Stand Up Straight and Sing! (36 page)

Of course, when the questions come, sometimes I cannot resist having a little fun. I love the look on the faces of strangers who cannot resist their curiosity in asking me, “Do you have children?” To which I will reply, “Yes, I have ninety-six this year!” I am naughty enough that I enjoy watching their reactions as they process this response. Sometimes I will ease their confusion by stating, “You see, I have a school of the arts for middle school children.”

In my youth I learned from my own godparents that it is not necessary to give birth to children in order to have them happily and firmly in your life. They had no children of their own, but lavished their care on the children in their circle. I do the same. It just happens that all of my siblings have produced boy children, so with ten nephews I have had the distinct privilege of being surrounded by tricycles and finding half-eaten jelly sandwiches stuck, somehow, to the back of my jacket. Those who know me well caution others that they should not inquire of my family unless they are sitting comfortably, as there will be a long response! I have always adored these children, and now that they are all adults, most with their own children, it is heartwarming indeed that we have lost none of our naturalness and comfort with one another. I love spending time with them in deep, meaningful conversation that is as inspiring as their earliest offerings were charming and adorable. How could I not feel a special warmth from three little boys, about five, seven, and nine, who wished to take me to lunch with the money they saved up, at a restaurant they said they were sure I’d like because, as they so proudly pointed out, “It has pictures of the food on the menu”? How could I not adore the delicious demeanor of these children when they attended their first Detroit Tigers game? My nephews were raised around a lot of celebrated musical artists, so they were accustomed to enjoying live performances by these friends of their parents as well as my own, of course. At this Tigers game, they were sure that they understood how the “audience” is meant to respond. Imagine, then, when, at the baseball game, they found the crowd yelling their approval at something that happened on the baseball diamond, and, as they knew no better, the three of them rose to their little feet to yell, “Bravo!” Priceless.

Who would not find these now adults simply wonderful in taking some of their vacation time of late to travel to New York to try to usher their Aunt J into the twenty-first century, with all the newest technology available, and providing a bit of a tutorial prior to their departure? When one thinks of all the other things that could occupy the time of beautiful, marvelously educated, sophisticated young men, how can I not love them fully and deeply?

Love, ease, joy, friendship—they all grow with the years and plant their roots around me with the sure and always-present power of enduring devotion. I love my men friends. Every single one.

Marriage proposals come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they? From “Why don’t we marry?” to “I think we would make a great team,” to a drive into the French countryside on a glorious summer’s afternoon for lunch that seems too magnificent in its deliciousness to be real, followed in the most leisurely fashion by the presentation of a family crest from Louis XIV, and the most romantic of poetry. Resistance is presented its greatest challenge yet.

The thought of being titled oh so enticing, and with the beauty of that very special day still so alive in my spirit, I rejoice in knowing that I am sensible enough to be thrilled at “the invitation to this particular dance of life,” while at the same time aware of that little streak of Carmen in me—that bird in flight, that freedom that I so cherish.

THE STRONG SPIRITS
of the great women in my own family inspire me. My mother remains the central heroine of my life. The inexorable risings and settings of the sun become a topic not of intellectual discourse, but a part of my own reality. They set the example for me, these ancestral women, by making it clear that the passing of the decades can be a beautiful part of life. But it is surely not for the faint of heart. Aside from the fact of losing those who have offered long-term friendship, love, and companionship, one’s own body can present a plethora of health-related concerns. Even with the acknowledgment of such considerations and changes, we are wise to remain independent in mind and spirit as we strengthen even further those wonderful “ties that bind”—the support that true love and devotion offer us.

A close friend, one who is reaching for age ninety and still travels the world, full of interest in absolutely everything, said to me recently that she looks in the mirror sometimes and wonders,
Who is that old lady?,
as it surely cannot be her, with her fabulous attire and an interesting companion waiting to take her arm. She is one of the very lucky ones. She says she has treated her health always with the respect and care that it deserves. I feel as well now as I did in my forties, she says, as she sweeps out of the door for another evening in her magnificent life.

Still, here in our youth-obsessed world, where popular culture swallows its starlets whole and discards them long before they can blow out the candles on their thirtieth birthday cakes, society would seem to wish only to have the next youthful loveliness to admire. Why not be grateful for those indications of life and living that find themselves on our faces? The wrinkles and lines make a statement of the good and then the not so good that make up our experiences to date.

Besides, what folly it is to dismiss all that comes with these experiences, with living; we should be grateful for every moment. I draw strength and guidance from thinking of the experiences of those who preceded me in this profession. Those ancestral monuments to courage and determination enabled me to consider how I could allow my audiences to know that I realized fully that 1995 was a special year for remembering some of the most shocking displays of inhumanity: fifty years since the end of World War II and the Holocaust that defined that war, that defamation to the soul of the world.

