of Applied Voice and Opera for George Mason University’s Dewberry School of Music, and Stage Director for the Mason Opera Theater. He has also served on the faculties of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts; Rutgers Opera Institute; and The University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Director of Resident Artist Programs for Michigan Opera Theatre (now Detroit Opera) from 2015-2021, Mr. Leech created the MOT Studio, the company’s first young artist program, offering full-time engagement, training, and experience to artists in the early stages of a professional career. In his leadership role with MOT, he also oversaw the company’s many education and community engagement initiatives.

Most well-known for his interpretation of such iconic roles as Rodolfo, Cavaradossi, Don José, Edgardo, Pinkerton, Hoffmann, Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera, and Gounod’s Faust and Roméo, his repertoire of more than 40 roles also includes many works by American, Russian, Czech, and 20th-century composers. Roles added later in his career include Canio in Pagliacci, Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana, Der Kaiser in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Gregor in Janáček’s The Makropulos Case.

Following his 1987 European debut with Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, as Raoul in Les Huguenots, the headline of the Berliner Morgen Post read: “A World Star is Born” and true to its forecast, Mr. Leech had soon made debuts with virtually every major opera house of the world. Of his first performance with the Metropolitan Opera in 1989, as Rodolfo in La Bohème, Will Crutchfield of The New York Times wrote: “Other than Pavarotti on his best night, I can’t think of another tenor I’d rather hear in the part.” Since then, he has sung nearly 200 Met performances in more than a dozen leading roles.


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See my interviews with June Anderson, Patricia Racette, and James Levine



In addition to the Met, he was also a frequent guest with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the opera companies of San Francisco, LA, Washington, San Diego, and Cincinnati, as well as many other important American companies. Internationally, he was often seen in Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Florence, Rome, and at La Scala in Milan where he had the honor of singing La Bohème with Mirella Freni. Other countries where he has performed include Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, Russia, Cyprus, Japan, China, and South Korea.

In concert, Mr. Leech has distinguished himself with the Vienna, Prague, New York, Chicago, and LA Philharmonic Orchestras, and the National and Montréal Symphonies, among myriad others in repertoire such as Verdi’s Messa di requiem; Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Missa Solemnis; Mahler’s 8th Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde; Berlioz’s Requiem and La Damnation de Faust; Rossini’s Stabat Mater; and  Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C minor.  In crossover repertoire, he has appeared with the Boston Pops, New York Pops, Cincinnati Pops, and with Doc Severinsen and his Orchestra. His critically acclaimed concert, An evening with Richard Leech in Tribute to Mario Lanza, in which he embraced the crossover style of his childhood hero, was the sell-out season opener for the New York Pops at prestigious Carnegie Hall, and opened Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival to an audience of over 12,000.

Mr. Leech was the 1988 winner of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, the recipient of The Voice Foundation’s Voice Education Research and Awareness (V.E.R.A.) Award, and the Giulio Gari Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award. He has been a frequent guest teacher and presenter of masterclasses for many institutions and companies such as USC, UCSD, Beijing School of Fine Arts, Opera Lyra Ottawa Young Artist Program, Binghamton University, The Castleton Festival’s Artist Training Seminar, the New York Singing Teachers Association’s Professional Development Program, and for the Prelude to Performance program of The Martina Arroyo Foundation on whose Advisory Board he serves. He attended Eastman School of Music and Binghamton University and credits his success to the training he received in the Tri-Cities Opera Resident Artist Training Program in Binghamton, NY under the long-term mentorship of the company’s founders, Peyton Hibbitt and Carmen Savoca. 

Included in the long list of world class artists with whom he has collaborated are: James Levine, Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Plácido Domingo, Georges Prêtre, André Previn, Michel Plasson, Seiji Ozawa, Richard Bonynge, Leonard Slatkin, Franco Zeffirelli, Götz Freidrich, Robert Wilson, Hal Prince, Ken Russell, Tito Copobianco, Lotfi Mansouri, Mirella Freni, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills, Pilar Lorengar, Jesse Norman, Kiri Te Kanawa, Renée Fleming, Denyce Graves, Luciano Pavarotti, Alfredo Kraus, José van Dam, Bryn Terfel, Sherrill Milnes, Samuel Ramey, Thomas Hampson, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and many others.

Mr. Leech’s many televised appearances include Madama Butterfly with the Met; a “Live from Lincoln Center” Rigoletto with the New York City Opera; Les Huguenots with Deutsche Oper Berlin; and many other opera broadcasts in Europe and beyond, as well as his frequent appearances on the annual Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala. More popular events include the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, with President Clinton, where he performed with Aretha Franklin and Trisha Yearwood; the famous tree lighting at Rockefeller Center; and the opening ceremonies of the 1995 America’s Cup in San Diego. In benefit concerts, he has appeared with such show business luminaries as Tony Randal, Kelsey Grammer, Ben Vereen, Betty Buckley, and Peter Allen. He joined Plácido Domingo in a benefit for Hurricane Katrina relief which marked the reopening of the arts in New Orleans.


==  Text of this biography (with slight corrections) is from the artist’s website.  
==  Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.  BD  





I first met Richard Leech in January of 1992, and then again exactly six years later, in January of 1998.  As shown in the chart, both times he was singing Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly.

Our conversations were lively, and contained much laughter.  We also discussed some serious ideas, and he disclosed a few techniques which enabled him to survive the ups and downs of a major singing career.
 
Here is what was said at those meetings . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:   You’re here in Chicago singing an Italian opera, and yet you seem to have a great affinity for French opera.  Tell me about the joys and sorrows of doing French opera and French songs.

Richard Leech:   The French came along slowly as I was growing up, and training, and really learning opera by being around it.  I was always oriented toward Italian opera, and as I started having certain success in the States because of the lyric repertoire I was in, the French repertoire was a natural broadening of my repertoire.  However, it always scared me.

BD:   Because of the style?

Leech:   Yes, because of this thing called ‘style’.  I didn’t know French style, and thought I was in trouble.  But slowly I went and did them anyway.  I did Faust and things like that.  Slowly I got very comfortable with the language enough so it was not an issue.  Slowly I came to realize that because I didn’t think I had French style, I was afraid of it.  Later I realized that you can’t impose it on the music.  The music is in a style, and if you’re true to the music, and true to a technique of singing that’s about meaning it takes care of itself.  So, all of a sudden, I started being called a French stylist.  It just took over, and I slowly accepted that I knew French style.
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See my interview with David Zinman


BD:   Do you feel that you sing differently when you’re singing Faust as opposed to Puccini?

Leech:   Not particularly.  It’s different because it’s a different vehicle, and certainly singing French is a little different than singing Italian.  But I don’t do anything technically different.  Some people find that a little odd, but I really don’t.  By the very nature of the music being different, I’m doing things differently.  I don’t consciously decide that I’m singing in the French style now, or that I’m singing in the Italian style now.

BD:   It’s like the difference between driving a Cadillac or an Alfa Romeo?

Leech:   That’s right.  You drive them differently, but it’s because they’re different, not because you have to drive them differently.

BD:   The French language holds no terror for you?

Leech:   Not particularly.  I’m very comfortable singing it.  As a matter of fact, I enjoy it quite a lot.  I’m not fluent in any of these languages that I sing in.  I speak them all poorly, but I have enough vocabulary to get around.  Singing is a bit beyond that.  There’s a certain gift you’re given of whether you can assimilate the sound of a language and reproduce that sound accurately.  I know the meaning of what words I am singing without necessarily being fluent, which really is the whole package.

BD:   As you move into these various styles, how do you decide which roles you’ll accept, and which roles you’ll postpone, and which roles you’ll decline?

Leech:   It’s very difficult.  It’s one of the hardest things a singer has to deal with when starting to have success.  You start to wonder if you could do anything, what would you like to do?
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BD:   [Being facetious]  Is Siegfried in your future?

