(Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) - Hi, I'm Eric Funk.

Tonight on "11th and Grant", Frederick Frey, operatic baritone, showcases his rich and varied repertoire in an extraordinary performance.

♪ I am I, Don Quixote ♪ ♪ The Lord of La Mancha ♪ ♪ My destiny calls and I go ♪ - [Eric] His musicality, sensitivity, and dramatic style is acclaimed by critics and audiences alike.

♪ Oh whithersoever they blow ♪ (Suzanne singing in foreign language) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne singing in foreign language) - Frederick Frey, next on "11th and Grant".

(Frederick singing in foreign language) - [Presenter] "11th and Grant" was made possible by the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans; Montana State University Office of the President; Quinn's Hot Springs Resort; the Gilhousen Family Foundation; Donna Spitzer-Ostrovsky; in loving memory of Jack Ostrovsky, the godfather of "11th and Grant"; Iris M-L Model; Sanderson Stewart, enduring community design; Music Villa proudly offering Gibson Acoustic guitars; Bill and Jane Gum; Sal and Carol G. Lalani; Poindexter's, inspired technologies for a more vibrant life; Bob and Karin Utzinger; Mary Routhier; the Rocking R Bar; Stockman Bank; and by these generous donors.

(jazz instrumental music) (jazz instrumental music continues) (jazz instrumental music continues) (jazz instrumental music fades) (soft piano music) (soft piano music continues) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music continues) (soft piano music fades) ("The Trumpet Shall Sound") (bright instrumental music) (bright instrumental music continues) (bright instrumental music continues) (bright instrumental music continues) ♪ The trumpet shall sound ♪ ♪ And the dead shall be raised ♪ ♪ And the dead shall be raised ♪ ♪ Incorruptible ♪ ♪ The trumpet shall sound ♪ ♪ And the dead shall be raised ♪ ♪ Be raised incorruptible ♪ ♪ Be raised incorruptible ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ (bright instrumental music continues) ♪ The trumpet shall sound ♪ ♪ The trumpet shall sound ♪ ♪ And the dead shall be raised ♪ ♪ Be raised incorruptible ♪ ♪ Be raised incorruptible ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ Be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ We shall be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ We shall be changed ♪ ♪ And we shall be changed ♪ ♪ We shall be changed ♪ (bright instrumental music continues) (bright instrumental music continues) (bright instrumental music fades) (soft piano music) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music continues) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music continues) (soft piano music continues) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music) (soft piano music continues) (soft piano music fades) - A lot of people when they think opera, they think Verdi, Puccini, they think Italian opera; not realizing that German operas are in German, and English operas are in English, and Russian operas are in Russian.

- [Frederick] Right.

- One of the great reports I've heard about you from a number of different professionals is that, "Fred's German is like, that's his native language.

Fred's Italian is like, he's Italian.

That's his natural language.

He must have learned English later.

His Russian is Russian."

So somewhere in there, and I know you're fluent in German at least, but I think somewhere in your training and then in your personal study you've gotten yourself to a comfort zone in your language that is so believable that in Italy you expect people to come up afterwards and start talking to you in Italian because they assume you're Italian, yes?

- Yeah, it was strange.

I had that also happen in France.

But we were doing the Beethoven "Ninth" in German and people afterward came up and said, "Oh, that was," you know, "You remind us of this person," "You remind us of that person.

And your German was so good."

And these are French-speaking people.

- Talking to you in French, your German- - Talking to me in French, yeah, (chuckles) about my German accent.

And although when I was in Southern Germany, in Bavaria, in Austria, I felt like I just fit right in.

But I went to Northern Germany, up in Dusseldorf and in Cologne, and they looked at me like, you know, like I was from Alabama.

It's the different language.

- Sure.

- The dialects.

And it's like going from Montana to Louisiana or someplace else.

You know, people look at you like, "Oh, you're not from around here."

