Meyers & Linder retire from the Metropolitan Opera to Tryon

You may have noticed the ads and posters around town for an upcoming benefit for the Thermal Belt Outreach. On the poster are several names that have become familiar through their involvement in local arts organizations such as pianist Peter Kutt, Tryon Little Theatre performers Elisabeth Moore and Ron Mosseller, as well as artist Kipp McIntyre. However, two new faces have arrived in Tryon this year and will be adding their exceptional talent to this entertaining evening “Strictly Broadway” on December 7 at the Tryon Fine Arts Center. I was thrilled to be invited to the home of Rob Linder and Mary Meyers recently retired from New York City’s Metropolitan Opera.

How did you arrive in Tryon from New York?

Rob: Our son and his wife both teach at Limestone College in Gaffney and they live in Greer. So, we visited them and when we were coming towards retirement we knew we wanted to be close to them. Mary and Jonathan, our son, went exploring one day, Tryon was the first stop and that’s as far as they got.

Mary: Really, we found a real estate agent here we hit it off with, Myrna Viehman, and she said “I know you’re not looking for anything right now, but please let me take you around and show you the area.” My first reaction was “No, we have so many other places we want to stop. My son said, “I think you should go.” So we went around for two hours, we never went to any other town, this was it.

Rob: But we weren’t actually shopping for a house at the time. It was strictly for the future. We didn’t want to look at anything specific. Mary found this place online. They put up a photo show online, and then we had Jonathan scout it out.

Mary: We had it inspected before we made a bid. We made a bid without ever seeing it in person and they made a counter offer, we made a counter offer, and they accepted. We never saw the house until the deal was done.

Rob: But it was really good photo show. Plus, of course—

Mary: Jonathan came and looked at it. He went with the inspector for three hours and saw everything about it.

Rob: The inspection was carefully done by Garland Rice. It was so carefully done that I was confident. We bought it site unseen and when we first stepped in I owned it. Pretty wild.

Mary: When I first stepped in it, we didn’t own it yet, but the owners loved opera. They were so thrilled that we wanted to buy this house. They wanted to go back to San Francisco where their kids are, and they had invited all their friends over for a cocktail party. Robert didn’t see it until after it was totally done. He moved in here a month before I did.

Rob: It wasn’t until we really moved in that we knew that this room has great acoustics.

It’s all wood!

Rob: It’s all wood and it just…This piano we’ve gotten since we’ve been here. We got it in East Canton over at Wall Piano. I redid the case and we had somebody [Peter Kutt] redo the insides. It sounds so good.

I bet.

Rob: The acoustics are so good it doesn’t need a bigger piano. It’s a 5’ 8”—

A baby grand,

Rob: …and it more than fills this room. When we sing it’s just fabulous.

Mary: Do you play?

I play a very little bit of piano.

Mary: Probably more than we play.

I can pluck out a melody line with the right had or some chords with the left, but when I try putting the hands together I get confused.

Rob: Yeah, we’re not pianists either. But you’re obviously good with words because you memorized that patter song we heard at Persimmons.

I’ve memorized a lot of songs and poems. I love to learn new ones, but I have to brush up the older ones because they don’t stick as well.

Mary: Exactly, the Russian operas don’t stick as well as the Italian ones I can tell you that.

Rob: The ones you learn by rote don’t stick. If it’s in Czech you’re not going to remember it.

Mary: Not as well anyway.

So how many different languages have you sung in?

Mary: English, French, Italian, German, Russian, Czech, and Sanskrit.

Sanskrit? What opera is written in Sanskrit?

Mary: A Philip Glass opera.

Rob: Satyagraha.

I like some Philip Glass, and some is just a little…weird.

Mary: You probably would have like this because the theatre part is great.

Rob: At the dress rehearsal they had a disaster because they had these boards which showed the words. Not the complete text, but the beginning of each line to give the chorus the cues. So, you could glance into the wings and see those cues. At the dress rehearsal the first act went fine, but when they started the second act they used the first act words and the chorus was like, “What? Are you kidding me? We don’t know this thing.” You tell them because you were in it.

Mary: It was weird.

Rob: The conductor was looking at the chorus like “Why are you sabotaging me? Sing the words.”

Mary: The problem was, you know how repetitive it is. There were whole lines that repeated the same music over and over again, but not the same words. So, they’d give you the first two or three syllables, but when they’re the wrong syllables…

Then you have no reference point.

Mary: It never happened in a performance, but in the dress rehearsal.

Rob: It was a very bad dress rehearsal, and with audience.

That’s scary, but they know it’s a dress rehearsal and things can go wrong.

Mary: And because it was Philip Glass, they didn’t even know anything was wrong, I don’t think except for the panic in our eyes.

Rob: So Mary was full time at the Met from 1985 to 2008.

