The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer (26 page)

A great theatrical experience onstage can be extremely cathartic. As I am by nature a person who prefers to avoid conflict, slipping into a character when I go out onstage enables me to open up. I can experience a host of different emotions that are not a part of my own life, and that can be liberating. The first time I ever met Plácido Domingo was in 1994 when I stepped into a rehearsal for the confrontation scene in
Otello
. Carol Vaness had injured her back, and I had been begging desperately for rehearsal time since the role was new to me, until management said, “Renée, you’re on!” and suddenly there I was, onstage with Plácido in the confrontation duet. His acting was so terrifying in its intensity that I thought he really was going to strangle me an act in advance, which left my legs shaking so hard that I could barely stand up and needed help to leave the stage. When it was all over, he shook my hand and said brightly, as if greeting the new neighbor on the block, “Hello, I’m Plácido Domingo. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I learned so much about artistry from his commitment to every level of the performance, and he brought me along with him to a much higher level of my own. Those few
Otello
performances served as another turning point in my development and career.

 

When singers find roles that are particularly well suited to them, they have the luxury of performing them for ten to twenty years and in countless different productions. In order to stay emotionally and intellectually connected to a particular role, I have to find ways to keep developing and enriching my interpretation. The layering process of bringing out the nuances of complex characters is endlessly fascinating, just as adding layers onto the characters that aren’t as well written is an endless challenge. Every production and every cast is a new experience, and just because I’ve sung the Countess a dozen times before doesn’t mean I can just phone in the performance. Recently, fashion dictates that productions are often set in the time period in which the composer wrote the piece, instead of the period he intended it to be set in. Although ancient Greece and the eighteenth century were originally favorite settings, togas and panniers do not appeal as much to the modern sensibilities of directors trying to make their controversial mark. Some operas are also set in present time, or at least in the twentieth century, with the fifties being especially popular, on the theory that these operas will then seem more relevant to the audience. Peter Sellars’s contemporary Mozart cycle and Jonathan Miller’s famous “Little Italy”
Rigoletto
both made a powerful connection to the libretto.

I don’t really have a preference when it comes to period settings, but I’m always grateful when a new production has integrity. The director’s concept needs to connect consistently to the opera at hand, supported by a detailed and thorough analysis. We have all seen productions that look as if last night’s nightmare was arbitrarily executed on the stage today. For several decades, productions, especially in Europe, have been expected to make an impression through shock and outrage, and booing was the most favored response. These sensationalist practices are beginning to wane simply because very little is shocking now, and they are slowly being replaced with quality theatrical ensemble work from the performers. My wish is for musical values once again to hold equal importance with visual elements.

Once we’ve rehearsed a production for anywhere from two to four weeks, we’re ready for stage rehearsals, which means it’s time to dress the part. Fittings are arduous, both time-consuming and tiring. Standing still and serving as a dressmaker’s model for two hours, perched on high heels, usually wearing a very tight corset adorned with heavy, warm fabrics, while every nuance of cut, shape, and trim is discussed in exhaustive detail, can be difficult. When I sang Amelia in
Simon Boccanegra
at the Royal Opera one year in July, before the recent renovation, temperatures reached 100 degrees backstage, and luck would have it that we were all costumed in wool, leather, and fur, with long coats. I was in my seventh month of pregnancy at the time and spent every free moment in front of the small fan in my dressing room, hoping I wouldn’t faint before my next entrance. Sometimes a costume is made specifically for me, while other times a dress from a past production must be altered. For the new production of Strauss’s
Capriccio
I recently sang in Paris, I suddenly realized, standing during a fitting, that two men, both the designer and the head cutter, had been poring over the points on the bra for my newly fashioned corset for at least ten minutes. Let’s just say that Mae West would have had a field day. And while new costumes will be advantageously built on me, old ones are certainly equally thrilling. Every time a soprano wears a dress, her name and the date when she wore it are sewn inside on a small tag, and there will often be as many as eight names in a line. Will some young soprano be excited to pull a costume marked “Renée Fleming” over her head years from now? I will never forget the first time I was laced up in a gown that had been worn by Kiri Te Kanawa. Who wouldn’t sing better in a costume with that history?