I had a coach in Vienna who gave me a sheet of paper with all of the idiomatic phrases that the Viennese use in German.

Because you could say something in German and it would be an insult in Viennese.

- [Eric] Right.

- And it's the same way with France.

- [Eric] Have you used the international phonetic alphabet?

I mean, is that- - I don't use it.

I don't use it.

When I was an undergrad, I went to a small conservatory.

And we didn't have enough voice majors to have a diction course, which usually works with the international phonetic alphabet.

And my voice teacher said, "Go over to the junior college and take German, take a year of German.

Learn the vocabulary as well as the pronunciation and learn the grammar.

And then take French."

I had Spanish in high school, couple years of Spanish in high school, and that helped me with the Italian to a certain extent, but I learned the languages and it helped me so much in interpretation.

So it's really not just reading the transliterations of these.

- It's pretty critical because, I mean, most people, you know, the general public, even if they don't listen to opera, they've heard people from other countries sing songs in English and they can detect an accent, and the accent can be distracting.

- Right.

- But if you're really a storyteller and you're trying to sing in the language that you're trying to sing in and it sounds authentic, you get pulled so much more deeply into the song if the person who's doing it is convincing.

And it's critical for me as a composer.

For example, if I'm writing something in German or I've done some things in Spanish or Russian, I've done quite a few things now in Russian, and when we're using the vocal instrument, as composers, we're setting that particular pitch on that vowel shape.

And in Russian, so many things are so deep in the throat, that's part of the instrument.

You want that sound and that's why you put it on that note.

- I was doing "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Count's Aria" and I've got the whole opera in Italian, and when I went over to Germany to audition, I got a score over there of "The Marriage of Figaro" in German.

Auf Deutsch.

And "The Count's Aria" is very different.

(chuckles) That aria starts with the recit.

In the beginning, it starts... (Frederick speaking in foreign language) Well, in German, it's... (Frederick speaking in foreign language) (Eric and Frederick chuckle) My grandparents and great-grandparents were all from Germany.

And I grew up hearing one side of the family speaking Prussian, Low German, Plautdietsch, and the other side High German.

And they would always speak German when they didn't want us kids to know what they were talking about.

- Sure.

- So gradually, as I learned the language, I began to realize what was going on.

(soft piano music) (soft piano music continues) (soft piano music continues) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music continues) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music continues) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (soft piano music fades) ("Warm As The Autumn Light") (melodious piano music) ♪ Warm as the autumn light ♪ ♪ Soft as a pool at night ♪ ♪ The sound of your singing ♪ ♪ The sound of your singing ♪ ♪ Baby Doe ♪ ♪ And while I was listening ♪ ♪ I was recalling ♪ ♪ Things that once I had wanted so much ♪ ♪ And forgotten as years slipped away ♪ ♪ A girl I knew back home in Vermont ♪ ♪ The sea in New Hampshire ♪ ♪ The first sight of the mountains ♪ ♪ They say I've been lucky ♪ ♪ There's nothing my money won't buy ♪ ♪ It couldn't be I was unhappy ♪ ♪ Or was missing the good things of life ♪ ♪ But only tonight ♪ ♪ Came again in your singing ♪ ♪ That feeling of wonder ♪ ♪ Of longing and pain ♪ ♪ Deep in your lovely eyes ♪ ♪ All of enchantment lies ♪ ♪ And tenderly beckons ♪ ♪ And tenderly beckons ♪ ♪ Baby Doe ♪ ♪ Dearest Baby Doe ♪ (melodious piano music fades) ("Courage My Friend") (soft piano music) ♪ Courage my friend ♪ ♪ Courage my self ♪ ♪ Courage to tell her now ♪ ♪ Her life must change ♪ ♪ There are things I cannot tell her ♪ ♪ Things I cannot say ♪ ♪ How it feels to be a failure ♪ ♪ In the eyes of those I love ♪ ♪ There are things I cannot tell her ♪ ♪ Things I cannot say ♪ ♪ How it feels to know ♪ ♪ That all I touch turns to rust ♪ ♪ When I would have it gold ♪ ♪ Gold ♪ ♪ Would that it were gold ♪ ♪ How can I tell her ♪ ♪ All of my dreams are great ♪ ♪ Beyond my second stance ♪ ♪ How can I tell her ♪ ♪ These endless clouds and floods ♪ ♪ Plagues and wars have dashed ♪ ♪ The hopes of many ♪ ♪ I will never yield ♪ ♪ If I fail, I fail ♪ ♪ But fail by trying ♪ ♪ Not denying the hope ♪ ♪ That I ♪ ♪ Broken as I am ♪ ♪ Might still be more ♪ ♪ Than an ordinary man ♪ ♪ Might still be more ♪ ♪ Than an ordinary man ♪ ♪ Courage my friend ♪ ♪ Courage my self ♪ ♪ Go and tell her now ♪ - You bring so much more to the table than just knowing the song and singing it.

