The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer

by Renee Fleming

  No one took a more gracious leave of the stage than the great German soprano Lotte Lehmann. She had given up most of her roles but continued to sing the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier into her late fifties. She wrote, “Whenever I sang it, I felt caught up in the sheer joy of it, swept away by its magic, the words and the music streaming out as though they were truly part of myself, created by me. And whenever I closed the door on Sophie and Oktavian to leave them to their bliss, I always felt as though I were closing a door upon part of my own life, taking leave with a smile. . . .” When she finally announced the end of her career, it came during a recital at New York’s Town Hall, when she made a lovely little impromptu speech, cried a few tears, and then met nearly everyone in the audience backstage afterward. In her dressing room she said, “It is good that I do not want to wait for people to say: ‘My God, when will Lotte Lehmann shut up!’ ”

  One of the most often-repeated pieces of advice that’s given to young singers is: “Never sing on your principal.” It means just that: Never sing to the extreme, and be careful about singing to the outer dynamic reaches of your voice. A big component of longevity is choosing repertoire wisely. The most difficult word for a singer to learn is no—no to too much, too soon, too heavy, too dramatic, too mature, and to an orchestra that’s too loud. But these are dangers that many singers find impossible to resist. A lyric soprano may so desperately want to sing Madama Butterfly that she tackles it before she’s ready—and then wakes up one day and finds she no longer has a voice. I once wrote to Carlos Kleiber to ask about an offer I had received for a role that perhaps seemed too heavy. He wrote me back: “Don’t even think of doing [it]. Don’t give any reasons, just say no! Don’t argue, don’t apologize, just say NO! N.O.”It’s a letter I should frame.

  Just as some bemoaned the passing of the “Golden Age” of singing when I was a student at Juilliard, today the complaint is that there are no dramatic voices for the heavier Italian and German repertoires. What has emerged is a wealth of talent perfect for the baroque and Mozart repertoire, with the intelligence, musicality, and musicianship to bring this music to the forefront of opera today. I do not for a minute believe that the available pool of contemporary voices possesses significantly smaller instruments than those of singers of past generations, but rather that several changes have taken place in the way music is performed over the past sixty years that have affected how singers are perceived. Both the size of theaters and the pitch and quality of the instruments in modern orchestras have had an enormous effect on vocal requirements. The advent of recording has likewise shifted the priorities and expectations of both singers and audience. In the early part of the twentieth century, the highest priority beyond a beautiful voice was the ability to be understood. Onstage, everyone was expected to be perfectly clear in an operatic performance. There were no supertitles then, and operas were generally performed not in their original languages, as is customary today, but in the language of the audience. Granted, audiences had the leisure time and desire then to prepare themselves for an operatic performance by reading the libretto before attending. One of the reasons that diction was so clear earlier in operatic history was that voices in general were produced for brightness and sheen, rather than for warmth and roundness.

  Bringing language to life in music and pronouncing phrases correctly are challenging enough for any singer, but for sopranos particularly, making sure the audience can hear the actual words is next to impossible. For us to be understood while singing above the staff is a little like trying to have an intelligible conversation while yawning. (Try it.) The high voice used for singing lies far above the actual speaking voice, and the production of beautiful high tones—or, for that matter, even passable high tones—requires an enormous amount of space in the mouth, which doesn’t lend itself well to the clear enunciation of either consonants or closed vowels, like a and e. My goal is to push the diction envelope as far as is humanly possible without compromising the quality of the sound or causing fatigue, both to be understood and because words color the line and give character to what would otherwise be a wash of legato sound.

  I had to remind myself when I sang Eva in Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth that there were no “Wagnerian” singers when this music was composed. There were Mozart and Italianate singers, and it was their voices for which Wagner wrote. The opera house in Bayreuth was built precisely to house both his large orchestra, which was placed in a sunken and partially covered orchestra pit, and the beautiful voices it wrapped in rich sound. Since then, nearly every new theater that’s been built has been larger—and in some cases, much larger—than the European theaters for which these operas were originally composed. Add to that improvements in technology, which have enhanced the sound of many of the orchestra’s instruments, and the growing taste for a more brilliant string tone, and singers naturally have to be louder just to be heard. One of the most difficult elements of all is the raising of the basic tuning of the orchestra from the baroque 430 to 435 in the mid-nineteenth century, and then to 440 early in the twentieth century, and now to 444 in Vienna. This calibration had differed as much a tone and a half over time, which challenges singers enormously if a piece is already high, a fact I didn’t fully understand until I sang Mozart and Handel with period instruments.

