Stand Up Straight and Sing! (18 page)

Each understood that they were placed on this earth for a purpose, and that nothing should inhibit their missions from the Divine. Even in our quiet, intimate moments when I was blessed to be in her presence and I dared to ask her how she felt about the spectacle created by the Daughters of the American Revolution, she did not wish to elaborate on it other than to say, “All of Washington came. I was so glad to be in good voice. The morning was cool and we sang for the people.” That was all.

THE FIRST TIME I
had the pleasure of being in the audience with Miss Anderson on the stage was during my second year at Howard University.

For her performance in Washington on her farewell tour that year, Miss Anderson would sing on the symbolically charged stage of Constitution Hall. The poignancy of this, the history of it all, surely was not lost on us. We students, from all of the colleges and universities in the Washington area, could attend an entire series of concerts sponsored by the Washington Performing Arts Society under the leadership of one fabulous impresario, Patrick Hayes. The charge for the tickets for the entire series was twelve dollars. Naturally, our seats were practically in Heaven, but we cared not a bit, as we were in the hall and the offerings from the stage transfixed us. On this particular evening, there were so many people wishing to greet Miss Anderson after the performance, I worried that Patrick Hayes would have to forgo his practice of allowing the students to step in first to say a quick thank-you ahead of the other audience members. But this was not the case; we were able to be in the very same room. I have no recollection of the words that fell from my mouth upon meeting her, but I hope that at the very least I mumbled “Thank you,” as one of many in the sea of admirers happy to be in her presence.

Only seven years later, in 1972, just two years into my own professional life, I had the wonderful surprise of being present for a performance of
Les Troyens
at the Metropolitan Opera House, on an evening when the great Marian Anderson was in attendance as well. I do not know which made me happier: seeing this production or knowing that Miss Anderson was in the house. Coincidentally, this would be the opera in which I would make my Metropolitan Opera debut in 1983, though such a thought was far from my mind on this particular evening. Meeting Miss Anderson by chance in the lobby of the opera house was more than one could even dream. I was introduced to her. She was as gracious as one could imagine she would be.

“Where were you born?” she asked simply.

“Augusta, Georgia,” I responded, probably too quickly, being rather excited.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I sang there, I think sometime at the end of the forties or the beginning of the fifties, at Paine College, in your hometown.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “And everybody still remembers it, I promise you.”

Of course, I was barely a gleam in the eyes of my parents at the time Marian Anderson graced the stage at Paine College in Augusta, but to this day, a highwater mark in that city and for the college is the memory of “that time that Marian Anderson came to town!”

At the Met, now, a crowd began to form around her and the whole place seemed to be abuzz. In our short, personal time together, I felt an aura—an energy that was unmistakable. There was a kindness and joy there. Surely, there were lots of reasons why she could have displayed quite a different character, but she showed only patience, the patience that comes from knowing oneself fully. I watched from the sidelines as she greeted her admirers with a humility and warmth that were unmatched. I learned a great deal that evening: kindness is its own reward.

Over the years, we forged a friendship and bond that I shall cherish forever. She lived not too far from my home in New York, about forty-five minutes due northeast, in Danbury, Connecticut. I was always struck during our visits by the fact that she was much more interested in what I had been singing and where, than in recounting her remarkable life. I would say something like, “Oh, please, just talk about any of your experiences—I do not mind what. Tell me about any trip or program,” and she would answer, so gently, “No, no, let’s not talk about that. What did you sing in your last performance? Where did you sing this? How did you feel?” That simply amazed me. It still does.

Because life can sometimes offer blessings beyond anything you might hope for, I had the opportunity to sing for Marian Anderson at a matinee performance at the Met in
Ariadne auf Naxos,
of Richard Strauss, conducted by James Levine, with Kathleen Battle in the role of Zerbinetta. The entire cast had been told that she would be present. Miss Anderson was seated in the center box of the parterre, so we could sing the entire performance to her. There was neither nervousness nor worry, even though that performance was being videotaped for an international audience, for the purpose of turning the recording into a DVD. The thought of her presence had a distinctly calming effect on me. I wished only to do the very best that I could, because one of my mothers—one of the people who helped to form me—was sitting in the audience. Miss Anderson served as a wonderful inspiration for that performance, and I was so grateful that she was there. She came backstage afterward, as did the music producer Quincy Jones, also in attendance that day. We took loads and loads of photographs and had a perfectly wonderful afternoon together.

Erlkönig
 • F
RANZ
S
CHUBERT
 • Erl-King

***

6

Growing Up in Germany

“ON MY JOURNEY, NOW”

On my journey now, Mount Zion,

And I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey, now.

One day, one day, I was walking along

When the elements opened, and the love come down,

Well, I went to the valley, but I didn’t go to stay,

Well, my soul got happy and I stayed all day.

You can talk about me just as much as you please,

But the more you talk, I’m gonna bend my knees,

On my journey now, Mount Zion
,

And I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey, now.

I say often that I grew up in Berlin. It was where I came to understand more fully that the world was made up of so very much more than I had imagined or studied. The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and of course this historical event was discussed in our high school history classes. Yet it was quite another matter to arrive in this city and experience the starkness of the wall firsthand, and to find that “Checkpoint Charlie” was nothing more than a series of temporary metal-and-glass sheds, and that crossing from West Berlin into East Berlin with an American passport was a matter of walking across a street. No bridge, no overpass—just a short walk to the other side of a city street. The distance was not very far, but the divide—economically, politically, socially, and yes, culturally—for a people with a common heritage could hardly have been wider.

My mind expanded there. I learned a great deal in a relatively short time. For instance, I was introduced to the great works of German expressionism—something that I do not recall having studied in my art history courses. I was fascinated by the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. East Berlin served as a major part of my world university. And I was a sponge absorbing it all. I was engaged to sing at the opera house in West Berlin, yet I would spend a great deal of time on the other side of that menacing wall.

I came to know students and their families, and to find that the wall prevented travel for anyone under the age of sixty-five who wanted to leave the Eastern bloc, beyond what one referred to as the Iron Curtain. I was asked by adults not that much older than myself to describe Paris—to talk of the city lights, the River Seine, and the Eiffel Tower—or even something closer, such as the grand concert hall in West Berlin, the Philharmonie. “What does it all really look like?” they would ask.

Until then, I considered my education to have been well rounded, while understanding at the same time that one never really stops learning. But this experience of East Berlin and its sister countries across such an awesome political divide was profound. The warning to never take anything for granted was driven into my consciousness in a new way.

Having been raised in the United States, with the blessing of fresh fruits and vegetables from my grandparents’ farm and the variety of foods available at the neighborhood grocery stores, it was surprising to visit a part of the world where you could go for two years without coming across oranges for sale, or where you would have to be up at 4:00
A.M.
in order to have a chance at purchasing a loaf of fresh bread.

Yet despite such deprivation, or more likely because of it, the arts thrived. The concert halls and opera houses were always full in Eastern Europe. People arrived at arts performances early, long before the scheduled starting times, to take their seats. I experienced a deeper understanding of the power of music, the transformation that can come from gazing upon a great work of art. In Eastern Europe, the arts provided a source of strength and spiritual nourishment that could not be taken away by the building of a concrete wall or the denial of civil rights—of human rights. The human spirit would not succumb even in the midst of such politically inspired cruelty.