During a recent performance of Haydn’s Die Schöpfung at the University of Miami, 69-year-old soprano Helen Donath experienced a first in a career that has spanned well over four decades: the theater’s fire alarm went off. Donath and conductor Helmuth Rilling exchanged bewildered glances, then the maestro stopped the music. As some of the audience reluctantly obeyed the recorded prompt to leave the concert hall, an unperturbed Donath addressed the chorus, making an amusing reference to the band playing on as the Titanic sank. The hall erupted in appreciative laughter. Moments later ushers announced that the alarm had been pulled accidentally and everyone could take their seats again. As the alarm’s strobe lights continued to flash a bit longer, Donath playfully quipped, “And now for an encore, we will reset the fire alarm!”
Helen Jeanette (after 1930s musical film star Jeanette MacDonald) Erwin, a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, first became interested in opera when she was 14 and heard Mario Lanza sing in the film The Great Caruso. “I had never heard music like that and I told my mama, ‘Please, you’ve got to get me the albums!’ And so by rote I learned every tenor aria that was in that movie. Lanza was instrumental in my life.”
Later that year, she had the opportunity to meet legendary bass-baritone George London.
“George came to Corpus Christi to sing a concert when I was 14, before I had started studying,” she recalls. “I ushered and gave out programs. Afterwards, the little-woman-with-chutzpah that I was, I went to him and tugged on his tuxedo and said, ‘Mr. London, could I possibly sing for you?’” She then gave a rendition of “Vesti la giubba” from Pagliacci. London asked her what she considered her voice type to be. “Lady baritone,” she replied.
“I had no clue when he asked me, so I looked at his program and it said, ‘George London, baritone.’
“Then, [three years later] when I saw him sing Boris Godunov when I was 17, he said, ‘Oh, there comes my lady baritone,’ which floored me completely. Four years later when I was 21 and singing in the Ring cycle in Cologne—I was the middle Rhinemaiden—he came on the stage and said, ‘You’re not a baritone anymore, are you, Helen?’ And I said, ‘But Mr. London . . . .’ He [interrupted], ‘Don’t call me Mr. London. I’m George.’ ‘But George, that you would remember me . . . .’ And he said, ‘Well, you don’t really meet many lady baritones.’ He was remarkable.”
Shortly after that first meeting with London, Donath began to study voice with Carl Duckwall. “I really found the cream of the crop. He was an excellent pedagogue. He gave me my underpinnings. He nurtured and kept my natural given gift, but didn’t give me the complete technique.” Hoping to further develop her vocal gifts, Donath left Corpus Christi for New York City to study with Duckwall’s teacher, a faculty member at Juilliard.
A crisis awaited her, however, in the Big Apple. During the course of her studies with her new teacher (whose name she has never publicly revealed), her voice began to decline noticeably and, before long, it was in tatters. “He literally ruined me. I couldn’t even phonate,” says Donath before re-creating the breathy, barely audible sound.
In a deep depression, she tried both to face the horrific reality of losing her voice and to think of another type of work she might do to support herself. While searching her soul, she had an epiphany. “I saw people walking by, chatting and smiling and having a good time, and I said, ‘I’ll bet you that they’re not all singers, and they are happy people. So, I will find happiness and God will guide me.’”
Luckily, Donath soon found a new voice teacher, Mario Berini, and the two of them began to rebuild her voice from scratch. “We started with just three notes, then expanded to five. He got me back on track.”
In retelling her story, the eternally optimistic Donath is adamant that her vocal crisis was actually a blessing in disguise. No longer able to rely solely on her natural vocal gifts, she was forced to find her technique. Through her work with Berini, and later with Paola Novikova in Germany, Donath developed a solid technique that has allowed her to sing for decades.
After working with Berini, the 21-year-old Donath had left New York in 1961 to pursue a career in Germany, despite the fact that she knew very little German. “I knew three words: Sauerkraut, Kindergarten, and auf Wiedersehen.” This is when she met Novikova.
“Madame Novikova was George London’s and Nicolai Gedda’s teacher. I met her in Bayreuth and she took me with her to Stockholm. I then went with her to the Black Forest in Germany, and she put me up because I didn’t have money to study. She said, ‘I’ve got to teach you while I’m here. You must learn so that you have technique. The voice is there, but I’ve got to teach you.’”
Once armed with that technique, she auditioned at the Cologne Opera and won the only open position in the company over 45 other singers. “I had no clue that what had happened to me was so special. I didn’t know any better. I thought, ‘Oh well, I guess the other 45 got a job around the corner!’ With 65 opera houses, I assumed they would all get work.”
For her audition in Cologne, she sang Frau Fluth’s aria from Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Liù in Turandot (in German), and Sophie’s portion of the “Presentation of the Rose” from Der Rosenkavalier. With tongue firmly in cheek, she adds: “There’s such little repertoire for lyric sopranos, so I did have to sing my half of a duet!” Donath went on to sing the role of Sophie all over the world, from the Vienna Staatsoper to the Metropolitan Opera where, at 52, she sang one performance as a last-minute replacement for Kathleen Battle. “I could still sing it today, not a problem,” she says.
