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Media Coverage

BRENDA MARTIN: We are now on the phone with Mark Doss.

JOHN DI SANZA: But first, we’re playing the musical performance.

(Music excerpt: Performance from Opera Tampa’s production of Faust. Featured is Mark Doss as Mephisto.)

MARTIN: Amazing.

DI SANZA: So great. I could sit here and listen to it with my eyes closed.

MARTIN: I know, I know, I know. Well, let’s hope that Mark is here so that we can actually talk to him about what he does, how he does it and why he loves it so much.

DI SANZA: Mark, ciao paesan. Are you over there?

MARK S. DOSS: Hello. Yes, I’m here.

DI SANZA: How ya doin’, buddy?

DOSS: I’m pretty good.

DI SANZA: Over there in Milan, right?

DOSS: I’m in Milan, that’s right.

DI SANZA: I have relatives in Milan. If you see any Di Sanza’s over there, say hello, will you?

DOSS: Okay.

MARTIN: So Mark, tell us about this performance we just heard. That was you in Tampa this April, is that correct?

DOSS: That’s correct.

MARTIN: We heard about you just a few days before that performance, but there was no way we could get you on in time. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to talk to you in anticipation of that, but I assume you’ll be back here at some point, is that right?

DOSS: I hope so. I haven’t gotten any specific word as to that, but I surely would like to come back. It was a great experience.

MARTIN: Of course we’re on the radio so people didn’t get to see that [performance], but I got a chance to view that scene just a second ago. I hope that piece we played was to your liking and you can talk about a little of that.

DOSS: Yes, that’s a great piece. It’s the serenade, which is the little scene where the Devil arrives with Faust and is trying to prompt him to enter the house of Marguerite. He says that I have to sing a little song because you seem to be a little bit timid, so I’ll see if I can get her out with this little serenade. Then he goes into some very obscene type things, saying that she shouldn’t do anything until she gets the ring on her finger. Basically, she has to be careful and he’s making allusions to all types of things again that she has to be more chaste, but she isn’t, so that’s pretty much the sense of it and he’s laughing through it.

MARTIN: Your performance was so powerful, even just listening to it, but the video of it was just amazing. Your stage presence is wonderful.

DOSS: Well, I’m glad it came across. It’s a lot of work, the role is I mean. I am on stage most of the night actually and I work up a sweat, but I certainly enjoy it quite a bit and I’ve done, oh, let’s see... seven productions of Faust. I started out at Indiana University in Graduate School singing the role. It was my second year there.

MARTIN: Yeah, and that’s a nationally renowned music school. I know because I’m originally from the Detroit area and a whole bunch of people I knew from there wanted to go to that school.

DOSS: Oh right. It’s the largest music school in the world and certainly they have the largest Opera program. They do seven Opera productions a year, one musical in the summer and they are double cast so you get a cattle call of people going through auditioning for those roles, some up to 800 I think when I was there, music voice majors. So imagine even more than that for the piano and what not and the other instrumentalists. It’s quite a huge school and good training because we put things together very quickly and you get to see what it would be like in the actual world.

MARTIN: Yeah.

DOSS: When you are under that kind of pressure, a lot of the North American Opera companies have to do that that don’t have the budgets to have these longer sorts of rehearsal periods.

I’ve been in Milan now for a couple of weeks, and I’ll be here another two weeks before opening week, then before opening, maybe another two, three weeks after that for the run of the Opera. So that’s, you know, a lot more than what you have in North America where a lot of times you have maybe three weeks, maybe just two weeks, of actual rehearsing and the last week of production where you have a dress rehearsal, where you actually try on the costumes and make-up and then, boom, you have your performances one, two, three, sometimes back-to-back-to-back.

MARTIN: So you are actually getting to see a little of the countryside this time, maybe, huh?

DOSS: Well...

MARTIN: Maybe?

DOSS: I’ve been here in Milan, let’s see, this is my eighth role with La Scala.

MARTIN: Wow!

DOSS: I get to see as much as I can going back and forth. I’ve sort of gotten myself away from the center of the city, which is always nice because then you get a chance to see what is surrounding the city. I’m up in the Northern part of Milan right now; it’s the North Park area actually. There is a big park up here so I get to ride around; I have my Razor Scooter that I go through the streets of Milan on.

DISANZA: He said a Razor. I was going what the heck you doin over there, my man?

