december S. 2003 » J u s t o u t 4 1
HUMOR
..........▼..............
F
A Where
night
at
the
opera
are the gay opera singers?
ive years ago I walked away from a promis
ing career in opera. My career was promis
ing to he lousy, so 1 walked away.
1 wouldn’t say I was had. In fact, most
of my performances earned mixed reviews: 1
thought 1 was terrific, and the critics didn’t.
So it was with great shock and awe that 1
received, out of the wild blue sky, an offer to
sing with the Portland Opera. (Actually, since
it’s Portland, it was the wild gray sky.)
It wasn’t much— three minutes of singing as
the Emperor of China in Puccini’s Turandot— hut
I’m used to secondary roles. Since 1 possessed
more ambition than talent, I had scratched my
way to the middle portraying various hunch-
hacks, mad scientists, drunks and simpletons.
More importantly, taking the gig gave me a
chance to work with my friend C ynthia Hay-
mon, who is one of my favorite singers and,
also, one of my favorite people.
C ynthia is African American hut, unlike a
number of black sopranos, she eschews the
grand manners that make divas sound like they
are native speakers of Hungarian.
No, C ynthia keeps it real.
“We weren’t just poor,” she says of her
upbringing as a preacher’s daughter in the Deep
South. “We were po’. We couldn’t afford the
extra o or the r.”
Now, opera is a surprisingly conservative busi
ness. While there are a number of high-profile
black women, audiences rarely see black men
romancing white women onstage. And while gay
directors, designers and secondary singers abound,
there are still very tew gay leading tenors. (Thar
being said, I have known a few gay niners; that is,
if their AOL profiles are to be believed.)
So, as marginalized minorities, Cynthia and
I stick together, amusing ourselves during long
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
TO MARC
b y M a rc A cito
rehearsals by pretending we’re victims of a vast
operatic conspiracy.
For instance, I made my entrance atop a 20-
foot-tall platform. My costume was actually
built into the throne, giving me 6-foot shoul
ders, like Carol Burnett as Scarlett O ’Hara
with the curtain rod in her dress.
For safety reasons I had to be strapped in.
W hen Cynthia saw this, she sidled up to me
and whispered, “Y’know, th at’s just another
way they keep a brother down.”
“It’s a conspiracy,” I concurred.
“I’m callin’ A1 Sharpton,” she replied.
ynthia actually does have something to
complain about, having suffered real slights
and indignities through the years— like the
time she showed up at an opening night party
in Texas and was mistaken for the help.
As for me, I get into trouble just for being
my own outrageous self.
In this production, which ran last month,
my first vocal entrance was sung unaccompa
nied, so during the tech rehearsal I took advan
tage of the silence by looking down at the cho-
C
ms, spreading my arms wide and singing,
“D on’t cry for me, A rgentina....”
1 think of it as boosting morale.
And 1 once made three dozen pieces of
that when the chorus of Die Fledermaus
“A toast! A toast! A ttxxxxxrast!” instead
of champagne flutes they all raised slices
of marbled rye.
Luckily, the
stage managers
at Portland
Opera have a
sense of humor, as wit
nessed when they would call
me to the stage to get
strapped in by saying: “Mr. A cito to
stage left to get loaded. Mr. Acito,
stage left to get loaded.”
(Note to self: Tell stage
management that Mr. Acito
prefers Absolut.)
T he Emperor is quite
old, with a large cactus-shaped head
dress that made me kx>k like the dog
in Hou> the Grinch Stole Christmas. I
decided to play him as a cross
between the pope and Katharine
Hepburn in O n Golden Pond, com
plete with tremulous voice and shak
ing head. A t the dress rehearsal,
however, the director told me
to lose the shake. W ith all the
light shimmering off my
crown, he said, it’s like my own private disco
up there.
This is not the first time I’ve had to be
reined in. W hen I played one of the gypsy
smugglers in Canncn the director said to me,
"Marc, may 1 remind you, the opera is called
Carmen, not Remendado, Prince of Smugglers."
A nother director once told me 1 had to
tone down my performance because 1 didn’t
seem to be in the same opera as everyone else.
I kx>ked around at the lackluster pro
duction and suggested that perhaps
everyone else would
be happier in mine.
Now you under
stand why I don’t do
this very often.
Maybe th a t’s why
there are so few gay leading
men: We c a n ’t fit our o u tra
geous selves into som eone
else’s opera.
It’s a conspiracy,
1 tell you. I’m callin’
Howard Dean.
And that, my
friends, is The
Gospel Accord
ing to Marc, j n
M a R( : AciTO’s first
runvl, How I Paid
for College, uill he
published in September
2004. Write him at
marc@marcadto. com.
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