Chattanooga native and rising opera star Seth Carico has been away from the Scenic City for half his life performing on stages across Europe, primarily in Germany, but he's about to return as a featured guest of the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera.
Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Carico about life abroad, why he loves opera and the significance of returning to the stage that kickstarted his love of the art form.
Q: What was your introduction to music? When did you first start singing?
A: Growing up in church, I was of course surrounded by music there. I went to First Presbyterian Church, and they had this children's musical group that put on little musicals every year. I thought that was cool. I lived on Signal Mountain, and there was the Signal Mountain Playhouse, so in the summers as a child, we were taken there to watch those shows. I was really smitten by that and wanted, from a very young age, to be at the Signal Mountain Playhouse.
My parents agreed to let me start with the children's group at the church. I started doing stuff there and at the Playhouse, and it went from there. I've basically been singing and acting since I was 9 years old or 8 years old. I'm 34 now.
It's gone through various styles and iterations. As a kid I loved Broadway, and then as a teenager, I thought "This is stupid" and just wanted to be an actor. I went to Baylor for high school, and I just wanted to be an actor, but I continued to sing in the choir. Then, I saw an opera when I was 17. I had never seen an opera before, and that was kind of it. I said, "That's what I want to do." I started taking voice lessons and never looked back.
Q: What opera was it?
A: It was "Pagliacci." The composer is Ruggero Leoncavallo. It was at the Tivoli with the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera when they still did operas. They're doing that again next year, I heard. I'm so happy about that. I've thought "One of these days, they need to change the name of that company or start doing operas again." [Laughs.] I think it's an absolute necessity.
Q: What was it about opera that resonated with you at 17 and so profoundly struck you that you decided to dedicate your life to it?
A: I wanted to be an actor, and I liked singing, but I didn't understand the capabilities of doing both at the same time because my only experience was musical theater. It was fun and everything, but it was hokey to me that you're talking and then all the sudden you start singing and then start talking again. It just seemed weird. They were so hyper-sentimental and romantic that it turned me off.
"Pagliacci" is the perfect opera for a beginner because it's short - it's only an hour and 20 minutes long - and it's very dramatic, really heavy stuff. It starts with this amazing prologue where the baritone comes out and turns into his character. The way they did it, he came out normally, dressed as himself, and sat down and put on his makeup as he was singing the prologue and telling the audience what they were about to see.
All the sudden, I saw this art form where I could act with my voice in a way I had never experienced before. Making that much sound with the human voice, without a microphone, over an orchestra, in these hyper-emotional situations was so powerful; it just hit me in the chest.
I said, "That's something I want to be part of." I was so moved by it as an audience member in a way that I had never been moved in a theater before. I said, "I want to be on the other side of that. I want to move people in the same way that I've been moved."
And it's not like I'm talking down about musical theater. Now, I do a lot of musical theater, and I love it and appreciate it - half of my concert next week is musical theater - but I had to kind of grow up to reappreciate it.
In opera there are these huge emotions represented in such a lush, overwhelming way. Some of this music, especially this late Romantic music like "Pagliacci," just crashes over you in waves. There's something quite special, something unique to that art form. I just had to be a part of it.
Q: Are there aspects of musical theater that you appreciate more because of your operatic work? Did the love of the one build a love of the other?
A: That's an excellent question. That's fantastic. I have to think about the answer. Yeah, absolutely. I think they both inform each other.
In opera, a lot of times, what you have to do is sustain an emotion for a long period of time, much longer than you would in theater or musical theater. If you're singing a piece that is seven minutes long, let's say it has three or four big emotional shifts in that time. That means that, for a couple of minutes at a time, you're having to sustain one emotion and maintain enough intensity to keep that emotion realistic and meaningful.
When you take that same level of intensity that you have to put into operatic emotional delivery and condense it into shorter periods of emotion, then it gives you a much stronger tool belt of skills in how to portray these emotions. In musical theater, things happen much quicker. You don't have 15-minute scenes - everything is much faster.
