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Mackenzie Rogers
186 Plays5 years ago
New episode of the ‘Something (rather than nothing)’ podcast with Opera Singer Mackenzie Rogers
I had a most stimulating conversation with Mackenzie about art’s role in a pandemic, art's role in challenging white supremacy, opera, van Gogh, painting, Cabaret, philosophy and what it feels like to be painted into a painting.
Ms. Rogers is a talented actress and performer whose recent credits include Nancy in Albert Herring, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Belinda in Dido and Aeneas, the Forrester's Wife in The Cunning Little Vixen, Betty in Over Here!, and the Announcer in Gallantry, A Soap Opera.
In 2017, she also joined the ensembles of Portland Opera's production of La Bohème and Broadway Rose Theatre's rendition of the popular musical The Addams Family, the latter of which received the Drammy Award for Best Ensemble and the PAMTA Awards for Outstanding Ensemble and Outstanding Revival.
https://www.mackenzierogerssoprano.com/
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
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are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Vellante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast.
Meet Mackenzie Rogers
00:00:22
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And for this episode, we have the great pleasure of talking to Mackenzie Rogers.
00:00:28
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And Mackenzie is a very talented artist, opera singer. So we're gonna have the opportunity to talk about singing and the art of singing and about opera. We're also gonna have the chance to chat with her about being a subject and being an art model in paintings. And Mackenzie, I wanted to thank you so much for joining the program and wanted to welcome you to something rather than nothing.
00:00:58
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Thanks for having me, Ken. I'm proud to be here.
Creative Childhood and Musical Roots
00:01:02
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Mackenzie, I start off on most of the interviews with the beginning. What were you like? Yeah, from the beginning. What were you like as a young child? Did you have an artistic bent? I did. What was I like as a young child? I was very energetic.
00:01:21
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I was very sensitive. I was loud. I was talkative. Gosh, I was always making noise and I was always a pretty voracious creative mind. I loved to read and I loved to put on little shows for my family, which they were kind enough to employ. And my mother put us on piano lessons and so I was
00:01:42
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always working on music on the piano. But if my memory serves me, my biggest reprimand in school was always engaging other children, talking too much, and reading under my desk during lessons.
00:01:57
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Well, and you know now, it's funny how those kinds of things stick with you through your childhood because sometimes I feel like if I'm reading when I should be doing other things like practicing opera, practicing musical theater, practicing piano, I still have that tiny thread of guilt that I'm wasting my time reading when I could be
The Love for Reading and Heritage
00:02:16
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doing other things. That will never stop me. I love reading. And right now I'm reading
00:02:21
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three books. I'm reading Chantaroum by Gregory David Roberts, which is a lovely book. I'm reading White for Jodie, which is, of course, self work of the times. And I just got The Artist's Way, which is about exploring creativity with daily and weekly tasks. Yeah, I always I'm always fascinated by what folks are reading. Literature a lot. And it's kind of one of those things is
00:02:50
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It's almost like the equivalent to me of like, what do you do for work? Or is like, what, what, what are you, what are you reading? Right. So yeah, it tells you a lot about the way someone thinks and what they're working on, what they're interested in.
00:03:02
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Now, I believe on the reading component, we might have a connection that I am now reading Black Elk Speaks, which was based in Oklahoma. I believe you're from. Are you from Oklahoma? I am from Oklahoma. Yeah, born and raised. I lived in a suburb of Oklahoma City, and my family's been there for a long time. My ancestors were Chickasaw, and of course, they were moved there on the Trail of Tears under
00:03:32
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the tenure of Andrew Jackson, and we stayed there ever since. But yeah, born and raised Oklahoma, I have a lot of love for Oklahoma, despite that I was always a little bit of a black sheep there. I've known folks from Oklahoma, and one of the folks I've known, she would make Texas caviar, which was one of the best side dishes I had ever had.
Importance of Live Art Interaction
00:04:01
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So before getting into the type of art that you perform and you're directly involved with, what types of art do you like to be around, consume, look at, et cetera? Well, that's a very good question. I made a New Year's resolution. I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like New Year's resolutions. I know they're not
00:04:24
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a la mode at the moment, but my new resolution a couple of years ago was to spend more money on live theater. And so I love plays. I love operas. Obviously I love musical theater. Any live performance or in-person performance going to art museums, any interactive
00:04:43
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kind of opportunity is something that I really, really enjoy. And I think you get a lot out of it. I think a lot of times in a world full of screens that we forget how to interact with physical things around us. And that's not to say that technology has not been a wonderful
00:05:01
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influence on the future. It has its downsides, of course, but it also has incredible leaps forward. But I really like to see and hear and taste and smell and touch things to the best of my ability. And the energy, especially from a live performance, you can't get anything like that. It's magic. And that's why, while it's very noble to watch filmed versions of live performances
00:05:27
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You have to be there. You have to be in the seat. You have to feel your blood rush. You have to feel the temperature of the theater and hear the timbre of the voices. That's a big part of the experience for me. And so I love live performances and I love seeing the textures of paintings. If you go to the Met.
00:05:46
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one of my favorite painters is Van Gogh. I got that from my mother. Oh, yeah. What I mean, what a mind. And if you see, you know, you see these printings of his paintings, irises, the pink roses, the cypress trees, and they're all wonderful and beautiful when you see them in person.
