Grammy Award winner Sylvia McNair made the transition from opera in 2002. (Courtesy photo)
BY STEVEN MARK / smark@staradvertiser.com
Don’t worry about Sylvia McNair’s show at the Hawaii Theatre. Though it’s labeled “Subject to Change!” that’s a description of her life and career, not a warning that the Grammy-winning soprano might not appear.
‘SUBJECT TO CHANGE!’Featuring Sylvia McNair» Where: Hawaii Theatre, 1130 Bethel St. |
It refers to McNair’s transition from a grand opera and classical artist to a singer of Broadway standards and cabaret tunes, all to great acclaim.
“For a classical singer making a segue into the art of the popular song, her phrasing is exemplary,” wrote critic Rex Reed. “Her modulations are inspired. Her time is enviable.”
McNair was a major presence in classical music for 20 years, spending much of the 1990s at top opera houses in Europe and earning two Grammys, when she began to take stock of life.
“I was in my 40s,” she said, “and when people get to their 40s, the questions change, and the answers change about what you want to do when we grow up and how we’re going to spend the rest of our days. My answer was I need to do something to increase the pleasure in my work life.”
So she turned to musical theater, music she’d heard growing up in Ohio.
“(It was) music I’d been raised on but never had time to really focus on because I was so busy doing everything else,” said McNair, who got into singing after her childhood violin teacher suggested she take some singing lessons because “he thought it would make me a better violinist.”
Her transition to Broadway, cabaret and Great American Songbook tunes, which officially launched in 2002, “felt like coming home,” she said. “It felt like I was beginning to sing the repertoire that I’m built to sing and best suited for.”
That doesn’t mean it was easy. “There are so many instances of opera singers who have tried to cross over,” she said, “and they just oversing and they overenunciate. So I had to learn to trust backing off.”
Her present show includes songs by the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Those who remember McNair’s 1980s performances in Hawaii — she appeared in both opera and symphony performances — will have to be satisfied with a few tidbits from the classical repertoire that she throws in.
As proud as she is of her opera career, McNair, now 57, doesn’t listen to her old recordings and is somehwat taken aback when students — she teaches at Indiana University — refer to them.
“I feel like it would be looking backward,” said McNair, who also is a cancer survivor. “I recently read a Ben Franklin quote, and that was, ‘When we are done changing, we are done,’ and I thought to myself, that belongs in my show.”