Leech:   [With a sly grin]  Not right away, but I’ve been asked.

BD:   [Mildly shocked]  Really???

Leech:   Oh, yes.  They’ll ask you to do anything.  The hardest thing, particularly for someone like myself, is that I tend to know the operas I’ve done.  I don’t have a vast repertoire knowledge.  I was around the opera from the time I was 15 in the company where I did my training...
 
BD:   Where was this?

Leech:   Binghamton, New York.  It’s called Tri-Cities Opera.  It’s a unique place that I just happened to fall into as a kid.  I virtually was an apprentice there.  It’s a program that has maybe 30 or so singers at a given time, who are studying with the company, doing roles and performing repertoire, as opposed to bringing in all the singers from outside, which is what a normal regional house would do.  [More information about the Tri-Cities Opera is in the box farther down on this webpage.]

BD:   But at 15, you were still in high school.  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interviews with Gwynne Howell, and Carlo Rizzi.]

Leech:   I was in the chorus, so I found myself very, very familiar with the operas that I grew up with.  Before I did Rodolfo, I’d been in Bohème twice.  I was in the chorus, and I did Parpignol, then I did Rodolfo.  At the same time, I found myself at a loss with repertoire that I was unfamiliar with.  So, to answer your question, I have to really take each one at a time, and ask myself if it’s time for me to look at this opera, and do I want to do it now.  I give it a little bit of a sing, and I learn a little bit, and listen to it, and then really go on my gut feeling whether this feels right or not.  Certain operas cross this whole fach mode, where you’re this kind of a singer, so therefore you do A, B, C, D, and you don’t ever do X, Y, and Z.

BD:   You don’t want to be pigeon-holed?

Leech:   Not particularly.  In reality, singers tend to cross those lines a little bit.

BD:   Are there certain roles that you are looking at that you know you want to do, or is it just waiting for offers and then deciding?

Leech:   I’m trying to look at the whole broad spectrum of repertoire that’s available to me, to spread my wings as they should be.  But I came to the conclusion a little while ago that I was smack dab in the middle of the repertoire I was very happy with, so why ruin a good thing?  I was singing Bohème, and Rigoletto, and Lucia, and Faust, and Butterfly, so I shouldn’t complain too much about it.  I’m expanding very slowly.  I’m adding Werther next year for the first time, and I’m starting to whet my appetite about Tosca, but I haven’t quite made the final decision yet.

BD:   When you say you’re going to sing Werther next year, about how long ahead do you start really working it into the voice?

Leech:   As long as possible, depending on my discipline and my schedule.  I tend to be a bit of a procrastinator.  I’m a relatively quick study, but that’s a double-edged sword.  You know you can learn it fast, so you tend to.  But because I don’t learn that many new roles, I don’t do one after another all the time.  So I do have the luxury of looking at it for a little while, and putting it away, then singing an aria and putting it away again.  That’s the kind of thing I’ll do with Werther until it starts to get a little closer, and then I’ll put some concentrated study on it.

BD:   Do you find that it stays with you, or do you have to re-learn roles when you come back to them after a year?

Leech:   It depends.  If I’ve crammed for a role, just like I would cram for a test, I do find it disappears a little more easily.  For instance, I had done L’Elisir in English several times in the States early in my career.  I then did it for the first time in Italian in Berlin a couple of years ago.  Being the procrastinator that I was, I knew the role because I’d sung it, but I found very quickly that this opera has a lot of words in it!

BD:   And all of them were new!

Leech:   All of them were new.  So I found myself in the situation where I was cramming these words into my head to perform them in Berlin.

BD:   Did you rely on the prompter then?

Leech:   I try not to, but that was one of those times where you’re very grateful that they’re there.  You’re in the middle of something you know you know, and then the word comes along...  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

BD:   The tune is there, so you know where the voice is going to be?

Leech:   That’s right.  You take the breath and you hear the word.  But we all try not to rely on that, because it can be disastrous, needless to say.  But now, if I found myself in a situation where I had to do it again tomorrow, I still know the music, of course, since I did it a bunch, but the Italian words would take a serious amount of cramming.  Whereas another opera that I’d learned over a period of time correctly and performed, it wouldn’t matter if I looked at it or not, I could go out on the stage and do it.  There is a big difference in the way you learn a score and how it sticks with you.
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BD:   When you’re working on a role, how much do you get involved in the characterization?

Leech:   It depends.  I’m not one that tends to read all the history books I can find about the given character.  I try to do as much research as is practical for me, but I like to rely on the directors I’m working with.

BD:   You trust them?

Leech:   I try trusting them before I decide not to trust them.  [Laughs]  It’s often dangerous to trust them these days, particularly more so in Europe than here.  But anywhere, it can be dangerous.  But at the same time, even when a director brings a strange concept to an opera, it’s not necessarily because they’re a bad director.  They often have insights that can help you.  I have found from my own experience that if I go in with too solid an idea of who I am, then a director’s not going to want to impose his will on top of this, because it may be out of respect for someone coming to something.  For instance, I’ve done Butterfly so much that I do have a strong opinion of who I am.  But it’s not that I don’t change it for each director a little bit, which I do.  But at the same time, they don’t want to get in the way of what I’ve learned over these years about singing Pinkerton.  It’s more out of respect than not wanting to step on toes.  They understand that I have done a lot of work on this.  [There is more discussion of this opera in the second interview below.]

BD:   Is it harder to do a new production of something you know intimately, and have to unlearn lots of bits of stagecraft?

Leech:   Sometimes.  With maturity I’m learning how to give up some things, but sometimes it’s very hard.  Once you figure something out, and it works, you don’t want to give it up.  But, these old ideas can get in the way if you’ve got a good director with time to work on it, and who will create something that’s fresh and new.  It’s very difficult, and often you’re forced to use these things that you know will work.  If you go to Vienna and do a production of Bohème with just three hours of rehearsal, there’s no time to do any of that.  So, if you don’t know your craft and your role perfectly, you’re out there without any tools to get you through the night.  [Pauses a moment]  I really am speaking in idealistic terms.  Often you get plenty of rehearsal time depending on where you go and depending on the situation.  They also spend quite a bit of time on new productions.
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BD:   Would you rather do a new production and not just be dropped into an old production?

Leech:   I actually like it somewhere in the middle.  Particularly in Europe, they’ll spend weeks and months doing a new production.  A few weeks is fine, but when you get to four or five weeks, it starts to be a little bit much even for the first time doing a role.

BD:   Then how do you keep it fresh?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Alexandru Agache, Leontina Vaduva, and Jennifer Larmore.]

Leech:   I tend not to do it that way.  That’s why I say I like it somewhere in the middle.  I love to have a couple of weeks to get into something.  Then, by the time you open, you’re comfortable.  For a new role, three weeks perhaps is best, but more than that, I try to avoid.

BD:   What about later on in the production?  If you’re doing ten to twenty performances, how do you keep it fresh on performance thirteen and nineteen?

Leech:   It’s not that difficult, oddly enough.  I don’t imagine I could do it if I was doing eight shows a week on Broadway.  I don’t know how they do it.  That’s got to be so tough.  But with a schedule like an opera singer has, such as the Butterfly here in Chicago, I’m singing every third or fourth night.  So that’s really not so bad.  By the time I do it again, even though I’ve been doing it for a month and a half now, I’m ready to do it again.  It starts, and I’m into it, and I enjoy it.  Every moment is new.

BD:   Is it like an old friend?

Leech:   As a matter of fact, it gets to blossom because the structure of the production is then so secure for you and your colleagues.  Between you and the conductor, it starts to get so secure that it actually can then go the next steps that sometimes are hard to find.

BD:   How much of that is you and the production, and how much of that is actually the greatness of the Puccini opera?

Leech:   Absolutely, what you’re saying is true.  I wouldn’t be saying the same thing about any old opera.  It has to be a piece that I’m in love with, and that can hold my interest night after night.  Butterfly can, Bohème can, but it’s interesting that you should say that.