Over the years, I’ve tried to develop an eye for what is most flattering and what will make me feel the best, but it’s certainly not a science, and I’ve often been frustrated when I later see a telecast and discover that my instincts were entirely wrong. Fabrics look completely different on camera, and under lights in the theater, than they do in a fitting room. I’ve often wished some magician would appear who could travel with me and discern immediately what works best in each theatrical situation. The closest I’ve found to that is director/ designer John Pascoe, with whom I’ve sung in six different excellent productions, beginning with Rameau’s
Platée
at the Spoleto Festival. He also designed the collared green taffeta dress I wore when I made my television debut for the Richard Tucker Award—the equivalent of a debutante’s coming out, and my introduction to most of the opera-loving public. When he designed new costumes for me for the Met’s Franco Zeffirelli production of
La Traviata,
it was with an eye toward helping me stand out a little more onstage and yet be dressed in a less decorative way. I felt that his instincts were exactly right.

A costume fitting usually involves the supervisor of the costume shop, the cutter who is assigned to a particular costume, a specialist in jewelry, a specialist in shoes, a milliner, and the wig master, all of whom eventually peek in to check on the progress of the total creation. The designer is at the helm, guiding them all. When I was a beginner, I felt fortunate simply to be there and not have to throw my own costume together from bits and pieces in a trunk in the back of the theater. Now I stay very involved in costume decisions, because once I realized I had some influence over these choices, I was finally able to get over my fear of objecting to being asked to wear leather miniskirts, spikes, and chains onstage or, more likely today, to appear nude.

 

However carefully performers attempt to take charge of their images onstage, they are ultimately subject to the idiosyncrasies of any given production and the accidents that befall them. I’ve been dressed in fish scales and “authentic” period stockings that fell to my ankles once in every scene. (They didn’t last long.) I’ve applied fake blood, glycerin to reproduce the sweat of fever, makeup to put me at death’s door, and glitter and sequins (borrowed from my daughters, who have more than I do) to place me in a fairy-tale world. I once needed to extricate the hem of my dress from Susan Graham’s buttons during a performance of
Der Rosenkavalier
. Once, during a rehearsal of
Rusalka,
I lost my skirt, which simply came unhooked and fell off, and I was too much in the moment—or the opera house was too warm—for me to notice the unaccustomed cool breeze on my legs. I’ve gotten stuck in doors, since walking with a French pannier that is six to eight feet wide can be a little bit like driving a car: it takes several attempts to execute a three-point turn correctly. My spike heels have been caught in everything from the hems of costumes and cracks and holes in the stage to the Styrofoam sand used for the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s
Thaïs
. After making copious and permanent stabs in the popcorn-colored foam, I finally learned to walk on my toes. I’ve had to learn how to use a fan properly, as well as how to walk, sit, and lie down in a fully boned corset while singing a pianissimo B-flat. I’ve had to navigate stairs, raked stages, and lacquered floors. My own personal signature on any given night at the opera is to trip over my own gown, something I think I manage with unparalleled flair, and even after ten years of ballet lessons I can only be grateful that it’s not worse. I’ve had to wear towering white wigs that have gotten caught in the scenery and in other characters’ clothing.

One of my early experiences in Germany had me as Konstanze, singing “Martern aller Arten” from
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
while standing on top of a table with the stage curtains closed to its edges. Red-gloved hands came out from behind the curtains and undressed me as I sang that fiendishly virtuosic coloratura tour de force. Since I really couldn’t sing the aria well, I was grateful for the knowledge that the audience would be completely distracted by the staging. In the same production I sang an extraordinarily difficult duet while bound to the middle of a chain-link fence. In one production of a baroque opera, I had to sing an equally difficult aria while climbing over a chain-link fence (it was a big year for chain link in opera, apparently). I’ve often sung in any number of positions: on the floor, with my head upside down. And while I would be willing to try it, I have yet to be flown, nor have I made an entrance or exit through a trapdoor, but then everyone needs something to look forward to.

