Soon after winning the Munich competition, I had the dubious distinction of being the subject of a print interview where the journalist, perplexed at the few performance notices I had by then received, in which my selections had ranged from music typically performed by altos, mezzo-sopranos, and “young dramatic sopranos,” did not hide his frustration at deciding where I “fit” in all of this, stating something like, “Well, what kind of soprano are you, anyway?”
My response, which I credit as being the only really clever thing I had said to date, arose out of my twenty-three-year-old consciousness: “Excuse me, but I think that pigeonholes are only comfortable for pigeons.” The journalist was not greatly amused by this statement.
I returned to the States after Munich and joined Elizabeth Mannion, with whom I had been studying at the University of Michigan. She had now taken a position in the voice department at Indiana University, in Bloomington. I had no means of support, so being invited to stay with Mrs. M.’s family and enjoy the extremely good cooking presented daily by her mother was simply magnificent. One does not forget such kindness—such openness of hearts and hearth. Her daughters, Grace and Elizabeth, became close pals of mine. As for Mrs. M., I am so grateful that our work together continued over the years. She has always been there to say something like “No, you are not giving yourself time for the preparation of that very low note; the vocal chords need a moment. They must articulate very slowly indeed, to give you a sound at such a low pitch. After all, yours is a female voice. Take your time.” She has absolute passion for maintaining agility in the voice, no matter the type of voice. The aria “Una voce poco fa,” from Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville, is one of her favorites for this task. I must say I have been met with amusement from time to time when, in preparing to sing the music of Berlioz, Strauss, or Wagner, for example, and I am warming up my voice with this particular aria, some of my colleagues have come to my dressing room door to say something like “You’re surely full of surprises.” I find this very endearing. Most people do not normally associate fioritura/coloratura singing with all types of voices. Nor do we always understand that the ability to maintain agility in the voice is as necessary to long-term singing goals as learning to breathe properly.
One of the reasons a runner is able to manage a marathon is because of having mastered the shorter distances—having learned at what point, if the body is not allowed to relax into the best position for such a long run, it will tire. Pacing is learned in the shorter distances, making it possible to understand the adjustments that need to be made in the change from a thousand meters to eighteen kilometers. Marathon running and lengthy operatic roles have a great deal in common in the manner in which pacing and breath control contribute to the best result. The physical support that is given by the breath is very much the same.
I RETURNED TO GERMANY in late January of 1969. Due to my good fortune in Munich and my association with the United States Information Agency, recitals were arranged for me in what were then called Amerika Häuser. These centers were established directly after World War II as places for the general public to gather for artistic evenings, lectures, and so forth, to learn about all things American. At these gatherings, even American food was served. I have to say that some of the best hamburgers I have eaten, in the days when I still ate meat, were served at these wonderful receptions following the recitals. I would offer programs of European music except for the last group on the program. Encores were always songs from America, and mostly Spirituals. During this time I visited Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, and Hamburg. I would remain in Germany for about three weeks.
Because I look at my life as something that happens “while I’ve been making other plans,” it transpired that in May of that year, an American industrialist from Cincinnati, Ohio, J. Walter Corbett, arranged for directors from some twenty different opera houses in Europe to spend about two weeks in New York at his invitation, to listen to American singers. Mrs. Corbett, I understood, had herself wished to pursue a singing career, and had endured the rigors of traveling from opera house to opera house in Europe for auditions. Several people involved in classical music in the States agreed with Mrs. Corbett that there had to be a more reasonable way for opera directors from Europe to hear American singers. Her very willing husband possessed the means to make this happen. Avid philanthropists, they were supporters of the arts and a number of cultural institutions in Cincinnati, and were prepared to take on this challenge. And they did.
Opera house general managers mostly from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria came to New York to be feted by the Corbetts and to listen for several days to singer after singer. They were there to offer advice, surely, but also to evaluate the singers, all of whom arrived in New York at different stages in their performance lives, for employment opportunities afforded by more than fifty opera houses with full seasons.
Through some miracle, I was among the singers chosen to travel to New York and perform before this august group of opera house managers. Arriving in the city, I was accommodated in a hotel on West Fifty-Seventh Street. The day of my audition was rainy. I was not prepared for inclement weather, the hotel did not offer umbrellas, and it was difficult to find a taxi. A bit damp and my hair and makeup now somewhat the worse for wear, I finally hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to Town Hall. “Where?” he asked. I restated the name of the venue. He claimed not to know where it was. Eventually I arrived at the hall, where the directors were just about to take a break for lunch. Talk about luck. I would have time to dry off, retouch my makeup, and even warm up quietly. I had begun my preparations, of course, in my hotel room, but by now, that felt like it had happened in another century. I was able to calm myself, to find the pianist, with whom I would have no rehearsal, and to offer copies of the two arias that I would perform: from the opera Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns, the aria “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” and the composition that was by then my standard audition piece, Elisabeth’s second aria from Wagner’s Tannhäuser.