BD:   Thinking of Bohème, are you a better Rodolfo because you played Parpignol, or is that completely irrelevant?

Leech:   Perhaps, but I do think I’m a better Pinkerton for having done Goro.

BD:   There’s much more interaction between those two characters.

Leech:   Yes.  In and around the time I was doing Parpignol, I was a young 18-year-old would-be singer, watching these other students and professionals do their thing.  I thought that it was wonderful, but I could do it better.  I was learning Rodolfo while I was in that stage.  I would sit there with my score and study it.  Goro certainly doesn’t have that much insight into Pinkerton’s psyche, but on a very basic musical level, from the very beginning Goro and Pinkerton go back and forth.  So, there’s a certain integration that’s a part of me after having done that.  I also did Borsa, and I can go through the whole first scene, whereas I might not be able to today unless I really went out of my way to study those parts.  If I was learning the role of the Duke today, I don’t know if I would take the time to learn all of Borsa’s words.  I’d know them and be familiar with them, and I wouldn’t have any trouble putting my part in with it.  But I don’t know if I would really know it inside and out like I do.  So, I do value those different levels of knowledge of the operas I do know.

BD:   Maybe you should use this as a tool when you’re learning a new role.  Perhaps you could pretend that you’re the comprimario.

Leech:   That’s a good idea, actually.  You’d get a little different perspective on it.

BD:   When you’re on stage, are you portraying a character, or do you really become that character?

Leech:   I’m portraying a character.  You probably ask that question and get different answers.  I know many, particularly sopranos, that are absolutely the character.  There’s no doubt about it.

BD:   Is it scary to work with them?

Leech:   It can be, because if the singer gets lost in the process, you can also lose the stage craft and the objectivity that one needs to keep while being up there.  Things happen, and you need your wits about you.  If you’re too lost in a character who’s having some emotional trauma, not only are you apt to not be able to deal with a specific coordination problem with the pit, you start to lose a little bit of contact with your sense of keeping your vocal technique in line.  For someone to be crying in an aria, which happens in Italian opera once or twice.  [Laughs]  When somebody sobs, it’s very dangerous for a singer to feel that, because then all the mechanisms the body has when you’re crying start getting in the way of your vocal technique.  I was taught very specifically that we try to stay in the third person.

BD:   Do you ever speak of the voice in the first person, or is that also the third person?

Leech:   The voice is me, it’s not Rodolfo.  So, in that sense it is the first person.

BD:   Indirectly, I’m asking if you are ever a slave to the voice.

Leech:   We try not to be.

BD:   Do you succeed?

Leech:   Yes, I’m generally successful.  Certainly, the voice gives you various limitations and parameters that you’re to stay within.  Then, by staying in third person, you can objectively know you’re well within those parameters.  Some of my best performances have been ones where I wasn’t feeling particularly well.  Because of that, as a singer you tend to pay a little closer attention to the spots that start to be dangerous, or where you might push a little too much.

BD:   This is your technique?

Leech:   Yes, and you impose that technique over those places a bit more.  So, those performances where I didn’t think I was wonderful, when observed by a third party that I trust, end up being actually my better performances.
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BD:   How do you divide your time between opera and concert?

Leech:   I like doing both, and I do both.  I sing more opera than I do concert, and the concert work that I do is, in a way, very operatic, such as the Verdi Requiem.  The set just happens to be a bunch of guys in black suits.  It’s such a wonderful piece.  Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust is an opera that just happens to be done in concert.  I do the Beethoven Ninth, and things like that, but I don’t go particularly far afield in repertoire.

BD:   Do you have a certain limit to the number of performances you sing per season?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interview with Charles Dutoit.]

Leech:   I do.  I don’t have a specific number, but it’s somewhere in the area of fifty or sixty, which is light for a successful, busy singer.

BD:   Will this extend your career?

Leech:   I hope so.  It also keeps me sane because it can be a very stressful environment.

BD:   [With mock horror]  You mean the world of opera can make you crazy???

Leech:   [Laughs]  That’s right, so I try to keep it light.  I take a month or two in the summer off, and try to keep to a schedule that I really can enjoy and not begrudge.  That’s so important.  If I’m not enjoying it, how I can expect my audience to enjoy it?  Even though some nights I don’t want to do it, in general I love doing what I’m doing every night I’m doing it, and I’d like to keep it that way.  Hopefully, on that kind of schedule I can.

BD:   Do you change your technique at all for a large house or a small house?

Leech:   I try not to, it does change a little bit.  But I don’t particularly think I have to sing bigger in a big house.
 
BD:   It just feels a little bit different when you’re on the stage?

Leech:   It does.  It can feel different, and it isn’t always a function of the size of house.  I can be in a 300-seat house that feels like it’s in a pillow, and I will end up pushing all night long because I’m just not getting friendly feedback.  Whereas I can be in a place like Chicago, which is huge — it’s deep, and it’s high, and it’s a large space — but it feels good, so you never need to push.

BD:   It’s a friendly acoustic?

Leech:   Yes, and it’s the same with the Met.  I try not to push. That’s a big place, and maybe just slightly less friendly, but it’s pretty friendly.  To a voice with a solid technique, it’s a very friendly acoustic, and the voice goes right through.  If you trust in the way you sing, you’re going to do okay.  If not, you shouldn’t be there anyway.  That way you can survive pretty well.

BD:   Going one step farther, do you sing the same when you make a recording?

Leech:   That’s a very good question.  Having been recording now for a few years, and getting my feet pretty wet so far, recording is a very different business.  You study, and you study, and you work, and you slave to learn your craft, and then all of a sudden they change the rules, because recording is very different than performing on stage.  Many people feel different ways about this, but I do tend to believe that when you sing the way you do on stage on a recording, it shows.  The audience can sense that the drama is there, and the real singing is there in a good way.  I find myself sometimes frustrated by the fact that many people who record have an entirely different voice.  It’s two different singers.  I will generally sing the way I sing.

BD:   Full out?

Leech:   Yes, and it can cause problems.  I don’t know enough about the technical ins and outs of what the guys with the microphones have to do.

BD:   Do they keep you farther away from the microphones?

Leech:   That’s a problem because when you get farther away, it starts to change the sound.  With someone who’s singing with half-voice who’s closer to the microphones, sometimes they’ll get a better sound.

BD:   Are you pleased with the records that are out so far?

Leech:   Generally, yes.  I find that that difference in sound is amazing between one style of recording and another.

BD:   Between the different companies?

Leech:   Yes.  One style may use three mics, and another style may use three-hundred mics, and it’s not always better with three-hundred mics.  It’s often better with three mics.  That’s been my experience, and if you know what it can sound like and it doesn’t, that can be frustrating.  At the same time, I’m at ease with the fact that I can only be responsible for doing my job, and showing up and singing my best.  Beyond that, pulling my hair out it is really not necessarily going to be productive.
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BD:   Let’s talk a bit about the Faust recording.  That’s got the complete opera, and a few appendices at the end.

Leech:   Yes, several extra little pieces.
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BD:   Should everyone program their listening differently, to put things in and take things out, and be an armchair producer?

Leech:   If they wish to, they may.  I’m not enough of a musicologist to analyze whether this trio should be put in here or there.  There are actually a couple of nice pieces at the end, and it’s nice for anyone to be able to hear them.  

BD:   Tell me about the character of Faust.  Is he a fun guy, or is he just damned from the start?

Leech:   He is certainly not a fun guy at the beginning.  For all that he’s figured out in life, he hasn’t figured it all out, and it’s really gotten him down.

BD:   When he makes the pact with the devil, does he think that is his salvation, or is that just his last guess at figuring it out?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interview with Nadine Denize.]

Leech:   No, I don’t think it’s his attempt at figuring it out.  It’s his belief that if he was young again, he will be able to figure it out.  It’s like he missed his chance, and it’s worth what he has to give up to know that at this point in his life, in his weak state that he’s got gotten caught in.

