Feature article in Opera News

Louise T Guinther, November 2009, vol 74, no. 5

on the occasion of the 2009 Opera News awards – click photo for more on the award ceremony

Photographed by Benjamin Ealovega at London‘s Wigmore Hall

OPERA NEWS salutes the distinguished achievements of five of opera’s best [Martina Arroyo, Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley, Philip Glass and Shirlet Verrett. The awards will be presented on 19 November 2009]

When bass-baritone Gerald Finley stood stock still in the center of the Met’s vast stage in Doctor Atomic, pouring forth the anguished doubts of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the audience seemed to hold its collective breath — a tribute rare in any theatrical experience, rarer still for a contemporary opera. Finley’s deep connection with this role, which was written for him, banished all resistance in an unforgettable moment of lyrical and dramatic consummation.

For most artists, such spectacular synergy between character and performer might be a once-in-a-lifetime fluke, a career-defining achievement destined to be admired and talked about but never repeated. For Finley, it’s all in a day’s work. In a repertory that spans the gamut from Handel and Purcell, through all the great baritone roles of Mozart, on to Tchaikovsky’s Onegin, Verdi’s Germont, Debussy’s Golaud and a generous helping of contemporary works he has either created or championed, Finley’s musical instincts seem inseparable from his knack for getting under a character’s skin. Even in the art-song literature that has been a major component of his work, one senses a fully-formed character coming to life through each individual text.

These transformations are achieved with a lack of apparent art that magnifies their impact a thousand fold by calling attention to the works and characters themselves, rather than to the figure who animates them. Finley’s multi-dimensional portrayals are remarkable for the subtle, unostentatious means by which he creates them. In his pursuit of what he has called “the ever-increasing reality of circumstances,” he has become a master of the paradoxical art of subdued intensity — an organic-seeming emotional engagement that draws the listener in without perceptible effort or guile. He makes us listen not with a shout but with a whisper, projecting the text with unpretentious yet immaculate diction and a dynamic range and flexibility that perfectly capture the cadences of speech. This skill is especially notable in his native English: it has immeasurably enhanced his performances in works of contemporary composers such as Adams and Tobias Picker, to whom he has displayed unwavering commitment. Indeed, Finley has carved a distinct niche for himself in North American repertory, recording effortlessly idiomatic renditions of the songs of Samuel Barber and Charles Ives.

Finley grew up in Ottawa, Canada, singing in choruses from his early youth. He won a scholarship to study chemistry at the University of Toronto, but by that time his love of music and his increasingly evident talent had awakened hopes of becoming a professional chorister, and he attended the Royal College of Music, King’s College, Cambridge, to hone his craft. Having, in his own words, “sort of reached the ultimate in choral experience” with the King’s College Choir, he set his sights on a solo career, apprenticing at Britain’s National Opera Studio and at Glyndebourne, where he established a reputation as a Mozart singer of elegance and refinement. He has since earned worldwide acclaim for his Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni and Papageno, the role that introduced him to the Metropolitan Opera in 1998.

What makes Finley such a striking performer in every corner of a diverse repertoire is his ability to find the same intensity of human experience in the whimsy of Mozart’s Figaro that he brings to the monumental conflict of Oppenheimer. Whether his character is holding the fate of a warring world in his hands or brooding over an imagined personal slight, the light that flashes behind his eyes is the fire of true passion, the spark that gives life to words on a page and infuses a musical line with dramatic meaning. His knack for projecting a very human vulnerability illuminates every role he sings, from the titans to the ordinary Joes, so that Papageno’s brief moment of considering suicide, for all its humor, becomes in a way as harrowing an episode as Giovanni’s descent into hell. The charm and bonhomie that shine forth in Barber’s “Heavenly Banquet” — an oasis of earthy jollity in the midst of the reverent Hermit Songs, which Finley projects so vividly that one can taste the lake of beer he is so eager to share with his Savior — reveal a soul as attuned to the lighthearted side of humanity as to its darker corners.

Finley’s lush, vibrant sound and intensity of expression can wring a tender, almost Romantic lyricism from the most modern and angular of idioms. Blessed with a bass-baritone of lean clarity and generous warmth, velvet richness and steely power, he refines it by an extraordinary ability to surge and ebb with the flow of the music, his voice seeming to remake itself to fit the diverse requirements of a slurpy Tchaikovsky melody or an unadorned folk song by Charles Ives. Whatever the compositional style, Finley’s gift allows him to achieve a pristine, unfussy vocal line that lets the music speak for itself with simple eloquence. His partnership with Julius Drake has yielded a series of award-winning recordings on the Hyperion label that are a lasting testament to the scope of his artistry. The latest, Songs by Ravel, displays an expressive compass from raging tempest to still, small voice of calm, from frightful fury to playful jest.

In an era of ever-increasing specialization and a field that, in any era, inclines to self-absorption, Finley stands out as a kind of modern-day Renaissance man, whose unflagging interest in the big picture colors his awareness of each little world he inhabits on the stage. His razor-sharp intelligence is apparent in his thorough, intellectual approach to preparation and in his kaleidoscopic musical breadth. One gets the sense of an important message in everything he sings. Above all, in keeping with the modest, collegial scope of his early musical aspirations, there is an ever-present sense of deep humility and compassion — the kind that allows an artist to look without judgment into the souls of his characters, noble or trivial, small or great, and give them unstinting life and voice through him