Tuesday night, Plishka will probably be much calmer, even though he'll sing much more as the Count des Grieux in Massenet's Manon -- a performance that will mark the 30th anniversary of his Met debut.
Even so, Plishka's formative years were on this side of the Hudson -- at the auditorium of Paterson School 26.
Plishka got involved with opera almost by accident, after his family moved from Old Forge, Pa., to Clifton.
"At high school, my teacher was Louis Bisio, who was an aspiring opera singer. He heard me singing in the high school chorus and asked me to be part of the school's production of Oklahoma! I was Jud Fry, and I really enjoyed doing that," Plishka says. "Then Mr. Bisio asked me to join the opera company he and some friends were forming. I really didn't know anything about opera, but I liked him very much, so I said, 'Sure, I'll do it,' and I did and it became addictive. I just fell in love with opera."
From the time he was 17 years old until he went to the Met, Plishka sang with the Paterson Lyric Oera, the workshop company founded by Bisio and Armen Boyajian that flourished during the Sixties and early Seventies. "I didn't just sing with them," Plishka adds. I helped build and paint the scenery and set it up onstage and I drove the truck to and from the theaters where we performed." Boyajian became his first and only voice teacher.
One of the high points of his career came not at the Met but in Kiev, where Plishka -- the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants -- sang the title role of Boris Godunov.
"When my grandparents left Ukraine around 1910, they were very poor and were coming to the New World for a new life for themselves and their families. Now in 1988, I'm invited to sing Boris at the opera house in Kiev. The people at the theater treated me like Caesar returning after all his conquests, and there was a moment during the performance that was just so special to me: It's where they crown Boris czar. There I was, dressed in these robes of gold, with a huge crown on my head and the orb and scepter in my hands, and at one point, they came in with these trays of gold coins and pour them over Boris's shoulders.
"I couldn't help but think of my grandparents, leaving Ukraine on a boat the way they did with just a bag and an old suitcase and coming to the New World, and here I was, their grandson, returning to Kiev, standing there with gold pouring over my shoulders.
I could almost feel my grandparents up above me, looking down with tears in their eyes, seeing that all the sacrifices they had made during their lives had come to this."
Still, he believes his greatest artistic triumph came when he sang one of the greatest comic parts of all, the title role of Verdi's Falstaff, which he did at the Met in 1992.
"I didn't realize when I was offered that role just how great it is and just how special it would be to perform the role at the Metropolitan Opera with James Levine and that orchestra and that production company. When I finished the performances, weeks and weeks went by, and I missed that character so badly. I felt a loss as if someone very close to me had died."
Although he has sung all the biggest bass-baritone roles, Plishka doesn't bat an eye at taking on a smaller part, like the Count des Grieux in Manon.
"I think a theater like the Metropolitan has to put forward the best it has to offer, and if I can help make a production better with my characterization or my voice, I'm happy to do that. I do a lot different repertoire now, and some of the roles are like cameo parts. People have asked me, 'Why are you doing these small roles?' and I've told them, 'For me, today, the performances don't end anymore.' You know, it's almost like I'm doing one long performance. It's not small or large any longer, just one endless performance."
Besides appearing at the Met, Plishka gives recitals with orchestra or solo piano, and this season will sing one of particular significance to New Jersey residents: On Oct. 21, he joins conductor Zdenek Macal and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the "Chorale." Also appearing will be soprano Gabriela Benackova, mezzo Marietta Simpson, tenor Gary Lakes, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. The concert will be the first by the symphony in its new home, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, and the first concert of the orchestra's 75th-anniversary season.