00:06:05
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They have so much movement. They have so much life the textures of the trees and the way that air moves I mean, it's an entirely different experience To be six inches from it or however far that will let you be when you're in a museum And so yeah, I really like to experience things firsthand. I I love that on van Gogh I'm reminded as a quick aside of the beautiful movie loving Vincent
00:06:35
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And is that the one with Will and Defoe? No, this is a movie which is mind-blowing. I might have this number wrong, but it is, I believe, 100,000 paintings placed in sequence to create a film so that
00:06:56
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Yes, the scenes of Van Gogh, the scenes that he paints, you move within them in the style of the entire film. It's the first time a film was comprised of paintings as the whole. It's a stream of paintings for an hour and 20 minutes that tell the stories.
00:07:16
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and such a distinctive style. You know, you can always recognize Vango. He's such a unique voice in the sea of painters. OK, we could geek out on Vango for a while, but so so let's let's let me let me jump ahead on the question a little bit, a little bit more difficult.
Performing Arts in the Pandemic
00:07:34
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I mean, you were talking about live performances and I really liked how you're covering some of the feel of the aesthetics that's around you, things like that in the time of pandemic.
00:07:44
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What has it been like for you as a live performer or are you being sensitive to those components of the live performance? What has it been like to navigate the past couple months within absence of that? Well, this is where the dedication and the
00:08:15
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It's where you really have to trust the work. It's especially because we don't know when we're going to be able to be back on stage. There, of course, hopeful ideas about it. There are dates that people are presenting. And I well, I appreciate those. I often think that they're a little optimistic, but I do understand that we don't want to feel like we don't know when our life is going to resume. And so as a stage performer, the stage
00:08:43
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the audience is as much a character as you are. You get energy from them and they get energy from you. And there are times you go on and you're exhausted and the audience is revved up and you feed off that. And there are times you go out with your heart in your hands and they're just not that interested. So it's very much a live creature. And so to be confined to your home, to be confined to technology, to be confined to having to work out recordings,
00:09:12
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it is it's a little disheartening but it is just as important because at the end of this we will be back on stage at some point and you have to continue to grow in progress and so really what this has allowed me at least is this uninterrupted time this precious resource and currency of having hours at my
00:09:36
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expenditure that I didn't normally have. Normally you'd be commuting or going to the gym or socializing or working or all these things that get in the way of just consistent
00:09:49
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straightforward work on your art. And all of a sudden, you have that at your fingertips. And it also changes how you approach your art. Now, these days, I have to do Zoom voice lessons, Zoom opera coachings, and that is a very different animal. And I really think the biggest part of this that I'm taking out is persistence and really trusting the work and using it as catharsis.
00:10:16
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Singing is what I love, making music is what I love. And it is what I sink into when I can't sink any further into myself, when I'm feeling lonely or pessimistic because there's a pandemic and there's also great unrest out there. It is a release and it is a distraction, but it is also a way to make your voice heard and to just create, create, create.
00:10:45
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Yeah, I want to I want to and with with your background and the things that you do, I want to kind of take advantage of some of your thoughts and insights to pieces of art that the podcast hasn't got into before and to kind of get into what you do. Oh,
00:11:08
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You know, I don't have a lot of background in opera. I've seen opera. I appreciate it. I love the voice. I think it's such an incredible thing to see. I move to kind of understand like the historical relevance and have it explained to me. Some art is there's enough to it where it kind of has to be explained to you like what's going on.
00:11:30
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You're an opera singer. What's that like? What is it like to create art with your voice to be involved in a production like that?
The Art of Opera Singing
00:11:43
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Well, that's a good question. In making out with your voice,
00:11:50
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You will never be able to hear your voice the way anyone else can. You know, even when you listen to a recording of a guitar or a saxophone or a piano, it is a separate entity. It can be removed. And if you are given a different piano and a different saxophone and a different guitar, you will produce a different sound. Your voice is your voice. It stays in your body and therefore it's very, very personal. It's really easy to take.
00:12:14
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technical issues as personal blows. And they're not necessarily, they just require work. And of course, your body changes and your body's health is your instrument's health. And so that is something that, especially for me,
00:12:32
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getting more and more serious about singing as I got older, it took me a while to realize how much I had to take care of myself, how disciplined my discipline really had to be. And I mean, I still work on that every day, but it's, it's so much part of who you are, that you have to take care of it almost to an overwhelming degree if you want to get the most out of it. But the
00:12:59
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benefit of that is that the reward you reap is incredible. The idea of what you can do versus what you do do, what you think you can produce, what sounds you can make, what emotion versus what actually comes out of your body and this wonderful scientific aspect of making music. Of course, you really have to be a musician, but there's this wonderful scientific aspect of informants and sound waves and things that
00:13:29
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They didn't necessarily understand when opera was first formed and as it has grown throughout the centuries, but now we understand in the 21st century and what a miracle it is that we were able to figure out so much about creating art with our voices without knowing that. And so being an opera singer is a lot of work, but it is worth every drop of frustration, every drop of discipline,
00:13:58
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everything about it that can often maybe put young singers off or put young artists off of something. It's just the work, the work, the work. It's absolutely worth it. Yeah, I can really connect into to your, you know,
00:14:15
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the intensity or what you're putting into it, you know, to create what you do. It seems to be the type of art form that that demands a lot. And and it's really helpful to hear you describe as far as your connection to it. And, you know, the science and the art of it. Right. You mentioned that. Right. Like, I think everybody's already known that this is like an artistic performance, but also some of the factors that go in there.
00:14:41
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about the performance that are, I don't know, subject to many other contingencies, right? Like you said, temperature, sound, acoustics and things like that. I know you love painting. And of course, we, you know, we're talking a bit about Van Gogh. I love painting and paint, you know, do painting myself and I'm a painter.
