Stand Up Straight and Sing! (28 page)

I am ever grateful to Richard Strauss for having produced so much beautiful music that is particularly suited to the female voice. From the moment I heard Strauss’s
Vier letzte Lieder
(
Four Last Songs
), I wished to sing them. They remain such an integral part of my repertoire that I cannot imagine my singing life without them. In fact, some years ago, representatives from Strauss’s family presented me with a large portrait of the composer during the Salzburg summer festival. It is one of my most treasured possessions, but I keep only a small photo of the portrait on display in my bookroom, as the portrait really needs a bigger space than my home can provide.

I admire the critical acclaim that Strauss enjoyed during his lifetime as well as the financial success that came with his being a celebrated composer. Strauss is believed to be the first composer to have received royalty payments from the publication and performance of his compositions. Think of all the composers who preceded him who could not so much as have dreamed of such good fortune.

Sometimes I think what a beautiful thing it would be to go back in time and invite Franz Schubert to dinner. A composer with music in his every pore, who gave us nearly a thousand works of art in his short lifetime, Schubert was barely able to sustain himself financially. I fantasize about planning the grandest of dinner parties for him and then sending him on his way after a fine supper, to return again soon, for another.

Even in the last years of his bountiful life, Strauss was evolving, creating, and learning—and composing what I feel to be some of his most enduring works. The poems he employed in
Four Last Songs
—“Im Abendrot” (“Glow of the Evening”), by Joseph von Eichendorff, and “Frühling” (“Spring”), “September,” and “Beim Schlafengehen” (“On the Sleep Eternal”), by Hermann Hesse—are quite simply magnificent. “Beim Schlafengehen” embodies the calm, peace, and expectations that should come with the end of one’s physical life: the wonders of the afterlife—“You will fly on wings of light and glory into a life anew.” What a wonderful thought: the afterlife as something beautiful that beckons us and that we should not fear. It is a thought that other cultures have embraced as well. The Chinese, for example, have held this idea for thousands of years, believing that we spend our lives on earth preparing for the next experience. Then there is the celebration of spring in “Frühling,” welcoming new growth out of the somber mood of winter. For me, this song is spiritual in a profound way. Trust in the newness, the certainty that the bare trees will fill with green, and flowers, long asleep, will awaken with such glorious colors to gladden any spirit. The cycle of life.

I find particular enjoyment in “September,” since September happens to be my birth month, and the beauty of the change of seasons at this time of year has always been special to me. Remember the thrill of falling into a pile of colorful autumn leaves that were green just weeks prior? Think of the scent of autumn, the coolness that greets the morning dew and comes again with the early setting of the sun.

“Im Abendrot” is for me a grand celebration of the fullness of life: the joys and the sadness, lived hand in hand with another; a connection of the heart and the soul until the end.

“The time for rest from this life is near as all becomes quiet and calm in this stillness, in this waiting.”

Who would not feel blessed to be able to share the experience of these songs with an audience?

Speaking of the Chinese philosophy of the afterlife, I must also mention Mahler’s
Das Lied von der Erde,
the text of which is translated from Chinese into German. This wonderful composition for two voices is a full-length symphonic work that never ceases to inspire in its celebration of the peace and joy of life on earth expanding into eternal life: the philosophy of spiritual continuance as a never-ending phenomenon. My gratitude in being able to perform these two spectacular compositions, the Strauss and the Mahler, is without bounds.

JOINING THE WORLD
of Italian opera on a stage served already by a truly stunning array of singers, masters of this repertoire, did not hold my interest. Other than
Tosca,
I cannot really claim personal interest in the stirring and ever popular operatic roles of Puccini. I did perform
Aida
in the beginning years of my singing life, and made recordings of some of Verdi’s first operas. Lady Macbeth is, for me, probably the most fully captivating of the Verdi roles. This grabs and holds fast my attention.

I live so happily in my wide mélange of periods of composition, composers, styles, and genres. Bach, Handel, Purcell, the music of
la belle France,
the German romanticism that is at the center of my “to sing” list, along with endless choices from the first and second Viennese schools, keep me up late at night in preparation and as happy as can be onstage. Not to mention music composed here and now, and my boundless devotion to the songs of the American musical theater and all that jazz!

Richard Wagner’s operas provide me with truly tremendous performance experiences. Yet I doubt that he and I would have been friends, given his well-documented, limited embrace of humankind. But there his music sits in the virtual center of my operatic repertoire.

I think one has to separate the character of the composer from the art. If we were to judge art according to the character of those who created it, we would dismiss a lot of artists, and miss some truly magnificent art. We would be bereft of a great deal of glorious music. I do not welcome those occasions when one is expected to “justify” a love of Wagner’s music and a desire to perform it: I am happy to leave that debate to those who prefer not to view the operas of Richard Wagner simply as a gift. That this inspiration landed in the mind and heart of a person whose character might not be compatible with ours is one of those accidents, one of those purposeful accidents of nature.

Music has great power and can have meaning attached to it far beyond a composer’s intentions and purpose. Such is the music not only of Wagner, but also of Richard Strauss: Wagner because of reasons that are well known, but also Strauss, whose work during the period of the Nazi regime calls into question his actual political beliefs. I was therefore somewhat surprised when, while planning for the 1994 concert season of the Israel Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta suggested that we program songs by Strauss. He stated that he and the orchestra had performed Strauss’s tone poem
Till Eulenspiegel
the previous season and that the music had been accepted. Still, I had my concerns.

