I talked to Stephanie and watched her both perform and coach last May at the Cleveland Art Song Festival, a biennial event that brings together ten singer-pianist teams for a week of intense work with some of the world’s most prominent recitalists. Stephanie’s own concert was a repeat of her Alice Tully Hall debut earlier in the year.
It was the first time I had heard her in the theater, and as is often the case with large voices, I quickly concluded that her recordings do not do her complete justice. What is so striking about the sound, first off, is that it seems to belong not to our time, but to the early 20th century. The combination of massive tone, even registers, and narrow vibrato around a perfectly centered core—what the old teachers used to call “purity of emission”—reminded me more of a singer like Sigrid Onegin than of anyone active today. Her stage manner, too, with its economy of classic movement, suggested a singer who knows and respects the traditions of her art. As our conversations proved, I was right. Stephanie seemed very pleased to let the readers of Classical Singer eavesdrop on them.
First, I have to ask why, when you are in the process of launching an important career, you are taking time out to work with these young people here in Cleveland.
I’m close enough to their age to remember how difficult and frustrating it can be to learn what it is you have to learn to make a career in this business. And I know firsthand how unhelpful some established singers can be. During the Levine anniversary year, a Who’s Who of prominent people gave masterclasses in the Young Artists’ Program at the Met, and there is just no excuse for the kind of abusive and destructive behavior some of them engaged in. The really good teachers stood out, like Carlo Bergonzi, who finally made it clear to me what it means to sing sull’ fiato [on the breath]. Renata Scotto, Stanford Olsen, and Diane Soviero were also very helpful to us. I want to return the favor for these students if I can. George Vassos has worked hard to set a supportive, family-like atmosphere here—we all went out on a picnic together one night. I’m convinced you accomplish more that way than with the grande dame approach. I did all sorts of work in order finally to be able to do music. I was the girl who hid out in high school to escape the “cool kids.” I went back not long ago to sing, and I did think to myself, “Look who’s cool now!” So I know what these young people are struggling with, and I think it’s important to tell them, “I’ve been there, I managed to make it, and so can you.”
Young singers are always interested in how the successful people acquired their vocal technique. What was your own training like?
I’m a good example of the Buddhist saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher arrives.” And I wasn’t ready for a long time. I went to Potsdam State to do a music education degree in voice and didn’t get very far because I was always resisting the importance of technique. My sound then was basically just very loud. I had played the flute as well and used to have technical trouble there maintaining the embouchure. Finally, I got so frustrated I switched majors into a writing program, which was where I got the inspiration that led me back to music. I took a class from Alan Steinberg called “Theory of Rhetoric” that showed me how all the arts are related to life, and how we are all connected to the larger universe. Walker Percy’s idea of the “sightseer complex” also became very important to me. Percy claims that most people go through the experiences of life with a pre-programmed notion of the reactions they are supposed to have to them, and so they lose any sense of genuine response. It’s impossible to be a true artist and just a sightseer in your own career. [Author’s note: You can read more of Stephanie’s reactions to literature and how they inform her singing in two contributions she made to one of her teacher’s books, Dialogue and Discovery, co-edited by Barbara Jo Krieger and published by St. Martin’s Press in 1996.]
So after I finished my English degree in 1991 I was mentally and spiritually prepared to go back to music. My teacher then was and is Patricia Misslin, who also taught Renée Fleming. By that point I had realized that technique doesn’t mitigate spontaneity, but makes it possible. And we built the technique with classic methods—scales and more scales out of Vaccai, and the principles of that old Marchesi book, which I have been recommending to the young singers here (Mathilde Marchesi, Bel Canto Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method, Dover reprint, 1970). Marilyn Horne’s fantastic technique was a major inspiration to me in college too. Margaret Lattimore and I were both students of Pat Misslin, and we used to drive around Potsdam at night blaring Marilyn’s recording of Handel arias—Or la tromba had many repeat performances!
