Rod Gilfry on Opera and Musical Theatre

Rod Gilfry is a two-time Grammy nominee. In this interview, the opera singer talks about his world-wide career and experience. He appears in over 80 roles including his latest one as Claudius in Opera Australia’s Hamlet. He reminisces about working with his daughter and the possibility of working with her again. He also gives a more thorough understanding of the differences between opera and musical theatre.

Drew Janine: You will be reprising your role ofClaudius in the upcoming production of Hamlet which you have performed every time in this production since it premiered at Glyndebourne in 2017. Do you have a new take on the character or learn anything new from portraying the character so many times?

Rod Gilfry: I’m singing it better! I feel very privileged and honored to have been the choice for Claudius in each one of these Hamlet iterations. And I have had the good fortune to be able to work on this very difficult role for many years, bringing what I have learned from other repertoire to bear on my singing and interpretation of Claudius. My interpretation is essentially the same, but I feel more centered and confident about it, as well as how I am singing it.

DJ: With each different director for the show Hamlet, what have you learned from each one and their perspective of how to tell the story?

RG: Neil Armfield has been the only director since its inception, and he is wonderful. I do wonder if any other production could live up to this one!

DJ: With over 80 roles in your repertoire, how do you approach each character differently?

RG: The answer to that question is answered by the question itself: each character is different. I have never played a role quite like Claudius before, and I would like to think that everything I bring to it is uniquely suited to the role.

DJ: What are some routines that you do to prepare for shows?

RG: In my early years, I got very much caught up in, and reliant upon, performance day rituals. I would eat a specific breakfast,  I would run a specific distance, I would eat a specific lunch, I would study my part at a specific time for a predetermined number of minutes, I would take a nap at precisely 3 PM, then have coffee and some kind of dessert (preferably Strudel) at four. It was all very lovely, but when I could not maintain my rituals I became very nervous. The one thing that cured me of my rituals was having children. Not only would I sometimes be up most of the night with a crying infant, or a vomiting toddler, but those poopy diapers would not change themselves. I finally resolved to just have a “normal day” on performance days, and that is what I do now. The one ritualistic requirement that I have maintained is the nap. I find it rejuvenating and energizing, and my chance to surrender to peace and quiet for 30 minutes before the performance preparations begin.

DJ: Do these routines differ when it’s a world premiere?

RG: Not really. Assuming that I am completely prepared by the day of the first performance, the only thing I really need is a nap.

DJ:What was it like working with your daughter as you portrayed Captain von Trapp and her as Lieslfor Théâtre du Châtelet?

RG: I’m surprised you know about that! That was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life, and her life too, I think. To be together with one of your children for two months, in a place like Paris, performing on stage together as equals, experiencing the culture together, shopping and cooking and dining together. Even drinking together. I wish I had the opportunity to do this with all three of our children. Of course, the performances being around Christmas, my wife and other two children joined us in Paris and we had the most wonderful time.

DJ: Would you work with your daughter again?

RG: Absolutely not! No, I’m just kidding. My daughter Carin, like her siblings Erica and Marc, are wonderful young adults, and an absolute joy to be around. It reminds me of a line from The Sound of Music that Captain von Trapp sings to Maria: “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must’ve done something good.” I say this because it really feels like my wife and I don’t deserve to have these extraordinary relationships with our children, and by extension, our grandchildren.

DJ: According to your work history, you have been everywhere from the North American continent to around the world in Europe and Australia and even parts of Asia such as Japan. What is it like working with so many different cultures in opera and musical theatre?

RG: I am really, really surprised that music is such a universal language. You would think that in a place like Japan, which has their own tradition of Kabuki and Noh theater, but not Western music, that opera would be something so foreign as to not be understood or appreciated. But the most appreciative and enthusiastic fans I have ever encountered in the world are the Japanese. They have an appreciation that is so great that most audience members in America or Europe would be embarrassed to behave as they do. After one performance of Cosi fan Tutte in Japan, there were people who ran after our mini bus all the way to the train station, 2 km away, in high heat and humidity, just to get our autographs. A couple of them even bought tickets on our train so they could say hello.

DJ: In your opinion, what are some of the major differences between opera and musical theatre performances?

RG: I feel like there shouldn’t be any differences. I feel like opera singers should be dedicated totelling the story. Musical theater singers, in general, are very dedicated to that. One of the problems arises with the differences in vocal requirements. Nowadays, musical theater singers are amplified. For the most part, opera singers are not: we must “self-amplify”. Self-amplification is at the heart of the operatic technique. That means that with our acoustic, not electronically-enhanced, instruments we must produce enough sound and carrying power to be heard over an orchestra, sometimes an extremely large orchestra which employs instruments that compete for the same frequency spectrum as the singing voice. This is a requisite of opera singing, of course, but in my opinion it becomes too important too often. The opera singer who bores me to tears, even makes me very angry, in fact, is the opera singer who sings with a beautifully-produced, resonant voice all the time, and not much else. Sometimes I hear magnificent voices that are guided by what seem to be chicken brains. These people are not musical, they don’t have a dramatic sense, they don’t care about telling the story, they sing with neither beautiful legato line nor understanding of the text. They sing for the sake of making their beautiful, oh-so-impressive sounds, and don’t care to be communicators of the story. My heart rate has gone up about 40% just by describing these so-called artists. 

I have tremendous respect for musical theater singers. For a year I toured the United States with the magnificent Bartlett Sher Lincoln Center production of South Pacific. My colleagues were hard-working, extremely disciplined, kind and supportive, and job number one was to communicate, to tell the story with as much clarity as possible, to have every single word understood by any audience. And these musical theater performers do eight shows a week, without complaint, and relish the experience. How many opera singers would do that? Well, I was one. I loved doing eight shows a week.  I think it’s largely because my memory is not great, and when I do, say, three shows a week, as we typically do in opera, I can’t remember what happened in the previous show! That means I can’t learn from it and improve my next performance. I loved doing eight shows a week for an entire year. It was challenging and exhilarating and completely satisfying.

All pictures provided by: Prudence Upton

Drew Janine

Live Sound Engineer -EUROPE

Janine has always been a part of music and performing. The first show that inspired her to go into theatre was the Velveteen Rabbit which she saw as a child, and Drew works to keep that magic alive as working behind the scenes in theatre as a live sound engineer. When Drew was accepted into an internship program for audio engineering at a recording studio, she jumped at the opportunity. That was at the start of 2020 and so much has happened since then, both in her career and in the world. Since then, Drew has taken several opportunities to work at recording studios, concerts, festivals, and even large theatres while spending time on tour across the North American continent and Europe. Drew’s favourite by far though has been the chance to work on Broadway and West End shows, as this was a dream come true. Drew is honoured to get to share these experiences from being inside the entertainment industry and hopes to inspire others to continue working in theatre.

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