Louis Roney: Language please

People have recently been asking me to tell some of the stories of funny things that happened in my life as an opera star in North America and Europe. Now, there is “funny peculiar,” and there is “funny ha ha!”

I wrote an article once called, “You can't have high notes and everything.” The fact is, people who have to sing stratospheric high notes are apt to sacrifice some of the routine normalities that less complicated people are free to enjoy. A very famous shrink whom I knew in New York wrote a book saying that artists do things that are normal for artists, but would be deemed lunatic in less gifted people.

My own memories of nearly four decades of singing opera in 11 countries, in four languages, center on perspiring profusely while doing something inhumanly demanding, in heavy costumes and makeup, under very powerful lights. Singing's a lot easier in the shower.

Pressed by none other than my own b.w., I searched in the realms of my respectable past, and came up with a story that is true, is enlightening and has a ludicrously sardonic portent.

Here goes: Back in the mid-1960s when I made my living as a leading tenor in opera, I found myself in the lively city of Brussels, Belgium.

In a cold January one year, I was singing the title role of Hoffman in Jacques Offenbach's “Les Contes d'Hoffmann” (“The Tales of Hoffmann”) in the famous Théâtre de la Monnaie.

At one point I had two days off. At breakfast in my hotel, the maître d'hotel brought a telephone to my table, and I was soon chatting with my manager, Michael Horwitz, who was in Paris. Michael told me that I should get in my Porsche and drive to the Königlikke Oper in Antwerp, about an hours drive from Brussels.

He asked me if I could sing the role of Samson in Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Samson et Dálila” on short notice. Answering in the affirmative and settling with him on a handsome financial honorary, I was soon in my little red Carrera and headed for the “diamond center of the world.”

I had been singing Samson in French in Bordeaux a few weeks earlier, and in German in Frankfurt a while before that. A few months earlier, I had sung the role in English with the Connecticut Symphony in Hartford.

Having all those Samsons to sing, and wearing costumes that displayed the brawniness of my arms, I regularly worked out with 25-pound dumbbells a few minutes every morning and night.

The story of Samson and Delilah in the Bible emphasizes that he is the strongest guy around, but in the brain department he's barely a lightweight — a perfect role for a tenor!

Arriving at the imposing structure of the Königlikke Oper, I parked my car, picked up the bag that held my costumes, and strode through the stage entrance. There I was met by a nice man who addressed me in heavily accented English of which he seemed quite proud. He was the chorus director, and he led me to a big rehearsal room where a large chorus was waiting.

The director asked me to go through the first scene, where Superman Samson sings to a band of despairing Hebrews who are wailing about their enslavement.

Samson starts by singing to them, “Arrêtez, o mes frères!” (“Arise, O my brethren!”) As those words came from my mouth, there was a monumental gasp from the director, backed up by the 60 voices in the choir. The director walked over to me and, looking me straight in the eye, said, “We sing only in Flams here.”

“What's Flams?” I asked.

“It is the language of us Flemish peoples,” he replied.

“I don't even know ‘Frères Jacques’ in Flams,” I said.

“Well, what languages are there in which you know it?” he asked.

“Sir, I have sung Samson in three different languages in the last few months and I think I can manage any one of them tonight,” I boasted.

“Dear Mr. Roney,” he said. “I must think that one of your languages is English, which is not well understood here. The French language which you began singing a minute ago is not acceptable here.”

“I just sang Hoffmann last night in French in Brussels,” I replied. “Brussels is in Belgium, it's only an hour’s drive from here, and they speak French and sing in French. Do I understand it correctly that I am still in Belgium?”

“Mr. Roney, you may not know that we are having some difficult political times here between the Flemish, which we are, and the French-Belgians, which they are,” he said. “These people are very hateful to us, and we despise them.”

“That surprises me very much,” I replied. “I come from Florida, and we who live in Orlando do not hate those who live in Daytona Beach.”

“Mr. Roney, perhaps the people in Daytona Beach have not ridiculed your manner of speaking, and your political ideas,” came his rejoinder.

Not daring to try to solve that inexplicable human enigma, I said, “Well, there is always German, but I don't imagine you people can stand to hear the German language after what the Germans did to Belgium in two world wars.”

“Well, Mr. Roney, there is something to be said, in that,” he mused. “But it is a matter of what may taste very bad when you put it in your mouth and can make you very sick.”

“Mr. Director, I might tell you that I am quite astounded at this language situation in this small country,” I said.

“Mr. Roney, there is no doubt the Germans were a most terrible people,” he said. “And there is no doubt that they came here a few years back, killed thousands of our people, and left much of our country in ruins. However, we hate the French speaking Belgians even more. We hate their high-hat French language, with all of those lowbrows trying to sound like they are from Paris. It was the stupid French boasting about their Maginot Line, and trying to outwit Hitler that brought the Germans to invade our country. The Germans have never been able to realize that we Belgians are not French people. We are stronger than the French and we are better fighters, if we fight someone our own size. Now lets get on with the rehearsal!”

“In German?” I asked.

“Yes, in German,” came the final word.

I walked over to center stage and sang “Haltet-ein, meine Brüder!” as the chorus responded in “Flams.”