The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer

by Renee Fleming

  Athletes have the advantage of instant replay and game tapes that can be studied later. I really believe that if I could watch more performances, I could be a much better performer than I am now. Unfortunately, the rules are such in theaters that no recording or videotaping is allowed for fear that illegal copies would be sold. Every time there’s a telecast from the Met, however, three scratch versions are made before the final taping, and I’ve learned so much about acting and performing just from studying them. Brian Large, who directed the Met telecast of Otello, helped me immensely when I nearly vaulted out the window after viewing the first scratch tape. The improvement between this initial effort and the actual taping was immense, because he helped me to find the best angles and use of lighting. Further, I took copious acting and performance notes after each viewing. These tapes are as painful for me to watch as it is for most people to hear their voices on an answering machine. But I force myself to do it, because without such direct feedback, I cannot continue to improve other than by guessing and second-guessing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BACKSTAGE

  AS MUCH AS I long to know what a production looks like from the house, most audience members wonder how the whole business of preparing a performance looks from backstage. The relationship between the world behind the curtains and the operagoers in their velvet seats is a little like that between the flaming hot, frantically busy, and completely well-organized kitchen of a five-star restaurant and the elegant customers who are enjoying their meals. The two tableaux seem so disparate that you could hardly imagine them sharing the same building on the same night, except for the fact that everyone is there for the same reason—in one case, the food; in the other, the opera.

  The stage door to the Met is in the parking garage, where we all eventually file through. I’m lucky to have a driver, Richard Burns, to whom I can entrust even my children. (I once realized halfway home to Stamford from the Met that I’d forgotten to pick up my daughter back in the city. Richard turned around so fast, we had whiplash.) I usually try to arrive anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours before curtain to get ready, for there are many aspects of the preparation of a role, including the physical transformation, getting my voice ready after a quiet day, and, most important, entering into the role mentally.

  I greet the guards and make my way down a long cement hallway lined with lockers, as I head for the dressing-room area. For all the gorgeous chandeliers and gilt boxes in the front of the house, this part of the house is low-ceilinged, lit with fluorescent bulbs, and decidedly unglamorous, though in a comforting and familiar way. The dark red carpet is worn, and the waiting area outside the dressing rooms is furnished with chairs and tables that must have come from a dentist’s waiting room in the midfifties. From down the hall I can hear that other singers have arrived before me, for they are already vocalizing on scales and lines from the opera.

  Warming up is something I need to do every time I sing, unless I’m singing for long hours every day. If I’m rehearsing for an opera, then I find that the act of rehearsing itself provides the same kind of warm-up as a twenty- or thirty-minute session. There is never a single prescribed way to go about this, because the body itself is different every day. So many factors contribute to the ease and well-being of the voice: how well one has slept, what one has eaten, the moisture in the air, fatigue, altitude, change in climate, the difficulty of the music at hand, stress, and even small reactions to food, pet hair, or the weather. Flying can wreak havoc on a voice, as it’s all too easy to get off a plane with some sort of respiratory illness. Even if one doesn’t get sick, there’s the very dry air to contend with, not to mention jet lag. Whenever I’m on a plane, I make it a point to tell myself I’ll be fine. I drink plenty of water and try to stay away from caffeine and alcohol, and when I arrive, I listen to my body if it needs sleep.

  With all the traveling I do, I have found there is a real art to finding an optimum singing place on a daily basis. It requires tremendous sensitivity to the body and the coordination of sensation with sound. I listen carefully while I vocalize and keep carefully attuned to my physical condition. Where is the muscular tension? Is my breath right? Warming up the muscles that enhance the breath is a big part of the process, particularly if I don’t have a lot of time, as is loosening up the jaw and facial muscles, which enables a free sound to resonate in the mask. Then I loosen up the back of the neck, trapezius, shoulders, and chest, making sure there is no tension in the back. It’s a process that requires the most minute adjustments, because the smallest problems can have enormous effects.

