Stand Up Straight and Sing! (33 page)

Then came the late summer of 1997, and the world was in mourning at the sudden death of Diana, the Princess of Wales. The tragedy seemed to penetrate the spirits of those who knew her only by name as much as it seemed to affect those who knew her well. Ceremonies took place all over the world in Her Highness’s memory, and I was privileged to participate in New York City’s commemoration held in Central Park.

A very special invitation arrived by courier in this same period. My delicate spirit was in need of a boost of some kind, and the return address indicated the origin of the envelope. I imagined that I was being invited as a guest or program participant for the Kennedy Center Honors again that year. As it happened, the news was quite different: I would receive this recognition myself. This was such a blessing to me that early September of 1997, that on those occasions when I need a bit of lift, I just think back to the lightness, the joy that I felt upon reading those words.

The events of that December weekend were overwhelming in the elegance and attention to detail that were present at every turn. My fellow honorees, Lauren Bacall, Edward Villella, Bob Dylan, and Charlton Heston, made for quite an impressive group, to say the very least. I was overjoyed to be among them.

I had had the pleasure of meeting Miss Bacall previously and so it was a special delight to share this marvelous weekend with her. We were both surprised at how shy our new friend Bob Dylan was; it was at once amusing and puzzling. It soon became clear that he was utterly at ease in a small group, but that the glad-handing and all with fans and huge crowds was truly not for him. The great Villella was always eager to speak about Florida and his dance company and countless experiences. Personally, I was happy to have been able to avoid any discussion of politics with Mr. Heston, who gave the impression of being as delighted with being there as the rest of us. Politics would remain unspoken.

It was a weekend of grand memories to forever cherish and, I tend to think, never to be duplicated—the luncheons and the special dinner at the State Department, the visit to the White House on the day, and the thrill of being seated in the box next to the First Family at the Sunday-evening event.

My family and friends from near and far were with me; it was a wonderful time. And to my utter delight, Sidney Poitier and Secretary Colin Powell spoke on my behalf. Reality was rushing ahead of my dreams.

OUR NATION’S CAPITAL
holds so many wonderful memories for me, from my days at Howard to all that has come after those years. Other capital cities have their own grand and glorious presence. There are so many beautiful buildings in Vienna, for example, that it is rather difficult to know which of these is an actual palace or was, indeed, a palace in previous times. The musical history of this city vies easily for the most outstanding of all.

My first visit to Vienna was not to witness a musical performance but to see this new sensation in the classical dance world about whom everyone was talking: Rudolf Nureyev. All that one had read of his artistic strengths were on view that evening on the stage of the Vienna Opera, and I wondered if his homeland would actually permit his remaining in the west. It did not cross my mind that much later in both our performance lives we would become acquainted—become pals.

My attraction to Vienna was enhanced quite quickly by being invited to sing a recital soon after having been awarded first place in the Bayerischer Rundfunk International Music Competition in 1968. Imagine: I was yet a master’s degree student at the University of Michigan and would sing a recital in the Mozart Hall of the Konzerthaus in Vienna, all in the same period. Peter Weiser was director of the hall and had witnessed part of the Munich competition. I was thrilled, and so began my courtship with this beloved city and this country.

One beautiful autumn afternoon, decades after my very first singing visit, in the Hofburg Palace, now home to Austria’s governmental offices, President Heinz Fischer would award me the highest recognition for the arts of his country, in the most beautiful of surroundings. The ceremony was preceded by a luncheon the likes of which one hardly thinks exists, and there, with my sister, Elaine, having come over from the States and with cherished friends from years of performances in this country, I would be able, in the confidence that comes from the experience that the years can give us, to respond to this wonderful moment in the language of that country. I held the beautiful red box containing the lovely red ribbon and medallion quite close to my heart as I did so. It did not seem as though so much time had passed—that truly I had been a guest of the Salzburg Festival for twenty-five years, or that I had lost count, actually, of the number of recitals in Vienna in the Konzerthaus and in the Musikverein, the concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic. It was all a glorious fantasy.