  Another factor working against opera singers is that over the years taste in recordings has moved toward warmer, thicker tones for the voice in every repertoire, and that type of sound doesn’t cut through orchestral textures as well as a brighter tone. It takes more volume, and therefore more breath pressure, to be heard when using a darker sound. The benefit of brightness in the voice is that it’s the center, core, or squillo edge in a voice that enables it to project in a large hall over an orchestra. Unless the conductor and the orchestra have a disciplined sense of dynamics when accompanying singers, we wind up with the inner-ear problem again, believing we’re not meeting expectations. As we can hear and feel the surge of sound behind us or under us, we become aware that we’re not able to ride over it as easily as we should be able to, so we compensate by pushing and singing louder. Singers who succumb to this temptation soon lose their vocal sheen and beauty and burn out much more quickly. If I could wave a magic wand and effect any sort of change for singers today, it would be to address these balance issues. Dynamic markings should be read with an understanding of the context in which they were written and adjustments made to reflect the kind of orchestra and size of the hall, so that the human voice isn’t expected to vault over this suddenly enormous hurdle. There is nothing exciting about a climactic solo passage when the singer’s voice is covered by the orchestra. How can the audience feel the thrill the composer intended when the vocal line is buried at its richest and most powerful moment? An orchestra can actually build enormous tension through holding back, which doesn’t mean it plays with less energy, but merely that it allows the voice the chance to trace an exciting arc and then joins it like a horse that has just been let into the race.

  Given these requirements for more vocal heft, what opera singers need more than ever to survive is a proper understanding of stamina. Stamina is a measure of one’s ability to sustain a very long performance—whether a recital, which, with encores, can last two and a half hours, or a Wagner opera, which can last five or more. One isn’t singing every minute of that time, but nevertheless the effort is exhausting. The only thing I expect to feel at the end of a long performance is physically tired, but ideally never vocally tired. I say “ideally” because in practice, it’s not always possible. Length, tessitura, the dramatic components of a role, and physical conditions such as allergies can all affect one’s strength. The length of a piece alone does not necessarily lead to stamina problems. The extended final scene in Capriccio, for example, is manageable because the phrases are broken up by orchestral interludes. In contrast, “Martern aller Arten” from Die Entführung aus dem Serail is next to impossible because it’s high and unrelenting. Daphne’s major monologues would also tes
t just about anyone with their combination of dramatic writing and high tessitura. Many Mozart arias present stamina issues, because they have few if any interludes and therefore require long stretches of uninterrupted singing in the passaggio.

  Fortunately, stamina can be built up through training and repetition, if it’s done in a healthy way. Muscle memory is an important factor, because we have to depend on involuntary muscles and coax them in the right direction. Singers must train just as an athlete would, with repetition just to the point of fatigue but not to that of injury. One of the best ways to ensure stamina is not to sing too heavily, for adding weight to a particularly long section will only lead to fatigue. At the same time, care must be taken not to hold back when singing, as that creates the same problem for different reasons. In these challenging sections of music I try to make sure that I’m producing a relaxed, free sound. I’m also concentrating like mad to make sure that the muscles I don’t need at any given moment aren’t involved. The trapezius, the neck, any tension in my face, the way I hold my chin—all of those elements, when improperly handled, can make a difficult piece an impossible one. If I feel my jaw beginning to shake in a difficult passage, it’s usually because I’m putting too much breath pressure on the voice, and that’s a sign to lay off. It’s only with a disciplined technique and a great deal of experience that I can get through these roles without problems.

  Picture me during the Pirata hiatus, sitting at home worrying about these things. The worst part of it was that physically, I felt fine. A spiking high fever or a sore throat would have been almost comforting, because at least I wouldn’t have been second-guessing my decision. While I would have liked to go and hear my understudy sing and see the production from the house, realistically the only way I could have done so was with a black veil over my head. If you’ve called in sick at the Met, no one wants the surprise of seeing you chatting in the lobby. Just imagine trying to explain to the people who are staring at the cast-change sheet tucked into their programs that you are really feeling fine, but just can’t sing.

  Thanks to the enormous break I got at the Houston Grand Opera singing the Countess, I essentially got to skip the understudying portion of my career, with the large exception of my Met debut. The relationship between a scheduled artist and an understudy is at best a delicate one. The understudy obviously has to be present during rehearsals and performances to know exactly what she has to do if she is needed to step into a role, but ideally she can memorize the part without making the lead singer feel as if the Angel of Death is hovering over her, waiting to make a move. I have heard stories about understudies literally standing in the wings mouthing the words at the poor soprano while she sings. One soprano finally cracked under the pressure, insisting, “I don’t want her here. I don’t want to see her”—a fair enough request under the circumstances.

  Of course, there have also been sopranos who have gotten rid of other sopranos because they didn’t want any competition on the stage. There’s very much a split between the kind of artist who wants to absolutely outshine everyone else, even at the cost of bringing down the level of the piece they’re in, and the kind of artist who feels that the best performance is one in which everyone is performing at the highest level and working as an ensemble. A retired artist said to me once, “Every night onstage was a fight to the death for the audience’s love, and by God, I was going to win it.” Perhaps I should become more of a gladiator.

  Being a newcomer is in many ways the loveliest time in anyone’s career, because audiences and critics have a special fondness for novices, hoping to discover the next great talent. It is a pleasure to be the recipient of so much goodwill. At the same time, there comes a point in everyone’s career where familiarity can breed at least a little bit of contempt. If it’s a critic’s task to find fault with singers, it’s much easier to take a shot at someone who’s established. I do read most of my reviews, bypassing only those that seem to be gratuitously hostile, but wait until the end of a run of performances before I look them over, because if they’re particularly bad I can lose heart. I always have someone else read them for me first. Sometimes there’s real validity in what’s being written, and I try to discern common threads, either positive or negative. If I see that a particular criticism is being raised consistently from city to city, then I stop and take a look at that aspect of my performance and see if I can adjust it. In the end I’m not sure how much impact reviews have had on my career one way or the other, or any other performer’s, for that matter. An artist who is in demand and who is singing well is not going to lose work simply because of a bad review.