Mary: Right.

Rob: And actually I did piece work over 19 years 1989 to 2008 and in addition I was freelance and so I did a lot of things. I toured with The Great Smith Singers, a contemporary music group. I did a lot of musical theatre. I did a lot of acting. I did film work. I worked on the soaps. I was on the Dave Chappell Show. I was on Saturday Night Live. I did it all, off-Broadway, you name it. The closest I ever got to Tryon was doing Damn Yankees in Roanoke. Basically scrapped around as a freelancer, I never got the full time position. But I was well regarded at the Met and was in as many as seven productions a year over 19 years. Meanwhile, I was running around the country doing other things. Doing film work, most of which was extras, and then sometimes not. That adventure, commercials, auditioning every week, sometimes three times a week.

Mary: He used to get up three o’clock in the morning, to go stand in line at four thirty in the icy cold. But he was totally committed to it.

You have to be if you’re going to survive in the business and live in the city.

Rob: While I never had the cushion that Mary did, a full time position which was tenured, it was exciting. I never knew what I would do from week to week. I had a lot of really good experiences.

How did you get tenured? How does that work?

Mary: You come and audition. At least 400 people come and audition for the chorus every year. Now the person who replaced me was a former soloist who wasn’t getting much work anymore. She came and auditioned and they gave her a position. She’s very good, and she wasn’t very old, but she just wasn’t making it as a soloist anymore.

Rob: It’s tough. Even the people who are reasonably successful, some names you might recognize, aren’t making all that much money.

Mary: I was very active in the union. I spent thirteen years on the board of governor’s for AGMA which is the American Guild of Musical Artists for professional singers and dancers.

Rob: But your involvement in the union wasn’t until you were already in the Met. That had nothing to do with your getting the job.

Mary: How tenure works is, after two years you’re in if you haven’t been dismissed for any reason. We rarely have anyone who is dismissed. Although the year I came in there was someone who after a year was dismissed. She never knew her music and we had twenty-two productions to learn. Some of them we got plenty of rehearsal for and some we didn’t. They had been done in previous years, and we were new but we were expected to learn. So, she was let go. That rarely happened. The benefits are incredible. It’s the best full time position in the world for an opera chorister for sure, but also for a singer because unless you’re a big star commanding huge salaries, you’re not making that much on a regular basis. We had a 52 week guarantee. I was involved in the negotiations of every contract for 23 years except one. I enjoyed it. Everyone said when I left, “Well it’s sure nice to see someone who did all the work, get the benefits.”

Rob: Mary was the ladies chorus representative or deputy.

Mary: That was fun.

Rob: She did yeomen service. She did that very well.

Mary: Then board of governors for the national union for 13 years.

Rob: In addition to the New York seasons, we went to Japan. Mary also went to Germany and Spain, made a lot of recordings, did a lot of TV broadcasts, radio every week.

As a chorister do you end up in a lead role at any point? Is that possible? Or do you come in as a chorister and get…

Rob: Little tiny roles.

Mary: You are allowed to audition for certain little tiny roles and I did a bunch of them.

Then they put the international names in the lead roles?

Mary: Yes. Now we had a few people who tried to make a solo career. They took a leave of absence which you can do. After you’ve been there for five years you’re allowed a year’s leave of absence. Several people attempted it. One just continued through the second year and they wouldn’t take him back. He didn’t make it. Another fellow, they did allow him a second year, but he came back too. He couldn’t make the money that he made as a chorister, strangely.

Rob: It’s tremendously competitive and it’s the politics. There’s not all that much opportunity, certainly in this country. There’s less opportunity now in Europe. There was a time when American singers could go and make a career there, but now they’ve pretty much covered that with their own people.

Mary: Once the wall came down…

Rob: Once the iron curtain came down Eastern Europeans flooded into Western Europe.

Mary: They were willing to work for much less. The Met got a lot of them too. A lot of great voices came out of the Soviet Union. They weren’t used to working for a lot of money, and so they wouldn’t command these great fees that the other ones did.

It makes you value having that “real” job where you sing every single day.

Mary: True. That’s all I ever wanted, was to make my living singing. I didn’t do anything else that well. People would say when I was a kid, “Oh boy, someday you’ll be at the Met.” I said, “I don’t care. That’s not my goal. My goal is to make a living singing.” I made a very meager living singing until I got in the Met.

Look for the second half of the interview in an upcoming issue of the bulletin to find out more about the background of this talented couple. Or hear them for yourself at the Thermal Belt Outreach benefit “Strictly Broadway” at Tryon Fine Arts Center Saturday, December 7 at 3 p.m. Tickets may be purchased at TFAC, The Frog and Swan, The Tryon House, The Bookshelf, or the Thermal Belt Outreach offices at 134 White Drive in Columbus. For more information call 828-894-2923.