Soprano Margaret Russell Feels At Home On Two Continents

It's been 15 years since mezzo-soprano Margaret Russell went off to find fame and fortune in Germany, after capping her University of Washington career with a victory at the Metropolitan Opera auditions in New York.

Now, with regular appearances in several German opera houses, a thriving concert career and a faculty post at a conservatory in Essen, Russell and her family are happy American-German hybrids who feel at home on both continents.

Russell marks her return to Seattle on vacation this week with a concert with her expatriate pianist colleague, Christopher Arpin, tomorrow in Haller Lake United Methodist Church, 13055 First Ave. N.E., at 7:30 p.m. (donation; 362-5383). The two will perform operatic arias from "Carmen," "La Cenerentola" and "The Marriage of Figaro," as well as songs of Aaron Copland and Seattle composer Carol Sams.

In the 1970s, when Russell and her husband, Dennis Van Zandt, first ventured across the Atlantic, Germany was something of a mecca to aspiring young American opera singers. Nearly every town of any pretensions to size and culture has an opera house; singers are paid employees of the city, with regular vacations and health benefits and pensions, so a German opera contract can really allow a singer the time and conditions to blossom and grow.

But the costs also can be high. It's much more difficult to get work in post-reunification Germany, with an influx of Eastern Bloc singers and the closure of several opera houses. Many young Americans who did land jobs have felt trapped in a foreign setting, swamped by discontented spouses and culture-shocked children, longing for MTV and Dave Barry and decaf lattes.

"I guess we've really been lucky," says Russell of her family (which now includes two children, Javan and Rachel).

"Dennis has put up with me all these years; we're celebrating our 20th anniversary in November. And we like both places. The kids really look forward to coming back to Seattle on vacation, but they are German kids, too - especially Rachel, who is answering us more and more in German." The family usually speaks English at home, though both children have grown up in German-language schools.

More than once, the Russell/Van Zandt family has raised the issue of whether to move back to America. Inevitably, they've decided to return to Essen, where Russell signed her first contract as a singer, because of the lower cost of living and the greater job security for both parents (Van Zandt is an orchestra manager and also sings in the Essen Studiochor).

Sometimes there are frustrations. It's easier now than in the beginning, when friends shipped packages of Doritos and "Saturday Night Live" episodes to the homesick couple (unfortunately, the video systems in Germany and the USA aren't compatible). Nowadays, American expatriates can keep up with details of the O.J. Simpson hearings via CNN.

Schools are unquestionably better in Germany, particularly in the "Gymnasium" (the high schools for college-bound youngsters, which extend through the 13th grade and are very challenging), Russell says. Both of Russell's children are in one of Essen's toughest Gymnasium schools, where teachers figure there's something wrong with a test if a majority of the class does well on it.

Last October, Russell took a step she had long shied away from: a teaching career of her own. She now has eight private students and eight students at the conservatory, the Essen Folkwangshochschule, where she teaches in the musical theater department.

Russell is careful to keep the teaching from being an impediment to her performance career, which takes her from Kiel on the Baltic Sea to Bonn as a guest artist. Among her recent successes were a starring role in Massenet's "Werther" at Bremerhaven, and concerts in the annual American Music Week at Bonn. The latter city is where Arpin is based, as coach at one of Germany's largest and most cosmopolitan opera houses.

"I'm not aggressive about promoting myself," confesses Russell.

"I'm not out there calling agents and trying to get more work. Fortunately, I keep getting invited back, which is such a good feeling. And coming home is a great feeling, too."