Things have changed since Classical Singer last spoke with Dawn Upshaw in 2006. The 49-year-old soprano was diagnosed with, and survived, breast cancer and triumphantly resumed her galvanizing career—one that shows no signs of slowing down—a mere handful of months later. She’s started what has quickly become regarded as one of the finest vocal training programs in the country at Bard College. And in 2007, Upshaw received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship for her continued commitment towards creating contem-porary classical music with current composers.
“What makes Dawn unique is the perfect amalgam of truth and versatility,” explains her colleague and frequent collaborator Osvaldo Golijov. “A wide range of people—not only ‘classical’ listeners—immediately connect emotionally with her singing, in the same way they connect to a ‘popular’ voice. But Dawn also has the versatility that most popular voices don’t have: she can inhabit vastly different emotional worlds and enter each of them in innocence and with abandon, despite her tremendous experience. For composers working today, she is an immense gift.”
With the alt-classical music movement at a tipping point, the next wave of composers (along with the next wave of their interpreters) can thank Upshaw for being one of the earliest singers to blaze the trail and abandon the so-called traditional career, which Upshaw initially began with roles like Susanna and Zerlina. However, she speaks to the conflict many singers face between singing what is generally agreed upon to be “right” for their voices or careers and singing what is truly right for their personalities and musical goals. For some, this may be Mozart and Handel; for others, this may be a composer still unheard of in a conservatory. But in either case, Upshaw delivers honest, heartfelt performances, which she in turn draws out of her students.
It’s possible that you’re better known for your work as an opera singer off the operatic stage rather than on. How did that come about for you?
You know, it doesn’t feel so different to me. I’m definitely doing less opera and there are a lot of reasons for that. But it was never more than, I would say, a third of my season, even when I was singing opera more often. So it doesn’t seem like a huge difference to me, but I think maybe publicly it appears to be different. I’ve never wanted to spend a big bulk of time away from home or my family without it being really meaningful and really worth being away from my children. What I think happened primarily was that I just became very choosy about what took me away for big bulks of time. And also choosy about what kinds of things I was repeating and why. I’ve never been all that interested in repeating something just for the sake of filling my calendar, [but filling it with] the projects that became especially intriguing. . . .
First of all, music was of great interest to me, but as important to me have also been the collaborations with other musicians or a production team for an opera. That’s pretty much kind of slowed. I don’t know what that says about the opera world. I think there are magnificent productions all over the place, so I don’t mean to sound critical. But for any individual, it varies quite a bit over time. And I’m very content, to be honest, not singing a lot of opera, not traveling a lot. It’s just not how I want to spend my time.
Certainly recital work also demands less of a time commitment than the run of an opera.
And I sort of feel like I did spend several years doing so much more traveling, so I don’t think it’s that unusual as I’m getting older. I don’t know what year I’m in professionally—25 years or something. Probably more than that; I haven’t counted. I think it’s natural.
It’s sort of like dating. You date around and play the market for a while, and then you reach a point where you settle down.
[Laughs] Yeah! I think it is kind of like that. Another thing that comes into play here: I feel “The Path” is constantly evolving for me. So I don’t feel like there’s a system anymore that I’m hooking into. I’m creating a different path constantly and I’m not quite sure what I’ll be getting myself into at any given time. My mind in the beginning—and I think this is probably true for a lot of young singers, young performers, young professionals—came to it in the beginning hoping to fit into some sort of pattern.
Maybe things are changing now. I’m much more interested in trying to encourage young artists to be a bit more imaginative in how they can contribute to the world with their music and not feel like they just have to come up with certain requirements in order to make a living. Definitely my work feels looser with every year. It’s less defined somehow.
It’s interesting that you bring up “The Path” and teaching singers to make an imaginative contribution musically. In your last interview with Classical Singer, you mentioned growing up on musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger. Did this inform your gravitation towards your rep choices in composers like Philip Glass, John Adams, and the new alt-classical movement?
Yeah, that could be. I’m certainly drawn to music that affects me, that alters my view somehow. Sometimes it’s literally [that] I feel the world through the music but also the text. I don’t always want it to alter my view of the world or support me somehow, comfort me. First it has to connect with me and, hopefully, I’m able to share something with an audience. Obviously, I’m not just singing for myself. So, hopefully, I’m imparting something to my audiences and we all share in that experience together.
But I’m really less and less interested in gratifying myself with sound for the sake of sound. And I don’t mean to be critical of those who do love to listen to music just purely for the beauty of sound—there’s a place for that in the world. But that just hasn’t been my way. And I think my background probably does have something to do with that. Growing up in the ’60s with the music of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, they were singer/songwriters and the message is every bit as important as the music—sometimes more.
There’s also a definite connection between an artist like Dylan and a composer like Kurt Weill, who was an early proponent of socially charged music. And, in turn, Dylan wound up influencing Steve Reich.
You speak to composers today; most of them are of course affected by the music they grew up with, the music they were surrounded by.
Like Argentinian-born, Eastern European Jew Osvaldo Golijov.
Right. There’s an experience that seems very far from our own experience. But when he expresses his life experiences through music, there is a way that it connects with all of us that’s not there otherwise for us. The idea that music is a universal language . . . it’s the same sort of idea. It is a way that I think we can connect with one another and understand one another that often surpasses conversation or other ways.
Do you find a stronger connection when you perform, say, Adams’ El Niño versus Handel’s Messiah?
Not necessarily. Let’s take instead of Messiah . . . going back further to Bach, I often turn to Bach when I’m looking for comfort. So there’s something about music of a different time, a different place, that speaks so directly and so presently to me, with me. And so I don’t feel, necessarily, [that] music written today is connecting more with us than the music [written earlier in history] now does.