BD:   At the end, is he glad he made the bargain?

Leech:   No, I don’t think so.  I think he’s sorry.  It really is a tragedy for him as he watches what happens to Marguerite.  She may go to Heaven, but it’s still one hell of a tough little life she had in the meantime.  I don’t think seeing that pleases him at all.  It’s a bit torturous for him.

BD:   Is he enjoying his life at all while he’s going through it before the end?

Leech:   Some aspects of it, absolutely.  He enjoys the garden scene in general, with the wonderment that he’s going through.  The feelings of youthful love are real, with the objectivity of this old man being able to enjoy them.  A young man isn’t able to do that.  His feelings are wonderful, but he doesn’t have the hindsight of knowing how wonderful it all is.  He’s able to do all of that at one time.

BD:   He really puts an old head on young shoulders.

Leech:   That’s right.  He’s able to feel the wonderful feelings of young love, and enjoy them to their fullest extent, because he knows everything else there is to know about life.  So in a way, it’s the best, and he enjoys that.  He gets a kick out of the second act.

BD:   Have you also done Mephistofele of Boito?

Leech:   I did that opera once, and it was interesting.  It’s a bit of a strange piece.  The characters are sort of the same, yet they’re not.  It’s a less tangible item for me to talk about, but it’s an interesting piece, and I enjoyed doing it, but I’m not going to jump at doing it again, partly just because I found the tessitura a little bit low, a little bit problematic.  I wasn’t thrilled with how it sat in the voice for me.  So for that reason alone, I’m probably not going to accept a lot of them.  I’ll stick with the Gounod.  I think it’s a better version in general... of course, if I was a bass, I’d probably disagree.  [Both laugh]  The character of Faust in the Boito doesn’t fare as well as far as audience recognition and appeal.  Yes, he’s in the whole piece, and he’s the same character, but you don’t go home whistling his tunes by any means.  The Gounod is far more gratifying in a lot of respects.  That version I really enjoy doing a lot.

BD:   You’ve also recorded Les Huguenots.  Was it special to record something that really isn’t done very often?

Leech:   First of all, it was virtually a ‘live’ recording.  There were two live performances that they pieced together, and a few extra little sessions to fix any problems.  So, in many respects I wasn’t doing a recording.  I was doing performances.

BD:   In concert or on stage?

Leech:   In concert.  I had first done it in Berlin in a nice three-hour version.  Then this came up, and it’s four-and-a-half hours of music.  We started at 6:00, and ended at 12:20.  I ate two chickens by the time we were done!  I was somewhat in shock the whole time we were doing it, but I enjoyed it.  [Sighs]  However, I’m not going to do it again.

BD:   You ate two chickens???

Leech:   [Laughs]  I’ve changed since then.  I tend not to eat as much during a show. 

BD:   Do you then have to re-warm the voice?

Leech:   I don’t think that’s a problem with chicken.  Something which is nice and greasy, like barbecue chicken, is good on the throat.  I just take it into the dressing room, so it’s not a matter of going out of the theater.  But I tend not to do that as much now.  I’m more happy with eating after the opera these days, and I eat less before an opera.  I used to believe I needed a nice full stomach, which was fine until I had a condition that doesn’t allow me to do that.  I have a hiatal hernia, so it’s not good for a singer to fill his stomach right before he sings.  That caused specific problems which forced me to change.

BD:   Is that something that can be fixed, or do you just have to put up with it?

Leech:   It’s actually relatively easy to treat.  You just need to do certain things, like not fill your stomach before you sing or go to bed.  Those late-night snacks are tough to cut out.

BD:   Are you able to keep your energy level up even when not eating?

Leech:   Yes, I really am.  I drink a lot of fluids, and I do find that it’s what you ate yesterday that’s giving you energy for today.  So, I’ll pack in my carbohydrates the night before.

BD:   Eat a big bowl of pasta?

Leech:   Yes.  It’s a good excuse.  [Both laugh]
*     *     *     *     *
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BD:   We’ve talked about some of your recordings.  What else is coming along?

Leech:   We’re in the final stages of setting up La Bohème, which I’m thrilled with, because I really want to record this soon in my career.

BD:   So it hasn’t been recorded yet?

Leech:   No, it hasn’t been recorded yet.  Die Fledermaus is out on Phillips with Kiri Te Kanawa.  I did the Alfred, and that was fun.  I worried about the German dialogue with an Italian accent, but it’s easier than doing German dialogue with a truly German accent.

BD:   Is it hard to go from singing to speaking and back to singing?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Tom Krause, and Brigitte Fassbaender.]

Leech:   It can be.  When you sing hard for a period of time, you’ll find your voice starts to disappear, and the first thing to go is the speaking voice, oddly enough.  When you’re singing, those little cords are stretched out, so they work no matter what.  But to speak, they’re a little more relaxed, and if they’re not feeling too well they’re not going to cooperate.  So, going back and forth can be problematic if you’re a little bit fatigued.  All things being equal, if you’re fine and healthy and up to snuff, there shouldn’t be any particular problem.

BD:   Have you done other things like Magic Flute where it goes back and forth?

Leech:   Yes, I have.  The hardest thing is when you’ve been singing high that you don’t start speaking like the cartoon character Dudley Do-Right.  [Laughs]  It’s a nightmare come true.  I did my fair share of Gilbert and Sullivan, and it probably sounded like that.
At this point we stopped briefly to take care of a couple technical details.
We also discussed some of his upcoming appearances.

BD:   Do you like being booked a year, or two, or three, or four ahead?

Leech:   It’s hard.  In one respect I had better not complain, but it’s very difficult to know that in the fall of ’94 or ’95, this is what I’m going to be doing.  It’s tough to commit because I tend to take it one day at a time.  So, there’s this strange conflict in the way I do things because I have to plan into ’95, but I don’t really want to.  I do because I have to, but it’s difficult, and I stiff-arm it as much as possible.  I ask people to wait as long as they possibly can for decisions.  If they have to know tomorrow, then it’s no.  Planning a couple of years ahead should be enough, but it’s not, and I accept that.  The opera companies can’t do that.  I’ve tried pushing it back and pushing it back, but it doesn’t seem to work.

BD:   Do you look forward to a very long career?

Leech:   Yes, and I also look forward to retirement.  When I am tired, I’ll wonder how I am going to do this performance.  Then I watch people like Alfredo Kraus, and I wonder how he does all this?  [Kraus was born November 24, 1927, and made his American debut with Lyric Opera in 1962.]  Isn’t he tired?  I’m thirty-four and I’m tired!  It’s one of the reasons I try to take my career the way I am.  I’m pretty careful, and try not to overload it because I would like at least to have the option to say goodbye whenever I choose, not when my voice chooses.

BD:   Aside from some of the smaller roles, are there some major roles that you’ve already retired because they just don’t fit into your plans anymore?

Leech:   Only through preference.  For instance, I don’t get a lot of satisfaction out of singing Mozart, so I tend not to do those roles any more.  They’re good for the voice, particularly the young voice, and I did my fair share of Flutes and Cosìs.  They’d still be good for me now, but I don’t find enough satisfaction out of them, so I tend to say no.  At the same time, I don’t want to just accept things that are war horses for the tenors, because that starts to be a lot of work to always be what the public views as wonderful.

BD:   Do you find that there’s a lot of pressure to always be wonderful?

Leech:   There is.  My teacher and I talk about this all the time.  He has this little catchphrase to ‘be adequate’.  The trouble with somebody calling you great or wonderful is that the next logical step is to go out and try to be great.  That’s where the danger is.  Chances are, when somebody saw you and called you wonderful, you were just doing your job.  If you look up ‘adequate’ in the dictionary, it’s not what we all think, which is negative.  We look at the word as meaning not quite enough, or just barely enough to barely get by, and it’s really not.  It’s fulfilling the task at hand, and doing what needs to be done.  If you can do that, if you can be adequate as a singer, you’ve done a lot.  If God’s given you a talent and you’re just adequate, the rest tends to take care of itself.  So I give it my best, and try to be adequate.