WITH THE EXPERIENCES
that are mine to enjoy and hold dear forever, it seems churlish, indeed, to offer complaints. One close friend, bless his heart, said to me, “Your trouble is you’re just too simple. You don’t have enough allure. You could do well with some eccentricities.” I laughed and said, “This may be true.” But really, when it comes to “getting on with it,” I don’t require a great deal from others. We’ve all heard of pop stars whose contracts have riders—a list of dressing room accommodations, meals, and specifications for stage design, sound systems, and lighting—that can stretch thirty pages long, single-spaced, for every appearance they make. They want the brown M&Ms removed from the bowls of chocolate delights sitting in each of their dressing rooms, six-hundred-thread-count Egyptian linens for their trailers, and enough fanciful, expensive foods to feed a small nation—or rather, their entourage of thirty band members, backup dancers, roadies, and Men of Unclear Purpose. The demands can be quite stunning; I have seen copies of them for myself. I cannot think of enough things that I could possibly need in order to fill such a number of pages.

And I suppose it helps, not being a pop star. Surely, my requests are simple to a fault. I need only those things that will help me keep my vocal mechanism in top form: unscented soap, unscented tissues, fruit and fruit juice that are not citrus, room-temperature bottled water, and paper cups. Voilà! My pals laughingly insist that I should ask for African violets and orchids flown in from who knows where, just to mix it up a bit. Maybe a crystal bowl with five red jelly beans. But really, none of those things have anything to do with my ability to perform. It takes a lot of energy, a great deal of concentration and determination to present the kind of performance that one wishes to on a stage in front of thousands of people at a time. I find my energy better spent in pursuit of that prize: the performance!

This is one of the main reasons for my wholehearted commitment to the rehearsal process. I believe in rehearsals—not run-throughs, but real rehearsals so that one has a basis from which to be comfortable and spontaneous on the stage. I believe that a quality of spontaneity in the arts results from having prepared, having rehearsed adequately, so that at performance time, the concentration is placed squarely on the job at hand and one can relax and allow the work to unfold in grace.

Unfortunately, adequate rehearsal time is a luxury we do not always enjoy. Opera, after all, is such an expensive affair that a new production rarely has more than four weeks between its first preparation in a rehearsal room and opening night. Four weeks!

We do not practice the ritual that I find so marvelous in the spoken-word theater, where at the beginning of the rehearsal period, all cast members meet together with the director for a read-through of the entire play. In opera such a procedure is termed a
Sitzprobe
(a seated rehearsal), and it comes much later in the rehearsal process, normally just prior to the first stage rehearsal with the orchestra, which occurs rather close to that one week of rehearsal onstage prior to opening night.

Costumes, sets, lighting, all this is realized without the singers being present and often months prior to a production’s presentation. I recall stating to a director of one Wagner production that since the long aria of one of the characters elucidates what my character knows already, without upstaging my colleague and his aria, that my character should not seem as though having a rest at the time, as her sleep would be anything but peaceful. The core of her being is revealed, and I felt there needed to be some indication of this uneasy spirit. The director listened, and then stated, as if patting the silly singer on the head, “But my dear, the lighting was set in our technical rehearsals last summer and there is no light at all on your character during that aria, so your reactions would not be seen!”

That the director considered this to be not only correct but a sufficient response to my concerns was amazing. Can you imagine anyone mounting all of the lighting for a production of
King Lear
without so much as stand-ins for the characters?

In another departure from the habits of the spoken-word theater, at the conclusion of the dress rehearsal for this new Wagner production, no notes were given to the singers, as the director had to leave for the airport to take his plane back to Europe. Amazing.

