At the Epicenter: Ryan Allais reports from New York City
TENOR RYAN ALLAIS is a former student of Taos High School, who recently pursued his love of opera all the way to New York City. Shortly after he moved to the Big Apple, COVID-19 upended everything.
Allais studied music education at New Mexico State University and became the band and choir director at Taos Municipal Schools, guest conductor for Taos Community Chorus and music director for the First Presbyterian Church of Taos. Allais left Taos in August 2016 to attend Oklahoma City University where he received two master’s degrees – one in Nonprofit Leadership in Arts Administration and the other in Opera Performance. He has performed as an opera singer with Painted Sky Opera, Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico Bach Society and others. This March he sang the world premiere of “Ulster County Songbook” by composer Felix Jarrar.
In September 2019, Allais relocated to New York City to pursue his love of opera. The first time Allais set foot in Manhattan was a week before he moved there with his partner Alonso Jordán López. Little did he know what was coming – no one could have imagined the closures of Broadway and the New York Metropolitan Opera, and the stay-at-home orders that would shutter the entire city. I reached out to Allais to find out what it has been like for him to be living in the Big Apple before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to the pandemic hitting the city, Allais was adjusting to his new home. He looked for and rented an apartment in Northern Manhattan with López and two other people. He toured the city’s landmarks, visiting the Statue of Liberty, Metropolitan Opera, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the World Trade Center memorial, which he went to on Sept. 11. And, he sang around the city – in Queens, Brooklyn and Westchester.
“Pre-COVID it was exciting. Everything was very new and there is just so much to do and so much to look at,” said Allais. “There’s probably the population of Taos in my block. That was a big adjustment. I live in Northern Manhattan so I’m about a 20-minute train ride from downtown. There are less high-rises here, and nice parks around. We have an apartment in Northern Manhattan, nice for escaping the hecticness of the city. But, the first time I stepped off the train, right near the Flatiron District, it was overwhelming. [I thought] I don’t know what to do, there’s too many people here, I’m in everybody’s way, I don’t know how to act here. But, as you get into your routines things settle down. You learn nuances of New York City, from getting an apartment, to finding a job, to how they celebrate Halloween, which is totally backwards from anything in New Mexico. I have found that New Yorkers are the nicest people I’ve ever met, which is contrary to what I ever thought.”
Allais said he is 90 percent certain that he, his partner and their roommates all had COVID-19 early this year, before the first cases in New York City were confirmed. Allais became sick in late January and remained ill for two months.
“I went in to get checked out, and this was right as the first cases of COVID-19 were being confirmed in Westchester. They said it was bronchitis and gave me antibiotics, but those didn’t work. One night I debated going to the hospital because I had shallow breathing and a fever. This was all before the main pandemic hit. It was like nothing I’d ever had before. It started in the lungs,” Allais recalled. “Thankfully, it didn’t affect my voice.”
In a follow-up call several days later, Allais told me that one of his roommates had since been tested for COVID-19 antibodies and the results had come back negative.
Asked what has changed since the pandemic, Allais was circumspect. “It’s very strange to walk out on the streets. Everyone is wearing a mask,” he said.
“For the most part, everyone’s maintaining their distance and waiting in line to go into grocery stores. There are a lot of grocery stores that will only allow five or 10 people in at a time, and are requiring that you wear gloves and a mask in order to enter the store. It’s also New York law that you have to wear a mask when you walk out now,” said Allais. “It’s a different world.
Allais hasn’t left his neighborhood for over a month-and-a-half.
“It’s strange,” said Allais. “It’s interesting to be in our apartment and look down and see Manhattan. There are a lot of things you want to do and see and you can’t. We’re quite stir crazy. We have ups and downs. The whole city lights up at 7 p.m. each night. We’ll go out and clap and whistle.”
‘Broadway is dark. The Met is dark.
I think the arts are going to take a huge hit.’
RYAN ALLIAS
Tenor
The nightly “Clap Because We Care” ritual is a show of support for those who are working on the frontlines of the pandemic. In addition, every Thursday night for the past several weeks, New Yorkers have participated in a city-wide sing-along from their balconies, windows and terraces following their nightly clap. Launched by the Peace of Heart Choir, “New York Sings Along” invites all New Yorkers to sing a specially chosen song, also broadcast on WKCF-FM 89.9 and WBAI 99.5 FM New York. The songs have included John Kander and Fred Ebb’s “New York, New York,” Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got A Friend.”
While New York is singing its heart out, Allais said that the music performances he had lined up prior to the COVID-19 outbreak have been canceled. As a result, he has lost about half of his income. However, he is grateful to have other forms of employment which he can do from his apartment.
“Thankfully, my partner, Alonso, and I are both still employed. I work as a singer for a church and they’re still paying me. I’m doing online work where my accompanist from another part of the city will send me their recording and another choir member will send me her recording that she sang over it. I’ll dub it all together and the church plays it for their Sunday service via Zoom.”
Allais was recently hired to help an opera company to implement a music platform called JamKazam which would allow a singer to work online with an accompanist in real time without any lag time. In addition, he teaches 2-year-olds at a Jewish school called Rodeph Sholom School, and is now teaching through a digital platform.
“I wasn’t sure how that would work out, but it’s worked out quite well,” said Allais. “We do 15 minutes of play and we talk about things that we’re learning, and whatever Jewish holiday is coming up. It’s not the normal day that we would normally have, but we’ve tried to put as much content as we can together and online resources for parents. That’s been interesting.”
Meanwhile, Lopez is able to do his work as an office manager for the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.
“We’ve been very grateful that we’ve been employed, and still making money and teaching and singing,” said Allais. “We’re still getting opera gigs from Oklahoma, virtually.”
However, Allais acknowledges that New York’s opera and music world has suffered immensely. “Broadway is dark. The Met is dark,” said Allais. “I think the arts are going to take a huge hit.”
Allais said he doesn’t know anyone personally who has died from COVID19, but several people he is acquainted with have lost family members to the disease caused by the coronavirus. His coworker, whose husband is an emergency room doctor, has been sharing stories from the frontlines.
“It’s taken quite a toll on a lot of the people and the energy of the city. It’s almost like the buzz of New York City has stopped. It’s frozen. It’s quiet,” Allais said. “We live next to Presbyterian Hospital. We see the tents when we go past there, but there aren’t really any sirens like you normally hear, or the cars, or the air traffic. New York City is very quiet.”