Mel Broiles: Strauss Operas
Louis Ranger recounts the story of a lesson he had with Mel on some opera excerpts Louis was preparing for an audition. Mel took Louis into the MET orchestra pit, turned on the stand light, opened the music folder and told Louis, “The chandeliers rise as the lights go down, the performance is about to begin, all the great maestros of the world are in the opera house... to hear you”. Then Mel gestured toward the music indicating Louis should begin playing.
Mel played 1st trumpet at the MET as if he were starring in his own movie.
Spotlight on Mel. Everyone was there to hear him. The Strauss operas provided Mel with the perfect vehicle for his star turn. When the chandeliers rose to the top of the MET and the house lights went down for a performance of Salome, Elektra or Die Frau und Schaten, Mel felt the spotlight come up on him. All Mel’s characters: warrior, squadron commander, navigator, sentry, lead trumpet player, battlefield poet, were on full display in the Strauss operas, melded together into his signature role. If ever there was someone born to play first trumpet in a Strauss opera, it was Mel Broiles.
The first Strauss opera I heard Mel play was Der Rosencavalier. This was in the spring of 1974 right after I won the MET audition and before I assumed my duties as co-principal trumpet. Mel was magnificent. I could not imagine the first trumpet part played any better than it was performed that night. He led the brass section through the famous Rosencavalier waltzes effortlessly. The passages requiring power and finesse were executed with just the right character, the lyrical solos were exquisite, smooth as silk with a beautiful burnished tone and the high D flat at the end of the famous trio in Act 3 was beautiful and hair raising. I thought to myself, ‘I won’t be playing any of these pieces any time soon’. In fact, the first Strauss opera I had a chance to play was almost 10 years later in 1983.
The trumpet parts in Strauss’ operas present difficulties unique to the operas. Playing Salome or Elektra is not like playing tone poems like Don Juan or Ein Heldenleben. While very difficult to play, the tone poems are considerably shorter than the operas. The tone poems have longer, more extended passages for the trumpet, while he operas have shorter bursts of playing and longer rests. The entrances are not as apparent in the operas as they are in the tone poems and the singers are not always reliable. It is very easy to make a wrong entrance in these pieces. Playing the operas is like traversing a mine field: danger lurking everywhere, steep walls to scale, giant boulders to be moved, moments of tenderly nursing fallen comrades with a snippet of a soft battle hymn or lullaby, then immediately leaping back into the fray, dodging bullets, avoiding obstacles, seen and unseen. Many of these ‘battlefield’ events are separated by long rests, where the trumpet ‘combatants’ get cold, become “unwarmed up”, ‘iced’ like a field goal kicker in a football game. It is very easy to lose concentration, lose focus. Not with Mel at the helm. Mel was the perfect battle commander. He relished the challenge, loved the passion and intensity of the battle. In the Strauss operas, Mel raised his chair higher than usual (all the chairs in the MET pit are adjustable), when he put the trumpet to his lips, it was like he was getting ready to fire a rifle: he would slowly move the mouthpiece down from under his nose until it was in exactly in the right spot and then he would ‘pull the trigger’ and let fly. In soft lyrical passages, Mel would lift the bell over the stand and play with a beautiful silvery toned legato, every pianissimo note clearly heard everywhere in the 4000 seat opera house. When he finished a soft passage, he slowly and theatrically lifted his right arm high off the valves in a kind of bow to the beauty of the passage. He looked like a ballerina elegantly coming out of 5th position. It was a physical gesture that would accompany the sound of a slow exhale on the syllable, ‘AHHH.....’ In the fortissimo passages, Mel took no prisoners. In the ‘recognition scene’ in Elektra, the first trumpet ascends to a fortissisimo high concert D. Mel played this note with such power that he would temporarily black out. This high D would need 3 cutoffs, one for the orchestra and the other two for Mel. He would hold over at least 2 full quarter notes! The third trumpeter, Harry Peers, would rub Mel’s shoulders to slowly bring him back to consciousness while counting down the rests in Mel’s ear.... “7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, last”, then Mel would miraculously come to, pick up the trumpet and play the next entrance. Mel was so strong that he once played this high D so loud, with his throttle so wide open that the note came out considerably flat, but amazingly, he was able, even at this incredible volume, to bend the note back up to pitch!