Pablo Elvira, 62, Baritone Known To New York Opera Audiences By Anthony Tommasini, published in The New York Times, February 11, 2000   [Correction Appended]  [Text only - photo added for this webpage] Pablo Elvira, a Puerto Rican-born baritone who became a regular member of the New York City Opera in the 1970's and 80's and sang frequently with the Metropolitan Opera, died on Saturday at his home in Bozeman, Mont. He was 62. A coroner's report said that he died of natural causes. Born on Sept. 24, 1937, in San Juan, Mr. Elvira was the son of a dance orchestra leader and began his musical life playing trumpet in his father's group. Later he formed his own jazz band. A meeting with the Puerto Rican cellist and conductor Pablo Casals led to his pursuing a career as an opera singer. In 1960 Casals finished work on a biblical oratorio, ''El Pessebre,'' one of the cellist's small body of compositions. Needing five soloists for a recording and tour of the work, Casals heard Mr. Elvira audition and asked him to sing the baritone part.  One of Mr. Elvira's most memorable performances of ''El Pessebre'' came in 1969, when Casals, by then 92, conducted it in Jerusalem before an audience of 3,000. In 1966, while participating in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in New York, Mr. Elvira was heard by the dean of the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, who asked the young baritone to join the voice faculty. Mr. Elivra remained there for eight years teaching and performing. In 1972 he sang the title role in the world premiere of John Eaton's opera ''Heracles,'' which inaugurated the university's 1,460-seat Musical Arts Center. Louder He left Bloomington in 1974, toured and performed in Europe and then moved to New York, where he made his debut that year with City Opera as Germont in Verdi's ''Traviata.'' He performed often with the company, notably as Enrico in Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' in a production that starred Beverly Sills. He won praise for his robust though not large voice, focused tone, solid technique and generally lively acting. His Met debut came in 1979 as Tonio. There he was heard as Lescaut in Puccini's ''Manon Lescaut'' with Renata Scotto and Placido Domingo in 1980 and as Rossini's Figaro opposite Marilyn Horne in 1982, among other roles. His final Met performance was as Figaro in 1990. His last appearance at City Opera was in 1989 as the title character in Verdi's ''Rigoletto.'' Mr. Elvira is survived by his wife, Signe; a son, Pablo; and two brothers. Correction: February 16, 2000, Wednesday An obituary of the baritone Pablo Elvira on Friday misstated the nationality of the cellist and conductor Pablo Casals, who invited him to sing an early Casals composition. Although Casals lived for many years in Puerto Rico, he was Spanish.

Aside from two performances as Rigoletto in 1979 (with Judith Blegen, Luciano Pavarotti, Richard T. Gill, Kathleen Kuhlmann, Donnie Rae Albert, Sharon Graham/Wendy White, conducted by Riccardo Chailly), Elvira only appeared at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the fall of 1985 in Traviata with Catherine Malfitano, Francisco Araiza, Gualtiero Negrini and Donald Kaasch among the cast, conducted by Bruno Bartoletti.  Both these operas were designed by Pier Luigi Pizzi and lit by Duane Schuler. 

It was between performances of Traviata that I had the pleasure of spending about seventy-five minutes with him.  He was lively and full of tremendous energy, and he was very pleased to speak of the topics I brought up, especially El Pessebre, the Christmas Oratorio by Pablo Casals. 

Here is what was said that afternoon . . . . . . . . .


Pablo Elvira:   I’ve been flying in and out singing the performances here, plus singing at the birthday party of the Lyric.  So, the last seven days, I’ve been almost singing every day.

Bruce Duffie:   My goodness.  That’s perhaps too much?

PE:   Yes, it’s a little too much.  I’m a little hoarse today, but I’ll be fine in a couple of days, and I don’t have a performance until Tuesday next week.  So I have three days.

BD:   Go home and sleep.

PE:   Absolutely!

BD:   You’ve been singing for all these relief benefits.  Is this the best way an artist can help out in disasters?

