Stand Up Straight and Sing! (21 page)

Whenever possible, I pass these words on to the many young singers who wait so very impatiently in the wings for their chance to shine.

I HAD NO GRAND PLAN
as to what I would do next after leaving Berlin; only a bit of work in England. I sent my possessions into storage, packed the necessary things for my new obligations, and off I went.

This professional decision made sense, it seemed, to no one but me. The thought of leaving colleagues who had become good friends, of forgoing a steady paycheck and such benefits offered by the Deutsche Oper Berlin as a month’s vacation and two weeks annually at a health farm in order to preserve one’s fitness for the work, might have seemed ill considered. Yet I gave all of this up to, in my mind, preserve my professional life, my voice; to save myself.

It was not until I was comfortably tucked away in a rented flat in London that I shared my decision with my parents. My father’s reaction was a long silence on the other end of the line. My mother, on the other extension, said something like “Well, I am sure you must know what you are doing. What are you singing in London and do you have a place to stay?”

Thank Heaven for my parents.

Let me say here quickly that only a few years later I was assured that Herr Professor did not hold a grudge. When he was named director of the Vienna State Opera, he was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to sing the very last role he had offered me as a twenty-seven-year old in Berlin, the leading role in
Ariadne auf Naxos
. Then well past thirty, I was more than happy to accept.

I WAS VERY FORTUNATE
during this beginning stage of my professional life to work with great conductors, and to witness the work of other magnificent artists with whom it would be my pleasure to make music later. It was my privilege and honor to perform the songs of Gustav Mahler with the wonderful conductor Rudolf Kempe, who encouraged me to remember the teachings of Carolyn B. Grant: that singing should be a natural and enjoyable expression. When singing words full of sadness and longing, it is our responsibility to bring those emotions and thoughts to the minds of our audience. The dramatic content is important for informing our own performances, he would point out, but it is our duty to “bring the audience to this depth of emotion.” This we do through our musical expression: the cord of empathy from the stage to the audience and back again.

This idea of words and meaning was made ever clear to me one day in a master class at the University of Michigan with the wondrous baritone Pierre Bernac. His book on French singing technique remains a classic, especially for those whose native tongue is English, and should be in the hands of anyone wishing to understand and perform this literature with assurance. His vast experience made it possible for him to offer advice in other languages as well.

A fellow student in the class was attempting the Schubert song “An die Musik” (“To Music”), which is a tribute, a celebration of all that music is. The singer, like the rest of us young and inexperienced, was having trouble understanding Bernac’s instructions about engaging his soul and spirit in the singing of the song.

Bernac then asked the piano accompanist to change the key of the song so that he himself could sing it comfortably, and thereby demonstrate vocally what he had tried to convey in words.

Bernac, a renowned interpreter of the French song now well into his seventies, not having sung in public in many years, showed us all in that moment the importance of every single word. We heard his joy in the very existence of language, of song, of art. The sun suddenly shone, the light enveloped the classroom. No one who witnessed his impromptu performance that day will ever forget it: we understood what it meant to be called a singer. Singers have another level of responsibility beyond that of our instrumental colleagues: we have words, and they must be given their due.

In the early years of my professional life, it was Pierre Boulez who convinced me, very easily, that I would find great artistic joy in the music of the composers of the second Viennese school: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. I relished exploring what to me was rather uncharted territory. These compositions and their particular technical challenges and rewards demand still more attention to our musical offerings, so that audiences that might not have thought themselves ready for a dose of twelve-tone music might just as well go away from a concert refreshed and renewed in their love for the arts in general, having come across something unexpected yet very satisfying.

Indeed, it was most interesting to be told several years later regarding the recording of Schoenberg’s
Erwartung
that was my privilege to make with James Levine and the Met Orchestra, that one writer found “the vocal line to be eminently singable, sensuous and expressive.”