BD:   Of course, if you’ve been singing the way you feel comfortable and people call you great, then you should take courage in that, and that’s what you should do.

Leech:   That’s right.  That’s what works, and that’s what they believe is wonderful.  Be thankful for it, and just keep doing that.  But you can’t go out and try to be that vision of what is wonderful.  It’s very dangerous, and it starts to look fake.  There is a certain sincerity in communication, which is really what singing’s about.

BD:   I’m glad we had this chance to get together.

Leech:   It was my pleasure.
We now move ahead six years, to January of 1998.


BD:   It’s been a while since we’ve seen you, and you’ve had quite a lot more experience and done a lot more performances.  Is the career still going the direction that you want it to?

Leech:   Yes, it really is, knock on wood.  I’m quite often asked if I could do any role, or sing any place I wanted to sing, what would that be, and I am in a position where I find myself having reality and the dream be almost one and the same.
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BD:   You are very lucky.

Leech:   It really is a blessing.  I am very happy with how it’s going.

BD:   Have you got enough work to keep you employed all the time?
 
Leech:   I am employed as much as I want.  Sometimes it’s a little more than I want, but I manage to keep a fair amount of free time built into my schedule.  The sanity factor is something that a singer really needs to pay a certain amount of attention to.

BD:   How do you decide which engagements you will and will not accept?

Leech:   One of the hardest things about the job is deciding three or four years ahead of time how and where to commit your time.  I tend to find those exciting opportunities at places like Chicago Lyric, and the Met, and Covent Garden.  Those I really know without a question that I want to do.  So I go ahead and commit to those in a long-term sense, and leave other time free to make shorter-term commitments.

BD:   Then the big engagements don’t preclude you from singing at the Iowa Metro Opera, or other small houses here and there?

Leech:   What really precludes me from singing there is economics more than anything.  There are many companies with whom I sing because they’re places I know.  I’m happy, and I’m comfortable, and I know the environment that I’m working in.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge]  You want to be a happy tenor?

Leech:   Yes.  [Laughs]  Being a happy singer is really the way to go, because then your audiences are happy.  It really does show in your singing.  If you’re really enjoying yourself, and you’re feeling good, 90% of the time it shows.  It really does make a difference.  San Diego is a place I return to quite often.  It’s a long way from Europe, and in Berlin they have no concept that I’m in San Diego, nor do they care.  I might as well be not singing.  [Both laugh]  I’m an American, and I made a choice several years ago to sing in America as a high percentage of my employment.  It’s where I enjoy working, though it’s a difficult thing to do as a singer, because tradition and reality take you to Europe.  That’s where the proliferation of work is, and the international focus is there.

BD:   There’s simply more opera going on over there.

Leech:   It’s difficult to get European managers — Intendants — or even the public to pay attention to work I do at the Met, or Chicago, or San Francisco.  Believe it or not, they certainly know I’m doing it, and it’s this vague concept that I sing at the Met, and I’m doing some things somewhere over in America.

BD:   [Mildly insulted]  Are we not civilized over here???

Leech:   There’s still this big wall called the Atlantic Ocean, and it’s a problem.  So, what I’ve tried to do is find a balance, and find the jobs and the places where I’m happy to go back to Europe and spend some time.  It turns into about three months out of the year, and for me that’s enough.  But for them, it’s not enough.  I get highly criticized for not spending enough time in Europe.  I’m not sure I understand it.  I just acknowledge it because I’m singing in all the best places in the world, and do all the best repertoire.  As I said, I couldn’t ask for a better career in many respects.  But unless I were to decide to move to Europe for three quarters of the year, much of the international opera community will not be happy, and I’m not willing to give into that pressure.  I am willing to pay the price, however, because it comes with a price.

BD:   What is that price?

Leech:   The price is full acceptance of the European audience of me as an international world-class singer.

BD:   You’re just the crazy American who comes over once in a while?

Leech:   Yes.  I know there’s this perception that I don’t like to work a lot, and I’m stingy about going to Europe.

BD:   At what point does the artistry simply shine through, and they realize that you are a fine artist no matter what you decide?

Leech:   I don’t know.  I’ll call you when it happens.  [Both laugh]  But the other side of it is practical.  The business side of recording comes by virtue of demographics and sales.  They know that a singer who sings in Europe regularly sells more records, period.  This is because the classical record market in Europe is so much larger than it is here, and because of that, if I’m not performing in Europe a lot, there’s less motivation for record companies to say they want me to do our next record.

BD:   I’m glad you’ve decided to forego some of this just to stay singing in America.

Leech:   Well, I do it to stay happy, and I do it because we have some of the finest audiences in the world here in America.  Another reason I do it is that at some houses in Germany the standard has become the avant-garde.  To do anything standard is bizarre, and they just don’t do that anymore.  Virtually 90% of the productions are one way or another over the edge.

BD:   [Citing a notorious production]  Aïda is not a washer-woman???

Leech:   [Laughs]  That’s right, exactly, and that can be frustrating.  What I’ve experienced with having this focus in the United States is that we have a high percentage of phenomenal productions, and the casting is quite amazing.

Richard Leech in Chicago


With the Chicago Opera Theater


February, 1981 - Rondine (Ruggero) with Huffostodt, Fremling, Purcell, Siebert, Gustafson; Frisbie, Missimi, Stone

February, 1983 - Martha (Lionel) with Huffstodt, Bonnell, Geiger, Walker, Link; Larsen, Missimi
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With Lyric Opera of Chicago


1986-87 - Bohème (Rodolfo) with Esperian, Putnam, Wroblewski, Kreier, Washington, Capecchi; Mauceri, Copley, Schuler*

1991-92 - Butterfly (Pinkerton) with Malfitano, Stilwell, Romanò, Markley; Gatti, Prince, Palumbo*

1993-94 - Tosca (Cavaradossi) with Guleghina, Fox, P. Kraus; Bartoletti, Galati, Dufford*

1995-96 - Faust (Faust) with Fleming/Rambaldi,Magee, Ramey, Hvorostovsky; Nelson, Corsaro, Tallchief*

1997-98 - Butterfly (Pinkerton) with Malfitano, Stone, White, Cangelosi; Fisch, Prince

1999-2000 - Carmen (Don José) with Graves, Doss, Bower/Watson/Izzo; Levi, Copley


* Staff of Lyric Opera who also participated in previous and subsequent seasons  


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With the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival

Both concerts with the Chicago Symphony Chorus/ Duain Wolfe


June 24, 1995 - Tosca (Cavaradossi) with Holleque, Leiferkus, Morscheck, Evitts, Polenzani (Spoletta); Mehta

July 23, 1996 - Requiem [Verdi] with Satoh, Quivar, Scanduzzi; Eschenbach


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With the Grant Park Festival Orchestra


June 20, 1998 [Opening Night] - Tribute to Mario Lanza, conducted by Paul Nadler


BD:   When it’s not a new production, but an existing production, does that determine whether or not you will accept a contract?

Leech:   It can.  It doesn’t by definition, because I do like to analyze which planet am I going to be singing on.  But I try to keep an open mind.  I had a very good experience in Berlin when I debuted in ’87.  I did Les Huguenots, and it turned out to be very beneficial for me, even though it was an updated version, and the massacre took place at the Berlin Wall before it was down.  It was politically relevant.

BD:   Relevant or not, you don’t get to do Les Huguenots very often.

