If an audience falls asleep, I didn’t do my job. Everything I say has to be the truth. Everything I feel has to be in that moment. Critics have written that I live on the edge, but that means the audience gets that spur-of-the-moment excitement. That is what I love to do onstage.
Communicating with an audience happens when a singer is truthful to the text- truthful to the composer. That is the best preparation.
The world is so different for singers now. When I was studying at Juilliard, in one week at the Met I would see Richard Tucker, di Stefano, Jan Peerce, Corelli. And then Tebaldi, Steber, Callas, Freni…superstars and voices to knock you off your feet. Years ago we didn’t have as many apprentice programs. I was never in one, but I spent five years with Boris Goldovsky, training and studying. Nowadays–one, two, three–singers are at the Met already. They aren’t ready.
That is one of the reasons I’m excited to be co-director of the new apprenctice program at Florida Grand Opera with my husband, stage director Bernard Uzan. We are working with nine singers, one pianist and one stage manager to give the kind of training singers really need prior to beginning a career. [Ed: Program participants include sopranos Allison Charney and Kimberly Graham; mezzo Jennifer Cooper; tenors Scott Ramsey and Tim Olson; baritones Terry Murphy, Chris Hutton and Troy Cooke; bass Steven Smith; rehearsal pianist Ellen Rissenger; and stage manager Jennifer Shenker.]
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“From the first time I saw Ms. Soviero perform onstage, I knew I was watching someone very unique. The intensity, the beauty and the commitment she shows when becoming Butterfly, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Mimi, Nedda…is something that always leaves me stunned and emotionally drained.Ms. Soviero is a complete singer, one of the very rare few who communicates each and every word and feeling with an honesty and immediacy that is breathtaking.”
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I made my debut in 1974 in Pagliacci at the New York City Opera. The next 10 years at NYCO, I got the best opera education one could get. Under Julius Rudel, and after him, Beverly Sills, we had to be prepared, and we were. We covered everything. I think that may be part of the reason I had my career, because of that excellent preparation. In two seconds I had to be ready. I made sure I was always prepared just like I’m making sure our apprentices at FGO are ready to go onstage no matter what.
There is a disease going on in opera, called “selfish singing”–selfish, when singers do not let themselves listen to the other characters, or to the music onstage, or even to the person singing next to them! They don’t pay attention. They don’t listen. Acting is reacting.
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“A stunning singing actress with the ability to transport an audience to the situation at hand.”
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It’s important for teachers, coaches and directors to let singers find their own voice. I was so lucky in my life, in my career and in my studies. I had teachers who let me breathe. They let me create. They gave me the material and the food for my art. They gave me energy. They let me, Diana, be who I was. I remember saying once to my teacher, “I want to do this like Tebaldi.” She said, “Why don’t you do it like Diana!”
Singers listen to recordings too much. A singer came to me and said, “They do this with no breaths!” That sort of thing can be spliced. You don’t have to listen to a recording to learn a piece. After you learn a piece, then listen, by all means. But no one can imitate a recording, and certainly not one which has been spliced.
I can’t be aware of the audience while I’m singing. I can’t be aware that any sentence or phrase has to please them. If I do what I’m supposed to do, at the end I then realize that they are there. Sometimes I don’t hear the applause. It’s as if I’m still in my thoughts. When they start applauding in the wrong places, I start thinking of where I’m going next. I don’t stop and think, “Gee, that was great.” Even in “Vissi d’arte,” my mind is still in the character. I try not to look at the audience. If I look at them, it takes too much time to get back into the character. I’ve seen singers step out of character and bow, but it takes 10 minutes to get back into the role, and you just don’t have time for that in an opera.
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“The cumulative power of a Soviero performance surpasses anything I have encountered elsewhere, both live and in recordings.”
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I’m known for the verismo repertory, and I’ve been singing a long time. I never did anything I wasn’t ready to do. Now I choose roles for the fun of it.