Being in Paris and having the joy of watching the great Karl Böhm in rehearsals for
Die Frau ohne Schatten
of Richard Strauss was pure pleasure along with a good deal of education. The cast included Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, Ruth Hesse, and James King—a dream team! Böhm was always positive in his critiques, and his wry humor made for some interesting exchanges between himself and his very experienced cast. Böhm’s conducting was always at the service of the music in allowing the brilliance of Strauss’s orchestration to shine, but never at the expense of the singers. I watched him work as often as I could, which turned out to be many, many rehearsals and performances. Much later I had the joy of recording Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with him, and we recalled those wonderful days when I first watched him in the mid-1970s in Paris.

Leaving the Deutsche Oper Berlin and finding my way in the world was one of the best decisions I ever made. And when I returned to the operatic stage in 1980, I was vocally fit, prepared, and ready to take on new challenges.

I performed many recitals and orchestral concerts in the United States in the 1970s, having made my debut with orchestra in 1970 at the Temple University Music Festival in Philadelphia, with Dean Dixon conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony. There were many occasions when I would perform operas in the ’70s in concert version. This included
Aida
as well as Mozart’s
Don Giovanni,
both at the Hollywood Bowl. In the mid-1970s, I sang Aida with the Orlando Opera. Yet my actual operatic stage debut in the States came with the Philadelphia Opera in 1982, where we mounted Stravinsky’s
Oedipus Rex
and Henry Purcell’s
Dido and Aeneas.
During the summer of that year, I also had a wonderful experience in the role of Phèdre in Rameau’s
Hippolyte et Aricie
at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence. The words of Racine in this opera filled my heart with joy, as they are exactly the same words as in the play. Racine’s Phèdre just happens to be the one nonsinging role that I have always dreamed of performing onstage, so the opportunity to perform Rameau’s version of Phèdre was a great pleasure.

A year after this, after about a decade of having been considered for various roles by the Metropolitan Opera, I made my debut at the Met singing the role of Cassandra in Berlioz’s
Les Troyens,
for the opening night of the house’s one hundredth anniversary season. It seemed a good time to say, “Yes, I would be happy to join you; thank you.” And it was truly a memorable night in every way. Later, when the occasions arose for me to sing not only the role of Cassandra in what is the first part of
Les Troyens,
but also Dido, in the second part of the opera, I was thankful for the vocal health and physical stamina available to me so as to be able to manage these two roles in the same performance.

PERFORMING AROUND THE WORLD
can provide some very interesting experiences offstage. For example, while making a recording in Dresden, and as is my habit, I started speaking the texts of the recording that I was to make the following day. There was a clock on the wall, and it caught my attention that whenever I started speaking, the second hand on the clock would begin to move. When I stopped speaking, the second hand would stop. It was then that I realized my room was under surveillance. To make absolutely certain that I wasn’t imagining this, I tested the theory, stopping and starting my speech. Again, every time I began to speak, the second hand would move; it would stop when I stopped. Once I was sure of this action and the resulting reaction, I moved to the corner of the room away from the clock and continued reading through my texts. I cannot say that I experienced any real fear, or believed that the surveillance was targeted specifically for me, but it was nonetheless unsettling.

I had a similar experience much later, in St. Petersburg. I was invited there with a group of other Americans in 1990, to celebrate the 150th birthday of the great Tchaikovsky. Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman were participants in this event as well. We were having a grand time. One afternoon I was in my hotel room and found that the temperature was either too hot or too cold, the perfect conditions for catching a cold. I said to my friends who were traveling with me at the time, “I think I will open the window, put something in front of it, so that the air doesn’t rush in and make the room too cold again.” I thought perhaps this would result in a room temperature that was comfortable and safe.

Soon after I had made this remark a hotel staffer arrived at my door with a stack of blankets. I asked her, “How did you know that I needed blankets?” She responded simply and in English, “Someone told me to bring them.” Again, my reaction was more of bemusement rather than fear. Although I found the Cold War and its ramifications often cumbersome, I understood that the world was made up of many thoughts, ideas, and practices, and that one had to take the best parts of life on this planet and treasure them, celebrate them, live them. And that one of the very best, most necessary things in life is freedom.