Leech:   That’s just it, and because of the controversial nature it got a lot of attention, and I got a lot of attention.  It opened doors for me in Europe that might not have been opened.  You can modernize an opera and still be true to the opera.  Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to do that well, and quite often it’s not done well.  What’s lost in the mix is that it’s also very difficult to do an opera traditionally well.  Sometimes there’s the attitude that anybody can do it.  Well, I’m sorry.  It’s difficult to do Bohème well, and make your audience interested while making it relevant.

BD:   I’m spoiled being here in Chicago, because everything is basically done well.

Leech:   You are spoiled, and your audience is absolutely spoiled!  The casts and the productions you have are first-rate, and it shows in the fact that you can’t get a ticket.  You have the product, and it’s appreciated, but quite often people need to hear it because they don’t necessarily travel the world to see opera.  They need to know that they’re not missing a lot.  They’re getting it right here.

BD:   The singers obviously know this, so why isn’t the management and the public of Europe understanding this?

Leech:   It’s one of these things that has to change very, very slowly.  The reality is opera has changed in America over the last fifty years, and the development of regional companies — other than the Met, Chicago, San Francisco — is fantastic.  They are putting on good productions, and aiding the production of singers.  I’m trained in America, and I got all my experience here.  Twenty-five years ago that was unheard of.  Even if you started in America, you went to Europe to finish your training, and get your early experience.  I stiff-armed that early in my career because I was happy doing what I was doing.  I was getting great training where I was in Binghamton, New York at my company, the Tri-Cities Opera.  I was getting great experience and working my way up the plateaus of the regional companies in America.
Founded in 1949 by Peyton Hibbitt and Carmen Savoca in Binghamton, New York, Tri-Cities Opera Company stages three full-scale operas per season during the fall, winter and spring months. Furthermore, Tri-Cities Opera’s Resident Artist Training Program offers aspiring opera singers a unique blend of instruction and practical experience. The company also maintains a Set & Costume Rental business that offers over 25 unique opera settings and numerous costumes for rental to other opera companies.

Born in 1925 and completely American-trained, Mr. Hibbitt attended both the Philadelphia Conservatory and the Philadelphia Music Academy. He was also the founder of the New York State Opera League and served in the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on the Education of the Young Singer in Sofia, Bulgaria. Mr. Hibbitt made his European debut at the Teatro Regio in Parma, Italy, conducting The Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra. He returned to Europe in 1991 to lead performances (Lucia di Lammermoor) at the Bilbao Opera Festival in Spain and later returned for Verdi’s Rigoletto. As a guest conductor in the U.S., his credits include appearances with the Chautauqua Opera Association, Arizona Opera, Syracuse Opera, the Opera Theatre of Greater Lansing, Fort Worth Opera, Four Corners Opera, and a critically acclaimed New York debut with the Chamber Opera Theatre of New York. Maestro Hibbitt was called to Cincinnati Opera at the eleventh hour in 1994 to conduct Richard Leech in its production of Roméo et Juliette. In 1949, he founded Tri-Cities Opera with Carmen Savoca. Mr. Hibbitt and Mr. Savoca devoted most of their careers to the training of young singers at Tri-Cities Opera through its nationally-renowned Resident Artist Training Program. Mr. Hibbitt was the 2008 recipient of the Broome County Arts Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award and his influence on one of the area’s oldest and most revered Arts institutions cannot be overstated. He will be missed by all who had the privilege to work under his tutelage.


tri-cities


For 49 years, Carmen Savoca was the Artistic Director of the opera company he founded with Co-Artistic Director Peyton Hibbitt. He also served as Producer and Stage Director for Tri-Cities Opera since its founding in 1949. During his tenure with Tri-Cities Opera, he also served as vocal instructor for the Resident Artist Training Program. A 1950 graduate of the Philadelphia Music Academy, he also studied extensively with Vienna State Opera Director Josef Tornau.

Over the course of his career with Tri-Cities Opera, Mr. Savoca directed all but three of the productions presented over 49 seasons including the world premieres of Myron Fink’s Jeremiah in 1962 and Chinchilla in 1986, and Ezra Laderman’s Galileo Galilei in 1979. His directing credits outside of Tri-Cities Opera include work with Chautauqua Opera Association, Edmonton Opera, Arizona Opera, Oklahoma City Opera, Wichita Opera and the New York City Opera.

A gifted singer, he performed title roles in Rigoletto, The Barber of Seville and the world premiere of Jeremiah in his early career. Mr. Savoca also served on music panel of the New York State Council on the Arts, and for 20 years was an adjunct professor and co-director of the Master of Music in Opera program at Binghamton University. In 1993, Savoca and Hibbitt were given the University Medal by Binghamton University President Lois DeFleur. One of the highest honors the University can bestow, it is given to persons who perform distinguished service to the University, to higher education, and to the community.

In 1992, Savoca and Hibbitt were given a Special Citation by New York Governor Mario Cuomo, “[I]n recognition of their role in forming the Tri-Cities Opera Company and developing the company into an acclaimed cultural institution.”

==  From the website of the Tri-Cities Opera  


BD:   Do you go back there at all?

Leech:   It’s still my home, and as a matter of fact, they’re celebrating their 50th anniversary this year.  They will have a gala at which I will sing.  I try to stay involved in supporting it.  The last thing I did there was Romeo and Juliet not that long ago.  So it’s not unheard of that I would go back and do something.

BD:   Forty years from now they’ll ask you to be their general manager.

Leech:   Right.  Interestingly enough, they’re evidently the oldest continuous opera training program in America, at least that is what I’m told.  They started fifty years ago as an opera workshop that was putting on productions, and somehow it landed in Binghamton, New York, which is a very small city.  I grew up in Binghamton, and landed in the hands of these incredible teachers.  I turned down two years of study at La Scala when I went and sang at a competition.  It was the first Enrico Caruso Competition only for tenors twenty-five years old and under.  Part of the prize was to study two years at La Scala.  But I was happy where I was, so I came back and never, never, never regretted it.
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*     *     *     *     *
 
BD:   Being a tenor, what is the fallout for you in this age of The Three Tenors?

Leech:   In a way, it’s a real boon for me.  I am one of the next generation that will probably benefit greatly from their popularity.  Certainly, right now there’s no need or desire to compete with The Three Tenors, and one shouldn’t even try.

BD:   You don’t want to get two others, and be The Next Three Tenors?

Leech:   It’s been talked about, and I’ve rejected it entirely, because it’s just not something that needs to be done right now.  We have The Three Tenors, and the world’s very happy with them, and that’s great.  It’s been great for opera’s popularity. Quite often, you get purists, if you will, who criticize their approach, and I understand it to a point, but I disagree with it to a greater extent.  My feeling is that they’re bringing what it is we do to a much larger audience who are enjoying it, and if we can do that, it’s worth any trade-off that the purists may feel we’re making.

BD:   Does it translate into more bodies in more seats at more performances?

Leech:   I believe it does, because for the first time in a while, opera is cool.  It’s sort of trendy. And if you can accomplish that and get someone in a seat for the first time, and they come to an opera and realize what it is they’re seeing, and they have a good performance, that’s half the battle. For most people who say they saw an opera once and really didn’t like it, probably saw a bad performance, and it’s a shame when that happens.  Now with surtitles, most people don’t even know we have them with the translation.  You’re in the opera all night long with the story, and quite often you’ve got a convertee.  You’ve got a new opera patron who comes with more regularity, and then buys records and enjoys all the things that go with it.  So I’m all for it.  Ultimately I think my generation will probably benefit greatly from the popularity that those three guys are stirring up.

BD:   Good.  I hope it keeps going.  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Graham Clark, and Bernard Haitink.]

Leech:   Yes, I do too.  I applaud their efforts.  I think it’s great.  Anything we can do to show that opera is not this esoteric elitist thing, and that normal people shouldn’t try to appreciate will help.  That’s a ridiculous concept.

BD:   Opera still gets knocked on the sitcoms...

Leech:   Absolutely, but now, when people hear Nessun Dorma, they know it’s that aria, and they like it.  Anything we can do like that is great.