  Some years back, I was consistently criticized for a certain bland-ness, or for carrying vocal values above artistic ones, which was probably true, due to the difficulty of the repertoire I was singing and to the stage of my development. I took these comments to heart. Then the pendulum swung, and the complaining turned to my tendency toward interpreting with too much “artistry,” or with too artful a use of text and phrasing. It’s a matter of adjusting the bubble in the level again, finding the center.

  I think there are very few people who truly don’t care about what’s being written about them. Most of us try to find a decent balance between paying too much attention to criticism and completely ignoring it. I have to remind myself continually that this is one of the few careers in which you work at night and read your performance evaluation in the newspaper the next morning. It takes some getting used to, and fortunately, thicker skin does start to build up over the years.

  If you separated reviews into three categories, you would have those that come at the beginning of a career when critics are experiencing the thrill of discovery, harsher reviews once the real scrutiny begins, and then later, kind and nostalgic reviews, which come merely by virtue of having survived for so long. Everything changes, and sooner or later the day comes when a fresh new face will outshine you in a performance. There’s a great joke about how opera management views the five stages of a singer’s career:

  “Who is Renée Fleming?”

  “Get me Renée Fleming!”

  “Get me the cheap Renée Fleming!”

  “Get me the young Renée Fleming!”

  “Who is Renée Fleming?”

  I try to prepare myself step by step for each new direction in my own career. Recently Matthew Epstein told me that I had to change my attitude about my work, explaining, “You’ve got to move away from the striving and climbing place and understand that maintaining your position isn’t drudgery. In fact, it’s much more difficult than the climb.” You must improve your skills constantly, to keep your audience and yourself interested in your repertoire and in the choices you make.

  In trying to sort through this transition of sorts, I called Jim Loehr, sports psychologist to the stars. It turns out that all those encouraging words that tennis players need to hear when they’re going into the finals at Wimbledon and that quarterbacks need to hear in the last quarter of the Super Bowl are the very ones that sopranos need to hear as well. The goal is to help performers in all fields achieve their peak under extraordinary pressure. He left me with some fascinating new ways of approaching this issue, though I have never been able to think of them without imagining myself standing on the fifty-yard line, shouting them out to a man in a coach’s uniform with a whistle hanging around his neck.

  The longer you are successful, the more some people are going to want to find dirt and see you struggle. They hover like vultures. This is a very different feeling from the one that you had on the way up, when people were excited and were rooting for you. It requires more toughness to stay at the top. The pressure you are feeling is absolutely normal.

  Isn’t it easy to imagine all these things being said to a fourteen-year-old girl in tennis whites?

  You want to go out there, push the envelope, and do something you’ve never done before. Be proactive instead of defending something. If your goal is simply to hold your own, you’re dead. Do this because it’
s a gift, a joy. You love it and you want to get better until your last breath. The biggest mistake that people make is that everyone wants a piece of them and they wind up resentful and angry, because they don’t know how to say no [an idea that sounds very much like Leontyne’s “noise”]. Some sabotage themselves just to get a break. Decide how much time you need to heal, get balance, and recover. Everyone in your position needs to deal with these issues.

  It was a helpful experience, which made me stop and consider what I really wanted to accomplish. In short, I want to grow artistically.

  If I have come to realize that I am ambitious, I still occasionally feel uncomfortable acknowledging it. Ambition still too often has a negative connotation, implying that you have to step on other people to make sure you’re the first one to get through the door. My own sense of ambition is that it is very much an inward motivator. In a sense, it’s less about seeing how high up I can vault than about seeing how deeply I can explore my potential. How can I find a truer interpretation of a role? How much more depth and light and emotion can I find in my own voice? How much can I feel when I’m singing a piece, and how much can I in turn make the audience feel? Ambition for me is about the willingness to work, the ability to mine my own soul fearlessly. At the end of my career, I want to know in my heart that I did everything I was capable of doing, that I succeeded in singing in a way that not even I had imagined was possible.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IMAGE

  WHEN IT COMES to interpretation in opera, my primary goal is to make the audience forget that I’m singing. The basis for this is a technique that is so solid I can, for the most part, put technique out of my mind. Of course, it can never be completely ignored. There are always a few places in every performance when I have to really think about what I’m doing, whether it involves how to approach a certain pitch or how to execute a particularly difficult phrase. Stepping into a role should be like getting into a car: you no longer have to be conscious of how to drive at this point, but only of where you’re going. I expect it’s the same kind of experience for an athlete—in that case, it’s the concept of going into the zone. There is a kind of suspension of thinking involved, as though there is so much inspiration and ease that it feels as if you’re channeling the music rather than singing it. Reaching that place allows me, in a sense, to step out of the music’s way and leave my mind free to discover new shadings in the role that I might have missed in the past.