PE:   Yes, especially if you find out that everybody else was donating their time and their services.  When I went to Washington, the Kennedy Center donated the room; a limousine service provided limousines for all the artists; the Vista Intercontinental Hotel provided all the room for the artists.  In other words, we all did it for free so all the money went directly to Puerto Rico.  It was the same for the one I did here in Chicago for the Mexican Relief Fund.  Everybody was donating their time, and the hall was donated.  There are other cases in which promoters make money out of us, out of our generosity, by putting together a relief fund where everybody donates their time, but the producers don’t, nor do the orchestral musicians, nor the stage crew.  Everybody gets paid but the artists.  That’s an exploitation of our kindness, and I don’t like to cooperate if there’s a small group benefiting from what we’re doing for a noble purpose

BD:   Has anyone ever tried to stage it as an opera?

PE:   That’s a very good idea.  I never gave it a thought, but that’s a very, very good idea.  I am going to try to put it to the Casals Festival.  After the maestro died, honestly the festival has gone down tremendously.

BD:   It needed his spark?

PE:   It needed that, yes.  The artists would go there not really for the money, even though they get very well paid.  It was mostly because they wanted to make music with maestro Casals, and the moment he died, we got into a little bit of regional conflicts with the musicians and the patriotism.  When you get too nationalistic

BD:   Do you enjoy traveling all over the world, spending a few weeks here and a few weeks there?

PE:   Oh yes.  It’s magnificent!  Don’t forget, when I go to Paris or Chile or Argentina or anyplace, I go there with the merchandise that they have already bought.  I don’t go there to sell something.  The moment I reach the airport I am met by people that love what I do.  I get to know people of all levels, from the president or prime minister to the shoe shine boy.  Anybody that is in touch with me is somebody that loves what I do, and admires me for what I am.  It makes the life of an artist so much more pleasant.  As a matter of fact, that’s one of the reasons I’m not singing at the Met for the next two years.  I was beginning to feel like a number at the Met.  I consider myself an artist, and when I come to Chicago or San Francisco or any of these other opera houses, I am treated as such.  At this moment in my career, I have done everything that anybody can ask at the Met.  I did two new productions, including Barber of Seville with Marilyn Horne.  I was in the first televised production to the world via satellite, Manon Lescaut with Domingo and Scotto.  I was in the first televised broadcast of the centennial, Lucia Lammermoor with Kraus and Sutherland (and Plishka) [caricature shown at left, and DVD cover shown farther down on this webpage].  I am in the first video release of this they put out of that performance.

BD:   More at the Met would just be more of the same?

PE:   No, I just wanted to get away from it all for a few years.  Also I want to give myself some opportunity to sing in Italy.  They have requested me so many times.  I have lost all of the opportunities in Florence, Trieste and La Scala because I was signed at the Met or somewhere else.  They plan operas one or two years in advance, very seldom more than two years, and I was sometimes booked for six and seven years in advance.

BD:   That’s too much, isn’t it?

PE:   It makes you feel very good because it proves that people have faith in what you’re doing, that you’re headed in the right direction.  But when you sign a contract, and five years after that you go to the country and end up by getting half of the fee you expected because the devaluation of the dollar or devaluation of the mark, then you find yourself in situations that you’d rather not.  Also, when you’re signed to do a production of an old war horse, like Traviata at the Met, and you get an opportunity to do a new production of Lucia in San Francisco, then you must be able to have the flexibility to wait to the last moment to take the best choice.  My friend Placido was the one who taught me that lesson.  He told me you don’t have to be signed more than a year or two in advance.  You don't have to worry what you’re going to be doing in two years.

BD:   You’ll be wanted?

PE:   Exactly.  He said there are just four or five baritones in the world and I am one of them.  So, I have absolutely nothing to worry about not being booked in advance.  This way you get to choose what you want to do.

BD:   Then how do you choose which roles you will sing?