00:15:11
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Yes, I saw one of your beautiful. Yeah, yeah. For you, I want to explore like a little bit of a different entry you work as and have done some work as an art model. I think a lot of people are probably curious about what it's like on that other side, right? We see the finished product of a painting and what's that experience like to participate in art in that way as an art model?
Unique Perspectives as an Art Model
00:15:40
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It's a very different perspective. And, you know, I had always, of course, you see these faces in these paintings, you see bodies, you see, they call it drapery, the cloth moving across a human form, but you never necessarily associate a person with it unless they have an identity, like the very famous portrait that Sargent did of Portrait of Madame X, which, of course,
00:16:08
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had a huge uproar when it came out because she had one of her dress straps had slipped off her shoulder and that was so scandalous in Paris 150 years ago.
00:16:21
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And just that idea of a flesh and blood human being being the inspiration for our painting. And you can really see how a different model brings out different results from the painter. And one of the things that I really like about the wonderful artists that I work with is that we feed off each other's energy, you know.
00:16:44
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poses that I choose or that they choose for me are very directly related to my personality and even experiences, you know, I have been
00:16:55
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a model for a big project. That's the sculpture project that is going to take multiple years and multiple months and it's 40 hours a week. And so all of a sudden it becomes very much a working environment as opposed to maybe the two or three hour sessions that you get a lot of time, sometimes eight, but all of a sudden 40 hours a week is a very different beast. And you really have to, like any working environment, you have to gel with your coworkers. You have to have mutual respect. You have to be able to handle conflict well.
00:17:23
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And something that I really like about Art Model is that it changes my perspective on my art. You know, these wonderful visual artists will say something and then I will take it home. Something that was said to me by the sculptor that I work with, Stephen Howard, is he said, I'm making this sculpture the way human beings see sculptures or see
00:17:48
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objects, how they see the world. A lot of times we think of things as being, in order to be good, they have to be photographic or they have to be perfect. When, in fact, Anthony Roth-Pestanzo, who is a county tenant that I love and adore, who was the leader of Knock Mountain at the Met this last year, he said, perfection is deeply boring. And he's absolutely correct because it's also not the way we hear things.
00:18:13
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Even in language, a lot of times an opera, of course, does afford you the chance to study multiple languages. Western opera focuses on German, English, Italian, French. The Slavic languages are moving in there as well. Russian, Czech. But this idea that you don't necessarily hear music as being perfect moment by moment.
00:18:35
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so uninteresting. There's no emotion created that way. If I'm singing and my heart is breaking, if my voice is shaking, that might not be considered perfect, but it's real. It's human.
00:18:46
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And so this idea that you see art and you take in art the way human beings are meant to perceive the world. In sculpture, as I understand it, it's following a line, following the turn and curve of the body. In music, it's following the line and following the curve of the music, you know. And you don't necessarily hear all of the, not filler moments, but the smaller moments, the articles.
00:19:11
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the connecting words that you wrote in a language. You don't necessarily hear those. You hear the moments of climax. You hear the moments of piano. You hear the moments of forte. You hear this really moving texture that does not necessarily have to be perfect at any second. And that's something that I really appreciate about
00:19:32
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art modeling is that it gives me, I don't know if I would have ever thought of it that way beforehand, or this idea of closing the form where you take
00:19:42
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something and you outline it to a certain degree and that colors how it is perceived. So if I take that concept back to music, I close these phrases, maybe it's four bars, maybe it's eight, but I take them and I bounce them each to the next. How does each phrase
00:20:02
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bounce to the next and how do I work within that? What notes are the most important? What notes can I save my voice a little bit? What notes do I really have to not care about technique and not care about perfection and just let my human voice and my human experience shine through? So I have a lot of love for art modeling. I do do it professionally, but I would I would do it for free. I mean, a lot of what you had to say there was
00:20:33
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is deeply interesting in the sense of, you know, part of the inquiry on the podcast that I do, you know, is of course about art and opinions of art. And I think a lot of times we think of art as kind of like, there's even theories of it, it's like kind of like this perfect, you know, that we've strived towards perfection. So let me give you like an example, right? There are art critics out there that would say that the composition
00:21:00
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of a of a musical piece on the paper itself can achieve perfection. And when you move it into the world and sing, and that's where the mistakes happen. Right. That's where that's where the grit is. Right. So it's like one way of looking at, like, what is the kind of perfect art object? And I think
00:21:20
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by your discussion and bringing about some of the edges of it or the things that don't work as far as the performance is just a little bit more honest and closer to the pieces that work and don't work when things sound too neat, too perfect, too clean. It might not be the best thing.
00:21:44
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And it sounds like you have to, as a performer, kind of interact with that. Pick your battles and also, you know, like you're a human being creating art for human beings. Like you, it has to be relatable. If I was a robot, I could make something perfect. If other robots were going to make it, but that's how could that be a world worth living in?
00:22:08
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And I do understand what you mean that sometimes something on paper looks better than its ultimate final form. I find a lot of times my husband and I are big film fans. We love movies and we watch a lot of them. And something that sometimes I'll notice is I'm like, this was a better script than it is a movie. This was a better concept.
00:22:30
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than it was a finished product or a better short story than it was a visual version of the story. And so I think you find that a lot of times when books are made into movies or books made into operas.
00:22:46
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or any kind of musical is the medium is just as important. And there's something to be said about something being written for the way it's performed, an opera that is written to be an opera, a book that is written to be a book, not something that's going to be translated into something else later.