I had programmed the Maurice Ravel setting of a version of the Kaddish in various places prior to 1995, but decided that this would be my statement. I would sing it in all recitals that year and would not need to say more.

Kaddish

***

My recital-performance tour that year would take me back to Japan to cities familiar to me, as well as some that I had not visited on previous occasions. One such city would be Hiroshima.

I wondered if it was even appropriate that an American should perform in such a year in Hiroshima. I had the opportunity to seek the advice of President Clinton regarding my plans to travel and sing there, just in case there could be any concern from my own government in this regard. Perhaps I was worrying too much.

The presenter was certain that this was precisely what he wished. It would turn out that the presenter had been born just days prior to August 6, 1945, the day Hiroshima became the first city in history to be leveled by an atomic bomb, an American atomic bomb; the city of Nagasaki followed three days later. I would learn from the presenter that his life had been saved because he was yet in hospital on that awful day. He wished the two of us to make this music together in 1995. He joked that unlike him, I had waited until the war’s conclusion, even in the Pacific, to make my appearance on earth, and he felt that our lives were somehow connected.

I am not able to describe fully how deeply I took his kindness, the forgiveness to my country that was apparent in all he said, as well as his stated hope of forgiveness for the act of December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor. This gentle, caring spirit, this muse who took, he stated, the greatest of pleasure in watching Hiroshima’s rebirth. There are no trees there that are more than sixty-eight years old; he and everything coming from the earth in his hometown are the same age. Miraculous. Gigantic amounts of replanting have taken place, and the city looks fresh and vibrant and green.

My pianist and I arrived on the stage to a beautiful welcome by the audience and proceeded to offer our program. And almost immediately, I spotted something that I can see as clearly today as I could that beautiful early evening in Hiroshima. In the very first row sat a very young girl of no more than five or six years, dressed from head to toe in red, white, and blue. Her beautiful dress with its full skirt was ivory, and all of her accessories were red or blue or both. I was happy that I had already begun the first song and that my professionalism would take me through until the end, as the vision of this little girl in that time and place was something never to be imagined and surely always to be remembered.

The first part of the program offered the gorgeous harmonies of the late German Romantic period of musical composition, and it was my belief that, given her age and the now later hour in the evening, she would, understandably, be absent for the second part of the recital with Ravel and Messiaen on the program. But no; we returned to the stage after the intermission and there she still sat, smiling from ear to ear, seemingly eager to hear what would come next.

After the performance, her parents told me that they had purposefully had her sleep during the day so that she might remain awake for the entire performance.

She and I shook hands, as I did not feel it appropriate in this culture to embrace a child unknown to me, and to my delight she stated what I can only imagine she had rehearsed hundreds of times: “Welcome to Japan, Miss Norman.”

AN OBSESSION WITH
the culture of youth is simply not in evidence in some parts of the world. In several countries the mature are revered. Take, for instance, the Living National Treasures of Japan: those masters who have achieved a very high degree of skill and recognition in the arts and humanities. The Japanese government recognizes, protects, and celebrates those whose decades of mastery are so crucial to the preservation of the Japanese culture. These individuals are held up as icons and offered amazing reverence and respect.

It was a great honor in 2004 when it was my pleasure to perform Schoenberg’s
Erwartung,
in addition to Poulenc’s
La voix humaine,
in Tokyo, with two such Living National Treasures in the audience.

My colleagues and I were thrilled to know that they were there to witness these very modern stagings, the kind of theater that was still rare in Japan at the time, especially for productions on the opera stage. In fact, we had been concerned about the reception that our presentations might receive in Japan as a whole. My experience to that date in performing in Japan quieted my mind, as I had seen audiences express themselves in ways that I had been warned not to expect—“Western-style” outbursts of appreciation from those steeped in a culture that considered such behavior inappropriate, or so I was told. The reality was quite different.

On my very first visit in the mid-1980s, with the great Seiji Ozawa as conductor for a concert of Strauss and Wagner, we were rewarded with a forty-seven-minute standing ovation. There was nothing quiet or reserved in the audience’s reaction to our music. Thus, I knew from this experience alone that our audiences could well surprise us.

I had often been moved very deeply by the earnestness with which Japanese audience members would express their appreciation of the music. I still have an exquisite, hand-embroidered handkerchief given to me following a recital in Osaka. I was told at the time that this particular piece had been in the giver’s family for more than 150 years. I keep it close.

After the opera performances that evening in Tokyo, it was a lesson in decorum and utter respect to see how beautifully these two actors, these Living Treasures, were treated by everyone. All whom they passed bowed from the waist and remained with head bowed until the actors had passed them by.