Her portrayal of the role on the 1969 Decca recording conducted by Georg Solti is an excellent document of the singer in her prime. But when asked about the reason for the skewed microphone balance at the climax of the famous trio, she shares a secret: Régine Crespin recorded the Marschallin’s portion of the trio on her own, and the takes from the separate sessions were later combined to produce a complete performance. “Strangely enough, Crespin came into our lives and almost disappeared. Of course, a lot of what she does is not with me, it’s just the third act. Yvonne (Minton) and I recorded it, and she sang playback to our recording.”
Though still capable of singing Sophie, Donath has since added the Marschallin to her repertoire. “I can sing the Marschallin now because my voice has become rounder. Still the same voice, but the grasp of the vowels and the consonants, because of the tessitura, is a different one. But that takes years to discover, to work on, and to hone. My wonderful colleague Hanna Scholl-Völker helped me to discover and to understand these wonderful secrets of our craft.”
During her first year in Cologne, Donath worked very hard to do what was expected of her. “I really sang a lot. I sang at least 22 to 25 roles. I was learning, learning, learning—and all in German.” She laughs: “I sang Micaëla in three different German translations. It was hell on wheels.”
But the hard work paid off when conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch—who had known Donath when he was general music director of the Cologne Opera in 1962—brought the young soprano to the 1967 Salzburg Festival to sing Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. That performance launched her international career. “Pamina sent me right through the roof. Salzburg was the opening door to everything.”
When asked who discovered and most nurtured her talents, Donath has two answers: “Sawallisch has been my mentor over many, many years. But I would say Sawallisch and [Herbert von] Karajan. Sawallisch was the one that brought me to the forefront. But because Karajan was the better known conductor, the moment that his name was attached to mine, all doors flew open.”
Despite working with many of the best conductors of the twentieth century, the advice the soprano most takes to heart is that which comes from her husband, conductor Klaus Donath. The two met when she began work at the Hanover Opera, and they have been married for 44 years.
“I had a rehearsal with a ‘Mr. Donath,’” she says, relating the story of their first meeting. “I have no clue who this man is, and I’m standing there waiting for him because he has the key to the rehearsal room. Then there comes a man up the stairs, and I see this man and just—fireworks and bells and clangs! I never wanted to get married—that is the really weird part about it! I really said, ‘Vissi d’arte. Don’t get married, just sing.’ So I see this man, and I’m thinking, ‘My goodness—if ever—then this is the man of my life.’”
For decades after that initial rehearsal, the couple collaborated in recital, with the maestro accompanying his wife with a natural affinity for the piano that belied his stated aversion to playing the instrument. This shared portion of their careers enabled the Donaths to have a true family life while continuing to perform—a particularly important consideration once their son, stage director and financial advisor Alexander Donath, was born in 1968.
“Because Klaus plays so well, everyone assumes [he wants to be a pianist]. He did all this practicing never with the intention of playing the piano, but so that we could be together and travel together.” With obvious pride, Donath goes on to share a special memory of one particular recital at La Scala: “After the intermission, I looked at him and was about to start, when suddenly someone in the front three rows called out, ‘A very special bravo for the pianist!’”
Today the Donaths’ partnership, in life and in music, is as strong as ever. Whenever she speaks of him, her eyes sparkle with affection. “We share everything. Both of us are never really complete without the other one. Without Klaus, I probably wouldn’t be singing anymore. When I was a young singer, the offers were so lucrative and so seductive. He always protected me from accepting the offers that would harm me.”
Following her husband’s advice, Donath did not perform roles that were out of her vocal reach. Though many tempting offers came her way, she respectfully but firmly declined roles which she did not feel ready for. One such case was a Fiordiligi with Karajan when she was 27.
“I took it to Klaus and he said, ‘Helen, impossible. You’ll never make it.’ He and I went through the role, and I went back to Karajan and said, ‘Maestro, I’m very, very sorry, but I can’t do it.’” When the conductor asked which part of the role was bothering her, Donath says, “I took the score and turned to the first page and said, ‘From here’—and I turned the whole score over and turned to the last page—‘to here.’ And because I did that, he had to laugh so hard that he forgave me. Had I just said, ‘Well, it’s this one and this one,’ he would have said, ‘I will bring the orchestra down—I’ll fix it.’ Because he always did. He always saw to it that the singers he desired—the people he really wanted to work with—were well cared for, and he did everything in his power to make them sound the best they could. But it was just like Eva in “Meistersinger.” It was way too early.”
Despite her initial misgivings, Karajan did manage to convince Donath to record the role of Eva in his now classic “Meistersinger,” although she never felt comfortable with the project. “Karajan was recording the St. Matthew Passion almost parallel to the “Meistersinger,” and I asked him, ‘Maestro, Gundula [Janowitz] does such a wonderful Eva, why do you want me for Eva? Why don’t you take her and let me sing the Matthew Passion?’ And he said, ‘Because I want an Evchen, not an Eva.’ He wanted her to be young and full of vibrancy and life.