I HAVE FOUND
that in order for me to remain concentrated and focused throughout performance periods, I must be prepared from the first moment. I do not know how other singers manage their lives, but I have always felt that in order to absorb the rehearsal process, I need to arrive at the first rehearsal having memorized my text, my part, and everyone else’s part. You would be surprised how often I have found this not to be the case. It is astonishing to me that anyone would even think of arriving at the first rehearsal dependent upon looking at the score. But believe me, it happens.

I believe that if we are doing our jobs properly, the essence of what we are singing should be clear. Audience members should not have to rely on a translation on a screen in front of their seats or projected over the top of the proscenium in order to comprehend the story. I study the text until it feels organic. In fact, in poring over a text, I often find myself wanting to wake someone up at three o’clock in the morning to say, “I have finally worked out the arc of that phrase! Heaven be praised.” (I have learned to resist this impulse.)

I remember two distinct occasions at the Metropolitan Opera where my peculiar dedication to words made for some interesting experiences. One was a production of Béla Bartók’s
Bluebeard’s Castle.
Based on a French fairy tale, it is written in Bartók’s native tongue, Hungarian, and the text for our performance was a third-generation translation, first from Hungarian to German and then from German to English. I had not yet studied Hungarian, but it became clear rather quickly that there were meanings, syntax, and contexts lost in the double translation. This would not do. I borrowed Hungarian-English dictionaries and set about retranslating the opera. I was also very lucky to have had made the acquaintance of a trumpet player in New York City who was Hungarian, and one of the families in our village up the river from the city was also from Hungary. I had great support, and for days and days, I worked on the score, retranslating the text so that we could convey this sensational tale in English with rhythm and cadence that I hoped would do justice to the narrative.

Several years later, I was preparing to sing Leoš Janáček’s
The Makropulos Case,
written originally, of course, in Czech. The libretto had suffered the same fate as
Bluebeard’s Castle:
translated into German and then into English. Again, I had a dictionary and support from Czech-speaking friends who helped me understand and translate the original text of the entire opera.

One scene was a particular challenge because it required me to choose from among subtly different shades of meaning.
The Makropulos Case
tells the story of an opera singer who drinks an elixir that preserves her youth for 250 years. Our stage set was pure 1950s Hollywood. At one point in the opera, my character, Emilia Marty, is recognized by a man who realizes that he had had a close relationship with her at some other place and time. He angrily calls her a word that had been rendered in English as
slut
in the translation we were all meant to use, the one supplied by the opera house. My colleague singing that part had not written the few wording changes I had offered into his score. I decided to bring it up with him during a break period when it was possible for us to speak. I told him I understood that he was using the translation we had originally received, but that the word
slut
was too modern for both the time of the opera’s composition (between 1923 and 1925) and the period in which the director had set the opera, the 1950s. The word
whore
would have fit the time period, but that word could prove difficult to enunciate in singing and might have been hard for the audience to understand. So I had proposed we use a word that was definitely 1950s Hollywood:
tramp.

“Try singing that,” I suggested, “and see if that does not make more sense to you. It means the same thing but is more appropriate for the time period in which the opera is set.”

My colleague made it clear that he did not wish me to bother him with my feelings about the translation; he simply wanted to sing his part as it was. Years later, I would learn from a music critic, of all persons, while offering an interview, that this colleague had relayed the story to the journalist, adding the fanciful detail that I had wished to have him change the word for religious reasons.
Religious reasons?
Wondrous!

I AM ALWAYS
grateful for the opportunity to make updated translations of many of the songs I sing, some of which were already a bit arch when they were translated from German or French in the 1920s. I do this because I want everyone to have a true understanding of the song. Certainly, with some opera libretti, we may simply shake our heads and say, “If this were not an opera, I don’t know how we could possibly present this story on stage.” Some operas force us to totally suspend our disbelief and, perhaps, they are not always the very best of literature. But these operas have survived for a reason: their sheer beauty. And even though the words may not be the highest form of literary art, the music has kept them all alive. No one can explain the story of the sensational Verdi opera
Il trovatore
with a straight face, but there is no danger in these great and grand arias leaving the public’s ears . . . ever!