The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer by Fleming Renee

Author:Fleming, Renee [Fleming, Renee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2005-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

BUSINESS

FORALL THE INVALUABLE lessons I learned about being an opera singer while I was in school—whether chest resonance, languages, style, or how to sing above the staff—no one had ever sat me down and told me to make sure my airfare was covered when I sang in foreign countries. No one said a word about bookings, interviews, or cancellation policies. In short, no one explained anything about how the business works. People don’t naturally think of business as being a concern of artists, least of all the artists themselves. We’re supposed to be like birds: natural, free, trilling our songs on a flowering branch whenever the mood strikes us, living off seeds. But this is the modern world, and even the most profoundly artistic of souls has to pay her taxes on time. For that reason and many others, it is essential that young singers familiarize themselves with the business aspects of their work. No one just walks onto the stage of the Met when she feels like it and launches into an aria, no matter how heavenly her voice is. Scheduling is just one of the many requirements of the job.

The offers were pouring in at an alarming rate now, and I felt ill equipped to decide between them. My budding international recital career also needed the attention of a full-time booking staff, so after six years together and a wonderful start, Merle Hubbard and I parted company. He had by now left the Breslin agency and started his own fledgling company, at exactly the point when I felt I needed the support of a large office. So I signed with Matthew Epstein at Columbia Artists Management Incorporated, or CAMI, as it is better known. Merle, who loves to say that I am the single most ambitious singer he has ever known, gave me a final, generous gift: an introduction to publicist Mary Lou Falcone. Mary Lou didn’t have any singers on the client list of her boutique agency, which handled several instrumentalists and almost all of the major orchestras in the Western world with a staff of two. I was tremendously fortunate that she took me on, owing perhaps in part to my relationship with the late Arleen Augér, who, like Lucia Popp, had succumbed to cancer at an early age. Arleen had been a friend and a client, and I met Mary Lou when I sang at Arleen’s New York City memorial.

Mary Lou and Matthew quickly set up a team to oversee my career, consisting of the two of them and the various executives of my new record company, Decca. I can remember meetings at which I sat for hours just listening to them, a student again, as I realized that I still had an enormous amount to learn about the business I was in. Matthew and Mary Lou were both extremely experienced and successful in running the careers of musicians. One of their first goals for me involved my recital debut at Carnegie Hall, two years in the future, which they were determined to sell out.

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