00:23:02
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Well, let's jump into that bit because the other piece I wanted to talk to you is about, you know, kind of like the performative aspects and, you know, about about acting and acting in a role. So again, what part of the inquiry in the podcast is I have some guests upcoming Nicole Murray and Paige Henderson, who do Dead Friends, which is a show on YouTube. And I become interested in trying to get
00:23:30
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actors and actresses kind of talk about, you know, the art of that type of performance.
00:23:38
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What has been your experience as far as, and I know this is probably a little bit unfair, how abstract it is, but like about the art of acting in what you do. What's been your experience with that? Because you've done it, you're also, you know, training within it and developing those skills. What's that component of the performance like for you?
00:24:01
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Well, it's funny you should ask that because opera singers are notoriously not the best actors of the stage
Evolving Dynamics in Opera
00:24:10
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industry. And we know that. And part of the reason is... Are you starting a scandal in the community by that same... I know, they know. They know. And you know, I also, I'm a musical theater performer as well. And so I've had to, I never took acting lessons until I got into the musical theater world. And it was really eye-opening.
00:24:30
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But the big thing with opera singers is that you have to focus so much on this aspect of of performing which is the voice that technical aspects that musicianship aspects.
00:24:44
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the orchestra and your costumes because it's a very grand art form. And so sometimes acting falls by the wayside. I wish it didn't. And that is getting better, especially as in the opera world, the live broadcasts have become very popular or these high definition filmings where you really get up close and personal. And so you really have to see those emotions a little bit more. Whereas before,
00:25:12
Speaker
You know, you're acting for the person in the very back row of the house. And so it's larger than life. It's larger than a normal person would act as it should be. You know, we a lot of times see acting on this very small scale in movies and television where the camera is just as close to the actor as it could be. And you can catch all those tiny emotions that just don't translate in the theater.
00:25:35
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And so, especially with a voice, the composer has outlined some of the emotional peaks and valleys for you, but it is your responsibility to make choices about the emotions you feel. And that is really where acting comes the most into play, because you have to have an opinion about everything, just like any human being would have an opinion about everything. Any
00:26:00
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conversation you have, you know, you are expressing your thoughts, which inherently have opinions, and it's no different when you're singing and they're really excellent singers. You can see that marriage. You can see them expressing their emotions authentically and also coming forward with the music so that they work and dovetail off each other into creating a a relatable experience for the audience.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of components about the performance that is really making it with your comments make me think a lot about, you know, how that works. I will interesting just
00:26:39
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about opera itself, I've actually never seen a live opera in performance. And but I did take advantage recently when I felt I had this like large gap in my understanding and learning of one of those, you know, it's at the movie theater, right? Like the the mic'd up and it was great for me. I mean, the sound is I knew it was a different experience, but it was a great way
00:27:05
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for me to expose myself to it. So I'm in the process of learning. I really appreciate your comments on opera and about acting.
00:27:18
Speaker
Mackenzie, I want to play for the listeners. Actually, I'm playing it for myself and everybody else can enjoy it too. Your rendition of maybe this time, which was, I believe it was an original from the musical in the movie, Cabaret? Yeah, Cabaret's Candor and Em, which were a powerhouse team of musical theater writers in
00:27:45
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what a lot of people consider the golden age of musical theater or immediately afterwards and they wrote, I mean hit after it hit, they wrote Chicago, they wrote Cabaret, they are just a household thing for the musical theater community in a lot of ways and they had this really sexy, gritty sound and it required a lot of just emotional prowess from their performers and of course the most
00:28:15
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famous version of that is Liza Minnelli. And she inspired me for this. So this piece, there's a story behind this piece. This was the piece that got me into musical theater because I hadn't, I had been in a swing dance musical, but as a dancer, I sang a little bit and I had done West Side Story in high school as a dancer. You know, I wasn't really a singer and I didn't really get into singing until college was when I started taking voice lessons for the first time.
00:28:41
Speaker
And so after my grad work, I was horribly burnt out on singing just, um, you know, as you are, when you're oversaturated, even if you love it, you just get exhausted and you lose the joy a lot of times. So after grad school, I started working with a wonderful, wonderful woman named Hannah Penn, who was my mentor and friend still is, um, and.
00:29:04
Speaker
I brought this piece into her maybe this time in the original High Key, Liza Minnelli sings at a fourth lower and I don't blame her because it is a high belt. But so I brought in this piece and I said, hey, I have this. Can you just tell me if it's worth anything?
00:29:20
Speaker
And so I signed this for her and she goes, well, I think it's great. I don't necessarily think I can help you with it because it's not my forte, but I think it's worth pursuing. And so she really gave me the green light to start putting myself out there for musical theater. And that was in 2016. And so I have so much love for this piece. And it was, I didn't necessarily know what I was doing.
00:29:46
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And I'm still learning, but I had a lot of emotion behind it, which is really what you need. And I, of course, had lots of vocal training. I didn't come into a cold like I had been
00:29:59
Speaker
studying singing for multiple years and trying to work healthily. And it just, this was my first time applying my voice really in this way. And it has been such a wonderful experience. I love this piece. Yeah. Well, let's absolutely, and let's, let's play. I want to chat about it afterwards because I want to chat about the, the, the song, the song itself and the background with
The Political Relevance of Cabaret
00:30:21
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Cabaret. So let's play it. This is maybe this time with Mackenzie Rogers singing this song.