  Sometimes I’ll use a mirror. I stretch my palate, loosen up the tongue, engage in a couple of good yawns. I rely on the Alexander technique to make sure that my alignment, particularly in my back and neck, is released and free, and on my recent Pilates training, which has been extremely helpful for building core strength and stamina and even my breath control. I know a lot of singers who prefer yoga, which is to say we’ve come a long way from the image of the pampered diva living on chocolate and the chaise, not that both aren’t wonderful; you have to be at least moderately healthy to withstand this lifestyle. I focus intently on releasing the abdominal wall and the intercostal muscles to allow an optimal intake of air. I make sure that my chin is at the correct angle for the back of my mouth to be open properly. These are tiny adjustments, and only experience and years and years of singing have enabled me to make them quickly and efficiently. I’m still amazed at how often I’ll find that I’m heading in the wrong direction and conclude that the solution to a flat pitch is one thing, when in fact it’s a completely different strategy. Sometimes I’m simply having a bad day, and an extra three minutes of concentration on releasing the breath or on resonance can produce the exact results I’ve been searching for. This constant fine-tuning of the voice continues to be fascinating, rewarding, and satisfying for me. It’s a skill, a craft, and an art all rolled into one.

  Next, I have to clear my mind so that I can focus exclusively on the text and the concentration of meaning in a foreign language. If I’m worried about a trip I have to take the next day or about one of the girls who is struggling with her homework, I’ll fail to find the calm I need. Any distraction can hamper the flow required for a satisfying performance.

  These days I am constantly involved in questions of interpretation, and of emotion in music and how it is transferred. I am always trying to determine the greatest level of expression for a given phrase. James Levine and I have talked about the difference between a performance upon which interpretive elements and emotions are placed and a performance in which those elements are relayed to the audience in a way that feels natural and organic. He said the goal was for the personality to be completely present but not self-conscious. I am so often haunted by the difference between Beniamino Gigli singing “Ombra mai fu,” which is the simple, thrilling deployment of a great voice, and the interpretation of singers like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, who performed with highly detailed, intelligent, and imaginative artistry. Who can say which approach is best? It’s a matter of subjective opinion, of taste.

  Part of the process of warming up takes place calmly and privately in my dressing room—maybe a full five minutes. The rest of it takes place while people are running in and out, the phone on the wall with the extraordinarily long cord is ringing, and the cell phone in my purse is adding its own noise to the clatter. The little room with its huge makeup mirror, ancient space heater, two humidifiers, and shabby sofa turns into Grand Central Station. Someone pops in to see if I need anything. Victor Callegari, who has been head makeup artist at the Met for thirty-five years, walks in with his huge tackle box to give me a face that can be seen at least one hundred yards away.

  “They’re taking pictures tonight,” I tell him. “Give me a little more color.”

  “You looked very nice the way you were the last time.”

  “I was too pale.”

  He simply shakes his head and
starts with a ghostly white foundation. With his long experience of seeing what people look like under the lights, there really is no arguing with him. As he’s gluing on the false eyelashes, Amelia calls. She’s sick and doesn’t want to go hear James Galway play at Carnegie Hall tonight, but since she sounds worse than Violetta in her final moments, I suspect a possible fake. I tell her she has to go, and she sighs and says okay, fine. It was worth a try.

  Juliet Veltri comes in to apply my wig. She’s held this position for ten years, and her mother held it before her. Anyone who is employed there will tell you that overall the Met is a great place to work. When you’re on, the days and nights are long, but the season ends and then there’s plenty of time to regain your energy. Juliet whips my hair into pin curls and then slips on the first-act wig. A few of the bobby pins seem to go directly into my scalp, but at least I am assured this wig isn’t going anywhere tonight. Needing to warm up more, I head over to the little Yamaha upright piano in the corner while Juliet trails along behind me, trying to slip the jeweled picks into the back of my chignon. I play a few notes from the first-act aria and begin to sing. James Levine calls to say how much he enjoyed the Schubert program we performed together a week earlier; we laugh about a couple of things, but he doesn’t keep me on the phone, for he knows what time it is. I am not ready to go on. I am not ready at all. The girls and I went skiing the day before, and now I’m worrying that all that cold, fresh air and physical exertion have stripped the tone from my voice.

