link to prague

This is a link to a newspaper Article on me done in December in Prague

http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/1208/tempo1.php

Veteran voice

An American expat finds the dark notes in a creepy Kafka opera

By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 07, 2005


RENÉ JAKL/The Prague Post
A classicist by trade, Clark has become a regular visitor to Prague by virtue of his ability to sing difficult roles in modern operas by minimalist composers such as Philip Glass.

James Clark has a headache, but it's not from the throbbing dance music suddenly flooding the Kino Lucerna café. He spent the train ride from southern Germany to Prague mentally rehearsing his part in the Philip Glass opera In the Penal Colony, a feat of musical dexterity difficult enough to tax anyone's brain.

"Actually, I'm more of a classical, Romantic guy," he says, then reels off snatches of arias from Italian and German operas. It's not an unusual moment in this musically rich city, but it's not what you expect from a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who once commanded a rifle company in Vietnam.

Though he's made a career singing classical opera, Clark, 64, is better known to Prague audiences for a pair of modern music productions he's appeared in here. He sang the lead role of Roderick in the hugely successful production of Philip Glass' Fall of the House of Usher at the State Opera several years ago. Last December, he was artist Kurt Schwitters in the National Theater's production of Michael Nyman's Man and Boy: Dada.

The Schwitters role was particulary difficult, packed with odd phrasing and atonal counterpoint, and Clark laughs with relief when he talks about his upcoming role as the Visitor in Penal Colony. "It's a hell of a lot easier than Nyman," he says. "I studied that role for six months and still couldn't get it to stick in my brain."

Born in Syracuse, New York, and raised in northern New Jersey, Clark went to Montclair State College, where he majored in instrumental music. When he graduated he went straight into the Marine Corps, where he spent a total of 23 years on active and reserve duty, including a year-long tour in Vietnam.

"When I got there they talked about giving me this easy job, but I said, 'I want to go where the action is,'" Clark recalls. He was sent to An Hoa, where the last commanding officer had just been killed, and put in charge of a rifle company. There are plenty of combat stories to tell, but Clark is a cool customer who talks about his military service as if it were a stint in a college fraternity.

In the Penal Colony

* A Chamber Opera by Philip Glass
* When: Dec. 14 & 15 at 8 p.m.
* Where: Divadlo Archa
* Tickets: 170–250 Kč, available at the venue

"My career was not exactly McHale's Navy [an American TV sitcom], because the Marine Corps is very strict," he says. "But the working title for the book I want to write is 200 Reasons I Didn't Make Lieutenant Colonel."

The high jinks mostly came later, when he was stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., where he helped develop a data network project that later became the Internet. By then Clark was singing in opera productions at Wolftrap and the Kennedy Center and with the New York City Opera. His singing career was launched one afternoon in the late '60s when he and his wife were listening to a former college classmate of Clark's singing on a Metropolitan Opera broadcast and she looked at him and said, "You could always sing."

In fact, he could, once running a Marine Corps chorus that toured the Caribbean. But he had never developed his voice, studying violin at Montclair instead. So he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music as a voice major. There he developed into a lirico spinto tenor, with a voice capable of both high, bright tones and a powerful delivery, suited for a variety of classical tenor roles.

Between teaching and performing, Clark was doing fine in the States. But eventually he wanted to devote himself full time to opera singing, and for that he felt he had to move to Europe. "Even the Met isn't a year-round operation," he says. "If you want to work steadily, you have to come over here. So in late 1991 I decided to move to Germany and see what I could do."

The Germans were impressed — within a couple months, he had a two-year contract with an opera house in Hof, where he still lives. He started freelancing in 1996, and in 1999 was invited to audition at the State Opera in Prague. It was there that he met Agon Orchestra conductor and composer Petr Kofroň, who cast him in House of Usher.

"It was a gas," he says of that production. "I had sung Glass before, with City Opera in New York, and I have to say I'm not a fan of minimalist music. But for Usher and Penal Colony, it really works. The tension builds up with that music, and it's very effective."

Penal Colony is a straight musical adaptation of one of Franz Kafka's most gruesome stories, about a visit to a prison that houses an incredibly intricate and exquisitely refined torture machine. There are only two main characters in both the story and the opera — the prison officer who explains and operates the machine, and an increasingly horrified visitor. The orchestra is equally small, with just five instruments. Most of the set will be in the form of video stills and animation.

"It's creepy," Clark says when asked about the tone of the opera. "Real sick. But I'm getting into it. Of course, my role is the visitor, and what the officer is doing seems barbaric to me. But ultimately I come to an understanding of why he does what he does."

Clark and Czech baritone Jiří Hájek, who sings the officer's role, nicely complement the international blend of the work — an American opera based on the work of a Jewish writer who lived in Prague. But Clark is enough of a pro to wave off any distinctions between performing here and in Germany.

"The only difference is, there I'm Herr Clark," he says. "Here I'm Pan."

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com