Some technical things you don’t get in the studio but pick up along the way. I had trouble early on singing softly, and when I was covering Quickly at the Met I asked Barbara Bonney what the secret was to her fantastic piano effects. “It’s real simple;” she said, “you do everything you do when you sing forte, except softer.” That seems too easy, but it’s true. You have to be always singing, always vibrating, at whatever dynamic level—pulling back is not the way to sing piano. That goes for things like staccato singing too. If you think of it as interrupted legato you won’t get into trouble. On the basic question of breath I have never thought about “pushing out” or “pulling in”, since that seems to me unnatural—we don’t think that way about breathing when we’re walking down the street. The goal is to get a deep breath from the diaphragm, and yoga can be useful in achieving it. When I’m on the road I often do yoga breathing exercises in my hotel room. I don’t warm up a lot before performances—ten minutes maximum. But I might go for a swim or do something else physical earlier in the day. The point is to get the body ready; the voice shouldn’t need a lot of independent attention.
I still work regularly with Pat, since the kind of life we have in our culture today means that voices settle later than they did a hundred years ago. I’m 32 now, and I don’t think I’ll have everything exactly where I want it vocally until I’m 35.
Everbody wonders where you want to be in terms of Fach, too. You’ve been very successful in baroque music, but equally so with Fricka in Seattle. Listening to your recital I thought at one point what a splendid Angel in Gerontius you would make; by the end of “Sea Pictures” I was looking forward to Ortrud.
I want to do both those parts some day; I want to sing Amneris too—some day. I have L’italiana in Algeri coming up this summer in Santa Fe, which I’ve always had on my wish list, since I love doing comedy. If you really know how to sing, it should be possible to do all these different roles people think of as being worlds apart. But you have to be intelligent about it. The key is to learn the style of the particular music you’re doing; your technique will then enable you to sing it safely. The Verdi Requiem is a good example. Verdi can be a worse killer vocally than Wagner if you’re not careful. The first time I tried out the piece it was with smaller forces in an unreviewed performance. Then I worked with [conductor] Mark Elder on it—who was a tremendous help—and now I think it’s very firmly in my voice. The path to the Met Giulio Cesare was similar. I had sung Ptolemy at Wolftrap in 1994 with Christine Goerke and Michele de Young when nobody much knew who any of us were. By the time of the Met production I felt I had it all together vocally, and I was really looking forward to singing Cornelia with David Daniels. But I could never have predicted how the public reacted to our duet. That opera has proven very lucky for two women now in New York! I have more Handel in my schedule coming up, with Semele at Covent Garden next season.
You are obviously very committed to recitals as well.
They are crucial to our art. You really learn how to sing through coming to terms with the song repertoire, not by working up arias for auditions. I challenge all the young singers I meet to add five new songs for every aria they learn. People have forgotten how to connect with an audience, how to look individuals in the face and move them through what you do. Recitals teach you that. They are a wonderful way to work with colleagues too. Warren Jones and I first met at Tanglewood in 1992, and we’ve been collaborating ever since. He has been an invaluable help to me musically and is the most sensitive partner on stage you can imagine. People sometimes think it’s a bit much when we have the lid of the piano all the way up and he puts the [music] stand flat. But Warren wants to be able to both hear and see what I’m doing, which gives him more control over his sound and makes our communication more immediate.
I’m a big believer in making chamber works part of programs, which we did with the Loeffler songs that have such a beautiful viola part. And I won’t sing arias in recitals—I don’t break out into “An Silvia” in the middle of Falstaff. One of the New York superfans liked my Alice Tully recital very much, I think, but at the end he kept shouting, “Rossini! Rossini!” Well, it just wasn’t going to happen. A dozen encores won’t happen in my recitals either. It’s our job to make what is on the program a completely satisfying musical experience.
I know that it’s hard to promote song recitals in America today, both to singers and management—the Marilyn Horne Foundation deserves enormous credit for trying to turn this around. Part of it is that many of us won’t take the trouble to learn the kind of repertoire in English that makes a direct impact on the audience. And it’s certainly true that there is not much money to be made in concertizing. But the blame for that has to fall at least partially on some of my famous colleagues, who command such huge fees that there’s not much left over for the rest of us. I tell young singers that we just have to scrape up venues. Go back to your high school the way I did recently; libraries are another place where you can do recital repertoire in the kind of small space that is appropriate for it. Take a minimal fee or even no fee in order to perform this wonderful music. And we have to support each other’s appearances. I have promised myself that I will go to five recitals this year. I know there’s no time, but I intend to make it. And one last point. I’m very much against extending supertitles to song recitals. The idea is nothing but a band-aid solution to a much larger problem I want to be part of helping to fix properly. When the time comes that as interpreters we are no longer able to communicate to our audience directly, person to person, that’s the time to hang up the hat.
