The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer (19 page)

In scheduling I also need to think carefully about how different roles will be juxtaposed. Extreme changes in styles of singing aren’t recommended for vocal longevity, as they can fatigue and stress the muscles and weigh negatively on nerves and technique. One of the factors cited to explain the early decline of Maria Callas is that she sang Verdi, bel canto, and even Wagner roles back-to-back. Fortunately, I have never really been asked to sing “everything.” Sir Georg Solti suggested Isolde, Leonore in
Fidelio,
and Leonora in
La Forza del Destino
during our three years of work, but I knew that he simply felt that he wanted to hear a voice he loved in whatever he was conducting. Alternatively, some mixture of opera, concerts, and recitals, as long as there are a few days in between for turnaround, does my voice good. Too much consecutive Mozart can have me singing in too controlled a fashion, fearful of singing out, while too much singing at the opposite extreme of my repertoire can make it more difficult for me to sing softly and with refinement. While I have always felt compelled to sing the greatest variety of music possible, I have been careful to keep it all within appropriate vocal parameters.

Planning and programming a recording is a collaborative effort involving Decca, my management, and myself and is a surprisingly arduous process, as it involves deciding not only what repertoire, but when and with whom. In a perfect world, I could choose a repertoire that suited my voice, that I adored, that extended from the popular to the unknown; the repertoire would already have been performed and layered; and the quality of the conductor and orchestra, or the pianist, would be on the highest level. Obviously, this isn’t a perfect world. When I recorded Strauss’s
Vier Letzte Lieder
with Christoph Eschenbach and the Houston Symphony, I had never sung this cornerstone of the soprano concert repertoire, a piece that already boasted many wonderful recordings. Using twenty-four different interpretations—some commercially recorded and some pirated performances—I tried to come to terms with the recorded history of the piece. Fortunately, since it had been premiered in 1950, this was possible, beginning with the great Norwegian dramatic soprano Kirsten Flagstad, who sang the first performance. Armed with that knowledge, I then began to forge my own interpretation, to make the piece my own, without the experience of performances. An interpretation exists because of what we find between the notes, and it is the only way for us, other than by timbre, to make ourselves distinctive. A brilliant execution of any phrase is only the beginning. Can something fresh be said with it? Can something personal be expressed? We dream that one day our talent, intelligence, and inspiration can take us from being a singer to the exalted station of artist.

In past times, a Jon Vickers could record his first
Otello,
as he did for RCA, before ever having performed the role onstage, and still have a chance to record it again, fifteen years later, and film it, too. More recently Plácido Domingo has made three recordings and several video versions of
Otello
. Nowadays, it is unrealistic to think that singers will have that many opportunities to record even their most central roles. So, the decision to make a particular recording, and at a particular point in a singer’s career, has to be very carefully weighed. Fortunately, there are a few advantages to this situation. Because I don’t have time to discover my limitations through the medium of performances, I tend to take more risks, especially with a conductor like Christoph, who doesn’t hesitate to test the limits. There is also a freshness in performing pieces for the first time that never quite returns as more depth is added to interpretations. This is one reason that I enjoy mixing some new works into my recorded repertoire as well as in recital programming. In actually choosing the repertoire, I hail from the school of pedantic research, so in the case of my recent Handel CD I needed to explore every suitable aria I could get my hands on. I never want to run the risk of accidentally passing over some lesser-known jewel because I wasn’t willing to take the time to dig through piles of manuscripts. Beginning with a list of music I already know, I often end up rejecting most of these original choices because I get so excited about new discoveries. Next, I had to decide what the focus of the recording should be: Italian arias? Secular or sacred? Mixed baroque repertoire, or only George Frideric himself? I’m aided in this process by the record company, its marketing staff, my management, and ideally the expertise of a musicologist. Polling is still one of my favorite tools, and I conduct it among my own professional advisers, friends, and parents.

Recital programming is arduous to say the least. Jean-Yves Thibaudet and I spent countless hours reading through stacks of song literature to come up with our program for the recording
Night Songs
. We started without a clear-cut concept and through trial and error eventually realized that we were gravitating toward music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I wanted to be sure that Jean-Yves was pianistically challenged enough to warrant his collaboration, while also choosing pieces that suited me well. I approach every recording as if it could be my last one, which makes the selection process into a nail-biting frenzy. This same obsessive attention goes into the programming of my recital tours. My goal is to please most of the people some of the time: a balance of well-known gems, a few obscure discoveries, virtuosic display, and more intimate fare. It is difficult to second-guess the public’s wishes for an evening of song, but I try to consider the differences among audiences in Sydney, Zurich, and Kansas City, without repeating previous repertoire choices.

During one of my first recital engagements, the presenter bemoaned recitalists’ loss of regard for the audience, prompting a quick decline in attendance and interest in the art form. He spoke of an earlier recital in which Jerome Hines had brought his costumes and sung complete opera scenes for an audience that might otherwise never have heard him perform live in his greatest roles. I took what the presenter said very much to heart and have ever since paid close attention to the public, reminding myself that we are first and foremost entertainers. Why should someone leave the comfort of his home, computer, and television if not to be moved, enlightened, and inspired, rather than lectured? I was a student during the period of declining interest that the presenter mentioned, and I remember being bored by recitals in which the most obscure—and therefore uninteresting—repertoire of single composers filled the recital halls in New York, when I had never even heard any of the best repertoire by these composers performed by great artists. I would have been so thrilled to hear just one “Erlkönig.” Still, stretching horizons and challenging the audience is an important consideration. One all-American world premiere concert I gave prompted hate mail, but I made sure the next program contained favorite arias. My program with Jean-Yves was time-specific, but it also introduced relatively unknown repertoire to an audience with already brimming CD collections.