00:30:35
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Maybe this time I'll be lucky Maybe this time he'll stay Maybe this time for the first time Love won't hurry away He will hold me
00:31:08
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I'll be home at last Not a loser anymore Like the last time and the time before
00:31:26
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Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loved me. Lady peaceful, lady happy, that's what I long to be.
00:32:14
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Everybody, oh, they love a winner So nobody loved me Lady peaceful, lady happy That's what I long to be
00:32:39
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in my favor Something's bound to begin It's gonna happen, happen sometime Maybe this time, maybe this time I'll win
00:33:10
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All right. I'm faced with not knowing what to say after hearing that. I was going to say, you know, holy shit or wow. Absolutely beautiful. Love you. Love that one. And I saw, you know, I saw you had posted something. It was from a while back and I heard that. I'm like, oh, my God, that song. And so it's it's geez, it's a haunting song. It's a.
00:33:40
Speaker
Haunting song it's haunted me ever since the first time I heard it in in cabaret liza Minnelli Gorgeous performance ridiculously high-level performance in in cabaret and of course that that damn film right rise of fascism rise of fascism there's the another there's there's a lot of haunting stuff in there, but the
00:34:05
Speaker
um tomorrow belongs to me a version of the the germ you know the blind-haired german you know early nazi singers before the intermission where it's a picnic and you're looking around you're like holy crap the nazis are rising fascism is increasing the military is wrong all right so um uh you know for for our time super haunting politically um
00:34:34
Speaker
So, about the text itself, let's talk about the text itself with Cabaret and these times. What, how does what you see in that particular musical and the rise of kind of like intolerance in kind of suffering
00:35:01
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Um, it has just this deep resonance for me at this moment. What's, what's it like? What's that text like for you? What's, what are those songs do for you? Well, you know, this is undeniably a love song, but it can really relate to so many, um, human experiences. Maybe this time the change will happen. Maybe this time we will do the right thing. And I wholeheartedly believe that's what Kander and Ed wrote.
00:35:30
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That's what they meant when they wrote this piece. And of course, against the backdrop of fascism, of course, this is a very tragic, beautiful musical. And they did not shirk away from
00:35:43
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from making their point clear, which is to watch fascism rise. And it always kind of starts as a dirty secret. You know, maybe everybody knows it, but they don't quite have enough evidence or if they do have enough evidence, they're not looking at it closely enough to really realize how strong of a foothold it is tanking in everyday society.
00:36:02
Speaker
And it starts to kind of rear its ugly head. And then you think, no, it couldn't happen here, which has got to be the road to hell has paved with good intentions. We always think that we are too far forward. We are too progressive. We are too smart, too educated, too integrated, too diverse to fall into that trap. And I think we have seen throughout history that that is not the case. And it's not the case now. I mean, fascism is alive in
00:36:31
Speaker
multiple ways. It is not always men with identical haircuts and bands on their arms marching into your city. It is systemic. It is taught. It is ignored. It is dismissed. It is apologized for. And I really think that's one of the things that they wanted to show with this musical is that
00:36:55
Speaker
You have to say maybe this time until it happens, but you can't stop. You keep having to push forward and also really unite. You can't beat fascism alone. And there will always be instances of people trying to change the way other people behave or act or think or present themselves or exist in the world. And it is the right of every human being to not
00:37:22
Speaker
have to experience that to be able to be their truest, most authentic selves and to not have their history drowned out in favor of someone else's.
00:37:35
Speaker
Art you connect with art and it has this deeper meeting sometimes with the connections, but I was born in 1972 that film came out in 1972 You know in a one best, you know best the actress Liza Minnelli best director Joel gray as far as best actor In you know a supporting role and it was very very advanced I mean because there was a lot of
00:38:01
Speaker
uh sexual dynamics, bisexuality, um and it was also tied to like for me I love the the the period in in in Germany in the in the 30s and German expressionism and the brook and these admits that right before that and
00:38:21
Speaker
I think for art, for me, I've always placed that front and center. You have my favorite art movement at that time, and then you have the rise of fascism and how those things are interrelated. So that's cabaret. But in general, what role do you see in this time
00:38:41
Speaker
Uh, right now, uh, we're recording a George Floyd was murdered by police, um, in, in, in, in daylight, uh, over minutes in a horrific, uh, you know, just another iteration of the horrific effects of racism. What is, what is art's role? What's, what's art's role in, in, in getting at that or trying to dismantle that or upset that. Um, what are your thoughts on that?
00:39:10
Speaker
Um, well, you know, it's funny about the, not funny, of course not funny, but what's interesting about the recording of George Floyd's death is that people will believe video recordings until it's something they don't want to see. And just even the fact that that is contested by people is, is heartbreaking.
00:39:25
Speaker
But I do think it is the symptom of a deep, nefarious
Art's Role in Social Issues
00:39:30
Speaker
underlying issue, which is white supremacy, this idea, this false notion that somehow the pigmentation in your skin separates you from every other human being. And unfortunately, it's a big part of the American history, and it has caused unthinkable horrors and irreparable damage.
00:39:53
Speaker
I think what art's role in it is we have to do our intrinsic work of course and we have to actively change our brand's shape but mainly representation. We have to see people of color and of course I say people of color meaning anyone who is not quote unquote white and
00:40:12
Speaker
of course at the forefront of that conversation right now is the African-American community. But we have to see people of different skin colors, of different cultural backgrounds that speak differently, that think differently, that dance differently. We have to see them at the forefront. We have this kind of
00:40:30
Speaker
I feel like we have this kind of strange notion in the United States that the white experience is the baseline, which itself is privileged and false. It's a false narrative. It's just one that has been shown the most often consistently through history, through art, through movies, through music, through stage performing, through paintings. I mean, gosh, I can't think of an opera that I know of that was written by a black composer, you know, and that breaks my heart.