I agreed to go forward with this plan of offering our program of the songs with the proviso that I would make clear publicly that I remained in complete and utter sympathy with anyone who might be offended by our programming. I also wanted to assure the Israel Philharmonic’s thousands of subscribers that I would be returning to Israel with other music in the not too distant future. The print interviews took place and were completed even prior to the first rehearsals with the orchestra; I was more settled and ready for the work ahead, once they were done.

When rehearsing for the first time with an orchestra, I always sing while facing the musicians, so that we all can get to know one another a bit better, and such was the case with the Israel Philharmonic. My heart skipped a beat or two when I noticed the intense joy in some of the faces of the orchestral members as they played—many for the very first time—Strauss’s song “Zueignung,” a song about devotion in its strongest, most sincere of terms. After rehearsing others of the five songs I would perform, I could see the orchestra members relax into allowing themselves to participate with their hearts, too, in their always splendid playing. It was such a special moment. Richard Strauss was not given absolution, perhaps, but his music was allowed to find a place in some new spirits and minds.

In order to accommodate the thousands of subscribers to the orchestral concerts in Israel, the performances are offered several times, and this was our plan here, as well.

Meanwhile, friends who could not be with me were keeping close tabs on things, as they knew that there was the possibility for unpleasantness. So I was not surprised to hear the fax machine churning in my room on the early morning of the first performance. I did not get up to read the transmission immediately, thinking that it was wiser to get a bit more rest on a performance day. There seemed to be a bit more commotion outside my window than on previous days, too, but I allowed this to happen without being too concerned.

It was only after rising and reading the fax that my heart sank. A friend had seen on television that for the first time in Tel Aviv, a bomb had gone off on a city bus. I was advised to turn on the television news, which I did. Upon discovering rather quickly that my hotel was a short walk from the scene of the bombing, I wondered what would happen as a result of this attack. Soon after, the orchestral manager called to inform me that the evening’s concert would go forward and that I should not worry.

At Mann Auditorium that evening, concert preparations seemed to be moving at a normal pace. It helped that Zubin Mehta was very supportive and assured me by saying something like, “Music will help at such a moment.” I did not doubt the premise, but really, I was concerned about our choice of repertoire on this particular day, in this particular city.

The concert went very well, and at the end, the maestro asked if I might sing an unaccompanied Spiritual. As this was an unusual request following a performance with orchestra, where in normal circumstances an encore would have been prepared with the orchestra accompanying, I was at first surprised. Yet I agreed readily to sing; I understood that these were not normal circumstances. At the very moment that I began to say, “I wish to sing in memory of those who lost—” someone from the audience yelled out, “Don’t mix politics and music. Just sing!” And I obeyed.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

—Nietzsche

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

—Plato

Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

—Jimi Hendrix

Another opportunity to perform in Israel came in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this great nation. I was so honored to be invited to sing. It was high summer and the performance would take place in a momentous location. Standing atop Masada on that very warm July day, I thought repeatedly of the history of this mountain and of how that history, so many, many years ago, mirrored that of my own ancestors, and I was moved to tears more than once during the course of the experience. I would sing in Hebrew. I had rehearsed and rehearsed, and I was prepared. I was to sing “Jerusalem” live, but to a soundtrack the orchestra had recorded two days prior to the filming. This was a very special difficulty, as no matter the number of takes needed in order to achieve the preferred camera shots, I would be obligated to sing the song the same way each time, for each rehearsal on the site.

I soon fell into the habit of doing this, and was helped magnificently by the very special television crew from Tel Aviv as well as the representatives from CBS, the network that would broadcast the telecast in the States. Everyone was professional and extraordinarily kind and attentive. I promise you that the dressing room that had been created for my use on the side of this mountain would rival any of the very best that it has been my privilege to have available to me closer to the ground!

My one and only concern throughout the filming rehearsals was for the safety of the head cameraman, who was positioned in a helicopter, attached along with his shoulder camera by a harness to the inside of the helicopter. He sat on the floor of this flying machine with the door open and his legs dangling over the edge. Of course I understood that he would be able to take some wonderful shots from that angle, but I still worried, and wondered who in the world would do such a thing!

While camera angles were rehearsed, I worked with the makeup artists, as such considerations are very different in outdoor lighting settings, as opposed to controlled indoor-lighting setups. The assistance here of a person who became a wonderful friend, Ruta, provided a natural calming agent in this unusual situation, and I still thank her for the care and concern during the long periods of standing in the sun, the redo more than once of hair and makeup, all the while going through every word of the song in my mind .
 
.
 
. waiting.

We wished to wait for the setting of the sun for the “real” filming, so all had to be prepared since, when the time arrived, we would have but one chance to get the shot. In the end there were a lot of rehearsals for a song that would take only about three minutes to perform. We were ready.

The hour arrived: the words in Hebrew were now welded in my brain, the helicopter cameraman, Ilan, was in place, and we went forward with all our might.

Those wonderful crew members and I are still fast friends. This was an important moment in time for us all.

OTHER THAN IN
the midst of such unusual events as singing atop Masada, I am not flustered when it comes time to go onstage. The one thing that can cause anxiety, though, is a lack of rehearsal. I am not one to arrive the night before an opera performance to be introduced to the person playing the role of my beloved, or to be given a day’s notice as to who will be standing where on the stage. This manner of working is just the thing for some of my colleagues, but I resisted such habits even as a beginning singer in Europe, where it is easier to hop from one opera house to another due to the shorter distances. My spirit is not in an ideal state in this kind of situation. I enjoy the time spent in getting ready, with everyone involved.