True confessions. This is the first interview that I’ve conducted in my pajamas. I assumed it would be a challenge to find a time when both members of this powerhouse couple could speak with me at once, but I was still surprised when we settled on 8:30 a.m. as our best choice. I may have been sleepy, but husband-and-wife team Heidi Grant Murphy and Kevin Murphy’s voices crackled over the phone line—not with fatigue, but with good cheer, quick wit, and obvious affection.
Heidi, it’s your 20th season at the Met. That’s amazing!
Heidi Grant Murphy: It has been amazing. I feel very proud that I’m still around and doing good work. It’s hard to imagine that it has been this long. The Met gave me my start and nurtured me for all those years. Each opportunity I get to sing there, I’m just euphoric.
You started right at the top. Have things evolved the way you thought they might? In 1989, did you think that 20 years from now, you would be where you are?
HGM: In 1989 I don’t think I knew what the possibilities were. Soon after that, I had visions of what they could be. But what really changed the picture for me was having children.
Tell me more about that.
HGM: We just jumped in and, for most of my career, I have to say that I haven’t suffered much. I was able to do pretty much what I wanted to until just a few years ago when I had to start saying no to opera jobs that were far away or had long rehearsal periods. Having a child is tricky for anyone, in any business, in any life—but it’s a particular challenge in this business. There are male singers out there who have a number of kids, but I don’t know many female singers who have four children like I do.
Kevin Murphy: Heidi is lucky in that she has a manager who carefully plans the right projects and knows what her personal needs are.
It certainly doesn’t seem as if you’ve cut back. You may not have accepted some international gigs, but you’ve been a busy artist.
HGM: I have been a busy artist. When I turned 40, I happened to be singing something deeply gratifying with the Cleveland Orchestra, and I remember sitting there and feeling so happy. I was a light soprano still singing with major symphonies and opera houses and I had four beautiful children and a fabulous husband. I couldn’t ask for anything else.
Could you describe “A Day in the Life” for me? What’s it like being classical music celebrities and raising your family of four?
KM: Do you want the romantic version or the boring version?
Both!
KM: Well, Heidi is up at 6 a.m. . . .
HGM: I get the eldest up, make breakfast, and have a cup of coffee. Laundry gets thrown in, kids go off to school, I try to find a time to sing. There’s pick-up from school if I don’t have a rehearsal at the Met. I get them outside to play, push them through their homework, and make dinner.
KM: We did have a nanny for a lot of years, but now that they’re in school, it’s not so necessary. We kind of trade back and forth. I’ve had Dad stints for a couple of weeks while Heidi is away.
HGM: None of this would be possible without someone as flexible and lovely as Kevin. When I leave, he steps right in. He doesn’t do everything the way that I would, but he does it as well as could be.
Do you have a set system?
KM: No.
HGM: Yes.
I think we’ve found a stylistic difference! So, was that the boring version or the romantic version?
HGM: [laughing] I don’t know if there is a romantic version.
Could you tell me a little bit about how you met?
KM: We met at Indiana University. Heidi had been an education major at Western Washington University and was planning to become a high school music teacher. A teacher at Indiana, who was a friend of mine, convinced her to come audition for graduate school. When I heard her audition, I fell in love with her immediately.
What was that first impression like?
KM: When Heidi sings, you can tell what she’s like as a person—it comes from her heart. She just has this natural connection.
Funny you should say that, because I’ve read reviews that say you can sense Heidi’s warm and generous personality in the sounds of her singing. And I have to agree—she just sounds like a terrifically nice person.
KM: She is!
HGM: You should see me around dinnertime. I’m not so sure.
Heidi, tell me about your first impression of Kevin.
HGM: When I met him, I immediately felt he was a good guy. We struck up a friendship and then the music part of things solidified the rest. He started playing for my voice lessons. That music partnership was a beautiful thing then and has been ever since. It’s a partnership of our hearts, our souls, and our music as well.
I read an interview where you mentioned that, were you to be something other than a singer, you would have selected education as your path. It’s interesting to find out that’s actually what you had in mind.
HGM: I never intended to be a singer, although I always liked to sing. I went to my undergrad to go into education, and in fact I was . . .
KM: [interrupting] You had a job lined up.
HGM: Yeah, I pretty much had a job lined up and then, at the last minute, I threw in a performance degree. A couple of teachers suggested that I at least give it a try. They wanted me to see that there’s life outside of Bellingham, Washington, where I grew up, went to school, and was going to continue living for the rest of my life. That would have been beautiful, but I would never have met my husband and my life would have been a very different thing.
