Even at this tender age, I knew that I was experiencing a unique phenomenon. With the standing ovations that greeted her curtain calls still ringing in my ears, I raced home to fill my diary with the silliest, most sincere superlatives. I was fortunate enough to see her again in a variety of roles: Violetta, Bellini’s Giulietta, Fiordiligi, and Verdi’s Desdemona. Each appearance only confirmed the initial impression, that here stood a most technically accomplished and sensitive artist. The accomplished training was apparent not only in the clean, unflinching triplets that so impressed in “Cosi,” but also in the way that she effortlessly floated the final A flat in Desdemona’s ‘Ave Maria’ for what seemed an eternity, only to let it gradually fade into the ether. For this, we also have to thank her husband and voice teacher, Braeden Harris. Speaking to me between rehearsals of Atlanta Opera’s production of Don Giovanni, where she essays the role of Donna Elvira, I found her to be an incredibly down to earth, charming person, generous both with her time and her insights.
CS: How does a young girl raised on a farm in Illinois become an opera singer?
BH: If you had said to me that, when I was twenty, I would be singing onstage for thousands of people, I would have been like: “What? You’re crazy, I wouldn’t do that!” I thought you had to be born in New York to be an opera singer. It just didn’t occur to me like it does to so many other young singers. When I was a little girl, my uncles and I would have these goofy little recitals, made up of folk songs and pop songs. Of course at that point it wasn’t anything serious. When I went to junior high I started singing in choruses, and we did little branch off groups like a sextet or a quartet. By the time I went to college, my plan was that I would get an education degree, and be a choral director or a high school music teacher. As it turned out, when I was a freshman in college, I had some upperclassmen friends who would get subscription tickets to the Chicago Lyric. One day, one of them could not go and invited me to use the spare ticket. And that was when I actually heard my first opera, which was, of all things, ELEKTRA!
CS: Oh my!
BH: I know! What a first opera! I left the theater thinking: “What in the heck was that?” I just didn’t have a Strauss language yet, but it was so wild and out there, unlike anything I had ever heard. That opened up a whole new can of worms for me, because I was already in this track to be in education, but now I was really enamored with the idea of doing performance. So I took a bunch of extra classes and got both an education and a voice performance degree.
CS: Do you find any difference in the operatic scene today as compared to when you started?
BH: I do. When I was starting out, there were more fringe companies, at least in New York. I feel that there were more venues. They were small, but there were a lot of things that you could do in them. That, and today there are so many more singers. Yet, at that time, the MET was starting to have their young artist program, and then the other big houses started doing them, like San Francisco. Now, places like Minnesota have year-long young artist programs. Smaller companies like Orlando have year long young artist program. That’s a big plus for young singers today, because if they can get into the young artist program, they get all kinds of experience performing or covering roles. And if you’re in Minnesota covering a role, and someone cancels at five o’ clock, you’re probably going to be on. But besides that, I would say everything is very similar.
CS: When you were starting out, did it ever come into question whether or not, for instance, you were a soprano?
BH: I did always sing soprano, so the answer to that is no. Now what kind of soprano I was, that was another matter. At first I sang a lot of lyric coloratura repertoire, and when I first came to New York, I would audition with the first Queen of the Night aria, and Liu’s aria “Tu che di gel.” So they would go: “Wait, you are singing Queen of the Night and then Liu?” It took me a little while to figure out how I wanted to consistently present myself, and what kind of repertoire I was comfortable with. Repertoire is such a personality thing, and I had some choices in that. Technically, I could have sung a certain Fach, like some of the lighter, higher sitting Bel Canto, like “Lucia” and “Sonnambula.” But I didn’t feel so comfortable with them, so I didn’t feel like I could present them in audition. But auditioning was always a completely different thing than actually doing the role.
CS: Are there arias that one should never audition with?
BH: I could not disagree with that concept more. My thought is that there isn’t anything you can’t audition with. Everyone’s happy to tell you what the rules about auditioning are, but I tell you, I got most of my auditions singing obscure repertoire, or repertoire that didn’t go together. One of the pieces that I used to sing for audition was Annchen’s “Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen” from “Freischutz.” Now, there is another Annchen aria that is far better known in the opera, but I was able to sing that aria with a lot of panache. It also filled a German language requirement bill in my set of arias, and it worked. My husband and I kept looking for things that I could be confident with and could present well consistently.
