Do You See Me? by Emmanuel Henreid

by Emmanuel Henreid

You may have heard Emmanuel Henreid practicing Italian arias around downtown Portland? Maybe you heard about him when his National Anthem duet with a Portland State University student went viral? Or you were witness to his rendition of Stand by Me at the Waterfront Park protests? This is his story.

I have felt like the poster child. You dress up, you play the part, and then go home into a world that looks nothing like the opera. I’ve been on stage and have seen people in the audience. After the show, they give me a thumbs up, “Good job.” Then I take off, you know, the wardrobe and makeup, and I’m walking home, and I try waving at people. They grab their purses and pull their partners closer. They don’t speak, they don’t use their words. Are they ashamed of their fear? Once I saw an audience member and said, “Hey, did you enjoy the show?” They replied, “Yeah, I enjoyed the show. You should see it sometime.” “Ah, thanks. Actually, I was on stage.” “No way. That is so cool. Wait, you mean you were on stage?”

I was the only Black man on the stage that night. What conclusion can I draw from that experience other than “people don’t see me”? As an artist, my role is to bring them into an adventure on stage. Yes, I want them to see me as part of a story. But outside of that, they don’t necessarily see me.

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, often called “the Whitest City in America.” I’m a Black singer, dancer, actor, composer, and musician. I’m an opera singer and a contemporary, soulful artist. I’m an educator. I strive to bring all these worlds together and bring culture and diversity to my listeners. At around seven years old, I turned on the TV one day, and there was an opera on. It was on the only channel that came through at the time. I sat down, and I started to recognize the grand gestures of the 1990’s Marvel superheroes in the themes of opera. I observed some connection between superhero culture and what I saw on TV, classical opera music. We think opera is a stuffy thing, but through this seven-year old’s eyes, it was villains, people cheating on one another, hearts being broken, death, and betrayal. It was fascinating. With that in mind, I said, “This is what I want to do.” My mother also wanted to be an opera singer. She auditioned and was accepted for the Portland Opera. Then someone came along and told her that she couldn’t do it because she had three kids. She gave up that dream.

When I was ten years old, my father passed away, and there wasn’t a lot of conversation around his death. That year was a very silent year for me. One thing that stood out to me during that time was music. I would sing to myself. I’d weep and cry. I would sing hymns from church. Songs would comfort and console me. Frequently, I’d be singing at one or two o’clock in the morning, crying and weeping myself to sleep. It comforted me. And yes, I would hear, “[knock-knock]...you need to cut that out. Cut that out, son. It’s late, like, stop that.”

Music was a real, tangible thing for me. My whole family sang, but I didn’t have any training. My aunt once said that the gift wasn’t given to me: “you need to grow up and be a doctor, because you didn’t receive the gift.” I accepted that. I was allowed to walk to church by myself for the first time. Along the way, a snarling dog ran straight at me and into a fence that toppled a little bit. I was like, “That was a close call.” He kept on hitting the fence, and eventually, the fence fell over. This dog was charging in, and all of a sudden, I used a big, grand voice. The dog stopped. I was thinking to myself, “This dog is listening to me. This is strange.” I continued to talk to the dog, yelling with a huge voice. My voice was traveling at least a block and a half, trying to get this dog’s attention and tell him to back down. The dog stopped and turned around. A voice did live inside me. My voice was big. There was something about it that was convincing, honest, authentic, real. It had command to it. I used that same commanding voice to sing. I eventually started to mimic the classical sound used by opera singers. I knew I had command, emotion, and healing in me. I started to cultivate those things. I studied for about three hours a day in my garage. Then I began to compete. Two years later, I became the number one high school-aged opera singer in the state of Oregon.

Often, I was told that I should not sing classical music because my voice was “soulful.” It was implied that the Black color of my skin was connected to soul music. I was told I should stick with what I know. That was a subtle way of saying, “You’re African American; this type of music is not meant for you.” Years later while I was making gospel music (and trying to keep my gospel and opera singing worlds separate) I had a chance to tour as a background singer for Josh Groban. I noticed a moment of entanglement between pop music and gospel music in his “You Raise Me Up”: gospel backgrounds, classical singer in front. I thought, “There might be a niche to this.” Today, I am using the same technique. I write original music that combines soul, indie, traditional classical music, and Black gospel music. I’m fusing those into an EP called “Livin’ in the Light.”

The human voice can be strengthened by working on intonation, vibrato, breathing, and other technical things. But I believe everyone has a voice, and everyone can sing. Some people have it naturally, and other people, like me, have to work for it by studying and training for hours a day for years.