PE:   Unfortunately, I am already booked a year and a half already in advance, instead of one year.  But there are roles that you drop after a certain time.  First of all, the fee goes up.  We make a lot of money, and we deserve it.  If Muhammad Ali can make six or ten million dollars in one fight, why can’t Pavarotti make a hundred thousand dollars in an evening?  They are both unique individuals.  We get paid very well because we have a quality of life that we have to maintain in order to take care of our instrument, and that costs a lot of money.  If my fee is too big for a Marcello in Bohème, or for the consul, Sharpless in Butterfly, or for Lescaut in Manon Lescaut, if they want me and if they’re willing to pay my fee, I do it because it’s easy money.  But usually with the fee they’re going to pay me, they can get three guys to sing the part very well, because the part does not require any special talent.  It doesn’t require too many high notes, doesn’t require too many arias.  Sharpless has no aria and Marcello has no aria.  So instead of paying a basic fee of $8,000, you can get a baritone for $2,000 that will do the same job... not as well, and not with the artistry that I would do it, but they can sing it. 

BD:   It would be acceptable in that production.

PE:   Acceptable, right.  Then the one thing they have to really get that is indispensable is a good Rodolfo who can sing the aria very well, and a good Mimì.  They can do with a mediocre Musetta.  But if you’re doing Butterfly, you can do with a mediocre Pinkerton and a mediocre Sharpless, but you need a good Butterfly.  So, the priorities are shifted.  Now, when they call me, it is for Traviata, Rigoletto, Barber of Seville.  These are roles that they cannot get a $2,000 baritone to do as well as I can.  I am doing some Bohèmes this coming year as a special favor to my friend Anton Guadagno in Palm Beach.  He wants my name on the roster this year because he’s taking over the company and he wants to have some big names in it.  But the year after I’m doing Barber of Seville.  So of course I’ll do it, but basically that’s the only small or middle role that I’m doing next year.  I’m doing Rigoletto in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and I’m doing a big gala in Puerto Rico with Domingo and Teresa Zylis-Gara.  We’re doing the first act of Bohème, the second act of Otello, and the third act of Aïda all staged for a big gala!  It’s going to be a lot of fun!  Then I’m doing a bunch of Lucias in San Francisco, Aïda in Denver, more Traviatas, some Trovatores in Argentina, Forza del Destino in Chile, so I’m doing the roles that I like to sing.  I’m also doing the new revised edition of Zazà, the opera by Leoncavallo, with the New York City Opera.  They did it two years ago for the first time in Cincinnati, when they did research and re-checked the score, and did all kinds of improvements in the orchestration.  Last year I just did the revised Rigoletto.

BD:   You’ve done the old version, and the new version published by the University of Chicago and the House of Ricordi.  Tell me about the differences.  [See my Interview with Philip Gossett, who edited the new Verdi Edition.]

PE:   Vocally, there’s not much change.  It’s mostly orchestration.  Vocally it stayed almost traditional.  Then there are high notes, and even though they are not written, they were done on the opening night, and I did them too.  Early Verdi was very much a continuation of Bellini and Donizetti.

BD:   So, you think the voice should shine?

PE:   Yes, and not only that, but you can add the cadenzas.  You can add certain high notes.  It was accepted and expected.

BD:   So it’s a mistake then to stay right with the score?

PE:   Exactly.  It’s a big mistake.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.  Claudio Abbado admitted it for the first time after he recorded the Barber of Seville.  He did the two verses of the Rosina aria, and the second verse was the same as the first one without any adornments added.  After that he admitted that it was a mistake, but you can’t do that with later Verdi.  When you are talking about Aïda, Don Carlo, Falstaff, then all the notes were written.  Verdi was a mature writer, a mature composer.  He knew what he wanted.  You don’t add anything.  You don't have to.

BD:   Even Rigoletto?

PE:   No, Rigoletto you have to add.  Don’t forget, La donna è mobile wasn’t even rehearsed until right before the performance.  The cadenza was added on the opening night, and Verdi approved.  He never wrote it.  So who is a conductor like Muti to tell me that I cannot sing the high note?  If you don’t sing the high note, that’s the most ungrateful tenor role in the world.  If you take all the high notes away from the Duke, it’s the most thankless role in the world.  [Both laugh]  But there are some like Muti who prefer to do it that way.  Fine, that’s his privilege.

