“There wasn’t enough spinning in that top.” “This section is so thick in the orchestra that you have to use much more diction.” “Keep your throat still. Just let the sound come out the face.”
These are things you might hear at a typical voice lesson—but this lesson is anything but typical. The student, Elke Riedel, is confined to a wheelchair. She is studying with soprano Mary Jane Johnson during the American Institute of Musical Studies summer program in Graz, Austria.
Robert Thieme, co-artistic director for AIMS, remembers the first time he heard Riedel. “I was on my way to auditions in Ann Arbor, and walking down the hallway, I heard this incredible Donna Elvira and wondered who that was . . . I looked through the window and saw this person sitting in a wheelchair.”
Riedel, 46, is originally from Curitiba, Brazil. She contracted polio as an infant and has never been able to walk. Thanks to encouragement from her mother, who was a pianist, Riedel grew up studying piano, recorder, clarinet, violin, viola, and saxophone. Her voice became her favorite instrument. She started singing in her early 20s while doing an undergraduate degree in music education. She worked hard, and fought even harder to win over her teachers.
“There was a teacher who came from Sao Paolo,” Riedel remembers. “She was a very famous opera singer. Although I was talented, she would say, ‘What a pity you are so talented but you are in a wheelchair. You cannot have a singing career.’”
Despite what her teacher thought, Riedel received undergraduate degrees in music education and vocal performance. She has performed in concerts in Germany, Portugal, and Argentina, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in vocal performance at the University of Michigan.
Johnson says hearing Riedel for the first time was overwhelming.
“When we were doing auditions, I had my head down writing about the previous person. So when I looked up and saw she was on the stage in a wheelchair, I was just taken aback and moved by the whole thing. I watched very, very intensely because I knew she was going to study with me, and I thought: ‘How am I going to do this?’ And, then I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to learn as much as she is.’
“The first time Elke came in, I said, ‘I think what you’re doing is amazing, but, you’ve got some vocal issues’—and I never mentioned the chair.”
Professional singers with disabilities are nothing new. Singers who are blind and singers with prosthetics have performed on stages the world over. But singers who are in wheelchairs are a rarity on professional circuits. In addition to the logistical and aesthetic issues involved in hiring someone who is in a wheelchair, there is the practical aspect of the voice itself: How does a singer support the voice properly with the use of only half of his or her body?
Soprano Michéle Crider taught a masterclass at the AIMS program where Riedel sang. “What gave me the most thought was: ‘How much support does she have?’ I watched what she could do with her back, because it all plays a role and your spine is one of the most important parts of your singing ability. It’s your backbone. As I was watching her I thought, ‘Of course we can work with this.’
“It was a very moving experience.”
Riedel says she breathes with everything she has. “The trick is to sit in a position to free the belly as much as possible,” she says. “I breathe low and concentrate on my transverse abdominals and getting flexibility in my hips. My best singing position is on a table. There I can feel my bones and get really good stability. I use my chair too, but each chair is different.”
Riedel often removes the back on her chair, claiming it helps make her back more supple.
The Alexander Technique has been very helpful to Riedel. So have dance lessons. “I took four years of dance and for the first time, I had a greater sense of my body and what I could feel. I discovered how much the spine participates in breathing and that was key.”
Thieme said he was inspired by the way Riedel used her body. “I judged her based on her voice, but when she auditioned, it was incredible to watch her face, to watch the use of her body, her hands. What she could use, she used to the most professional level.”
Riedel demonstrated her technique to a wider audience when she sang Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the AIMS orchestra in Graz. Conductor Alexander Kalajdzic said working with a singer in a wheelchair was a whole new experience.
“None of us knew what to expect,” he says. “There’s a picture in the audience when people really get touched because of course you cannot cross out that someone who is disabled is singing this deep song, talking about paradise—but when you’re so involved and immersed in the music, you really don’t think about anything else.”
Riedel is curious to know what the audience thinks when she sings. She came to AIMS courtesy of the Presser Music Award. She’s here not just to study, but also to explore how an audience might respond to her singing an opera role from the chair, something Riedel would love to do professionally.
Philippe Greneche, an agent with Robert Gilder and Company says it would be very difficult for Riedel, or anyone in a wheelchair, to pursue a career in opera. “Especially for this singer, because of her body. She needs to focus on the concert arena. On the concert stage, she can do a lot because the voice is marvelous and she’s a great musician. It’s quite rare that a production accepts this kind of difficulty on the stage, but sometimes it can happen.”
It has happened with German born bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff. Quasthoff was born with short arms, only seven fingers, and at age 48 stands about four feet tall. Quasthoff does mostly concerts, though he has done opera. Riedel got in touch with Quasthoff, who gave her advice. “He made it clear [that] to make it in the musical world, I had to be very, very good. Better than anybody else.”
Johnson agrees, “I said, ‘Well, I don’t see why you can’t sing anything concert, but you won’t sing in a concert unless you sing well.’”
Time will tell whether Riedel’s performance career lands her on the concert stage or the opera stage. For now, she is working on improving her sound and focusing on her connection with the audience.
“I am learning for me that singing is very similar to meditation. You have to concentrate. The mind is always floundering. You cannot say to yourself, ‘Stop, mind, and sing.’ You have to let it go. . . . If you can give your energy to the audience, the audience responds. I think that’s when singing is most perfect.”
