An often solitary journey
Loneliness part of classical opera world Russell Braun home for Schubert songs CLASSICAL MUSIC
During the next year or two, acclaimed Canadian baritone Russell Braun will be singing at La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden and the Paris Opera, among other places. Braun is all too aware of his good fortune. “ It is a privilege to to able to make music,” he says quietly. “ What could be more luxurious, in a way?” On the other hand, Braun is very much a family man, never happier, one suspects, than when visiting friends for a barbecue and sitting around singing Beatles songs.
“ The challenge is the lifestyle and the separation from your spouse and your family and your friends,” he says of his jetsetting career. “It’s the constant loneliness.”
Later in the interview, he returns to the same theme, adding shockingly: “ I do also wonder how much longer it makes sense to pursue this, because the loneliness is the worst aspect of the profession for me.” Braun lives outside Toronto with his wife, pianist Carolyn Maule, and their two sons, Benjamin and Gabriel. He’s a pleasant, approachable man who treats questions with gravity and frankness.
Just don’t use the word “ nice.”
“ Boring,” he says, firmly. “ I don’t want to be known as that nice opera singer.”
That may be so, but even his father Victor Braun, who also had a major, international career as an operatic baritone, had reservations about his son following in his footsteps. “ I don’t know if you could become an opera singer because you have to be really tough and you are too nice,” dad warned him.
“ My father, quite honestly, didn’t encourage me too much,” Braun says. “ But I didn’t feel under his shadow, not in our musical life, anyway. In my private life as a child I felt very much in his shadow, but not as a musician.” Braun believes things were worse for his elder sister Adi ( Adreanna), particularly after the family moved back to Canada in 1982 when Russell was 18.
“ I think she suffered a lot more. She had just finished high school and was about to start studying but everybody made decisions for her. It wasn’t until four or five years ago that she decidecd that she would become a jazz singer, something she had always wanted to do.” And he can’t fathom why some of his colleagues say they will never encourage their children to become singers. “ That makes me very sad.” He believes his own children are getting a balanced idea of what it’s like to be a musician. “ It is not going off to fancy places and being paid off with money. It is in our house all the time and they have to learn to respect it. Hopefully, they will learn to love it, as well.”
There’s a fair amount of musical activity in the household in preparation for tonight’s recital with Music Toronto, where Braun will perform Franz Schubert’s song cycle Die Winterreise with Maule as his pianist.
It’s a joy to be working with his wife, he says, although there is a slight downside too. “ Sometimes it is harder because we are allowed to say things to each other that normally I wouldn’t say to another pianist and she probably wouldn’t say to another singer.” He describes himself as having been “ preoccupied” with the songs of Schubert ever since he started to sing. But even before that, he remembers growing up listening to a recording that his father made of Die Winterreise in 1972. He doesn’t quite know why he’s waited so long to perform the piece. “ The right opportunity didn’t present itself and I didn’t want to program it just for the sake of it.” The Music Toronto concert, at the St. Lawrence Centre’s Jane Mallett Theatre, coincides with the release of his CD of the work, recorded for CBC Records in January. It’s an emotionally intense series of Lieder about love misplaced and lost, but Braun loves the possibility of the triumph of the human spirit that infuses the work.
“ I do not feel vocally exhausted at the end; in fact I feel elated, vocally so alive. It is not a depressing work because there is a future at the end of the cycle. It is not as detached from the emotions as in a lot of songs because there is a lot of pity and a lot of self- pity in the cycle. That’s refreshing as well, because it is part of what makes us human.” Braun has fond memories of the Jane Mallett Theatre; he sang in the Opera in Concert chorus there for years before beginning his university training and stepping up to lead roles. And while it was out of character, he actually suggested the Die Winterreise recital to Music Toronto’s general manager, Jennifer Taylor.
“ I am not normally the sort of person who goes up to someone and says ‘ Hire me,’ but I presented her with this idea and she loved it right away.
“ The most important thing,” he says, “ is to tell the story convincingly and not to try to be a musicologist and create an abstract work of art. The story can be really moving if told the right way.” Opera continues to be his first love. “ The recurring challenge is discovering the emotional life of the characters you are exploring and what they reveal about the composer and the poet who created them. The whole process is like looking into a mirror — I have always been a rather withdrawn, thoughtful person, I guess.” But his personal explorations continue. “ When people tell me that they have found themselves, I ask them, ‘ What are you going to do now?’ ” Just the facts What: Die Winterreise by Franz Schubert Where: Jane Mallett Theatre, 27 Front E. When: Tonight @ 8 p.m. Tickets: $50 (18 to 35 pay your own age) @ 416-366-7723