“In a recording it’s not a problem, but I had my hands full warding off offers from the Paris Opera and Bayreuth to sing the role! I sang it [onstage later] when I was 46 or 47. I waited. Back then it was out of my reach. But that’s why I’m still singing. I would’ve made big bucks had I done all of these tempting offers. But that’s not what my calling is. My calling is to sing well, because God gave me this instrument. It’s not mine—it’s a gift.”
Conductors weren’t the only ones trying to persuade Donath to expand into weightier repertoire. “God bless her, Lucy [Lucia Popp] said, ‘Helen, you have to sing Eva!’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘Because I am singing it now.’ I said, ‘Then good, sing it! I don’t need to sing it.’ We were very loving and very good colleagues. When she would need somebody to step in for her, she would call me—and if I needed somebody to step in for me, I would call her. When I sang Lucy’s first Marschallin with her, she sat in the wings to listen to the “Presentation of the Rose.” She came toward me afterwards and gave me a big hug. She said, ‘My God, Helen, you are going to sing forever.’ And I said, ‘Oh Lucy, look who’s talking!’
“Little did we know that a few years later she would no longer be with us. Arleen [Auger] first, then a few weeks later Tatiana [Troyanos] passed on. Then in November, just after her birthday, Lucy. I was devastated. Arleen and I didn’t sing together much, but we loved and respected each other highly, and we always spoke shop and technique when we were together. Such a pure, angelic sound. I really love her. She was wonderful.”
Donath often thinks of her departed colleagues to this day. “So many times I go on the stage and say, ‘Come on, girls—let’s go out and sing! Sit on my shoulder and sing along with me!’”
Donath’s career is still going strong all these many years after her debut in Cologne. Audiences around the world continue to enjoy her musical and performing abilities in recital, concert, and opera. For three summers (2004-2006) she performed the role of Despina in Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival. And in January 2007, she sang Zerlina in Essen, Germany—a role she will reprise there through 2010.
Perhaps the secret to Donath’s long-lasting success lies not only in her accomplished singing, but also in her natural ability to connect with an audience, whether through her many recordings or live on stage. “I love people,” she says. “The people who listen to me are so close to my heart and so important and valuable in my life. I try to give people a good feeling when they’re out in the audience and take them for a nice walk musically. That’s really my goal. It’s not always achieved, but I do try. I want people to virtually feel my vocal hug.”
Even young children are drawn to Donath’s performances, as became clear in a recent production of Hänsel und Gretel in which Donath played not Gretel, but the Witch. “The stage director said, ‘Helen, please don’t be offended when you come out for your applause at the end of the opera—the kids invariably boo. They’re afraid of the witch. They don’t like her.’ So at the end of the opera I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, for the first time in my life I’m going to have people screaming boo at me.’ So I go out and I have my solo bow, and these little kids all scream (she produces a piercing high-pitched tone) ‘Bravo!’ It was hysterical! And the stage director says, ‘Frau Donath, I have never experienced that. But I told you in all the rehearsals—you are not mean enough!’ I said, ‘But she’s a witch, she’s mean just from nature! She’s ugly. You think a witch is really going to show you her true colors?’” Then, for emphasis, in a hilariously convincing wicked witch voice, she croaks: “Honey, how’re you gonna get the kids in the house to cook ’em?”
Of her long career, Donath states with conviction, “This is a gift. I feel very, very privileged to be allowed to be a singer.” She also makes no secret of her age: “I wish people would acknowledge the fact that I am this age and isn’t it wonderful that I’m still alive and kicking. God has given me this opportunity, this voice. I’m not doing it for me. I could’ve stopped years ago. I’m doing this because I want to show the joy I still feel in music and the care I have given my voice.
“I want young singers to hear me live—recordings can be manipulated—and to be inspired and assured that their vocal lives don’t have to end at 50 or 60. They can sing for many, many years through care and proper technique and by accepting the proper roles and singing the proper repertoire at the right time. You can start learning repertoire earlier, but that is different from performance. Be brave and strong enough to turn down lucrative offers—and don’t sing for the money, but for the joy given and received by your gifts.”
Modest to a fault, Donath does not take credit for her success, only for her hard work. “I’ve had such a wonderful life. If I ever write a book, it will be entitled And I Was the Luckiest One, because everything just fell into place. Even, for instance, the Met.
“Rudolph Bing was angry at me for not coming to sing the Rhinemaiden because I was pregnant, so my name didn’t come up again until I was 50. I already had my epitaph ready: ‘Helen Erwin Donath, sang from ____ to ____ with over 100 recordings, and never sang at the Met.’ And when they finally engaged me to sing Marzelline in Fidelio, I said, ‘You know, you guys have really ruined my epitaph. Now I have to create a whole new one!’”