When we do a new production in Germany, we rehearse it for six weeks, but most houses in America can't pay for six weeks of rehearsals, so you're going to do it in three weeks. When you have six weeks of rehearsal, you go to a very deep level of detail, and when you learn to work at that level of concentration, when you go to America and have three weeks, you are much better equipped to put that same level of concentration in and work and get as much detail out of half the rehearsal period.
I feel like it's the same kind of thing in how you're portraying emotions onstage. You have to concentrate in such an intense way when you sing opera, and when you apply the same level of concentration when you sing musical theater, it really puts you up to another level of being able to communicate.
Q: When did you leave Chattanooga?
A: I was 18. I went to (Middle Tennessee State University) in Murfreesboro, Tenn. I was there for five years. At the beginning of my senior year, my fourth year, I had an offer to be a studio artist with Nashville Opera, so I left school for a semester to do that. That added a year because there was one class that only met in the spring, so I ended up staying an extra year. That was good because for my voice type, there's no hurry. I'm only just now getting into the stuff I'm supposed to sing at this age. I won't peak - my voice won't peak - until I'm 55, as long as I take care of it.
Q: That's good job security, I guess.
A: Yeah, it can be, but you have to take care of it. [Laughs.] I've been in no hurry. That's what I've really tried to do is take my time and do things the right way. Now, I'm at a level where there's a large repertoire that I can sing in houses all over the place, and it'll only get bigger from here. For me, it's a matter of singing dramatic repertoire, which I'm headed towards in the next few years.
Q: Are there works, dramatic or otherwise, that you're particularly excited to tackle once your voice reaches the point of maturity at which you can do it justice?
A: Oh sure. I have quite a list of those. There is John the Baptist in the opera "Solome" [by Richard Strauss] is a dream role, as is playing the Dutchman in [Wagner's] "The Flying Dutchman." It all tends towards the Wagner and Strauss, which is the really heavy Germany repertoire. I'm working my way towards that now. In the company I'm in now, they definitely view me as a future investment for that rep. I'm slowly working my way into that. I'm starting to sing some of the big German rep but the smaller roles - dipping my toes into the water. It's working out pretty well so far. What else? Scarpia in the opera "Tosca" is a dream, and so is Alberich in [Wagner's] "The Ring Cycle." They're all very heavy, but I also really love comedy, like "Gianni Schicchi" by [Giacomo] Puccini.
Q: You've been performing with the Deutsche Oper Berlin for several years now. How did you come to work with them?
A: They have an agreement with a scholarship foundation in New York that is called the Opera Scholarship Foundation Inc. Every year, they have a competition for three, now four, scholarships. The idea is to send young American singers to work in Europe. That year, probably 200 people auditioned for them, and they took three people. We split our time between Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Teatro Regio di Torino in Turin, Italy.
I was there as a studio artist. I had lessons and coaching and did very, very small roles on main stage. It was kind of a yearlong audition to see if they want to give you future work. Eventually, they gave me a full-time position. I'm finishing my sixth season currently and just finished signing for three more seasons, so I'll be here until 2019. I just put pen to paper today.
It's nice because in America it's all freelance work for an opera singer. That's probably where I'll end up eventually, when I'm in enough demand that I can piece together a full season and not have to worry about the gaps between financially. Then, I will probably go freelance. Right now, it's really nice because I have a salaried position with benefits and health care because in this country, opera is considered an actual job, which is nice and refreshing.
But we do work hard. I'm there all season and do 60 performances a season, sometimes, in nine months. I think this year, I'm doing 17 or 18 different operas or different pieces in one season. That's not including the freelance work I have to do. I'm coming to Chattanooga for this concert, and the week after, I'm going to Cologne to sing a concert. Then, a month after that, I'll be in Salt Lake City doing an opera there.
It's kind of an ideal situation. I have my salary and my base where I work a lot, but I have certain number of days each season when I can work as a freelance artist. For now, it's a good place to stay and marinate and mature and let my voice get stronger and better as I get older.