I offered my performance and returned to the holding area backstage, where by now a few other singers had gathered. We exchanged pleasantries and I began gathering my things to leave. I was not certain what to do, since no one had greeted us backstage or given us any information as to what we should expect once our performance was completed. As I was about to take my leave, a very tall gentleman with a distinct German accent called out to me in perfect English and introduced himself as Professor Egon Seefehlner, the general director of the largest opera house in Germany, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in West Berlin. He complimented me on my audition and asked almost nonchalantly if I happened to know the rest of the opera—Tannhäuser. Too quickly, and full of excitement, I said, “No I do not, but I could learn it in about a week.” And I meant it. He gave a wry smile and stated just as quickly, “No, it need not be quite so fast, but I do have an evening in December when I would be able to offer you your debut in my opera house in the role of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser.” I must have taken a breath or something to gain a modicum of composure before saying something along the lines of “Thank you. I’ll start working now.”
Before this unimaginable day I had spent three months in Durham, North Carolina, living on something now deemed to be unhealthy—the rice diet—and studying conversational German, which I audited at Duke University with a visiting professor from Berlin. Now, with this invitation to have my debut in Berlin in six months, both the rice diet and my conversational German studies took on totally new meaning. I worked hard—very hard—on both. In no time at all I had memorized not only the role that I would sing in Berlin, but the rest of the opera as well. This was long before countless CDs of the opera would be available, long before even the invention of the CD, so after a wide search at various record stores, I was able to find a long-playing disk recording of Tannhäuser, with the wonderful Wolfgang Windgassen in the title role.
Eight years prior to this, my esteemed colleague, the legendary Grace Bumbry, had
created nothing short of an international sensation in the role of Venus in a 1961 production of Tannhäuser in Bayreuth. She was magnificent in the part. The rest of that year’s casting received far less attention for their strong contributions to the production. Venus, the goddess of love, the erotic seductress in Tannhäuser, is the polar opposite of Elisabeth, who embodies the quintessential, mythological, highest purity of German womanhood. The choice on the part of Professor Seefehlner to have me sing the part of the “pure as the driven snow” Elisabeth, rather than the temptress Venus, showed remarkable comfort in his role as intendant of his opera house.
The thought of arriving in Berlin unable to speak German never came into my mind. I would work at this and happily so. I wished to reward Professor Seefehlner’s confidence in me from the start by being able to address my colleagues at work in rehearsals in the language of the country in which I would sing.
The role of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser is a beautiful one, complete with one of the most glorious opening arias of any opera that I know: “Dich, teure Halle” (“You, dear treasured hall”). This happens to be the very same aria that the adjudicators in Munich had “requested” me to sing during the Bayerischer competition. It was curious indeed to think that this competition had taken place only one year and two months prior to my standing in a rehearsal room in Berlin.
Elisabeth enters the opera in the second act. In the production in Berlin, while singing this powerful music I was required to walk down a nearly forty-five-degree incline that began far upstage and ended downstage, on the flat part of the set. I rehearsed on a mock-up stage in a rehearsal room, but not on the real stage with a real set. As this was not a new production, I had not been offered an “on the stage” rehearsal. I was much too naive to know that I should have asked for one, or at least for rehearsal onstage with the piano. Thanks to the Windgassen recording, the orchestral sounds were in my head.
Fortunately for me, the singer for whom the production had been created four years earlier, the wonderful Elisabeth Grümmer, made it her business to seek me out on a rehearsal day, even as she was preparing to sing another of her signature roles that evening, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, by Richard Strauss. The generosity of this gesture, of this thought, of this kindness, still touches me. She wished to relay that in managing the incline, I should walk with my head erect but with my eyes fixed firmly on my feet, something no one in the audience can notice, she assured me, because they cannot see the position of your eyes from the height at which you begin the aria. She went on to say, “I do this all the time, and have never had to be concerned at all with tripping over my own feet.” She gave me an embrace and I thanked her repeatedly for this advice, and shall do forever, as it has saved and served me in many an opera production.
While I came to understand rather quickly the physical perils accompanying this particular opera production, it perhaps took a little longer to fully grasp the social, political, and even cultural daring on the part of Professor Seefehlner in casting me in the role of Elisabeth. He trusted that I could arrive on a professional operatic stage for the very first time, sing a quintessential female German operatic role, in German, in an opera of Richard Wagner, in his opera house, where even the street on the side entrance for artists is called Richard Wagner Strasse. For his faith in me as well as his innumerable kindnesses, I will be grateful forever. After all, Elisabeth is the lead female role, the character who through the very goodness of her heart and spirit wins the devotion of the hero, Tannhäuser. She wins his heart in spite of Venus and all her sensual enticements. Venus demonstrates in the extreme the adage that “Hell hath not fury of a woman scorned,” and immediately sets in motion the destruction of Tannhäuser, his fall from grace, his banishment from the presence of the woman of his heart, Elisabeth. Elisabeth and Tannhäuser end their lives seeking his pardon and the hope of their being reunited.