In other words, you're not only shaping the phrases and you're sort of building your character and carrying the theater, but, just purely from the musical standpoint, it's not just your voice and singing into a microphone that a sound system is gonna carry it.

In your school, that old school training where you're really, you're working in an acoustic environment and you're working the entire room, and if I'm sitting in the nosebleed section of the audience, I'm having the same experience as the person in the first row, and that really is phenomenal when you think about it.

I mean, obviously the room is acoustically as perfect as it can be.

But the artist has to bring so much awareness.

And like you say, now it's so automatic with you that you don't even think about what you're doing.

- Right, right.

But I ran into one instance where I really had to think what I was doing in that I was on tour in France and we're doing the Beethoven "Ninth" and we were in a small, just a small town, and it was in the Alps between mountains and you had a stream on the side and they had no hall.

- No performance hall?

- No performance hall.

So what they did is they set up a circus tent.

And we did the Beethoven "Ninth" in a circus tent.

And in that environment, it's so easy to oversing.

You really had to think what you were doing.

At least at the beginning of the, when you first started singing, you really had to think what you were doing so you didn't oversing and blow your voice because you had to do either another Beethoven "Ninth" or a "Lohengrin" or something else the next night.

So you have to be aware.

And like you say, the acoustics, you have to be aware of how you project your voice.

- [Eric] Well, it's an art.

- Without just pushing.

- Right, and it's an art.

And it's one of the things that I know that you do but you also teach.

And I think, you know, the average person thinks, "If you want the piano to be louder, hit it harder."

But it isn't.

- [Frederick] Hmm-mm.

- You hit it faster, and suddenly it explodes.

And I watch you when you sing on this show, particularly your whole rib cage is so set and you're breathing into it, you know, your body's not doing this like a big baffle.

You know, you're using your air is so precisely.

And how much percentage of the air that you're breathing in is turned into tone and where that's going, and the mechanics, I mean, just the breathing mechanics of an opera singer is a phenomenon all by itself.

- Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

And the voices, just the size of the voice.

I mean, large voices are getting fewer and farther between because a lot of the younger singers are burning out.

They're not allowing their body and their technique to mature to get to that point.

I always used to laugh when somebody would say, "Well, you know keep the Verdi and the Puccini until you're about 45."

And you know they were right.

As you're working on it, and you work on it and work on it, and you get to a point where the heavier music, the fuller music ends up feeling more the norm.

Because even like an athlete, you work at it and work at it and work at it, and you get to a point where things become easier.

And the breathing and the vocal chords and all that musculature builds up to a point where it's normal.

- Frederick Frey is an instrument.

And you have a remarkable range, which in music that I've written that you've sung, music I've written for you or that I've written that you've sung I rely on that massive range, which isn't normal, you know, usually you say, "Okay, the flute can go from here to here.

The trombone can go from here to here," you know.

And it's usually the high end where you've got a little bit more latitude, but the bottom end is the bottom end.