BD:   But then, you don’t sing with him.

PE:   I don’t do that.  I would refuse to do it.  I would rather do something else.  We all have a particular, special talent, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are.  In my case, I have an innate musical talent.  I was an instrumentalist before I was a singer.  I played trumpet all my life, so I’m more prepared musically than the basic singer.  I know what is good taste in phrasing, and I know when a high note is in good taste and when it is just a provincial outburst, like barking on the stage.  Many great singers do that today, they bark and bark and bark and think that’s singing.  I refuse to do that, and that’s why my career has always been ascendant.  I know, for example, the G in the Cortigiani aria in Rigoletto shouldn’t be a long G because it stops the motion of the orchestra.  I do it, but I do it like a stentato [labored, sluggish], so it doesn’t stop everything.

BD:   Do you take the A-flat at the end of Si vendetta?

PE:   Oh yes, until the harmony changes which is after the fifth bar.  I can hold it until the curtain comes on top of my head, but it would be musically very distasteful and awful.  So I cut it, even though other baritones sustain it now.

BD:   Even though the audience is going applaud and shout bravo?

PE:   As a matter of fact, the audience starts applauding before I cut the note!  So, what’s the point in sustaining it?  [Laughs]  It is the difference between a person that knows music, and a person that has been taught music.  I have never coached with anybody.  I have never studied with anybody except my first teacher in Puerto Rico.  I believe that this way I can put my own personality into the portrayal of what I’m doing artistically and musically.

BD:   You are here in Chicago for Traviata.  Do you ever sing the cabaletta after Di Provenza?

PE:   No, I think it’s awful.  It’s an anticlimax. 

BD:   [Disappointedly]  I’m a minority of one.  Everybody else seems to hate it, but I enjoy it!

PE:   The cabaletta is not ugly because Verdi never wrote anything ugly.  That would be an insult to the integrity of him as a human being.  There was nothing ugly in Verdi’s music, but what happens with the cabaletta is that it’s an anticlimax.  It goes only to an F natural at the top, and that note is repeated about six times.  So by the end, when you sing the last phrase, you have sung that note so many times, that unless you sing the first one pianissimo and build it up until the last one, you let down the audience after you have given them a magnificent Di Provenza.

BD:   So, if they ask you to sing it, you simply won’t sing it?

PE:   No, I don’t sing it.  I’d rather not do it.  After the aria, what else do you want?

BD:   Doesn’t that spoil the balance?  The soprano gets an aria and cabaletta, the tenor gets an aria and caballeta, then baritone gets just an aria.

PE:   So, it’s an uplifting cabaletta, but this [sings] ta-reeee-ta-reeee-ta-tee-ta-tee-ta-tee, it’s just a little too quiet, and, as I said, it centers on that F and you repeat that F so you’re not building any kind of climax.  You’re just prolonging something that you’re going to be hearing five or six times, and you cannot sing it pianissimo because the cabaletta doesn’t ask for it.  The words don’t ask for it.  It’s a pleading.  It’s not like in Di Provenza when you say,

BD:   Do you like being a Verdi baritone?

PE:   I like being a baritone very much. 

BD:   Did Verdi write especially well for your voice?

PE:   I consider myself a little more of a bel canto singer rather than verismo, even though I adore Andrea Chenier.  That is one of my favorite roles.  In Verdi, I would say one of the roles that really fits me the best is Renato in Ballo in Maschera and Count Di Luna in Trovatore because of the arias being such show pieces for bel canto singing.  Amonasro in Aïda is nothing, but I’m requested to do it because I look good on stage with it.  I did a very successful performance in San Antonio with Nat Merrill, who is staging the Meistersinger here in Chicago.  He requested me, and they paid my fees, so I did it.  If they pay my fee I’ll sing almost anything, but if I have a choice I would rather do the Count di Luna.

BD:   Let’s talk about some of the roles you’ve recorded.