German twelfth-century mythology is filled to the brim with stories of saintly women and their opposites. Elisabeth, the sainted one in Tannhäuser, had never up to that time been performed by an African American, and it is indeed bittersweet to state today that this role, which I have sung in Berlin, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, London, as well as the Metropolitan Opera, has not to date been filled by another African American.
History has proven Europe to be more receptive of diversity in artistic presentation than America, and, indeed, of the artists themselves. During those long periods in American history when the stage doors, the theaters, the concert halls, the opera houses were shut firmly against its own citizens, artists of color found places for their art to call home. The stories are legion. One thinks particularly of the period after World War II when Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and others created their own artist colony in Paris. Paul Robeson found success as a matinee idol in Europe for his great acting ability, most particularly in his portrayal of Othello, and for his deep well of a singing voice. The Soviet Union gave him respect and a stage; he would pay dearly in America for accepting these gifts to his spirit and soul. The story of the great Marian Anderson is well known.
Robert McFerrin Sr. would soon follow Miss Anderson’s 1955 debut at the Metropolitan Opera, as would Mattiwilda Dobbs.
Sissieretta Jones, the first of us all, found a home on the stage of Carnegie Hall in 1892, a scant year after it opened. They were few, but there were promoters and organizers who had the humanity and courage to insist that the performing arts had no room or patience for prejudice and its dangerous and limiting influence.
THAT OPENING NIGHT in Berlin would prove to have more surprises in store for me than for the audience! The second act, in which Elisabeth makes her first appearance, went very well. I was grateful to have the support of my more experienced colleagues, in particular the “always in voice and ready to perform” Hans Beirer, in the leading role, and Martti Talvela, with his rich bass-baritone voice, in the role of the Landgraf. Martti and I became lifelong friends, and I will always cherish the kindness he and his entire family have shown me over the decades.
I was in my dressing room preparing the costume change for the third act, with all the staff assistants from the opera house carrying out their various duties, when who should tap on the door but the general intendant himself, Professor Seefehlner. Of course I was delighted that he had been happy with my performance in the second act, but I was not at all prepared for him to state, then and there, that he wanted me to become a member of the opera house, and that he had brought the contract with him.
I responded by reminding him that we had not yet completed the opera. I still had act three to do.
He smiled and stated that he had heard me sing the aria from the third act in New York, and that he had been in the rehearsals and was confident that this act, too, would go well. I was nonplussed.
I stumbled over my words, saying something like “Well, Herr Professor, legalese is for all intents and purposes unreadable in English; I cannot imagine what it must be like in German.”
I added that my father had always impressed on me that I must never sign my name to anything before reading it thoroughly. Another smile came from Professor Seefehlner when I suggested that perhaps the folks at Amerika Haus would be able to help me with the translation. Professor Seefehlner asked if I would perhaps prefer to have an agent assist in the matter. Would an agent be absolutely necessary? I asked. And since it was not, I declined such assistance.
Before parting, Professor Seefehlner said that he wished me to have a wonderful time in the third act. “Something tells me you are going to be all right in this profession. No agent? Hmmm.”
I SHALL ALWAYS be grateful for Berlin, artistically, socially, and politically. For broadening my view of the world through everyday experiences and what I am sure was a subliminal absorption of rituals and practices. For me, Berlin allowed for a very personal cultural revolution.
I made a habit of being in the company of those new friends of mine who spoke only German, to train my ear to co
lloquialisms and to understand and incorporate phrases that are to this day peculiar to Berlin.
The singers that I joined in Berlin understood the feeling of being the new person in town. They went out of their way to invite me to sit with them in the canteen of the opera house, or to share a beer following a rehearsal (I enjoyed the camaraderie more than the beer).
Everyone had been an Anfänger (a beginner) at some point in their lives. Since a performance life is a very demanding one, the support that we offer one another behind the stage can mean the difference between success and the lack of it.
My Berlin education was not just musical and cultural, it was also political, as I made many visits to East Berlin with a day visa, requiring a return to West Berlin by midnight. I was always on time.
I was on time the evening when one of the East German or Russian soldiers in East Berlin demanded my passport, escorted me into a room with no lights on, left me there, and locked the door behind him as he left. Midnight passed. I was on the wrong side of the Wall. There was no lavatory, no water, no manner in which to advise anyone in West Berlin as to what was happening to me.
Finally, well past 2 A.M., the door was opened, my passport was handed to me, and a soldier stated in German, “you can go now.” I received no explanation and surely no apology.
Stand Up Straight and Sing! Page 15