  Dmitri Hvorostovsky taps on the door and sticks his head inside. “Decent?”

  “Decent,” I say.

  He is Germont from the waist down, in formal gray trousers and gleaming shoes, but he is wearing a white T-shirt and his suspenders are hanging down around his waist. He doesn’t have his mustache on. “How are you, darling?”

  I give a happy sigh and tell him I’m fine. I picture all the swoony girls who wait outside the stage door for his autograph every night, and I think about how they would die to hear the word “darling” from his lips, even in a professional capacity. Dmitri is the closest the opera world comes to Richard Gere. When he goes back to his dressing room, I can hear him warming up through the thin walls. It is an inspiring sound.

  The next arrival is Vicki Tanner, my dresser and all-around righthand woman. Like Victor, she’s been on the job for thirty-five years. She asks me if I’ve eaten, and I remember that my dinner is in a plastic box at the bottom of my bag. If I don’t eat it right away, it will be too late. I really can’t have a meal five minutes before walking onstage, especially when the first act is such a challenge, but if I don’t eat I’ll run out of steam long before the opera is over at eleven. Someone comes in and asks me to sign some programs for patrons and a few CDs, and I do that while Vicki gets me a tall Styrofoam cup of hot water and tells me she can’t find any tea bags, which is fine because I have a few in my purse.

  If an opera singer wants to be a so-called diva in the negative sense, and demands that the air-conditioning be turned off in an entire shopping mall in July so she won’t get a sore throat, I think, Fine. But where I have no tolerance for diva behavior is backstage, which is, unfortunately, the place a person is most likely to see it. It is the responsibility of the singers to repay the respect and courtesy of the Met’s professional staff in kind. I admire people like Victor and Vicki greatly because I know how much time and dedication they’ve put into their work. I’m grateful for that, and truthfully, they inspire me. An opera production is an enormous machine, and even if my name is on the front of the program, I am not putting the show on by myself.

  In the middle of all of this, I suddenly remember I have to tape a segment for a tribute to Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers of television fame) in the morning and I haven’t looked at the piece I’m singing yet. Vicki has microwaved the food I brought over, and I take a few bites, sit down at the piano, and try to play and sing the piece. It’s a song Fred wrote himself, and it’s really lovely. I think of how in a perfect world I’d rehearse it for a few days, preferably with someone who can play the piano better than I, but the moment is now and there’s nothing to do but take what I can get and be grateful. I feel lucky to have found a minute to go over it at all. Ramón Vargas, who is singing Alfredo, comes in wearing spats, a blue silk vest, and a red striped tie, holding a top hat in both hands like a respectful suitor. He looks absolutely polished and ready to go, and it makes me realize how far behind I am. He gives me a kiss.

  “Do you feel good?” he asks. “You look good.”

  I tell him I feel better than I look, because at this point I am Violetta from the neck up and Renée Fleming from the neck down. Ramón leaves, and Vicki is back, telling me it’s time to get into costume.

  Gone are the days when I couldn’t sing Musetta without a silk gown on. I could now sing Violetta in sweat pants, but I do love the costume. First Vicki puts a giant petticoat over my head, and then she laces me into my corset. I am no Scarlett O’Hara; there is no bedpost to hold on to, and I will never be squeezed down to seventeen inches, but this thing is tight, although nothing compared with the corsets I wore in Platée. Some singers want their corsets loose, and some like to have the breath pinched out of them. I prefer mine snug, giving me something to push against when I sing and offering one more level of support for the breath. Vicki now drops John Pascoe’s enormous white-on-cream silk confection of a dress over my head and laces that up as well. Then there are the gloves, rhinestones big enough to be seen in the back row of the Family Circle, three rings the size of quail’s eggs, two bracelets, a necklace, a brooch. It is any eight-year-old’s fantasy of costume jewelry. Vicki gives me my fan and handkerchief, and I stand back to judge the total effect. I am a wedding cake, covered in layers of frosting and piped-on roses. For all of the excess—wretched or glorious, depending on your perspective—I think it’s beautiful.