Do you have thoughts about the “crossover” repertoire that so many classical singers are doing now?
My father is a jazz musician—although he never cared much for singers—so I grew up with a different idiom than I perform in now. I always thought Sammy Davis, Jr. before the love beads period was a terrific singer. I have two crossover CDs in mind I’d like to do. One would be Ella Fitzgerald-style jazz, and the other an Ethel Merman/Kate Smith belt-fest. I don’t think these styles necessarily hurt you in the classical repertoire, or vice versa—again assuming you know how to sing in them correctly.
Since winning the Richard Tucker Award in 1999 you have been pretty clearly identified as one of the rising stars of your generation of singers. What is that experience like? Given the current state of culture and the way music works today as a business, it could almost seem like the kiss of artistic death.
I don’t agree. What it does do is give you a certain degree of power that you probably never expected you would have. What you do with that power is entirely up to you. If you want to quit thinking about the voice and let people tell you how to make as much money as you can as fast as you can, you can take that path. But you don’t have to, and I certainly won’t. It’s a sad fact that recording is definitely not a singer-friendly business today. I’ve been very happy in my work with Virgin Classics, though, and with my management too. I feel I know what is right for my voice and what I want to achieve artistically, and the people in the business around me are supportive of that.
I have to say a word about another aspect of today’s musical world that I feel is not helping, and that is the Internet sites that I think have become a real travesty. The people who post there have been good to me personally, and as a writer myself I certainly believe in the inviolability of free speech. But after seeing what has been done to some of my good friends on the Internet I have decided that I just won’t look at any of it anymore.
What about the professional critics? They have been almost universally positive, although there was one in New York who didn’t much like the recent Falstaff.
No matter what business you’re in, there will be somebody who doesn’t like anything you do, and the critic in question has that attitude about me. He said the Falstaff wasn’t funny. Well, you might have convinced me that something else was not so good about those performances, but I know they were funny. Bryn Terfel was a joy to work with, and there was always some spontaneous—and very funny—thing that happened between us every night. Ask anybody who was there except that critic, and I think you’ll find the public agreed. I suspect, too, that certain people were prepared in advance of the opening to say that the revival of Zefirelli’s production was not as good as the original. And they blamed him for not coming, even though he was very ill. These are the kinds of experiences you just have to take in stride. I will always have happy memories of that Falstaff.
You and Bryn Terfel share something else, a very distinctive natural sound that almost becomes a quality apart from the music you interpret. Are you aware of your sound yourself when you are singing?
First, let me repeat something I said here at the panel discussion on the art song. Anybody who doesn’t own Bryn’s CD The Vagabond should run out and buy it right away—that recording changed my life. And that’s where the emphasis has to be, on how our singing leads people to their own emotions. It can be an almost addictive experience when you are singing well to feel the sound in your mouth coming out through the teeth. But for me, the truest satisfaction comes from experiences like one I had recently after a concert, when a woman came up and thanked me for making it possible for her to grieve for the first time after a losing a loved one. If a certain kind of opera fan wants to hear me just because of the sound, I certainly won’t discourage him or her. But that can’t be what my career is about.
Can you sum up what it is about?
I have to come back to what I said about all of life and art being interconnected. You can’t just concentrate on singing and be a truly successful artist. If you don’t live, you have nothing to sing about. People are always worried about how their private lives are going to complicate a career. It’s seems just the opposite to me. Since I’ve been married I think that my interpretation of a song like the Chausson “Sérénade” is much deeper. My husband and I like to walk in the country and have become very interested in ornithology—think of all the German Romantic songs that have to do with nature. It’s this kind of openness to the world that I would encourage in young singers, along with exploration of history and literature. An audience member at a forum once said to me that he thought part of any vocal program should be a required course in listening to the recordings of the great singers of the past. That, to me, is what serious students do on their own all the time—I certainly did. What needs to happen in course work is, for example, learning about what was going on in Europe when Schubert and Schumann were writing. I know what it meant to me to sing in Danielpour’s American Requiem right after September 11th. We have to recreate in our psyches as much as we can of the historical and cultural settings that surrounded all the great music from the past we interpret.
I truly believe that our art is the ultimate expression of humanity. To serve it well is both a privilege and a responsibility I am happy to embrace. I hope that the young artists here in Cleveland this week will come away with a renewed commitment to the beautiful vocation we share.
