I was there, and she was the absolute best. Kurt Masur conducted and I don’t even remember who the other soloists were. That was what Edith brought to the stage. You couldn’t look away from her and you didn’t want to, because she was giving you everything you needed—musicianship, authenticity, presence, generosity.
I first met Edith when she gave a masterclass during my third year at the University of Toronto. I was thrilled I had the opportunity to sing for her, and more thrilled later when she accepted me as a master’s student at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule.
Edith was building her reputation (her tool chest, if you will) as a teacher, and I was the first of a wave of Canadians who travelled to Europe to study with her. (One of the reasons my German ended up improving so rapidly was that I was there with her at the beginning, before there were other English speakers to talk to.)
Understandably, Edith’s knowledge of the repertoire was nowhere near as extensive as Mary’s, but while developing her own style, she gathered knowledge like a foraging ant, visiting other teachers, discussing what I had learned from the people I’d studied with and importing experts for masterclasses at the Hochschule. We would discuss vocal technique for hours on end. I was in total heaven as we articulated the role of the hard palate in the generation of hard consonants, or whether the jaw should hinge or drop and if the motion depended on the physiology of the singer. These techy talks were interspersed with a healthy dose of career designs and strategies. The German word schlau connotes a mixture of clever and savvy. That was Edith.
When I first entered Edith’s studio, my breath support was so screwed up that my abdomen shook. She knew that had to be the first thing to go. I also knew she wouldn’t stop until a solution was found, which endeared her to me. Anyone who has met the force that is Frau Doktor Edith Wiens knows that you are better off aligning your desires and goals with hers, because chances are she will outwit, outlast and outplay you even with her dying breath. But more on that later . . .
Edith was and is an impeccable musician. She taught me to prioritize the text and use all that the voice has to offer, in order to paint a picture through the words. She always served the music and left her pride at the door, because sometimes the colour you need might not be the prettiest, but it is the most effective and appropriate. She was the first voice teacher I studied with who concerned herself with what the audience would see or feel because of what you, the singer-performer-communicator, had to share. And according to Edith, singing is an act of servitude. “People can see you!” she would declare. She would enjoin, “Tell me what Schumann heard and saw in you when he decided to write this song cycle for you.” She used this image of a mama hippo pouring water into a baby hippo’s mouth: a massive stream of water flowing into a much smaller space. She would say, “The audience wants the music you have to share, but you have to make the current big enough for it to flow into their mouths and hearts. Your musicianship must get past the footlights of the stage and to the very back row of the hall. You have to fill all the entire space with YOU.”
She taught me how to choose music that spoke to me. Regardless of difficulty, the piece should feel like it was written for me. I was to be a muse—a vessel from which music flowed unobstructed. That meant I had to be in sync with a piece with regard to my vocal strengths, my brand of charisma and my technique. Edith also taught me that a performer’s power is the ability to show his or her personality while paying homage to the accuracy of the composition. It’s the cooperation between both that creates the synergistic electricity of the live classical performance. Otherwise, you might as well stay home and listen to the recording.
Today I don’t have to hear a piece of music to know whether it’s for me. I look at the tempo and the range and how many notes there are. Because frankly, at this point I know that singing fast is not my jam. This isn’t to say that I avoid coloratura. I just think there are singers who do it much better than I do. Since my strengths are colour, range, risk, humour, diction and drama, I discard songs that are just pretty or pyrotechnical and opt for the good story and interesting soundscape. Ditto if I see a lot of sixteenth notes above the staff. There are singers just dying to get their hands on those high sixteenth notes. But not this one. Show me an adagio tempo marking with plenty of long, sad, slow, meaningful space into which I can expand and I’ll look closer at the text and decide if I have anything to say about the subject matter. I can also do “funny”—something else I learned from Edith—which can mean creating a moment of unexpected irreverence, providing relief from all the sadness, releasing the pressure valve when you’ve elevated everything to a fever pitch.
Edith was the reason I became primarily a concert singer rather than an opera singer. I knew opera would be there when I felt ready but that the art of the song recital required a precision that I used my studies in Germany to explore, expand and embrace. I also knew I could never learn from a better source than Edith, because she also had the career I wanted. Her concerts were all about charisma, magnetism and energy-driven intimacy. She could have programmed the phone book and people would be on the edge of their seats, hanging on her every word. Like Edith, I wanted people to not only enjoy my singing but to also feel that when I stepped out on that stage, I was the only singer they wanted to hear . . . and see. That, by conveying my truest self and strengths as a singer, the audience is getting more than just the notes. They’re witnessing where investment meets artistry and vulnerability meets risk.
While I have nothing but praise for Edith’s skills, I also observed that she had a highly emotional dark side. Whereas I’d been trained by teachers who were all about the work, Edith was quite skilled in psychological warfare. Though she knew how to kill with kindness, she did not respond well to resistance. She could get inside people’s heads and make them do her bidding. It reminded me of this quote from Goethe’s “Der Erlkönig” that hung on the wall of a voice teacher I’d studied with at the Boston Conservatory: Und bist du nicht willig so brauch ich Gewalt! “And if you’re not willing, I’ll have to use force!” (It’s what Goethe’s Erlkönig says to the young child when he refuses his advances.)
