Berkshire Diva Revisits the Opera that Brought Her True Love
August 7th, 2008 by Ryan Taylor, general directorEighteen Years after meeting as Figaro and Susanna, Maureen O’Flynn and Claude Corbeil share the stage again in Mozart’s comic masterpiece!
photo credit: Nick Atlas www.nickatlas.com
Berkshire Opera is used to the ups and downs of life in the theatre. However, drama onstage sometimes cannot match the endearing stories of the artists whose professional assignments include portraying opera’s most beloved characters. Over the course of the last few weeks, another compelling chapter is being written in the life story of local superstars Maureen O’Flynn and Claude Corbeil. Theirs is a deeply personal tale of love and adversity, career and family, passion and fate.
“Claude and I met in 1990 when we were both cast in Hamilton Opera’s production of Le nozze di Figaro (the company is now known as Opera Ontario). He was Figaro, I was Susanna, and that meeting defined our lives from that moment on,” says O’Flynn, speaking from her home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts where she relaxes between rehearsals. At that time, Corbeil was extremely well known in Canada as Monsieur Jambon, where he was featured in his own Television and Radio programs in Quebec, and had already enjoyed an international opera career that spanned more than thirty years. Corbeil was beginning to have occasional trouble with his vocal health and would undergo several surgeries to remove pre-cancerous plaque from his chords.
Over the next few years, the couple saw each other while the established Corbeil continued to sing throughout Canada, the United States, and Amsterdam. Simultaneously, the career of O’Flynn began to bloom internationally, with important debuts on both sides of the Atlantic. The couple came together again in Ireland for a production of Faust where Corbeil portrayed Satan and O’Flynn essayed Marguerite. Following their work in Ireland, the pair returned to Ontario for another production of Le nozze di Figaro as Susanna and Figaro - a couple both onstage and off!
In 1995, under the weight of four more operations on his vocal chords, Corbeil decided to retire from the opera stage. The toll of the surgeries on his craft and confidence had become too great. Soon after, the couple married. Three years later, Corbeil’s doctor found that the trauma to his vocal chords was not yet over. Another surgery revealed cancer, and 65% of the bass-baritone’s left chord was removed. His doctor fashioned a fake chord from a skin graft on the inside of his cheek, and in the course of one day, the singer’s speech, livelihood and identity were swept away. In his recovery room, with paper and pen, he tearfully wrote one word to O’Flynn: “sorry.”
Corbeil had been a singer his entire life, and was the son of a very famous Quebec bass, Paul Emile Corbeil. In the quiet and numbness of the aftershock of this surgery, Corbeil was dealt another serious blow to his physical well being in the form of colon cancer. Surgery, Chemo, and a prolonged battle with the disease both here and in Germany raged for the next four years before he was in the clear, but it was the loss of his singing voice that was the source of the most personal devastation.
Earlier this year, Corbeil took on several small speaking engagements with the aid of amplification, and rediscovered his passion for performance. O’Flynn had recently accepted the role of Cherubino in the Berkshire Opera production of the Mozart classic when general director Ryan Taylor offered Antonio to Corbeil. Corbeil visited with his ENT, Dr. Peak Woo, the top doctor in his field. He gave the green light to Claude, suggesting a procedure that he has performed for “old Italian singers in their 80’s who want to give a week’s master class.” The vocal chords are injected with collagen to plump them up so that they meet and then the singer has a little more voice for about six months. As a result of the procedure, Corbeil has been healthily rehearsing since late July with O’Flynn on the Berkshire production of Figaro.
“This production is our own little miracle,” says O’Flynn. “We are back on stage in our beloved Figaro, and even though we are happily singing Antonio and Cherubino and not the roles that brought us together, we thought we would never experience this process again. We are surrounded by incredibly gifted supportive colleagues and are enveloped by Mozart’s music and the story of smart, scrappy, clever, adorable, funny people who adore each other and manage to make marriage work in the face of obstacles at every turn: truly a dream come true!”
Among my first priorities in preparation for the upcoming season has been the task of securing accommodations for the many talented artists and professionals who will be heading into Uncharted Territory with us this summer. Having moved three times in a little over six months, I’m no stranger to the overall process: scouring classified ads, endless phone tag and email flurries, driving from place to place, and the back and forth dialogue with potential landlords about the usual (and sometimes downright unusual) concerns involved in renting a space.
I am thrilled to be headed back to the Berkshires! Last summer was my first journey to this cultural Mecca, and it is one I hope to make often… whether I am performing or not!
Berkshire Opera