When I was a young singer and bringing Butterfly to my lessons, every time I would sing into the third act, and by the time I got to the end, I would be crying hysterically. My teacher would say, “Close the book,” and she’d take me back to Mozart. Finally, one lesson I reached the end of the opera, looked up, and she was crying–and I wasn’t. She said, “You’re ready, Soviero. I want the ticket to the first performance of that. You’ve moved me so much, I couldn’t play the piano.’”
When your technique is involved in your emotions, you aren’t ready to sing the role.
I’m not afraid of ugly sounds…when they are called for in the music –Nedda, for example. “FUGGI!” I’d scream out. Joan Dornemann would say, “No, Diana! That’s screaming!” But when I yelled it, the audience believed it! That’s what is dangerous about singing verismo, and why it is not for young singers. It takes a clever singer like Callas or Scotto, or Olivero, whom I adore, who worked with the text of a score and knew what to do.
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“Soviero is the last in a long line of great veristas, extending back to Favero, Albanese, Olivero and Zeani. John Ardoin, the noted Callas biographer, once described her as “a giver in a time of takers.” Soviero is a committed singing actress, capable of detailed, responsive musical and textual nuances.”
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If you aren’t prepared in this business, you’ll be eaten alive. When I go to my first rehearsal I don’t go frightened half to death. I go prepared. As a result, I haven’t had a lot of criticism notes, unless I asked for them. A lot of times I would say to my prompter, “Keep your ears open here and there.” They’d become partners with me, and give feedback after rehearsals and shows. When you are well prepared, you have a certain security about yourself. I’m sure of most everything. If you know where you’re going, you don’t have fear. Before we have the musical rehearsal, the conductor and I will have a talk. “This note will be dotted or tied. Do you want that? Do you want what is written in the orchestral score?” Or, “I have a difficult passage here and need your help.” I show the conductor and musical staff that we are musical partners.
It might be different for, say, a comprimario who is singing at the Met. At some levels, singers who want to stay on good rosters have to play the game. If you need more soul-stretching performance experiences, do them with another company and move your career up that way.
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“Diana Soviero not only is the possessor of a rich, luscious voice, but is a devastating actress and artist; her phrasing shows great depth of emotion, using many interesting vocal effects and coloring the voice as a kind of artist’s palette in vocal terms. This has been the greatest Suor Angelica of our time, among many other roles.”
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I’ve disagreed with stage directors before, but I never say so. I just do it so awfully, they have to find another way. I say, “I don’t know if I can do that.”
On the day of a performance, I avoid distraction and anything that would upset me. No mail, nothing. I’m at the theatre two and one-half hours before the curtain goes up. The first thing I do is go in and set up my table with the things I need. I check to make sure my costumes and props are there. Then I go to the piano and work very quietly, very slowly, and warm-up very carefully. Nothing too fast, because you can’t stretch muscles and do exercises too fast if the muscles are not warmed-up. I work from the back of the score to the front, so when the curtain goes up, I’m ready.
I put my robe on and I’m ready for the makeup person. I’m very quiet while they’re in my room, and I try not to joke around too much. The makeup and costumes help transform me into the character, and I mentally and physically prepare myself to become the character.
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“Diana Soviero is the embodiment of song. She is a singer through whom words and music are truly made one. I count myself fortunate to have witnessed her creation of Madama Butterfly, Violetta, and Maddalena, among others. What this woman does with the subtlest nuance and inflection of text is a miracle.”
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I check if I’ve had any notes from the conductor/stage director regarding the first act only. (I’ll do the second act notes at intermission.) By that time, conductor and guests are in my room, to wish me a good performance, and I them. The DO NOT DISTURB sign goes on 20 minutes before the performance. I say my prayers–I really do. I thank God for everything I have in my life, and I pray I will do the best I can. There isn’t a performance I have done where I haven’t asked God for help. It helps me feel that I’m not alone out there. There is an inner strength that I get, and it’s even stronger with the help of God. My hope is that when I am performing, people will see what I feel inside. That, to me, is the essence of communication.