Kevin, what drew you to collaborative piano?
KM: It was natural. I was always a singer growing up and I took voice lessons in school even though I was a piano performance major. People at music school asked, “Would you like to play for my voice lessons?” and I said, “What does that mean?” When they said, “Well, you get paid!” I thought, “OK! I can help pay for part of my school.” It just began to domino from there. I used to kid the singers that I took more voice lessons than they did because I would go to every studio and hear all the teachers. I’ve always had an affinity for working with singers.
Eventually, it became more interesting for me to play the piano with other people because I think I can be empathetic toward other performers. I can read what they need and help support them, which interests me.
You and Heidi sound as if you sing and play as one—which, knowing of your relationship, isn’t a big surprise—but what caught my attention on your recent recording together, Lullabies and Nightsongs (see sidebar), is how perfectly in sync you are with the accordion.
KM: Gil Goldstein is the accordionist. Even before we got together in the sessions, we had an immediate rapport. The sessions themselves were just so much fun. We had such a good time making the recording that we almost didn’t care what happened with the record.
The choice to include accordion on a recording like this is somewhat unconventional.
HGM: I know where you’re going with this and I thought the same thing! When I first saw the accordion in the studio, I thought, “Oh, dear.”
Will you tell me about the decision to include it?
HGM: Some of the songs needed something to connect them, and Gil just started fiddling around. I was floored by the beautiful, haunting, improvisational things he was doing, things that could pull you away from your moment in time to some other place. Immediately we knew that we had to have as much of that as we could.
KM: I just love the sounds that he makes. Gil can make a sound with an accordion that sounds like a voice. It sings. My favorite musicians are people who transcend their particular instruments. He plays the music, and it’s not about the instrument.
One thing that struck me as possibly a happy accident is that by introducing the accordion into the mix, it brings out a quality of Americana.
HGM: When we first sat down to talk with Gil, we mentioned that we had done a lot of Copland songs and other folkie things in the past and we loved that sound. He may have had that in his mind when he was arranging Wilder’s scores, but none of us had any idea that the accordion would add that much color.
That reminds me of something that I read in the liner notes about wanting to invoke the styles of Aaron Copland, Bill Evans, and J.S. Bach in the recording. That’s quite a trilogy.
KM: They sound so different, but those three guys have a lot in common.
Like what?
HGM: They can make complex music sound simple.
The original book of Wilder songs was illustrated by Maurice Sendak. What were some of those illustrations?
HGM: Each one of those songs had a little illustration. They’re beautiful in that there are a lot of dark colors, night colors, and blues.
Did those inform your work, because the CD seems to sound like that.
KM: I think we all had that in our heads a little bit.
HGM: One of our favorite books happens to be Where the Wild Things Are. I think the things we love about it are the elements of unpredictability, of being childish and interesting, and using the imagination right up to the edge of “too scary.” There’s a little bit of that throughout all these songs, which made them interesting and fun to do.
Heidi, your voice just shimmers through each song on the recording. I’ve noticed you seem to elicit more heavenly metaphors than other singers and I don’t think it’s just the sound of your voice. It seems to have something to do with your delivery. It’s so serene and sounds so easy.
KM: Heidi would never say this, but it’s just her goodness. There’s a goodness in Heidi and her sound. She’s a decent human being, and you can hear it.
I do think you can hear it. Heidi, you’re compared to “heavenly bodies” on a regular basis. Are there ever times when you think, “I just don’t think I can do it today?”
HGM: Just having children does that to you. There are days when it’s so exhausting. One moment there’s a rag on your right shoulder for the burps, and then you have to do a quick change and go sing something. But the moment you hear that overture, it does something to you. It changes you and draws out some part of you that is the musician, the performer, the perfectionist. It’s the part of you that says, “these people want to be inspired.” So you just do it.
KM: I can tell you something else about Heidi—no matter what the stresses are, she can always step up and do it. She never lets anything creep into her performance.
What do you think prepared you for that?
HGM: My upbringing. My mom and dad are wonderful, “salt of the earth” people. My father is a minister, my mom is a nurse, and I have three sisters. We were our own best friends. My mom and dad were the greatest influences in my life.
There was a time when some people wanted me to go into Christian contemporary music and I got it into my mind that I was going to be a recording artist like Amy Grant. My dad said, “That’s not what it’s all about. Go to school and finish the degree. Get to work!” In the end, that helped me. Coming home and having to change diapers also helped me.