BD:   We’re talking around it, so let me hit the question straight on.  What is opera supposed to be?

Leech:   Opera as we know it is intended for the masses.  It is intended for the normal, common people, in what is their own language.  By virtue of the fact that we’re singing in Italian and French and German for an American audience automatically creates a problem, a barrier.  How is an audience supposed to fully appreciate what it is we’re trying to do?  What we’re trying to do is communicate.  We’re not just trying to create sounds and magic as unknown classical accomplishments.  We’re trying to communicate.  We’re trying to tell a story, and if the audience doesn’t understand it, we’ve lost the battle.  In the years before surtitles came along, there was a real push in the United States to try opera in English, but it doesn’t really work well.  The operas are not written in English, and they don’t always work well when sung in English.

BD:   In Chicago, again we’re spoiled because we have the best of both.  We have a smaller company that does everything in English, and we have the big company that does everything in the original with international casts.

Leech:   Right!  As you know, I sang here with the Chicago Opera Theater in Rondine, and Martha, both in English.  Then I went on to only doing operas in the original language at world-class houses, and I missed that sense of the audience really being in the story.  I first started singing with surtitles right as they came out because I was at the New York City Opera at the time, and Beverly Sills brought them.  I watched audiences for the first time all of a sudden be mesmerized by the story, and not sleeping through a whole act.  It’s really been quite a transformation for the audience.
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BD:   You started out with a certain group of roles.  Are you still singing those roles, and have you expanded your repertoire a lot?
 
Leech:   I slowly expand.  It mutates a little bit, but I received some advice early in my career — which was wonderful, and always stuck with me — and that was to start where you want to end up.  If you want to be a big-time singer, think big.  It’s like in business. You want to be a big company, so you think big and hope you’ll make that happen.  You tend to get hired as a singer for what it is you do.  You are already singing, so if you don’t want to be singing operetta when the big companies come to hire you, then you really don’t want to be singing operetta in the little companies when they’re asking you to sing.  If you want to be singing big roles at the Met, I’m not sure it’s the best idea to go to the Met singing little bitsy roles.  But it’s a tough bridge to cross.  If I were a baritone and I want to sing Rigoletto with the Met, I’d rather sing Rigoletto in Oshkosh and then wait to sing it at the Met instead of going to the Met and sing Marullo.  I was always of that frame of mind, and luckily I was already in the repertoire I wanted to end up in.  I was already doing Boheme, and Butterfly, and Rigoletto.

BD:   You’re not getting tired of them?

Leech:   No, not for a heartbeat!  Not for a second.

BD:   Good.  How do you keep them fresh when you do your umpteenth Rodolfo or your umpteenth Pinkerton?

Leech:   I find the hardest thing can be the rehearsals.  If we’re just trying to get it together, and not really finding something new, then it can be very boring to rehearse.  But if we have a talented director, and a cast who’s trying to find something, then that process is very exciting.  Beyond that, every performance takes care of itself.  The curtain goes up, and the next thing I know, the curtain comes down.  This is because the operas that I’m doing are so great.  You’re talking about great, great pieces.  If you stay in the moment, and you stay with the composer and with the story, you can’t help but be carried from the beginning to the end.  Then, the next thing you know, the curtain comes down and the audience is saying bravo.  It really is that way.

BD:   When you walk out on the stage, are you still Richard Leech performing these operas, or are you becoming the character?

Leech:   A little bit of both. My teachers talk in terms of singing in third person.  It’s very necessary to stay a bit detached as a singer.  It doesn’t do any good for Mimì, or for any character, to be actually crying hysterically.  If that is the case, you’re not going to be singing wonderfully.  It’s just not going to happen.  So you have to have this element of third person where he calls her name with great emotion and sadness.  Otherwise, your voice falls apart if you’re actually feeling that.  Beyond that, though, there is something wonderful that sometimes gets lost on the general public, that the acting opportunities in opera are pretty fantastic.  There are situations with a range of emotion, and quite often they’re fun.  I just did Don José for the first time last year.  It was a role I had put off until I thought I was ready dramatically, and I was very happy I did because I loved it.  The range of emotion that I get to play dramatically is a ball.

BD:   He’s a more desperate character than your earlier roles.
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Leech:   Yes, but you find a way to crawl into his skin.  I’m doing Pinkerton right now, and once I establish who Pinkerton is, it’s not a matter of finding the right action.  There is no wrong action.  Once you’ve decided who the guy is, you can’t do anything wrong.  There is no wrong action or reaction because you’re simply choosing these actions as that character.

BD:   They haven’t been imposed on you?

Leech:   That’s right.  The only thing imposed on you is a structure with your production — where to go and when to be there.  Beyond that, you work with your director to find what it is you’re trying to bring across.  You do have to stay with the piece.  Each action and reaction is actually very easy to find as an actor, because you’re that character, and you can get to that point with a character.  But it does take time, and it’s difficult.

BD:   Are Pinkerton and Kate happy together in the time after the end of the opera?

Leech:   Pinkerton has very little control over Kate, but rarely am I involved in the development of her character.  I believe they are probably very happy.  Kate comes off as more stern than I would have her be played, but again, that’s a directorial choice and a character choice of that singer.  That doesn’t really leave room for me to have any effect.  I can only play my relationship with Kate in respect to how Kate’s being played, and if she’s on the stiff, stern side, quite often she comes off as cold and uncaring.

BD:   But there’s really not much interaction with them on the stage.  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Siegmund Nimsgern, and Simon Estes.]

Leech:   There’s virtually none.  I wait in the garden, and I’m going to sing a few high notes, and leave.  Whatever action you want to make up is fine.

BD:   Do you promote yourself in the last act?

Leech:   Again, that’s a directorial choice, but I don’t think I’ve been promoted in this production.  It would make sense because it’s been three years.  He should be promoted, but one wonders how he gets permission to bring Kate on the boat.  [Laughs]  I’d love to know.

BD:   He would need to be the captain.

Leech:   Yes, but Puccini didn’t worry too much about that.  Maybe she took some freighter over.  [Both laugh]  But I have played him promoted several times.  I always get the naval people who come to me and tell me what’s wrong with my uniform, and why something’s not right.  I finally learned that a naval officer never salutes without his hat on.  No hat, no salute.  Period.  As a matter of fact, I’ve been watching very carefully to find mistakes in movies, and sure enough, they’re pretty good about it.  That kind of technical advice is good.

BD:   Maybe Kate’s the daughter of the admiral.

Leech:   That’s it!  There you go.  That’s good.  I like that.  She’s connected, so that would make sense.

BD:   I just wondered if Pinkerton was happy with her later on, or if he has lots of other affairs.

Leech:   You would have to write that in the next opera.  Call it The Revenge of Sorrow.

BD:   Now, somebody’s going to write that.  [Both laugh]  On that subject, do you sing any new operas at all?

Leech:   I haven’t done any contemporary pieces of late.  I’ve done several, including a couple of world premieres, but I’m drawn to traditional pieces, and I probably will stay with that.  But I’ve had some good luck as part of it is my affiliation with Binghamton.  There’s composer, Myron Fink (April 19, 1932 - ), who just had a debut in San Diego last year that Jerry Hadley did, El Conquistador, which got a lot of press.  They wrote about it in Opera News, and said it was a nice piece.  He also debuted two of his operas in Binghamton because he was affiliated with the company since the early ’60s.

BD:   Do you have any advice for composers who want to write opera as we head into the next millennium?

Leech:   Yes... don’t be afraid of melody.  Don’t be afraid of using actual traditional harmonies.  I don’t see anything wrong with it.  There seems to be this fear that if it’s been done they can’t do that anymore.  But somewhere, there has to be a balance.  As music has evolved, we learn things, and some things work and some things don’t work for our modern ears.  We have to be very careful, as we go forward, not to abandon the vocal line that was found through the operatic evolution.  I’m not saying we can’t find new harmonies that are different to our ears.  We certainly can.  Puccini did it in his time, and we’ve come to accept those.  But at the same time, we must keep this sense of a vocal line that sings if we’re going to call it opera.