In 2001 I sang
Arabella
at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, which was comparable to performing Tatyana in St. Petersburg, Manon in Paris, or Eva in Bayreuth in terms of its geographical associations, and was one of the great thrills and risks of my career. Munich was the home of Strauss, whose music every year means more and more to me, so to be able to sing this role in this city made me feel as if I were singing for the master himself. Despite the wonderful cast, the rehearsal period was taxing, because the set consisted of an enormous pile of paper, which was supposed to represent the stacks of bills that Arabella’s family couldn’t pay. It made a steep hill that rose at an angle of about forty-five degrees on both sides, and we, the cast, were directed to climb all over it while we sang—mountain goats, one and all. One of the problems was that the paper, which had been glued onto the hill, would simply rip off when we stepped on it, so it was literally on a slippery slope that we rehearsed for the entire six-week period. I don’t think that union laws would have permitted such a thing in the United States, but generally speaking, European singers are expected to meet more physical and theatrical demands. Eventually, and unsurprisingly, I had to spend two days in bed with back pain, and by the time a single four-minute-long scene that involved five singers took nine hours to stage, I was about ready to pull my hair out.

Still, I tried never to lose sight of where I was and what this engagement meant to me, as I scampered and slid over the bills in a performance that ultimately was very successful for us all. On opening night Carlos Kleiber called me on his cell phone. I was just about to go out onstage when his call came, and he said to me, “Do you know where I am?”

“No, where?” I asked.

“I’m in Garmisch,” he said quietly. “I’m holding my cell phone up now. Can you hear the church bells?”

I listened very hard, and sure enough, from far away I could hear the sound of bells.

“I wanted to tell you we wish you well tonight,” Kleiber said.

By “we” he meant himself and Richard Strauss, for he was standing at Strauss’s grave site in the cemetery in Garmisch. I closed my eyes and listened to the bells, and in that wonderful moment I felt I had the support of both a legendary conductor and a legendary composer.

 

 

 

 

I
N THE COURSE of my career I have appeared in many different venues. I’ve sung for a small roomful of people and I’ve sung in giant outdoor arenas, but whether I’m performing for a group of twelve or a group of twelve thousand, my goal is the same: communicating with the audience. When the evening is going well, I feel larger than myself. It’s as if the boundaries of my body have dissolved and I can reach out through my voice and touch the audience in an almost physical way. For me, the singer’s art is the art of expression—expressing the music, expressing the text, projecting my voice into a large space, and then using it to make that space between me and the audience grow smaller and smaller. My voice becomes a wide net, which I spread out across all of us to draw us closer together.

If everything is going right, there are moments in a performance when the audience is absolutely silent, and you know you have it in your hand. Those are the moments performers live for. They typically occur only in certain places, in certain operas, and sometimes they never happen at all. When the members of the audience are singlemindedly focused on what they are hearing, I feel a tremendous surge of gratitude. I know I have reached them, and with that knowledge comes freedom, the absolute freedom to go where my imagination leads me. That is the goal, the purpose of all those years spent working to develop a strong technique. Freedom means that I’m able to be spontaneous with a phrase. I can hold a note longer, sing it softer or louder, try a
messa di voce
or a decrescendo on a whim. I can turn a phrase or place an accent on a certain word. In those moments imagination comes to the fore, and the hours of hard work and discipline in which I’ve learned every note and shaped every nuance exactly actually free me instead of confining me to the page. The more skill I have, the more I can trust my voice; and the more I trust my voice, the more risks I’m willing to take. Sometimes I’ll look back on a certain performance and think,
How did I manage that?
What made me think I could hold that note for so long or sing that phrase so softly or not take a breath where I should have taken one? Because these are moments of inspiration, they are ephemeral, and the next performance will never be exactly the same.