I talk to my friends who hire people and audition young artists, and I truly believe that they are reasonable and forgiving. If a young artist is singing lyric baritone and then dramatic bass, I think they expect that. It is part of the territory. If you sing it well, they will remember you for that. Ultimately, you want to go in as consistent and polished as you can be. If you can come up with a consistent list, and it fits a certain Fach, then that’s the way to go. But I just don’t think that there is anything you should strike out of your list if, bottom line, you can sing it well! If you have five audition arias, sing them well, who cares what they are! Of course that’s spoken by me, the girl who sings a ridiculously bizarre wild, varied repertoire!
(Laughs)
CS: Your repertoire takes you from Mozart to Verdi, Strauss and Barber, not to mention the Bel Canto repertoire for which you are so renowned!
BH: Well, I think that a steady diet of anything is bad. In 1991, when we were celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of Mozart’s death, I sang “Cosi,” “Flute,” four “Giovanni’s,” “Abduction” and “Aspasia in Mitridate.” I used all these Mozart skills all year long, and I had to go back and find some of the other skills that had gone away.
CS: Did you perhaps get a bit burned out?
BH: Oh no, that’s not it at all! Coming back to this “Giovanni” has made me so happy! But it’s like working out. If you go to the gym everyday and you only do biceps, then you have no triceps. If you don’t mix it up, you unbalance yourself. I am glad that I have separate companies that like me in different repertoires. I think that houses that want to do stringent Fach systems, and thank God most American houses don’t adhere to that, have somehow really limited the singer. It also puts a certain pressure on the instrument that jumping into different periods and languages alleviates. After I sing this “Giovanni” and I have to work on Strauss, it’s going to be painful. It’s literally going to be like “Argh! I don’t know how to do that one particular thing anymore!” But it’s so good for you, because once you go to that next assignment; the level of that next skill becomes that much stronger. After I do this “Giovanni”, and then the Strauss, if I then come back again to “Giovanni”, the Mozart will be that much better, because it has the echoes of all those other skills. Not to say that I sing everything or that anyone else should. I’m just saying that it’s great to be as varied as your instrument and temperament will allow you to be. I think it will keep you singing longer and better, not to mention that you would be missing out on so much great repertoire.
CS: Speaking of great repertoire, you have been hailed as a much sought after Bel Canto specialist. How did you get started in this repertoire?
BH: Oh, I avoided Bel Canto like the plague for as long as I could! To me, Bel Canto was just so scary! It’s fear and terror, and when I say fear and terror, I am not kidding. If I have done my share of Bel Canto, it’s pretty much been kicking and screaming. Now, I really think it’s great, and when people talk to me about doing other Bel Canto roles, I don’t just run screaming from the room.
I was sort of pushed into Bel Canto through the back door. No one asked me at first whether I wanted to do Norma. Instead, they offered me Rossini’s Armida, and part of the reason why I was okay with that is that Armida is not so well known. Eventually I did Maria Stuarda and Anna Bolena, and worked my way into the more common Bel Canto repertoire. No one would have convinced me to sing Norma or Semiramide early in my career, because I knew what they were, and I thought “Oh, I’m never going to do that!” There were also certainly people in companies who had hired me numerous times who sort of had that plan. And while I thought it was a good idea as well, I just didn’t feel ready or experienced enough. I really do think that you have to have your vocal act together before you take to those big ladies. You can hurt your voice if you don’t have the experience. So I found myself singing many off-the-beaten-path Bel Canto roles.
CS: Like Maria Padilla?
BH: Yes! I am actually doing that in Minnesota. I’ve done it in English at the Buxton Festival. Now, Maria Padilla is a different animal to me, because it feels like I am singing a Verdi role. It wasn’t until I learned that role that I really realized how much Donizetti influenced Verdi. There’s this huge scene with the tenor/father that I feel is classic, middle period Verdi. I think Bel Canto is special and fabulous, and I’m thrilled to have been asked to sing some of it. I hope I get to sing more, scary as it is. There’s certainly repertoire out there that is rare, and people don’t get to hear often enough. So I’m glad they’ve unearthed Maria Padilla.
CS: What do you view as the biggest challenges in these big Bel Canto roles, say, Norma?