  I apply a little more blush from my own personal stash, because I still think I’m too pale, no matter what Victor insists, and I go back to the piano to run through a few tricky lines in the first act. I’m standing now, for sitting is just too much work once the costume is on. There is very little time left, and I run through what sounds like a fast-forward version of La Traviata’s Greatest Hits. It is at this point that I start to talk seriously to myself, since there’s nobody else around to give me a pep talk. I focus on my first bad note.

  “Look—this is what you did wrong the last time! You ran out of breath on that line. Don’t humiliate yourself. Remember, you’re still going to have a lot of those little black notes to sing when this line is over.” I tap the piano again. “What key are we in, Renée? Okay, let’s get that high C.” I let one out, and it doesn’t sound too terrible. “There you go! That was interesting. Now, attach that high C to your gut!”

  Maybe there are people standing in the hallway listening, but I doubt there is anything going on in this room they haven’t heard before. I sing two more lines.

  “Correct that. Again. Big breath. There you go.”

  Over the loudspeaker I hear the call. “Violetta onstage with a hankie.” Vicki knocks on my door again. It’s time.

  Vicki walks behind me like a maid of honor, holding up my skirt. In the waiting area outside the dressing room, courtesans and ladies’ maids and gentlemen of the high life are sitting around, telling stories about their dogs and what they did last weekend. Gorgeous young women in bright silk gowns wear tatty cotton bathrobes over their costumes to keep them neat. Everyone is dressed to the nines. I hear bits of Italian, Spanish, Russian. “Good luck!” they say, and I wish them luck. I walk past the wig shop, the wardrobe room with its rows of irons, the carpentry shop, down narrow cement walkways lined with ladders and dollies, walls covered with coils of black electric cords as thick as rattlesnakes. It’s hard to imagine that this is the path taken to reach the most glamorous spot that I know, and that every great singer of the past forty years has walked these hallways too. As I near the stage area I encounter so much a
ctivity and so many people—people with headsets and clipboards, people talking on cell phones, people in costumes and others in black T-shirts and jeans, guys with hammers and scaffolding, women at the light board and men carrying around extra canister lights, ballet dancers in tights, and girls with tambourines.

  It is amazing to think almost every night a production involving so many intricate details comes together in a perfect performance. The curtain goes up; the lights come on. Although it is rare, things can also go hugely wrong. When I made my debut at the Royal Opera in Médée, one of the front pieces of a steeply raked set hadn’t been properly fixed to the stage. I had the first aria in the opera, so I sat down to sing it directly on the loose scenery, and it tipped forward with me on it. There was a loud gasp from the audience, because if I had been an inch farther front I would have been tipped into the orchestra pit. In The Ghosts of Versailles at the Met in 1991, a heavy piece of flown scenery fell. Had we been rehearsing a loud section of the opera we never would have known, but fortunately it was a quiet moment, and we heard the initial crack before it fell, and we ran. Two other young singers and I had been rehearsing directly beneath the spot where it fell and could have been crusted. Teresa Stratas was so upset at the thought of what might have happened to us that she burst into tears and couldn’t go on. Two years ago, in a Paris production of Rusalka, an enormous wall of scenery that was six feet deep and two stories tall came crashing down onto the stage. I didn’t realize I could run quite that fast. The members of the backstage crew generally do a remarkable job of keeping us safe. They manage a set change in five minutes, attaching a set of rickety stairs to a piece of scenery with a couple of clamps that have to support the entire chorus, and somehow it works.