Crossover Corner My Favorite Spot: Three Years Hanging Out on “Crossover Corner”
Columnist Peter Thoresen reflects on three years penning “Crossover Corner!”
Happy spring and happy Classical Singer Convention issue! As my column deadline approached, I realized that this issue marks a personal milestone—three years of writing the “Crossover Corner” column—in print and online! My partner John calls me a professional nostalgist, and he’s right. I love giving things a sense of occasion, so it’s a good thing that I have a career in the arts and show business, as we show folk like an occasion. And who doesn’t? Social media shows that many of us love taking a “back to school” pic or a “first day of rehearsal” selfie, complete with the show binder proudly displaying our name and role.
Thank you, Classical Singer, and thank you, readers, for this ongoing opportunity to share my experiences, reflections, and ideas with you. If you’re new to “Crossover Corner,” welcome! In this neighborhood of the magazine, I aim to point out the many areas of common ground shared among classical and musical theatre (MT) singing and programming. I also shed light on many of the shared challenges that classical singers and their teachers encounter in practical matters of MT repertoire selection, performance opportunities, and some of the psychology that can make us feel stuck, fearful, or like an impostor in the world of musical theatre.
I love charts and themes and made a list of the topics I’ve covered here, with titles including:
- Evolving from First Impressions: Reactivity and Repertoire
- Making Your Mind A Judgment-Free Zone
- Jeanine Tesori Is Keeping Voices Healthy
- Crossing Over without Joy—Don’t Risk It
- Baby One More Time (clearly a column inspired by the Britney Spears’ musical, Once Upon a One More Time)
A quick look at my full list of column titles confirmed the obvious. I frequently gravitate toward matters of inspiring performances, singers, and masterclasses; wellness and facing self-judgement; and repertoire selection and singer-centered writing for the voice.
Here I’d like to unpack this a bit if you’d care to join me for a trip down memory lane—adjacent to “Crossover Corner” and other punny locales. Living in New York City, I need very little justification to go to a performance— but, as comedian John Mulaney wisely observes, as an adult, “It’s really easy not to go to things…. Percentagewise, it is 100% easier not to do things than to do them.” I frequently remind my voice students of this—how it’s so much easier not to go to an audition, or apply to a competition, or go to a concert or play that may not align with their major in college. Writing this column has continued to fuel my desire to seek out more opportunities to attend masterclasses and talkbacks that I may have otherwise put off until finishing up that fourth re-watch of Parks and Recreation. Attending multiple masterclasses in the SongStudio series at Carnegie Hall (shepherded by Renée Fleming) as well as the annual Joyce DiDonato masterclass series has proven such revelatory and joyful experiences.
At one such masterclass in 2023, star mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato shared so openly with the young artists involved, as well as the audience, taking time to note, “If your brain and mind [are] occupied with judging yourself, how can [they] possibly express everything that you are?… You’re not doing your job if you’re allowing the judgmental voice to come in…. We think we’re being diligent. We think we’re being hard on ourselves. That’s going to make us better, that I have to hold myself to a standard, because I can. We think being judgmental is actually going to help us. All it does is get in the way. And it impedes the purity of your voice and your spirit [and the character] to come through.… And we mask it, through perfection—through posture. And we don’t just go, ‘I’m gonna do my best.’”
DiDonato’s sage and totally relatable advice carries so much relevance and speaks directly to the insecurities many classically trained singers face when going to an MT audition, performing a nonclassical set or concert, or considering taking a tap class: “Am I good enough?” “Am I allowed do try this out with a degree in voice and not a BFA in MT?” “Will others immediately think that I’m not supposed to be here?” With all that judgmental noise in the neighborhood between our ears, who can possibly feel “dropped in” to the moment as I hear so many of my BFA MT voice students say at Pace University?
Speaking of my students, I love consulting them for their thoughts and advice as I contemplate what might be useful to readers of “Crossover Corner.” What’s asked and expected of them in musical theatre auditions for Broadway shows, tours, and readings of new MT works continually reminds me of the importance of talking about our best practices as singers (for breath, posture, vowel modification, etc.).
What’s asked for in a callback or musical rehearsal may occasionally feel at odds with sustainable vocal technique. And our work together in the studio centers on how to make sure that their technique shows up for them consistently and reliably in those situations, and all the other times they open their mouths to breathe and sing. Over the years I’ve taken to referring to certain passages as “inartfully written for the voice,” and this is usually a gateway observation with younger singers about how certain difficulties are frequently not because they aren’t good.
In another “Crossover Corner,” I shared some of iconic American composer Jake Heggie’s advice to those writing effectively for the voice: “You have to love the voice and you have to love and respect singers. I don’t know of anything more challenging or braver than being a great opera singer, on the stage, in front of thousands of people, trusting this to work [pointing to his throat]—trusting your body to do all these things, and deliver at top level, every single time. Maybe the tempo is suddenly different. Maybe someone forgets their line. Maybe your costume doesn’t fit right. Maybe you’re not feeling well that day, and you can’t tune your instrument the way other people can tune their instrument, and they expect you still to be spot on pitch. If you don’t have that kind of admiration [for singers], don’t do it.”
Tony Award winning composer Jeanine Tesori might just be the quintessential writer associated with crossover, and her experience, shared in a recent column, so excellently addressed writing for voices in both idioms: “The effort of singing for opera singers—they’re NFL players, they’re unbelievable. I mean, you could drive a truck over their diaphragms. It’s unbelievable what they do. I’m so in awe of them…there are so many people who, like I, studied classically, but also have this other way of singing with a different style, operetta and vaudeville, the tendrils that make musical theatre…. Many, many of the people singing can do both.…Whenever I write for someone, I go to their vocal lessons. I want to understand what they’re up against.”
It’s comforting and exciting to hear directly from living composers about their process—so many of them are already in our corner before we even lay eyes on their music or assign it to our students! At the three-year mark here at “Crossover Corner,” I continue to be inspired by the bravery of singing artists, especially in these times. Classical singers are so expertly trained and so very capable. I look forward to continuing to greet you again at “Crossover Corner” soon!