BD:   We seem to be coming back to tonality in the concert hall.  Does that make you happy?

Leech:   I think so.  The first test of whether anything’s any good is if you say it’s pretty.  To a certain extent, that’s a litmus test that should be applied.  Does it please your ear, and if it doesn’t, maybe we should re-think it.  But that’s just me.  That’s a real down-to-earth approach which I believe in.  My dad, who’s not an opera aficionado at all, went to hear something at Carnegie Hall, and he leaned over to my teacher and asked if the bass was any good.  My teacher asked him what he thought, and my dad said, “Well, I don’t really like it.”  My teacher said, “You’re right.  It’s lousy,” and that’s the whole point.  A person who wants to enjoy opera has the right, as an audience member, to sit in their seat and say, “I don’t like that” or “I do like that,” and they’re right, whether they know anything about it or not, because if they don’t like it, there’s a reason.  Their opinion is valid, even if they haven’t been educated in that art form.

BD:   Does this make us lazy when we go to The Three Tenors knowing that they’ll always be good?

Leech:   It’s interesting, because the three tenors are very different.  It’s fascinating because each of them have their followers who have different opinions about which one is better, and that’s what makes it so wonderful.

BD:   I’ve always said I’m so glad it’s three tenors, because if it was just two, then it would be one faction against the other faction.  When you throw in that third tenor, then it becomes a fun concert and everybody just goes and applauds.

Leech:   It demonstrates very well that each voice is quite different, even though they all do the same thing, and quite often the same repertoire.  Plus, it’s all different, and that’s what makes opera lovers so nuts about it.  They may have heard some great singer of a past age, and now they’re still coming and finding new singers that excite them.  I may be a singer that excites one opera-goer, and not another.  They may have another singer that they found who excites them, and that’s what makes it so wonderful.  A true opera lover is one who comes to the opera.  They don’t just come to one or two performances, they’ll come quite often, because they’re the ones who know that even a good performance is fine, and they enjoy it.  But if you’re in the opera house often enough, every now and then the magic starts to explode, and the performance is something unique.  The true opera lover wants to be there on that night, and the only way you’re going to be there that night is to be there with some regularity.  They come time and time again because they want to be there, and sure enough, they’re quite often rewarded with that magical evening.

BD:   Is it your responsibility to make sure that the odds for a magical evening are good?
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Leech:   It’s my first responsibility to make sure that the patrons who come only to the one performance get the real thing, and gets us at our best.  But the other thing is something that we can’t control.  We can’t be responsible for the magic.  It’s something that is beyond all of us.  It’s a synergy when it happens, and you get a magical performance.  If we try to make that happen, we would get in its way.  So all we can do is just go.  Greatness takes care of itself.  If God wants you to be wonderful, then if you do your job, it may be perceived as wonderful.  What it does is take the pressure off of a singer.  All of a sudden, I’m not responsible for being great, and that frees me up to be much better than I might be if I added that pressure.
  
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BD:   I understand you’re coming back to Chicago fairly soon.  Tell me about it.

Leech:   On June 20th, I’m going to open the Grant Park Music Festival.

BD:    What are you singing, or is it a big gala?

Leech:   We’re putting the repertoire together, and there will be Italian arias and Neapolitan songs.  I’m not exactly sure what fills that in, but there’ll be Nessun Dorma and O Sole Mio.  Basically it will be your Three Tenors fare.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge]  You’re The One Tenor?

Leech:   That’s right.  [Laughs]  It’s The One Tenor.

BD:   Do you like singing outside?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interview with John Fiore.]
 
Leech:   I do.  It’s fun.  I’ve done several things like the Hollywood Bowl a couple of times.  I did an Italian concert there with similar repertoire.  There’s something incredible about looking out at a sea of heads.  The relaxed atmosphere of an outdoor concert is somehow different than the opera house.  It makes the singers relax, too.  It’s a whole different idea, like having a barbecue in your backyard, and standing up on the picnic table singing O Sole Mio.  There’s that relaxed feeling about it, and almost a gratefulness that comes from a crowd that’s outside picnicking while having this concert in front of them.  It’s really quite exciting.  The Hollywood Bowl is 17,000 people...  [Pauses a moment to ruminate]  One of the things that can be difficult for an opera singer is when you have that magical night.  It was the best you’ve ever sung that role in your life, and you wonder if you can ever do that again.  You realize that 2,000 people saw it, and that’s it.  Nobody else is going to see it.  A singer friend of mine used the phrase, “Another triumph down the drain.”  [Laughs]  It’s a little cynical, but it’s true.  The curtain comes down, and then you have to do it again.  It can be a little disheartening sometimes, which is why it’s nice to record and do some TV broadcasts every now and then.

BD:   Do you try to duplicate that perfect performance, or do you try to do something fresh the next time?

Leech:   You can’t duplicate it.  If you do, you’re in trouble.  Every day, if a singer’s really doing it well, he’ll start over from zero and get there again.  When he starts to sing an aria, he’ll just be telling the story.

BD:   You say, “get there again.”  Is the road from the start to getting there again becoming shorter or longer as your career progresses?

Leech:   It should get shorter, but I have a feeling that as you age, it might get longer again.  I don’t know.  I’ll let you know when it happens.  [Both laugh]  For me, it’s getting a little shorter, but some days it is longer than others.  Sometimes it’s full of turns, but there’s a probably a point at which it gets longer.

BD:   But it seems like it’s all satisfying to you.

Leech:   It is satisfying.  It’s difficult.  It’s a hard career in the sense that we live on the road.  We’re migrant singers.  We go here to there, to there, to there, and it’s not quite like a business trip.

BD:   You’re a wandering minstrel.

Leech:   Right, I’m a wandering minstrel, and it’s very difficult.  That’s one of the reasons I try to take time off.  I try to take a month or two in the summer and just say, "No, no, no."  My agent’s not allowed to say the word ‘August’ to me.  Every now and then, he whispers, “It’s in August,” and I say, “Shhhh!  Don’t mention it.”  But it works very well for me to do that.

BD:   Is it one long vacation in the summer, or several little vacations?

Leech:   Besides the month of August, I take the other ones where they come.  I assess where there’s a hole in the schedule, and then I say, “Okay, good.  That’s now officially a vacation,” and nothing goes in there.  Someone like Plácido Domingo thrives on a schedule that I’ve never understood.  He sings night after night after night after night, and he’s done that his entire career.  He’s like steel.  He says, “If you rest, you rust,” but he’s the rare exception.  Most singers, myself included, require time between shows.  I try to do one production at a time, and then move on to the next one.  But it can be very difficult, particularly if you’re flying around.  It’s demanded less to fly around in the States, but in Europe, quite often the standard is to sing a show at Covent Garden, then fly to Vienna for the next night, and then go back in Covent Garden.  You’re on this sort of merry-go-round.  I just can’t imagine doing it.  I also have to have time for golf, and for my friends.  So, I’m much happier doing it the way I do.

BD:   I hope you continue doing it for a long time.

Leech:   [Laughs]  Me too.  That’s the plan.

BD:   Thank you so much for bringing your artistry back to Chicago.

Leech:   Well, thank you.  It’s my pleasure.  I enjoy it.  Coming to Chicago in January is a little masochistic because of the severe weather, but I’ll be back in June and it will be hotter.  But I always have a wonderful time in Chicago.  The audiences, as I said, are some of the best in the world.  They really are fantastic, and it’s a blessing to be here.
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© 1992 & 1998 Bruce Duffie

These conversations were recorded in Chicago on January 16, 1992, and January 9, 1998.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB in 1992, 1997, and 1998.  This transcription was made in 2023, and posted on this website at that time.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.  To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests.  He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago.  You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.