The company is treating me well, and I'm getting a lot of attention now. Yesterday, the big major German opera magazine called Opernwelt came out with an interview with me. The coolest thing is to be a foreigner, to come over into this world where it's so rich. There are over 7,000 performances a season in Germany, which is pretty amazing, so for them to let an American come in and give me some nice attention and respect and praise me for what I have to offer their world is pretty humbling. I feel very lucky.
Q: Did you study German in school?
A: I studied it at Baylor for two years. Then, I didn't have to do it at MTSU, but I did have to do it when I got my master's degree. I think I took Italian and French at MTSU. I think because I took it in high school I passed out of the German requirement, but when I was at the University of Michigan getting my master's degree, I took German there.
Q: You've mentioned emotions a lot - and I assume much of what you're singing with your current company is in German - so is it harder to feel an emotional connection to what you're singing when it's not in English?
A: Not if you do the work. As long as you prepare and learn it well, then it just becomes natural. You forget that you're singing in another language. You have to study; you have to study really hard. You have to spend hours and hours and hours putting musical intention together with what the text means. Even though it's in a foreign language, it has to become married to where what you're saying and what you mean are part of what you're doing. That, combined with a few weeks of doing stage rehearsals with a good director, then it all fits.
As long as you've done the preparation in rehearsal, when you're onstage, it just flows and works and comes out organically. But I work in a repertory house where our company does 150 performances a season, and not all of those shows get a lot of rehearsal. There are some shows we do with two days of rehearsals and throw it onstage because they're warhorses that are done so frequently that everyone just knows them, so we can just do two days of rehearsals and go. In that case, sometimes you really have to fake it until you make it, I guess. [Laughs.] You just get out there and just hope the audience believes you. They usually do. Also, because it's a repertory house, and we're doing a different opera every night, we have a prompter on the edge who is there in case we forget the words or where we are, they yell it out to us to keep us on track.
Q: And that's accepted procedure? The audience isn't fazed when the prompter has to remind the singers?
A: No. They're very good at doing it without being seen. The audience can't seen them. It's just a little hole in the stage floor. We can see them, but the audience can't, and they're very good at being quiet enough to where we can hear them but the audience can't. Of course, sometimes when there's an absolute disaster and someone is singing 10 pages ahead of what they're supposed to be singing, then they'll yell because it's worth allowing the audience to hear the prompter to keep the show going correctly. It does happen.
Q: How often are you able to return to Chattanooga? Do you still have family here?
A: I do. All of my family is in Chattanooga now. I did have one brother in Memphis, but he's recently moved back to Chattanooga. Now, my parents, both of my brothers and their kids are in Chattanooga. And my aunt and my cousin.
Q: When was the last time you performed here?
A: I was in "The King and I" at the Signal Mountain Playhouse in the summer of 2014. They asked me if I was free, and I came in and said, "I'd love to do the show, but I can't be there until the first dress rehearsal." They said that was fine, that they'd have someone else do the rehearsals, and I could jump in with the first dress rehearsal. So they rehearsed for two months or something, and then I showed up at the first dress rehearsal. We did four days of that, and then we were performing. It was quite a whirlwind, but I was glad I was able to participate.
Q: And how did next week's show come about? Did you approach the CSO or did they reach out to you?
A: I reached out to them, actually. It was when I was there for "The King and I" that summer. I wrote to Kayoko Dan and said, "Hey, I'm from Chattanooga. You don't know me, but I sing opera all over the place, and I'd love to come and sing for you guys some time. Do you have any time for an audition?" They wrote me back that they had heard me and pretty soon after that, they wrote back and said they'd like to do a night of me with the symphony. I was hoping to maybe sing as one of the soloists in a cantata or some other piece, but then all the sudden they wanted to do a night with just me. I was like, "OK." [Laughs.]
Q: After performing in all the places you've performed, is it still special to sing for your hometown?
A: It really is. I'm really excited about it. There will be people I haven't seen in years who will be there. I've been getting messages from people from all over getting groups together to come. I wish there was time to see everybody, but it'll be impossible. [Laughs.] I'm really looking forward to it. It's the first place I ever heard classical music, the first place I heard opera. I've never sung as a soloist on that stage, ever, so it's pretty exciting.
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.