For me, I think of music as being an incredibly personal experience, a subjective experience. I mean really as personal as whether you like a certain food or not and how something tastes to you. I think I respond so personally to music that I can be very, very surprised by something that can affect me incredibly deeply by a composer from a different place and a different time. Somebody whom, maybe if I met, I would have absolutely nothing in common with at all. The sentiment, beauty, or whatever that speaks clearly to times and languages. . . . Some people may argue that it’s because I’m trained in music that I appreciate or understand something in a slightly different way than someone who is not conditioned to listen to it.
Can you speak to your experience with Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise in 1992? That seems to be the point where you really shifted gears from standard rep to new rep.
I actually was singing a fair amount of new music from my college days, and it’s just probably in terms of the public view of my work—especially in opera—you’re right that that was probably the first. That got a lot of attention and was an amazing experience for me. I mean, talk about life-changing experiences. That definitely was one for a lot of different reasons.
First of all, the piece itself—I was in awe of the piece and felt it was filled with grace. I felt very blessed while I was working on it. As this comes out of my mouth, I think, “I don’t usually talk like that!” But it’s true. It was the first time I was working with Peter Sellars and the first time I was working with Esa-Pekka Salonen. Of course, it was such a huge, mammoth piece—so it took a great deal of my time, my focus, and I really loved the whole experience. It was difficult and had its difficult moments in terms of putting it together, but it really touched me as much as anything has ever touched me.
And Sellars and Salonen are two figures you’ve worked regularly with since then.
I adore both of them. That was also maybe the beginning of valuing my work in a slightly different way—by way of what I was sharing with my colleagues. Beyond the music, there was a new understanding—what I learned from my colleagues [and] how that enhances the experience.
When CS last spoke to you for the 2006 issue, you had yet to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Did having such a life-altering event offer another new understanding?
I think all of life’s major lessons, major changes—whether that’s deciding to share your life with someone or deciding to have children, perhaps losing someone close to you—all of those big life experiences change your perspective. And I can’t pinpoint, I can’t really clearly define for you what the change was related to the cancer diagnosis, but I think it relaxed me in a certain sense.
Life seemed—and seems—much bigger, and I believe I am more aware of what’s going on around me and what I’m doing here. I don’t have the answers to why we’re all here. But some things don’t matter to me as much, some things don’t disturb me as much. Some things I don’t have time for anymore. So just to put things in a different light, that actually feels quite good.
You seemed to take that major life change and just roll with it. You made an amazing recovery, especially considering that you were back on stage after just a few months.
Of course there are a lot of things that go on in one’s personal life that you don’t . . . necessarily publicize. I would say that a lot has happened in my personal life and with my own personal health, and the last four or five years have been extremely challenging for me. And those people closest to me know that. When I say that the new perspective feels good, I don’t mean to imply that it came with ease or that it continues to come with ease.
It’s been a very interesting and, at times, very difficult past five years. I feel very fortunate and blessed in many ways. Cancer diagnosis I don’t think of as a blessing, particularly. I guess I have spoken sometimes about trying to find the good in it. I don’t see it as an epiphany sort of experience, but maybe there is some sort of strength one must gather in the process of doing that. You see things differently.
When we also last spoke with you, you mentioned setting up a vocal program at Bard College. That’s now taken off like wildfire.
I love it. I really just love it. It’s something that invigorates me, and I hope that I give back to the students and the program as much as they give to me. I’m only there a few days a month, but I’m of course in contact with the head of the program (Kayo Iwama) constantly.
I’m quite excited right now. They’ve just begun staging rehearsals for the opera productions that are being presented at the end of the month. We have two new pieces being written for them, and then the second half is Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges.
The composer for one of those new productions, Missy Mazzoli, mentioned that when you called her and asked her to expand upon her pre-existing work (Song From the Uproar), that you have this way of speaking with people that inspires them to do anything regardless of the challenge.
That’s surprising but very nice! [Laughs.] What exists up at Bard is just an energy of great love and potential. All sorts of things can happen, and you don’t know exactly what it’s going to be all of the time. It’s intense but very personal. The program is small. They come in for their lessons in the city once a week, and I think that two-hour trip gets shorter and shorter. I think they feel like New York is quite accessible to them, and they often end up spending a couple of days a week in the city. It’s not difficult to get to, but [Bard] definitely feels like you’re in a calmer place than New York City.
In addition, you’re on the faculty at Tanglewood and teach a myriad of classes and also offer coachings at the likes of the Weill Institute, Yale, and the Aspen Music Festival. What’s inspired you to give so much back to your vocal community in such a big way?
Actually, they inspire me. I think when I started doing masterclasses, it fed me in a kind of musical and almost spiritual way to be working with young people so excited with new ideas and young people who were so open. I meet many young people that I think of as more imaginative than myself, so I think it’s a great privilege for me if I have anything to share with them. And I know that I have had a lot of interesting experiences that I can talk about with them. I can make music with them—that’s another fantastic thing that we do every once in a great while. I hope to do more of that with them.
And you’re also fostering new composers in conjunction with fostering new musicians.
That was really important to me from the beginning when Bard came to me with this invitation. It was important to me but it was also important to Bard that new music be very much a part of the program.
You’ll also be appearing at the upcoming Classical Singer Convention. What can readers look forward to from that?
Well, I’m looking forward to singing in a concert with some of the Bard students. That will be a highlight for me. And also I’ll be doing a masterclass. I have not been to this convention before. My colleague Kayo was there last year and had good vibes, a good experience from it. So I’m eager to get to know it even better by participating this year.