BH: A year before my first Norma, I was talking to a friend of mine who has sung a number of Adalgisas, and she said: “Brenda, start now! Adalgisa sings and sings, and when she’s finished, Norma isn’t even half done.” And it’s true: Norma is long! And what surprised me the most is that I love that! What was keeping me from doing it is actually what I loved the most about it. I love being onstage all night. I think it takes you a little while to warm up, and sometimes you don’t have the time to dig in your heels in a short role. You can’t say that about Norma. But to me, that is not the challenge of Norma. That is the joy of it. What is ultimately so difficult about Norma is the actual singing. The lines are so exposed, and so crystal. It’s like a gymnast doing the balance beam. In Mozart, Verdi or almost anything that is common repertoire, you have some playtime. You sing a Brindisi. You sing a duet, and then comes your big scene. Norma? Oh no! They talk for forty minutes about Norma. First there’s a gigantic chorus and then you sing Casta Diva! Now see, that’s pressure! I just think that’s so scary! I just think it’s almost evil! But I love doing it, and I love hearing it. I understand why people come to hear these works. It’s spectacular music.
CS: A big part of your repertoire requires a lot of vocal flexibility. Did this come naturally to you?
BH: No. I am pretty much a synthetic gal. I think that everyone can learn to do many things, particularly singing. There’s too much mysticism about singing. Being an artist is a somewhat mysterious thing, and that’s what makes artists special. We could talk for weeks about what made Callas, Sutherland or Caballé special, and we would have different ideas about that. That says to me that they were all artists and they all said something unique to say. The building blocks that allow them to say that unique thing, however, are the same. They’re not the same to be taught to each person, but they’re the same concepts.
You want to have breathing, phrasing, even registration and flexibility. So you just have to go to the vocal gym everyday and find people who can teach you, and that’s the key. In that I’m so lucky, because my husband is such a fabulous voice teacher for me. But no, none of those things came naturally to me. I was of course musical innately, but I didn’t have a top, I didn’t have pianissimo, and I didn’t have coloratura. First I had to learn how I learn, and then I learned nearly everything that I do today. I think that almost anything can be learned, and that’s why I think human beings are great. Every path is different for every single singer, but I personally didn’t fall into the earth knowing how to sing. At all.
CS: So you had to learn how to sing that trill, which is fabulous…
BH: I did! My husband gave me specific exercises, for years. My way to it was groupings of twos, groupings of whole steps and half steps, minor thirds, etc. When I met my husband and we were both studying and I said “Look, you just need to know: I will never be able to sing a high C, and I will never be able to sing softly, and I will never have a trill, so let’s just not work on those things. We will just have to get around them.” That’s the joke around our house, and of course it’s ridiculous, because I think those are some of my best skills now. At some point you’ve got to focus and say “well, I don’t have a great high C, but I’ve got this!” And that’s what’s going to carry you through. You can’t just focus on your negatives. I mean, who wants to see that? There are other great singers whose high C’s are not exactly right either, but you can learn to improve.
We have a thing we call “The Zero Factor”. Zero times anything is zero. You have technique, presentation, your trill, your evenness of scale, your legato, your staccato, your top, your chest voice, your languages, your coloratura. You cannot have a zero in any of those things and have a career, because zero times anything is zero and it will just cancel out. You can have a one. You just got to try to get your numbers as high as you can in all, but they’re just not all going to be tens. Every great artist might have, say, 25 categories, and they’ve got 15 or 20 great things. If you’ve got a one or two in four categories, then your technical job is to not show me that. When that one thing comes up in a role, and it invariably does, then you’re going to work on it as best as you can. It’s going to be as good as it can be, and then you’re just going to let go of it. There’s nothing else you can do. Eventually it’s just going to be better and better. But you can’t have a zero. You can’t just throw up your hands in the air and say, “OK, I can’t trill, so that’s that.” That’s not acceptable. You have to at least work on that. Thankfully, there are teachers out there who actually have a lot of keys to those mental boxes that allow a singer to understand how to do these things.
CS: How do you determine whether you have chosen the right voice coach?