00:41:00
Speaker
And I also think that we have to pay for it. We have to put our money where our mouth is, paying our artists of different communities besides white, representing their works, not separating their music or fashion or body types or athleticism or writings or abilities from the experience of the people that belong to that group. I wholeheartedly believe that because that is pretty common.
00:41:30
Speaker
for the white community to have eluded other communities. And of course, right now what we're focusing on in the world, as rightfully so, is the African-American community. And with the murder of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, you really see how big that divide is. And art is reflective of the times. You can really see what's going on in the world in art. And it is a magnifying glass into the experience of different cultures, different communities,
00:41:59
Speaker
And in this history of looting, and I do use that word purposefully, there's also a lot of credit taking. We separate the work and the entertainment, quote unquote, from the people that create it. And that has to, that is one of the big things, I think, one of the big pillars that has to be pulled down.
00:42:22
Speaker
And we can't dilute it, and we have to zoom out and see the systemic issues on hand about our financial, economic, physical, sociological, and really taking into mind art has always been a bridge, I think.
00:42:41
Speaker
into different cultures and to bringing different cultures to the forefront and we have to work now to make sure that as that's happening it is uncensored, it is unapologetic, it is true, it is amplified and back in the day there were legal ramifications for those bridges but now it's social and I think it's really
00:43:04
Speaker
arts responsibility, we as artists, to make sure that all voices reach the same level. And so that no one voice of any particular group is louder than any of the others in times of peace, you know. And of course, if something happens and a group needs to come to the forefront, that is absolutely necessary. But we don't even have that as a baseline yet. And so we need to amplify people of color
00:43:28
Speaker
different communities, the trans community, the queer community, all these wonderful artists that have somehow been shunted away and shunned away into being not recognizable unless it was filtered down into something that matched the palette that was already created in the world by hundreds of years of racism
00:43:52
Speaker
slavery, legal blockades, all these things that have held people back for so long and it's just it's time for we as artists and the art community to step up.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah. And I appreciate your comments. And I think, you know, there's, there's, you know, um, you know, in, in, in trying to do the podcast and talking about philosophy and, and, and art, there's a, an overt recognition. I would have to say as like, in, in, in, in, if, if you take, if you take philosophy as a discipline, right? Um,
00:44:30
Speaker
uh like even worse in other components of society very white centric uh there in in in very male centric which has had an impact on the development of the discipline for me i spent years studying and i spent years studying philosophy so i'm obviously connected to the questions that
00:44:52
Speaker
exist. But I also recognize that history and I think art is is kind of, you know, in that same realm, not that there aren't artists of every type of background, but the dominant thought, when we say art, we may think of the white painter, you know, in what's in museums. And I think there's a lot to grapple with. I appreciate your comments. And I think
00:45:19
Speaker
As far as inclusivity on the podcast itself, I even chatted with you as far as like, you know, trying to really represent art in philosophy away from its traditional norms of, you know, our expectations around who does it and create that space. I jumped ahead a tiny bit in asking about the role of art in certain situations, but I didn't ask you what
Art Beyond Words
00:45:44
Speaker
art is. And I'm going to now what is art?
00:45:47
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question. I love that question. What is art? Well, I think that's largely subjective. But in my personal opinion, art is the manifestation of thoughts and feelings and experience that are untranslatable in any other way, but transmutable in different art forms. Maybe it's music, maybe it's visual, maybe it's performance, you know, maybe it's
00:46:18
Speaker
movements, maybe it sounds. And I also think one of the big things that I think separates art from just creation is intention, that you are actively making choices. And that's not to say that things can't reveal themselves to you and that you can't discover things because that's a big part of it. It often feels like as you chip away at whatever you're working at,
00:46:44
Speaker
choices will reveal themselves to you or paths to take. And some of them will seem obvious and some of them will seem less obvious. But I think the big thing is, is to create something that could not be expressed through typical standard methods of communication and to do so with decisions to be made, choices made, but with something to say.
00:47:15
Speaker
Yeah, I love the question myself, you know, what, you know, what is art? And, you know, it's it's evocative of a lot. I think you try to figure out we had the discussion a little bit earlier when we were chatting about, you know, is it perfect on the paper? Is, you know, like the thing with the script and then once you perform it, is that where
00:47:39
Speaker
Um, those things happen and, you know, and I think I remember starting off when I had studied, uh, you know, the question, what is art is, you know, it was always the discussion about, you know, nature in authorship and beauty, right? The sunset, is there an author for the sunset? And if so, you know, is that, um, artistic. So there's some really grand questions. Um, I was glad to hear, um,
00:48:05
Speaker
your thoughts on that. A couple more questions. Sure. Is there is there is there somebody or something that made you who you are? That's a heavy hitter. It is something or something that made me who I am. I mean, I think I'm an amalgamation of of everyone I've ever met and everything I've ever seen or experienced. But there, of course, players who are
00:48:34
Speaker
more important than others, actors that have a bigger sway in my experience. I would definitely say my family. I love my family very much. My mother, who never takes excuses and is ruthlessly smart and
00:48:55
Speaker
very opinionated and, but also very open minded. You know, she taught me that it's okay to change your mind. That's what a reasonable person does when they are presented with new information. And so I changed my mind a thousand times a day. And of course it's, it's important to change your mind and also stand your ground, but to know why you're standing your ground and not because it was an idea that occurred to you or came to you and you never questioned it.