And when the opportunity arose to help a fellow singer find this for herself, I was willing to assist. Anxious, yes, but very willing.

Mind you, this was prior to 1989. There was no reason to think the Berlin Wall might one day come down. I had become acquainted with a singer from East Germany while making a recording there. She happened to have had a small role in this particular recording.

A short time later, her East German opera company made a guest appearance at the Edinburgh Festival, where I was performing as well. I had rented a small apartment in one of those very grand places outside Edinburgh, with beautiful grounds, flowers, and grass that seemed to go on forever. I was delighted to invite her—let’s call her Claudia—to tea in this splendid house. We enjoyed the views and walked the grounds, and after a time I felt comfortable enough to present my idea.

I began tentatively with something like, “Claudia, you have a marvelous voice, and you’re so very comfortable onstage. You would have a very different kind of professional life were you to simply remain in the West.”

For a few moments, she didn’t respond, but instead stared straight ahead. And then she said, simply, “I have not allowed myself to dream about such a thing.”

She went on to explain that she had job security in East Germany, that the director of her opera company was supportive of her work. And aside from that, her mother had not yet turned sixty-five, which was the age that would make it possible for her to travel freely in and out of East Germany—and therefore she would not be able to join her should Claudia defect. She and her mother were the very best of friends. Her father had long since passed, and she was an only child.

I was not ready to let the subject drop. “Do you think your mother would want you to miss the opportunity of having a more expanded artistic life?”

Claudia remained silent, and we continued our walk. She performed wonderfully with her company at the festival, and left Edinburgh. We remained in touch by occasional phone calls and the odd letter.

Fate, though, is a miraculous thing.

We would meet again in Vienna, and it quickly became clear that by then she was beginning to realize the professional possibilities for her in the West. We took courage in hand, and in quiet conversations, when we were sure that we would not be overheard, we began to think through a possible escape for Claudia from her homeland. She would begin by leaving some of her precious belongings in the West when she was a guest performer at various opera houses. She was becoming quite well known. Together with a friend of ours in Munich, we talked about the subject whenever we thought it was safe—never, ever on the phone—as we arranged to secure everything that would be needed to make this daring plan a success. It took about a year for the three of us to get everything organized.

The whole matter came to a head in, of all places, Vienna, where we would again sing in the same city at the same time. One of the things that had us the most energized was that on that last night, nearly ten years after our conversation in Edinburgh, Claudia would remain in the West. I was present for that performance, and I am not sure that Claudia ever sang better. It was wonderful to hear the expansiveness in her voice—to witness the freedom in her movements onstage—for, surely, freedom waited for her in the wings.

WHEN THE PERFORMANCE
was done, instead of traveling back to East Germany, Claudia changed out of her costume, put her things together, and with the help of our friend, was driven by car to West Germany. Her defection had begun. A friend had arranged a place for her to stay. She was able to obtain all necessary documents required for anyone defecting from East Germany to the West. After a few days she had the courage to advise the director of her opera house of what she had done.

Of course, her mother was distraught, but on Claudia’s side in all of this. And it was truly a time in our lives that was altogether amazing and frightening, because Claudia was free and my pal and I understood well that we could find ourselves in serious trouble. I remained in Vienna for other work while Claudia, in effect, was hiding out in Germany. During that time we did not dare speak by telephone. But in a situation such as this, you go forward. You try to manage each day as well as you can, because it is the only thing to do. We had followed through with a courageous plan and it seemed to have worked. Claudia became a member of one of Europe’s leading opera houses and remained with this company, performing in all of the wonderful roles that she had prepared and portrayed many times with her opera company in East Germany. She blossomed into the complete artist that she knew—that we all knew deep down—she could become. We are still close friends. She always makes a point of calling me at Christmastime and on my birthday. Our meetings these days in the new, undivided city of Berlin are filled with joy, memories of that anxious time, and pure delight.