I would imagine that’s indeed a big part of it. Although having a family challenges you in terms of flexibility, it also serves as something that grounds you because you have to be there.
HGM: Precisely. I can think of one instance when I was singing an opera in a foreign country and I was just not happy with it. I would come home discouraged and unhappy, and these beautiful children would come running up and immediately change how I felt. On the other hand, there were times when we’d have an opening night that was all sparkles and champagne and I would come home feeling like I was the most important person in the world, and someone would throw up. You can only laugh.
I was watching some clips of your work, and it got me thinking about the spectacle involved in so many productions at the Met. I wondered, what are some of the most frightening things that you’ve had to do? Of course, I’m already thinking of the Mark Morris Orfeo ed Euridice when you were flown in as Amore.
HGM: Thankfully, I’m not afraid of heights. But I’ll tell you what—that was still pretty frightening. Oh my goodness! I don’t even know how high the top of the stage is, but in order to be strapped in and brought down, you have to go up several stories more to get to the catwalk. I had to lean out while somebody would hold onto the back of my pants so they could attach the cables. There was a period of one or two minutes there where I was looking down, seeing Jimmy [Levine], Stephanie [Blythe], and David [Daniels] way down there doing their thing. I had to trust that the fabulous, historical establishment that is the Met would keep me from falling to my death.
You are a brave soul. Was it exhilarating?
HGM: No. If I got to jump or something, maybe. The hard part was stepping off. They would bring the slack out of the wires and I’d have to step off the platform myself, just knowing that they would hold me. Then I’d slowly be lowered down.
Anything else?
KM: [whispers] The horse.
HGM: Oh yes, the horse. There used to be a horse that Nannetta [in Falstaff] would come in on to sing her little aria in the third act. The first time I ever did that, I was really young and I was covering Barbara Bonney. The horse had been fairly well behaved for most of her performances and then, of course, it was my turn.
I got up there, and the handler said, “You know, the horse is kind of agitated tonight. I’m not sure what’s going on.” I thought, “No big deal, I’m a big girl. I can do this.” I got on the horse and we began walking out, but it wasn’t exactly walking. The horse was actually bouncing up and down. I sang the first part of the aria and then slipped right off and sang the second part on the floor.
You did?
HGM: I did. I had to. I wasn’t going to be able to sing anything sustained while something was bumping me.
So now you have a “no horse riding” clause in your contracts?
HGM: [laughing] I wish.
Kevin, you’re now the director of music administration at New York City Opera. What exactly does that mean?
KM: Primarily, I’m the head of the music staff. I help oversee the music part of things and am involved in the casting of singers. From the moment that we audition and cast a singer, I take care of them and help coach them, keeping my eye on the performances to make sure that everything stays where it’s supposed to stay while trying to keep elevating the musical level.
In a way, it’s always been part of what I do. From the time that I was a student at Indiana University and the Curtis Institute, through my 16 years at the Met, I’ve always been interested in working with singers and helping them get better. Now that I’ve been in the business for 20 years, I see the younger ones coming out of college and it’s a passion of mine to help them, collaborate with them, and perform with them.
HGM: Frankly, Kevin would never say this but, in my opinion, he’s one of the very best. People who work with him come from all over the world to do it. Although his main job now is working at City Opera, what he does in the vocal coaching arena is spectacular.
What was it like being the first pianist in the Young Artist Program at the Met?
KM: I was lucky to have had a lot of access to Maestro Levine. He was one of my most influential teachers. When you make music with him, you feel very comfortable because it makes sense. It has a “just right”-ness about it. When you hear a performance of something that he does, you don’t say, “Oh that’s a good tempo,” you say, “That’s the way it goes.”
I’ve read that you’re also Heidi’s coach. What’s that like?
HGM: That’s a very good question. There’s nobody in the world who knows my voice better. Sometimes, I swear, all he has to do is look at me a certain way and I know what he’s going to say. He doesn’t even have to say it out loud. He’s my best eyes and ears, and I think that is why I’m still singing as healthfully as I am after 20 years of a rigorous career.
What are you looking forward to right now?
HGM: I’ll give you the same answer that I probably would have given you years ago. I look at what I have scheduled for the next few months, and that would be the next project I am looking forward to. In every engagement I accept, there is something artistically satisfying—from the administrative staff to the conductors to my gifted colleagues. How could you not look forward to something like that?