My daughters, of course, take precedence on any calendar I may be drawing up to help organize my life. School pageants, homework, doctor’s appointments, birthday parties, heart-to-heart talks, and solving disputes occupy my time as they would any mother’s. I now make sure I travel for only short periods, and I try to be someplace interesting where they can join me over school holidays. The girls delight in having a second home in Paris, where we often spend a month in the summer. Paris is an absolute playground for children, and we have been exploring some of its hidden delights. The Jardin des Plantes and Angelina’s hot chocolate are a must on every visit. I want them to enjoy and benefit from being the daughters of an over-scheduled opera singer. They have already traveled the world and are at home in many of the capitals of Europe and the United States. They have also toured Japan and Australia with me. To see the world through a child’s eyes is as great a gift to me as it is to them. These are adaptable, unflappable, independent children, much to my great fortune and pleasure.

Of course, I can’t manage any of this alone. I have help on every front, from scheduling my Met engagements to packing a suitcase, and I always maintain that I’m nothing without a great nanny. But I don’t turn a blind eye to any corner of my life. It is my life, after all, my career, and the ultimate responsibility for making sure that everything stays on track is mine, as difficult as that sometimes seems.

 

For all the traveling I do, I still have a moment when I fill out the landing card at the airport and feel uncertain. What do I put down as my profession: Singer? Opera singer? Musician? Artist? Diva? Prima donna? If I’m landing in France for the summer, am I a
cantatrice
? A
chanteuse
? An
artiste lyrique
? I’m not sure I know the correct answer myself, which is some form of existential confusion. On career day in high schools, the halls are full of doctors and firefighters and engineers, but chances are that few students are discussing the career possibilities of becoming an opera singer.

I have always wanted to understand what my professional place in the world is, and to do so has taken me years of putting together snippets of advice and wisdom, and slowly coercing people in my own management and record companies to share real information with me. I am a musician, and primarily a classical musician, and as such I believe that it is my responsibility to understand both the mechanics of the business itself and the changing role of classical music on contemporary culture. If your preferred image of me is as an artist above the fray, incapable of sullying her delicate mind with facts, figures, and marketing terminology, by all means please skip this section.

While a new album of Strauss scenes is never going to have Madonna looking nervously over her shoulder, recorded classical music does have a significant audience; and unlike most forms of popular music, it can be marketed worldwide without the language barrier that limits the careers of many pop singers. As recently as the 1950s, classical recordings represented 25 percent of all albums sold in the United States. While we are not likely to see these levels again soon, classical music does hold its own, representing 3 percent of the U.S. market and 3.2 percent of the worldwide market, which translates into total annual sales of just under a billion dollars. To put it into perspective, however, as of 2003, 37 percent of all recorded music worldwide is sold in the United States, so even a 3 percent share of this, the world’s largest music market, is significant.

While we’ve been allowed to remain fairly rarefied for most of history, classical musicians are now as subject to marketing principles as any other performers. We have to think about the percentages our records sell, as well as the demographics of our audience. We are now a brand, and every brand vies for the attention of the nineteen- to thirty-nine-year-old disposable-income buyer, although the AARP set, the over-fifty demographic, which is largely ignored, has 35 million members with a larger overall income. (In the rest of the record industry, they’re even targeting the purchasing power of thirteen- to sixteen-year-olds.) What’s more, older people are more likely to be operagoers. We have to be willing to explore how to sell to both groups if we plan to stay alive in the business. Most people today have had less exposure to classical music than their parents and grandparents, who grew up believing that classical music, like serious literature, was “good for you.” Husbands get dragged to concerts by wives, or the boss brings along a handful of executives courtesy of a corporate sponsorship program, but that isn’t enough. We need to spread the passion for music that makes some people such enthusiastic concert- and operagoers.

There’s no arguing the fact that a night at the opera can be expensive, but we do pay equivalent amounts for other forms of entertainment. Fifty-yard-line seats at a football game, or front-row Knicks tickets for a family of four—once you add in the Cokes, hot dogs, and Cracker Jack—aren’t going to be cheap. Broadway tickets are often one hundred dollars apiece now, and can reach dizzying heights beyond that if the show is hot and sold out. Yet while seats for a Pavarotti performance may have approached the three-hundred-dollar mark, they also went as low as ten dollars for standing room.

Sometimes all people need to rethink their position is a little incentive. The Handel and Haydn Society in Boston was able to increase its top-price ticket sales 20 percent by throwing in free parking. Some companies are adding packages with restaurants and offering a free drink at intermission. None of these measures diminishes the music; they merely say, “If you make an effort, we’ll make an effort.” Because of the nature of the art form, opera companies have been able to take the lead in marketing and advertising: they recognize that they have drama to sell. Opera can be marketed as something that’s sexy and hip, and no longer just for the canary fanciers. Orchestras are finally starting to catch up with this idea. Still, it can be a hard sell when you have a young audience that grew up without any sort of musical education that reached farther back than the Grateful Dead. Singing in choirs and studying piano and other instruments were once normal parts of a child’s upbringing, aided by amateur groups, churches, and schools. These programs planted the seeds for a love of serious music that bloomed in adult-hood. What we’re finding now is often a case of no seed, no bloom.

The problem isn’t only one of getting people into opera houses and concert halls. It’s also figuring out how to sell records. More people are listening to classical music than ever before, but most of them are doing it via the radio. Anyone wanting to hear my recent performances as Arabella, as Imogene in
Il Pirata,
or as Violetta in
La Traviata
would have been far more likely to encounter them on a live radio broadcast than through any other means. Part of that is simply a matter of price—CDs are expensive to make and expensive to sell—but part of it is also a matter of saturation. After all, how many recordings of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony does a person actually need?