00:49:21
Speaker
My, so I love my family very much. My wonderful husband has had a huge influence on who I am. I am naturally very extroverted, very talkative, very expressive. I speak with my hands a lot and my husband is the counter opposite. He is, he's very introverted and he always thinks before he speaks and he
00:49:50
Speaker
has this kind of innate ability to listen beyond what most people listen to. And he has a wonderful inquisitive eye. And when we'll go to a show, even if it's something that's technically in my expertise, I see musical theater and opera differently than he does. And he will always notice things that will really take me aback and change my perception of them. And so I think the biggest people that affect us are the ones that
00:50:16
Speaker
change our mind about things or allow us to change our mind about things, not people that just feed into the same ideas over and over because you won't grow that way. And also I've had the great fortune of being able to travel the world. Opera has allowed me that. I was able to
00:50:37
Speaker
go to Europe and see some wonderful places there. I was able to visit Africa for my sister's wedding, not for opera. She married a South African gentleman and to go to Central America and my husband lived in South America as a student. And the ability to learn a new language really, that really had a big effect on me and it showed me things about myself that I didn't know, namely that I love languages.
00:51:06
Speaker
And if I was not an opera singer, if I was not a stage performer, I would want to be a linguist because that was opened to me by my experiences and by the art form that I do love, allowing me to visit what otherwise, I don't know if I would have been able to. And it wasn't learning languages in school that showed me that. It was going to another country and trying to communicate that taught me that. And so I think that was very, very important.
00:51:34
Speaker
But yeah, it's a hodgepodge. I sometimes feel like a cauldron and they're throwing in various things and turning it on simmer and I come out the other side. Yeah, I can say for myself, knowing myself at this point, I haven't shown a great aptitude to
00:51:57
Speaker
uh in in learning languages like some folks i've been around though i do try and um with some spanish but i i i'm all i'm also fascinated by languages because of the way that they sound and how they're pronounced it seemed kind of impossible to me and i only say that because i was taken advantage of some free lessons um on an app
00:52:22
Speaker
in Mandarin and good lord tackling the sounds. I like tackling sounds but especially for a tonal language you know there's some really great Chinese opera which focuses on the language and it focuses on
00:52:40
Speaker
the traditional costumes and traditional garments worn in the Chinese culture. It's gorgeous. The colors and the sounds, and it's unlike anything you've ever heard before. I remember I had a teacher who said, there are sounds you're not going to be able to hear until you hear them for the first time. You have to experience them before you can conceive of them in your imagination, before you can replicate them, they have to be introduced to you.
00:53:07
Speaker
And there are lots of sounds like that in other languages that don't necessarily translate to English as well, and it takes a lot of work. But yeah, I think what's always interesting is what you would do if you weren't doing what you were doing. What would be your second choice if things had worked out differently? And so, you know, if you didn't have a podcast, maybe you would have followed a different path.
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, I've set up the podcast, the name of the podcast is something rather than nothing, right? And so I've saved for you, Mackenzie, the easiest question, because you've got to finish the program and go into the easiest one. And it's, of course, my question for you is, why is there something rather than nothing? I love this question. I think it's a wonderful question.
00:54:02
Speaker
I think there are people who spend their whole lives trying to figure that out. But for me, I think it's because the fact that there is something rather than nothing is an exquisite miracle and an unbelievable responsibility that we have to continue to fill the something with something.
00:54:22
Speaker
and not with nothing, and to have a voice and to expand the something that your fingertips. And even when there's nothing, that's something. The rests and space in music are just as important as the notes where there are sound. They are something that is technically nothing, but is absolutely something. And the nothings make the something that much more magical and special and worth having. Yes.
00:54:51
Speaker
Right there. Pause right there. That's it. That's it. You got it. Mackenzie Rogers, I wanted to give you the opportunity at the end. I'll say right off the bat, your enthusiasm for art, your talent, and your thoughts are all deeply appreciated.
00:55:14
Speaker
quite inspiring to think about. And I've loved our chat. I want listeners to have the experience, as you define it, of how to come in contact with you, your work. And in this space too, if you want to mention particular things that you've acted, performed in, as far as where folks can come in contact with you.
00:55:41
Speaker
Yeah, I do have a website. It is a little outdated. It's mezzo, M-E-Z-Z-O, Mackenzie, M-A-C-K-E-N-Z-I-E.com. I'm actually no longer a mezzo. I just recently made the switch to soprano, which I can talk about in and out of life.
00:56:00
Speaker
And so that will be changing, but that is currently my website. And I'm on Instagram under that same name, Mezzo McKenzie. I am on Twitter, not very often, but I am there. Companies that I've worked with include Westchester Broadway Theater, Utah Festival Opera, Musical Theater, Broadway Rose Theater, Portland Opera. I really had the chance to work with some exquisite companies and have some exquisite shows at my
00:56:31
Speaker
in my life, and so I'm ever grateful for that. But I'm always around, and not limited to only Albright Musical Theater, which is a blessing and a curse. But yeah, so on the web, and my name is Mackenzie Rogers, and I have short brown hair. I'm not gonna let you go yet, because I do want to tie this shoelace. Sure.