PE:   El Pessebre was the first recording.  The second recording was L’Amore dei Tre Re by Montemezzi, with Placido Domingo, Anna Moffo and Cesare Siepi, and Nello Santi conducting the London Symphony.  That’s on RCA.  There is also a pirate recording (which is magnificent) of La Favorita that I did in Carnegie Hall with Alfredo Kraus, Shirley Verrett, and James Morris.  It was the operatic event of the year, and I am very pleased that somebody taped it because it would have been a pity to miss that.  Only two or three thousand people got the privilege to hear it.  It was an electric night.

BD:   We’ve had Favorita here two or three times, all with Kraus, and it’s just been magnificent.

PE:   I hope I can sing it if they bring it back again.  That’s the problem when you sign yourself so far in advance.  You lose an opportunity.  I was called by the Chicago many times, and I could never do it.  The only time I had a chance to come here was an emergency to do two Rigolettos with Pavarotti [in 1979].  This contract [for Traviata] been signed for five years!

BD:   Are you under contract now to come back again?

PE:   We haven’t sat down to talk about it but they want me back.  There’s no question, and I’m very pleased about it. 

BD:   You like singing in this house even though it’s so big?

PE:   Yes, yes.

BD:   Is it too big?

PE:   No, no, it’s wonderful.  It’s a wonderful feeling to sing here.  This house, Carnegie Hall, and some smaller places, are great.  There is a magnificent opera house in Columbus, Ohio, one of those old art deco places which is magnificent.  The symphony orchestra is using it now.  I just sang two performances of Barber of Seville in Columbus a few months ago.  And there’s another old theater, the Palace Theater, which is very good with great acoustics.

BD:   What make them so good?  Is it just the acoustics?

PE:   It is because they were built with wood.  They were built the right way.  I wish most of these sound engineers would be musicians.  In many cases they’re not, and they make a hall in which the right part of the stage (off the orchestra pit) is as live as the left, and it can’t be because the brass is going to be on the right and the strings are going to be on the left, and you’re going to have some percussion, as well.  If you know that, then you balance it in a way that you don’t get the bounce-off from the brass, which happens at the Met.  On the right-hand side of the Met, the orchestra sound from the brass comes to you about two seconds after because it is playing toward the left.  It hits the side, goes around the theater and it comes back to you from behind.  Then you sing at the Chicago Lyric, which was built long before the (new) Met, and you could hear a pin fall on the floor.  San Francisco also has very good acoustics.

BD:   Have you sung in the Colón at Buenos Aires?  Everybody says that house has the best acoustics in the world.

PE:   No, not yet.  That’s the one I’m really looking forward to.  I had to cancel last year because the Met requested that I sing Manon Lescaut in the park, and it was in my contract that I would be available for the tour.  So I had to cancel, to my sorrow, because I was looking forward to that.

BD:   Tell me about your role in L’Amore dei Tre Re.  Why do we not know that opera so much?

PE:   It’s a magnificent piece!  The problem is that it requires four super singers.

BD:   Avito’s the tenor...

PE:   Yes, Avito’s the tenor, Manfredo is my role, Fiora is the woman, and Archibaldo is the blind bass.  So it’s unlike Butterfly where you can get away with a good Butterfly and a mediocre cast.  In L’Amore dei Tre Re, you can’t.  You need a magnificent bass because it’s high, it’s low, and it needs magnificent acting.  He’s a blind man, a blind king.  Siepi did a magnificent job in the recording except for the extreme top.  His age was beginning to take its toll, but the rest was magnificent.  One of the very few basses today that could do it, and has done it, is Jerome Hines because even though he is very old, he still has a magnificent top. 

BD:   Another opera that you recorded is Cavalleria Rusticana, again with Domingo and Scotto...

PE:   ...and maestro Levine.  That was very difficult because in this place where we record in England, the conductor is about a mile away from us.  We are on the stage, and the orchestra is where the audience would be, and at the back of the audience, at the entrance of the theater, is where the conductor is.  So, you’re singing on the stage, there is the London Symphony Orchestra between you and the conductor, and it was very hard to sing on time.  We recorded several times my aria, Il cavallo scalpita, because for some unexplainable reason, Mascagni wrote it in oddest tempo [sings to demonstrate].  So imagine Levine way over there, and also the sound that you’re getting is late.  You see the beat going down, but the music is not getting to you.  We had to record about two or three times, but finally, we got it.