- Right.

- And as you know that James Fergus role- - That's all over the place.

- My opera, it's all over the place, and it requires your French baritone color.

I mean, you can sing as high as a tenor, higher.

I mean, you've just got a huge voice.

And an opera conductor, you know, they're casting this show, they want that instrument 'cause it's not a baritone.

- [Frederick] Right.

- [Eric] It's that baritone.

- Yep.

- [Eric] True?

- That's true.

And the thing is you always keep working to make that instrument better.

("The Man Of La Mancha") (lively piano music) ♪ Hear me now ♪ ♪ Oh thou bleak and unbearable world ♪ ♪ Thou art base and debauched as can be ♪ ♪ For a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled ♪ ♪ Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee ♪ ♪ I am I, Don Quixote ♪ ♪ The Lord of La Mancha ♪ ♪ My destiny calls and I go ♪ ♪ And the wild winds of fortune ♪ ♪ Will carry me onward ♪ ♪ Oh whithersoever they blow ♪ ♪ Whithersoever they blow ♪ ♪ Onward to glory I go ♪ ♪ Hear me, heathens and wizards ♪ ♪ And serpents of sin ♪ ♪ All your dastardly doings are past ♪ ♪ For a holy endeavor is now to begin ♪ ♪ And virtue shall triumph at last ♪ ♪ I am I, Don Quixote ♪ ♪ The Lord of La Mancha ♪ ♪ My destiny calls and I go ♪ ♪ And the wild winds of fortune ♪ ♪ Will carry me onward ♪ ♪ Oh whithersoever they blow ♪ ♪ Whithersoever they blow ♪ ♪ Onward to glory I go ♪ (music trails) ("The Impossible Dream") (soft piano music) ♪ To dream the impossible dream ♪ ♪ To fight the unbeatable foe ♪ ♪ To bear with unbearable sorrow ♪ ♪ To run where the brave dare not go ♪ ♪ To right the unrightable wrong ♪ ♪ To love pure and chaste from afar ♪ ♪ To try when your arms are too weary ♪ ♪ To reach the unreachable star ♪ ♪ This is my quest ♪ ♪ To follow that star ♪ ♪ No matter how hopeless ♪ ♪ No matter how far ♪ ♪ To fight for the right ♪ ♪ Without question or pause ♪ ♪ To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause ♪ ♪ And I know if I'll only be true ♪ ♪ To this glorious quest ♪ ♪ That my heart will be peaceful and calm ♪ ♪ When I'm laid to my rest ♪ ♪ And the world will be better for this ♪ ♪ That one man scorned and covered with scars ♪ ♪ Still strove with his last ounce of courage ♪ ♪ To reach ♪ ♪ The unreachable stars ♪ (whimsical piano music) (whimsical piano music continues) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Suzanne singing in foreign language) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Suzanne singing in foreign language) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Suzanne and 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singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne singing in foreign language) (Suzanne continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne continues singing in foreign language) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) (Suzanne singing in foreign language) (dramatic piano music) (Frederick and Suzanne singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (Frederick and Suzanne continue singing in foreign language) (whimsical piano music continues) (whimsical piano music fades) (Frederick singing in foreign language) (Frederick continues singing in foreign language) - [Presenter] "11th and Grant" was made possible by the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans; Montana State University Office of the President; Quinn's Hot Springs Resort; the Gilhousen Family Foundation; Donna Spitzer-Ostrovsky; in loving memory of Jack Ostrovsky, the godfather of "11th and Grant"; Iris M-L Model; Sanderson Stewart, enduring community design; Music Villa proudly offering Gibson Acoustic guitars; Bill and Jane Gum; Sal and Carol G. Lalani; Poindexter's, inspired technologies for a more vibrant life; Bob and Karin Utzinger; Mary Routhier; the Rocking R Bar; Stockman Bank; and by these generous donors.

(lively jazz music) (bright music)