BH: I think teachers and students are just about as individualistic as marriages. I should know, because I study with my husband. That’s why I have a rule about taping and listening to your lessons. I absolutely recommend taking the minidisk, with a good mic, to your lessons. Tape the session and PORE over it. Listen to what the teacher had to say to you, and then listen to what you sound like when you go back. Then do it again. I think that after five or six sessions, which I think are plenty, listen to that first minidisc and compare to the sixth minidisc and ask yourself: “Do I think this person is helping me?” If you don’t hear any improvements, go to someone else. Whenever I give masterclasses, I have this thing that I say to students: “If you’re not improving, then you may be getting worse.” I mean, there’s not a lot of middle ground in singing. If you want to be singing healthily, and you want to have a nice big career, you better get a serious foundation. Ideally, you do not want to embark on a career if you are still trying to figure out your technique.
CS: What do you feel the term “vocal technique” means?
BH: An organist friend of mine once said to me: “Brenda, I think voice teaching is suspect. I mean, you can’t see it. People go and they spend all this money, and all they do is talk about stuff. They’re not giving you fingerings or exercises.” And I said “I totally appreciate that point of view, and I can see how you would come to that.” But it’s not suspect. You put together certain things in a certain way and you get a certain result. That’s what vocal technique is. The game is tennis. The game is opera: millions of times, over and over again, practicing your backhand until you can release it anywhere you want on the court. And then practice it a million more times until you can release it anywhere you want on the court under pressure. And that’s vocal technique. Practice a million times, until you know how to attack a note, and sing a musical line. Then practice them until you know how to do them consistently. Then practice them until you can do them consistently under pressure. This is precisely why so few people actually can do it. I think it requires an immense amount of commitment, information, and chemistry.
CS: In addition to singing, you also conduct masterclasses. What do you think are some of the issues that plague young singers today?
BH: My one big thing about young singers now, when I give masterclasses, is that I don’t think they do enough recording homework. They say that they’re listening to singers, but singers from 1995 and on. I want to say: “But have you listened to Siepi or George London?” There are so many libraries full of recordings, and I just feel that young singers don’t take advantage. On the flip side, I know that it’s important to be aware of who is getting the jobs that you will like to get. But I think it’s equally as important to know, who did the role in 1958. In order to carry on with this historic tradition, we have to know where we came from. You can pick up recordings of Don Giovanni, and you can say “Oh my God, that’s the sixties style!” Then you can go to the eighties, and note the differences. I just think it’s so important to listen to them, particularly because at some point, you’re going to have to defend your choices. Say, you want to ornament, and the conductor says: “That is stylistically incorrect.” Well, if you don’t know if it’s stylistically incorrect or not, then you have no leg to stand on. I think it’s just a wise course of action. To try to avail yourself of all those things, in order to make confident musical choices. Ultimately, it’s going to be better art.
CS: Pursuing a career in opera can be a difficult road. Did you ever feel bogged down by it all?
When I was first singing, I was temping at an insurance company. One day, I found myself at work and it was my birthday, and I was just so self-pitying. Because it was my birthday, I was temping, and I didn’t know whether I was ever going to get my career started. So I took the book I was reading at the time and I went to this cafeteria, hoping to be left alone. I sat there with my book, and this lady came up to me and asked if she could join me. She sat there, and started to talk to me: “So what do you do?” And after I told her that I was temping, she wanted to know what I really wanted to do, after getting over the fact that she was not going to let me read, I told her: “Well, I really am an opera singer and I live in the New York area and I want to do auditions…” And she just lit up and said “You have a passion! That’s so fantastic!” And I thought: “I am such a dope. I am sitting here on my birthday when I have a passion! I am whining because I am temping that day, but I have something else to do. I have something that interests me, feeds my soul and makes me happy.” I thought: “Give yourself a mental head slap, you actually have a great life and you live in a free country and you can audition for whomever, and you have a passion!”
I think singers should realize that. Be aware that you are lucky because you’re talented, and because you can pursue your talent. When you get to the difficulties of competitions and all the other things you have to go through when you get started, they will test you. There’s a great sports book I was reading lately, about keeping yourself motivated, and remembering why you started to swim or dive in the first place. And it really great for me to read it, because it’s not just about music, it’s about a passion. When someone has a thrill about something, they still need to juice that every now and again, because life has a way of sucking that thrill right out of you. So just like you need vocal technique in order to sing the part, I think you need tools to keep yourself motivated and on the right track in terms of what you think about art. My passion for opera has given that to me.