00:56:58
Speaker
uh mezzo to soprano i mean i'm interested in you as an artist you know that's a significant transition within the work that you do um please tell us a little bit about what that means and what's going on for you as an artist uh in that process
Vocal Transition and Challenges
00:57:17
Speaker
Of course, yeah, absolutely. So I studied, so in opera there are major voice categories, many of them are familiar to you, soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, countertenor, tenor,
00:57:32
Speaker
baritone, bass, baritone, and bass. And even within those categories are subcategories called fox. F-A-C-H is German word. And fox determine what repertoire is most appropriate for you. There are different types of sopranos. There are different types of mezzos. There are things that sound more beautiful and certain types of voices. And this categorization really didn't come around until Verdi, until
00:57:58
Speaker
uh the 18th and the 19th centuries um as much um uh into we use it very heavily now in the 20th century in the 21st century um but I was singing as a mezzo which is a lower voiced female um voice I was singing as a high mezzo a lyric mezzo and I did coloratura which is vocal pyrotechnics your voice moves very quickly
00:58:22
Speaker
It's got a lot of spring. It's got a lot of flexibility. It's a little bit higher and brighter. And now I am transitioning to soprano. So as you are in your 20s, your voice changes a lot. And then as you near the end of your 20s and into your 30s, your voice expands and settles. And so a lot of times the voice that you will have studied and known and sung with for years will not end up being the repertoire you sing.
00:58:49
Speaker
So that's exactly what happened to me. I was working as a mezzo and singing as a mezzo and started working with a wonderful, wonderful team here in New York, David Jones and Kamal Khan. That is my teacher and my opera coach. And at Kamal's behest, I was working with him and he was like, I really think you're a soprano. I think you should be singing
00:59:13
Speaker
Puccini, I think you should be singing Mozart. I think you should be seeing this other music. And so I worked on it a little bit, took it to my teacher, who the teacher works on your technique, works on vocal health, works on creating beautiful and efficient sound. And an opera coach works on things like languages, expression, artistic choices, stylistic elements that are appropriate for the time period that the opera was written.
00:59:39
Speaker
things like that. You would never sing a Mozart opera the same way you would sing a Puccini opera and that in there is the struggle. You really have to be a chameleon, you have to adapt. And so I'm switching to soprano. And so this book of repertoire that I have held closely to me, and we call it our book or our package, it's five operatic repertoire, excuse me, operatic arias that you take with you to an audition. One has to be
01:00:06
Speaker
each major language of Western opera, which, as I mentioned earlier, is French, Italian, German, and English, and then one of your choice. It can be Slavic or it can be another aria in a repeat language. And so I've had this music near and dear to me, and I've all of a sudden kind of
01:00:23
Speaker
push it aside to allow new music and new ways of singing and creating sound that I had never really explored before. And your voice does reveal itself to you, but I'm really enjoying it right now. I'm working on some Puccini, some Mozart. I'm working on some fabulous 20th century stuff, 21st century. And the fun stuff about new music is that you don't have
01:00:46
Speaker
400 years of competition. You have the rare and incredible opportunity to have a first crack at something, or at least in the first 20 years of its creation, which is unusual and not something that I take lightly. But yeah, so I'm exploring some new repertoire. I also have to change the way I think about my acting. As a mezzo, I have played a lot of pants roles, male roles,
01:01:16
Speaker
where a female voice will play a male role. You find out a lot in Mozart, page boys. You find out a lot in music that wasn't originally meant for Castrati and has now been updated to work for women. So, Castrati sang in what is considered a female
01:01:35
Speaker
sound they sang in a female register, what is considered a female register. And so it's emperors, it's princes, it's jealous lovers, things like that. And so for that, I would go into an audition in pants, I would walk with my pelvis forward, I would keep my wrists very straight, as opposed to maybe my natural tendency to let my wrists be loose and vulnerable the way a woman would.
01:01:59
Speaker
Now I'm working on music that is much more heroic. I am working on music that belongs to the heroine of many of the shows. And so it's much more front and forward on stage. It's much, not more exciting, but more, more revelatory. And it really has, it's really pushed me as an artist because I have to adapt and I have to do it quickly. And luckily,
01:02:28
Speaker
I have many hours in the day to do so and I am not letting that go to waste. Yeah, I know that I just want to let you know I really appreciate your explanation and I'm
01:02:49
Speaker
All the different components has really made me think about how it all comes together. And I just want to definitely ask you that question because I know it's an important switch for you. But I also, prior to the answer in that, I actually don't know what that means. You can recognize it as important for somebody, but all the components that go along with that.
01:03:10
Speaker
Mackenzie, thank you so much for your time. I think it goes without saying that we're going to have to chat again. We're going to have to have you back on. I would love it. I've learned a lot and I'm sure the listeners have as well. I just wanted to thank you for your efforts in art and the beautiful art that you produce, but also engaging
01:03:36
Speaker
on, you know, in these times in, you know, I think our mutual hope to kind of have an inclusive society with greater justice and what role art has in that and to explore that. So
01:03:59
Speaker
Again, thank you so much. It's been so nice to chat with you, Mackenzie, and I look forward to hearing a lot more of your material. Oh, thank you so much. It's been an honor and wonderful questions. I mean, you know, it's nice to be asked such thought provoking and interesting questions that really make you consider your own opinions about things. Mackenzie Rogers, thanks again. Thank you. Bye now. Bye.
01:04:30
Speaker
O fa, je suis d'isil, no mei soi desade, no reveir, no serioci, souvei, très d'écoverté, mête, le fait, le fait, le fait, hei, le souci,
01:05:02
Speaker
foreign foreign
01:05:24
Speaker
Ooh, ooh, ooh.
01:06:13
Speaker
What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean?
01:06:26
Speaker
Oh, oh
01:06:57
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
01:07:49
Speaker
Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
01:08:06
Speaker
you