I was sympathetic to the struggles a strong personality confronts when faced with the wilting flowers who sometimes walk into your studio. What does an ambitious career singer who has been to the mountaintop even say to an eighteen-year-old who’s doing a singing degree “for fun”? Or to the mousy, sexually confused tenor who only wants to sing loud and high? I do believe that people who take up a space in a performance degree program should do so knowing that they’re taking that space away from someone who’s potentially a better worker, hungrier and shows up with fire in the belly. Early on, Edith had time for those people with fire and borderline contempt for anyone else. I did not get sucked into Edith’s force field, because frankly, I agreed with her. I would say we were allies as much as anyone can be in a teacher-student relationship. I kept things professional because I saw our interaction as a means to an end, and I think she respected that. Plus, I wanted what she had and I acknowledge that we share a lot of the same characteristics.
Like Edith, I can get people to forgive me for all kinds of crimes because I’m loyal and they believe what I contribute is worth the price. Like Edith, I am goal-oriented and ambitious. Edith is a champion who knows how to win. She recognized that same animal instinct in me—a characteristic I had previously downplayed, perhaps to appear more humble. It’s likely a Canadian thing. It’s definitely a Maritimer thing. Through Edith, I learned that I could climb to the top using my own ladder. And I didn’t need to look sideways to do it. I could keep my blinders on and just keep going up and up. Edith encouraged the champion in me and had little patience for students without that killer instinct. In those early days of her teaching career when I was with her, she left wreckage in her wake, though I know she evolved to have a broader empathy. She now teaches at the Juilliard School in New York City. The top of the mountain. Where she belongs.
; It was because of my teacher Edith’s encouragement that I entered and won so many international competitions while stationed in Germany. This included taking it all at the inaugural 2002 Jeunesses Musicales International Musical Competition held in Montreal; the second prize in the 2003 Queen Sonja International Music Competition held in Oslo, with a special prize for my interpretation of Edvard Grieg; the highest prize at the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition in London; and the highest prizes at the George London Foundation in New York, the Robert Schumann Wettbewerb in Germany, the ARD Music Competition in Munich and the International Vocal Competition in ’s-Hertogenbosch in 2004.
From a young age, I have loved competition. It’s connected to my respect of a formula for success: be charismatic, be precise, be good. And for goodness sakes, know who’s on the jury! Don’t pound your head against a brick wall, trying to prove someone wrong. The fact is, not everyone is going to like what you do. If you’re a heavy voice, don’t go compete for a jury lined with light-voiced Lieder singers and expect to be the first heavy voice the jury ever liked. No one is objective, least of all classical musicians. If you’re a counter-tenor, don’t go to a competition that has never given any prizes to a counter-tenor. I did not go to competitions to protest and fight or to prove a point. I went to competitions to get paid. We are all human, and often we want to see ourselves—or the selves we wish we were—walk away with the money. So pick your tribe, compete in front of them and then get yourself to the bank.
For the first round at these competitions, a contestant was usually asked to perform one piece from a particular era of classical music; for the second round, the jury might select the piece for the contestant; for the third round, the contestant might be given the opportunity to present a mini-program, with various components; and for the final, sometimes with orchestra, the contestant, in addition to core repertoire, might also be required to sing an imposed or commissioned work from a living composer. I never went into these competitions with anything but the safest of repertoire, within reason. Safe for me might be risky for you. Modern for me might be downright weird for you. I might be John Cage, while you are Korngold. Your Schubert might be my Brahms.
Among my happy competition memories, I have one very unpleasant one. During a competition in Zwickau, in the former East Germany, I was competing in the Robert Schumann International Wettbewerb with Tobias Truniger, an all-round great guy and the pianist from Edith’s studio, who now coaches at the opera in Munich. Zwickau also happened to be hosting a Trabant car convention. The attitude of some of those who’d come out to fawn over this Communist-produced vehicle was disgusting. I felt safe while at the competition, but fans of the Trabant were so rude to me as I walked from my apartment to the venue that I feared something dangerous might happen.
During a free afternoon, Markus and I attended a marathon of the horror movie franchise Scream. A group behind us began throwing popcorn at me, touching my hair and shouting insults in German: “Black garbage!” “How do you expect us to see through all that hair?”
I said to myself, You know what? I deserve to be here. Bolting up, I told them in perfect German, “I understand what you’re saying to me and you should be ashamed of yourselves.” My German was even good enough to add, “Stop being a bag of assholes and let everyone watch the movie!” (I had just learned the German word for bag—Tüte—and was pretty proud to have used it here.)
This incident was so hurtful because I had come to like the Germans, and living in Germany, so much during my years of study. And I still do! But I had to go all the way to Zwickau to experience my first incident of overt racism, and it will always be associated with that culture and language, unfortunately.
My time in Germany also gave me the opportunity to get another kick at singing the Verdi Requiem—which I had messed up in Peterborough—this time conducted by Helmuth Rilling, in Bonn, Stuttgart and Berlin. Maestro Rilling had insisted that I replace the soprano originally contracted to sing the gig. The Requiem remains one of my favourite works, and you can bet that I know every part with my eyes closed, inside and out, forward and backward!