All opera singers are linguists. You have to study about three or four different languages to sing in the opera. On my first day working as a professional opera singer, I met a Slavic woman who was the opera building custodian. She greeted me, and we had a brief conversation in Russian. She told me that no one had spoken to her in weeks because her English is broken. She appreciated me taking the time to talk to her. I went down to rehearsal. Then the artistic director, who had briefly noticed that conversation, approached me, “So, your last name is French?”

I said, “Yes, it is.”

She said, “...but you speak Russian.”

“A little.”

She said, “You also speak French?”

“Yes, some French.”

At that moment, she looked me in the eye, and there was a full pause. She said, “What are you, a part of the witness protection program or something?”

We both laughed awkwardly. Then she looked at me again. I realized that if I said that I was a part of the witness protection program, that would be more convincing than for me to be an African American young person who was also an opera singer. I realized from that moment, all eyes were on me, questioning why I was in the room. My interaction with the artistic director motivated me to pay attention and to show up. Learn the music, just learn the music, figure it out, do your best to shine. I did. I eventually recorded a few things with OPB, had photoshoots, I was heavily involved with the company. Other doors began to open up as well. But it was odd and lonely.

A friend of mine performed in The Color Purple. She was getting on the subway in New York, and someone called her a “Black b****.” They said, “Move out of the way.” They pushed her out of the way, and they got onto the subway. It almost made her late for her show. When she got to the show, she performed, and that night, they had a standing ovation. Afterward, the company offered a talkback. Everyone was signing autographs. That same man who called her a “Black b****” came up to her and said, “That was the most amazing performance. Thank you so much...” raving and raving and raving about her performance, asking for an autograph. She looked at him with a blank face like, “You don’t see that I’m that Black b**** that you pushed off the subway. You don’t see me at all.” Is that show business?

How can we create a culture of honor and dignity, or simply one of, “I see you, you’re here, you’re human, you’re like me”? Classical music is mostly a European, white form of music. Currently, I’m in a Black opera with an all-Black cast singing about gentrification and it’s encouraging. Most African American singers come from gospel, jazz, and rock & roll backgrounds. Our culture was the genesis of those genres. To do an opera about the gentrification history of Portland (initially, a White utopia) is wild. I didn’t always feel wanted in my city; my family was allowed to be here.

I grew up in the ghettos of Portland. There were ghettos, believe it or not. One summer, there were six killings — people didn’t happen to die; these were murders. To grow up in an environment like that, and then to arrive and work within an opera community, singing week after week inside auditoriums with predominantly White audiences, is quite a tension, quite a dichotomy. I address that tension by using my voice in public. I sing in clubs, bars, churches, on street corners, anywhere I can reach people with the unique joy of making. Let the music wash over you. Remind yourself of your own power and resilience.

White families created zoning that didn’t allow Black families to be in specific spaces. I would hear, “Let’s get rid of the riff-raff. It’s wrong. It’s bad—crime rates. There’s no good in this space. Let’s totally change it. But not only change it, but push everyone out that doesn’t look like us.” It’s hurtful. There are two stereotypical roles for African American men in entertainment: either you are overweight and funny, or you are a muscular, sex symbol. Very few characters have anything in between. If you’re short, skinny, this or that, you’re not fit for the camera, you’re not fit for the role. I have to break that mold and do that work. Whether in activism and speaking or singing and living, it’s important to encourage other creatives to not fear or feel like they’re alone.

I recently had a chance encounter with another singer from Portland State University on the streets of Portland. A video of our spontaneous duet went viral. ABC, MSN, Fox, and The Today Show, everyone was reaching out. What’s so compelling about a quick rendition of the national anthem? I believe people were compelled by raw moment because music is inherently healing. I’ve been using music to unite the disparate groups, subcultures, and identities within my communities and within myself. Whether it’s performing with our opera, leading protest songs in a civil rights march, or singing traditional Black gospel music, I am using music to heal myself and others.

We’re losing the power of the voice. We’ve designed a sanitized society in which we’re afraid to advocate for ourselves and speak out about right and wrong. We’re addicted to technology, which is most usually a silent form of communication. We have to wonder why it’s so scary to do karaoke in front of even our closest friends. There’s something vulnerable about using the voice. The voice is very telling. Now is the time to reclaim the voice.

After performing all across the world and learning to sing in five languages, is singing in public enough for me, as a Black man, to belong here in Portland, in America? After investing $150,000+ into my training as a professional musician, is that enough? America, is that enough for you to see me in my complexity, in my multitudes, and include me in your future vision? Why are Black men tasked with being extraordinary as a prelude to belonging?

Artists, not politicians, will be the ones to envision, collaborate around, and organize around whatever our post-COVID reality will be. The future is our potential, our right, our responsibility. I invite all artists across America to respond to this cultural moment. Please harmonize with me. Let’s continue to show up and engage with the crucial questions of race, class, and equity that face us now.