Vicarious or actual performance attending
Ken B Lane
People who gossip about something that they have read or heard second hand, is
not the same as those who live the life, and are not simply armchair vicariosly
involved.
I started performing professionally back in 1948 on tour with the S.M. Chartock
Gilbert & Sullivan Co. as Nanki Poo [Mikado] and Frederick [Mikado].
The Met Opera performances in 1943 onward that I attended and later spoke
backstage with the performers, including Bjoerling, inspired this then young
tyro.
Many recordings that people have merely heard in the recording format, yet they
blurt out all kinds of superlatives, I have heard AT the self-same broadcast or
pirated or privately documented performances and view from the vantage point of
an actual attendee. Bjoerling's voice was, and remains for me, a touchstone
of what I consider the complete great artist, whose recordings are valid
documents. But, as I said, that does not hold for many manipulated recordings
of other performers.
Believe me, there is a difference.
"The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he
becomes by it." John Ruskin
Kenneth Lane, Wagnerian romantischer heldentenor
Website: www.WagnerOpera.com
(973) 335-0111
Festspielhaus of Boonton
418A Main Street, PO Box #172, Boonton, NJ 07005-0172, USA
Boonton Monthly Music Festivals, Dir.