BD:   Did you have a television monitor to watch him?

PE:   No, no.  We’re watching him across the whole place, but it’s easy to see.  It’s just at a distance, so it creates a tremendous burden.  Also the orchestra is projecting towards the doors, not projecting towards the stage.  All the musicians are facing away from us, so the sound we are getting is being produced in front of us but it’s being bounced back from the back of the hall to the stage after.  So it was very difficult.

BD:   It would be very hard to coordinate.

PE:   Exactly, especially when you have loud passages because you just cannot feel the inner beat.  You stay within it, and with maestro Levine it’s a magnificent thing to sing.  He’s a wonderful conductor.  Whenever a singer is having trouble, you look at him and he’s smiling back at you.  It’s just the most rewarding experience.

BD:   He’s a singers’ conductor!

PE:   He’s a magnificent man!  I just love him very dearly and I can hardly wait to sing with him again.

BD:   Are there some conductors that just ignore the singers?

PE:   There are some conductors that will kill you with their looks because you did a 16th note instead of a 32nd note, or something like that.  In my case that never happened because I’m a very, very good musician and I stay with it to the point that I have had conductors encourage me to take a little more liberty.  Julius Rudel, in Puritani, told me to do rubato wherever I feel it.  He said he’ll follow me!  Then I let my own artistry grow and it was wonderful.  I did that with Beverly Sills at the New York City Opera.  There was a radio broadcast...

BD:   Are there more recordings coming?

PE:   There were three more supposedly coming immediately after I recorded L’Amore dei Tre Re, but that was when the recording industry went into a big slump.  They had over-recorded so much, and everything was cancelled.  Now they’re only recording one or two operas every year.  I would like very much to record because I think it’s the best way for me to reach many people that I will not reach in person.

BD:   You don’t find it too sterile when they cut and piece everything?

PE:   No, no.  I think it’s necessary.  It has to be done.  I prefer for them to tape live performances like the Lucia I did with Sutherland and Kraus which is on video disc.  It’s magnificent in both the sound and the color, and that was electric.  That was unique.

BD:   Should opera be done in translation?

PE:   No.

BD:   Never???

PE:   Never.  The comedies yes.  Comedy should be in English because it loses a lot of the funniness if you do it in the original language and the people do not understand it.  Subtitles are helping tremendously.  [Remember, this conversation was held in 1985, when supertitles in the theater were just getting started.]

BD:   Have you been involved with them when they’ve been in the theater?

PE:   Yes!  San Francisco and now Columbus, Ohio for the Barber.

BD:   We get them here for Rondine later this year, and then if they work they’ll be done more.  [They were such a success that they are now used for every production.]

PE:   I think they do work.  They just have to be done tactfully, so there’s a phrase and you see the phrase, and then you can take your eyes from it.  In Columbus they did too much, had too much detail, and sometimes you could be looking at the subtitles and forgetting about the performance.  I told them they don’t need to repeat the phrase.  You do it once, and then if the aria repeats the same phrase, don’t repeat it again.  Take it off so that people can watch the stage and enjoy the music.  Otherwise it’s the same phrase again and again.  The technique is still in its infancy, but it is a solution.  Of course, when you go to see La Traviata or Rigoletto, you should at least read the synopsis so that you know what you’re going to watch.  But it helps to know what they’re singing about, so the subtitles are fine.  But translating serious opera into any other language is just like translating Shakespeare into Spanish or into any other language.  The great master is still there, but the beauty of the music of the words is lost.  [Illustrates by speaking the text of Di Provenza in Italian and then German]  Di Provenza il mar, il suol, chi dal cor ti cancelo? becomes Sie die Sehnsucht dich nicht mehr, keinen Reiz für deinen Sinn?

© 1985 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 23, 1985.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB three weeks later, and again the following year, and in 1987, and again in 1993 and 1998.  This transcription was made in 2017, and posted on this website at that time.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.