I am pleased to be able to look back on all the times that I failed or suffered some private embarrassment, because I know that these usually came down to not being prepared. It’s liberating to put my finger on the problem instead of trying to convince myself that external factors were to blame. Whether it was the problems that would emerge in my marriage, getting my babies to kindergarten on time or showing up to the first piano rehearsal with the conductor, I know that the success of any given event in my life is directly linked to how much time and effort I put into being ready for it. And I share this not only to encourage you but also to illustrate the nature of forgiveness. If I hadn’t forgiven myself for so royally screwing up my first Verdi Requiem, I would have never made room in my heart and mind for the promise of redemption with one of the world’s most legendary conductors. I don’t believe in luck, because it takes too much of my power away, in addition to robbing God of His sovereignty over my life. Luck leaves too much to chance. Through a series of missteps and bad judgments, I have come to believe in preparation leading to opportunity. And I have the receipts! I learned my languages, I used my summers for work not vacation, I put the granola bars that my babies eat for breakfast on the way to kindergarten in the car the night before, and I try to memorize useful Bible verses to keep me from losing my cool when push comes to shove. I have to be prepared for battle, ready for the fight and forging victoriously forward into the career for which I believed I had been groomed my whole life.
In December 2004, I made my recital debut at Carnegie Hall with Roger Vignoles. By then, I had concluded my studies with Edith Wiens, and Markus and I had moved from Augsburg to an apartment in Toronto’s High Park neighbourhood. Markus was my manager and my career was our baby.
On the morning of my first recital at Carnegie, I knew enough to wake up terrified. No matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, this was not just another hall. I let myself feel that terror instead of pushing it down, then gave myself time to regroup and conquer. My art and my responsibility to an audience mattered too much to allow any unnecessary self-indulgence. It might seem strange to say this, because as an artist and storyteller, I’m meant to be conveying raw authenticity, but to do my job effectively, I have to shut off personal emotions. In classical singing the impression of emotion is what is most effective. Its actual manifestation is unhelpful because it impedes resonance and cripples breath control. The audience is meant to feel what I am conveying, while I, on the other hand, am not. I guess it’s called acting. I am describing an emotion with my voice and my body, commenting on it in words. Being it, but not experiencing it. Even thinking I am sad will give me the posture and approach I need, the inflection that allows the audience to feel what I can’t allow myself to feel. This was something I had to learn—that less is more. It came from realizing the strength of the music combined with my stage presence and how sucked into me people already are, allowing me to ration my output rather than stretch myself beyond the footlights. Economize. To always leave a comfortable 20 percent in the tank.
Before my Carnegie performance, Mary Morrison coached me into my comfort zone by warming me up on the Carnegie Hall stage just like when I was a teenager and we were in the bowels of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. I was so happy to be sharing this moment with Mary. It was exactly how I’d hoped my Carnegie debut would go, because my respect for Mary Morrison is on par with my desire to please my parents.
This pivotal concert was also enormous because Jim Myles, my high school musical director, had organized a bus tour to travel to my New York debut from my hometown of Fredericton. It was such a generous gesture that I still don’t feel as though I’ve ever fully expressed my gratitude to him and all those New Brunswickers who invested the time and money to be in New York City for me. It remains one of the most singular moments of my career.
Jim died sudde
nly of a massive heart attack during the writing of this book. I was sitting in Westminster Abbey in London, England, waiting to sing for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and members of the Royal Family for the mass celebrating International Commonwealth Day. Fifty-two countries—the member states of the Commonwealth—were represented and I was chosen to be the soloist to start the festivities. I was to sing an unaccompanied spiritual on the centre steps of the sanctuary, and as you can imagine, it was a highly pressurized atmosphere, so when I felt my phone vibrate with the news of Jim’s passing, I didn’t want to engage. I would deal with it later. I had to deal with the task at hand. This was not the time to get emotional. My performance was being broadcast worldwide by the BBC, live on television and online. But my phone kept buzzing. People wanting me to know about Jim, or wondering if I had heard, or offering their condolences. All I could think of was his family—his wife, Carmel, and their four boys, the youngest of whom, David, a singer-songwriter, I admired and had collaborated with. I couldn’t think of how best to harness the grief that threatened to surface, and then I remembered how much Jim loved the Queen. I thought of how tickled he would have been that not only had I made it to Carnegie Hall and he had witnessed it but also that I had been hand-picked to represent my country at Westminster Abbey and sing for the Queen and her family. I know Mr. Myles was there, too. He just had a better seat.
Just like in Westminster Abbey, thirteen years earlier at Carnegie Hall I experienced a nauseating mixture of pressure, glee, acceptance and singularity. The girl who grew up in the Maritimes and went away to do something strange that few people understand. I feel completely displaced most of the time and did then, but here were these familiar faces from my community, led by Jim Myles, cheering me on in this exotic and reputedly exclusive concert hall. I wonder if it was weird for them watching someone they had taught or babysat or spoon-fed or directed or gotten plastered with walk on that stage. I wonder if it perplexed them or if it made perfect sense, like a circle completing itself.
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