DOSS: I’ve got my helmet on, just in case.

MARTIN: Be careful, for goodness sake. They need you in one piece, you know?

DISANZA: Hey listen, I've got a question to ask. You’ve got a beautiful voice; that goes without saying, but, you know, you come from Cleveland, right?

DOSS: Right.

DISANZA: So, you know, how did that happen?

MARTIN: Yeah, how do you grow up a little kid?

DISANZA: I mean this is something you must have found at a young age before you realized you had the talent to go out and pursue it, so you must have loved it from a young age. I mean, I know I’ve loved Opera all of my life because my father and mother played it all the time. So, how did it happen for you?

DOSS: Well, I don’t know. I got stuck in front of the television a lot. I mean, I think my dad was known for being able to recite back the lines from Hamlet and any other thing he could pull out. He pulled out a lot of lines from the Bible before he passed away a few years ago.

MARTIN: Wow.

DOSS: That’s part of the things he instilled in me is his ability to recall things the right way. I was reciting a little Shakespeare my last year of high school English, but I did sit in front of the tube and I'd watched one of those movies. I guess I think it was Lawrence Tivit maybe where he is a Toreador and he sings the high note at the end and breaks the glass. I mean, that’s cool for anybody.

DISANZA: Toreador... my father used to like that. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

DOSS: Yeah, breaks the glass... I’ve gotta learn how to do that. I went to the Music teacher, the Chorus teacher and asked her, "What is this song... can you tell me?" I don’t know if I gave her a line or two, I didn’t really sing that much at the time. She said to go to the library and check it out and I don’t know what leads I had, but I didn’t find it at all, and basically, she then realized that maybe I had some sort of interest in Music and Opera to that extent.

MARTIN: That’s amazing though. That really is.

DISANZA: Well, it has to start from somewhere, you know, and I really mean it.

MARTIN: But it’s not every kid you meet who wants to learn.

DISANZA: That’s what I said, from Cleveland so that he’s learned that he’s had this, you’ve had this in your life, your whole life, in your body so and it’s wonderful that you’ve been able to go to Milan eight times. Even I’ve only been there once on my own, but I can’t sing. I mean, but to get to travel around, it would be really nice like if you do get back in this area, let us know before you come back.

MARTIN: Yeah.

DOSS: Okay.

DISANZA: I’d love to come see you. Brenda and I would love to come see you.

MARTIN: Yes, we’d love to come see you. Absolutely, and I understand now they have subtitles, right?

DOSS: Exactly.

MARTIN: That would be very helpful to me.

DOSS: There are subtitles they put on either above the stage or sometimes you have little monitors...

DISANZA: Subtitles?

MARTIN: Yes.

DOSS: ...that you can switch on and off.

MARTIN: So, if you don’t speak Italian or if you are not familiar with Opera, you can actually have a shot at understanding what the message is. The audience is laughing throughout this video. I mean they really get it. They are into the story.

DISANZA: Well, you see the whole thing about Opera is so universal. I mean, it’s either Italian or German or I’m sure there are other Operas also, but you know what you get from the Opera. It’s like what I was saying about the Japanese Opera, remember? It's something that you have to visually see. Now I can listen to Mark and that’s great, but, you know, to be able to see it...

MARTIN: But you have it.

DOSS: Right.

MARTIN: From your childhood too, not everyone does. Opera is not something that everyone grows up with.

DISANZA: That’s what I mean. In Cleveland, you know it comes up from anywhere.

MARTIN: You know, it’s interesting your father was big on Shakespeare. You said you didn’t want to become like a Shakespearean actor and go up to Stratford every summer and do the Stratford.

DOSS: No, I mean I really got thrust into it because I was falling back in school so I had to get out, and, in order to get out, I had to take some courses such as Drama and Chorus and they were extra credits. Again, the Chorus teacher had the idea that I might like music and saw that The Metropolitan Opera was coming to town doing Aida of all things. I’m doing Aida here in La Scala.

MARTIN: That’s funny.

DOSS: But that was the last year apparently that The Met was on tour because, you know, they started cutting back on their budgets so they didn’t go around. As you have in Tampa, regional Opera companies that do quite well bringing in important singers and getting good performances, but, at that time, ’76, they still had to rely on The Metropolitan Opera to bring in really good quality productions. Plus, the music hall is huge. I think it holds like 15,000 in downtown Cleveland, and so she said, "Would you like to be a ‘super’?”

She had this questionnaire out because they needed African-looking people. I guess there’s these Ethiopians so basically I was supposed to come in with a group of people carrying somebody on a cross or on a slab or whatever I was carrying him on, but I was one of the group and I got eight bucks. I got paid eight dollars!

That was big time for me since I stood there in the wings a little bit because they said that I could leave now and I said, “Wait a minute. Maybe I’ll see what’s going on here.” So I’m standing right next to the tenor who’s singing one of the high notes and I’m just like 10 feet away from him and he’s got this gorgeous voice. I think it was McCracken, James McCracken, because somebody gave me the program a few years ago because I didn’t know who it was and they said, “Yeah, that’s The Met tour.”

MARTIN: Wow.

DOSS: It all tied in. I thought, “Wow, that is amazing,” and the fact that I’m here at La Scala singing. I just got a chance to sing with the orchestra part of it because I’m covering here at La Scala. I do a couple of performances in Tel Aviv coming up, but you know, the guy that was supposed to be singing it said, “Nah... I don’t want to sing,” so I got up there at La Scala where, you know...

DISANZA: Well good, good.

MARTIN: "I don’t want to sing”?

DOSS: Robert Merrill and all these.

DISANZA: "I don’t want to sing.” Can you imagine that? “I’ve only trained all my life. I don’t want to sing anymore. Why do I have to? Give it to the other guy.”

MARTIN: I can’t imagine. “I don’t want to sing.” Amazing, amazing.

Well, we want to mention too that we were fortunate enough to get the Opera Tampa folks to arrange to get the DVD. They mailed it over to me and I’m actually going to take it back there in person and I was told, you know, that this was part of the actual archives and so I really feel like I’m, you know, I don’t know if you are watching a video, but I have a manila envelope next to me; it’s my cheat sheet to not forget this CD.

DOSS: Right, right.

MARTIN: So where are you? You said you are going to Tel Aviv and what’s after that?

DOSS: I’ll be in Tel Aviv, then I’ll come back to the States for a bit, then I go to Japan. I’ll be in Tokyo, first time again doing a covering of this Aida. I’m not sure if I’ll be doing any performances, but then on to Berlin where I’ll do Salome, Jochanaan, John the Baptist there and then coming back to Italy, I’ll be at Venice’s La Fenice. For my debut there, I’ll play Přemysl in Šárka, one of the Janacek operas. I did Acropolis Case here in La Scala a few months ago so now they think I can sing in Czech really well so they signed me up to do it in La Fenice in Venice which is an Opera house.

MARTIN: That’s wonderful.

DISANZA: Can you imagine that?

MARTIN: So do you ever get tired of travel? Are you traveling all the time or when are you ever in Cleveland?

MARTIN: Or here?

DOSS: I still have family there so I check in once every two, three, four months or so if I can get through. I drive through real fast sometimes just to say hi.

MARTIN: Yeah, I know it’s hard, but you know what, you only live once and you are living your dream. That’s great.

DISANZA: That’s right.

MARTIN: When you come back, please let us know like two months ahead of time if you can because we really are booked up through the end of July already. We certainly appreciate you calling in, especially at 1:30 in the morning your time.

DOSS: No problem.

MARTIN: We really appreciate it.

DOSS: I’m an insomniac.

MARTIN: Oh god.

DISANZA: How can you be in lovely Italy and sleep?

MARTIN: Well, it’s the middle of the night.

DISANZA: You only sleep, but yeah, in Italy, you know how we used to do it, you sleep when you gotta sleep. I mean, there is so much life going on.

MARTIN: I know, that’s true, but anyway, we really truly appreciate you calling in and your talent is so amazing and we hope that you continue on for years and years and get to play all the parts you want to play.

DOSS: Well, I’ll certainly keep trying and work hard. Thank you very much!

DISANZA: Take care of yourself.

MARTIN: Yeah and if you come back again, please let us know. We’d love to come and see you to get to witness your talent in person. Thank you again. We appreciate it and have a great show there and in Tel Aviv and Tokyo and wherever else you go, alright?

DOSS: Thank you.

DISANZA: Ciao (and adds well wishes in Italian).

DOSS: Grazie. Arrivederci.

MARTIN: Take care. Thank you.