Freeman Günter: How did you discover your unique voice, and when were you certain you really were a true contralto?
Ewa Podle: Since I was born. (She laughs heartily, a spontaneous, joyously booming sound that leaves no doubt as to her true vocal category.) My mother was a great, great singer, with a huge contralto voice. My older sister also had an alto voice which was absolutely destroyed at the Warsaw Academy of Music. They told her that maybe as a mezzo she could make a bigger career. For an alto there is not such a huge repertoire, and she had the high register, the high tones, the high notes.
And it ruined her voice?
Absolutely. Even 20 years after, it’s not possible for her to sing even a simple scale. Nothing.
So this must have been a tremendous warning to you.
Yes, it was. I was even too careful. I would hardly let my teacher tell me anything. “Don’t tell me this, don’t touch me! I will do myself, I will try, if it works or not.” That was my relationship with my teacher, very famous Polish Soprano, Irena Bolojovska. But she was very clever, very intelligent. She never pushed me to do something against my own wishes. And it was funny because we started together. She started her teaching career with me and I was her Butterfly child when I was three years old. After 20 years, when I came to her studio in the academy, she looked at me and she said, “My God! It’s my Butterfly’s baby.” I said, “You can’t recognize me, it’s impossible.” But she said, “Oh yes, I recognize you.”
Was this teacher the only teacher that you had?
Yes. Every teacher has her own methods. Sometimes they are very funny, very strange. She tried to explain to me— because it’s very difficult to explain to young students how to sing—that you have to sing gothic, like church cathedral. You have to lift your soft palate. I said, “I can’t.” Of course she was right. But at that moment I was being so careful. So I said, “I’m sorry, I will not sing what you want from me, because without your advice, I can sing very well.”
She said, “OK, Ewa, you are very gifted, you are very talented. I am here to help you. To help you discover your body, your voice. So try to find this yourself. And I will tell you if it is OK or not.” So I sang a note and she would say, “It’s a very beautiful tone. Are you comfortable with this?” I said, “Yes, I am comfortable.” “So, OK,” she said, “keep it. It is very good and in the right position.” Or she would say this note is too big or too dark, or too covered.” She would listen to me and correct me.
Did you have your remarkable coloratura facility from the beginning?
With this I was born. My mother was the first to hear it, because she was a professional singer. Because my mother had so dark a voice, like a male voice, when people heard her in radio broadcast, they thought it was a mistake. She should be man, not woman. They wanted to see what she had down there, to make sure she was really a woman.
Sometimes people hate my chest voice. But it is natural chest. It is nothing artificial. It is my color.
What exactly is the difference between these voices: mezzo, alto, and contralto?
Especially between alto and contralto, people don’t know the difference. Alto is voice very dark.
Darker than mezzo?
Yes! Absolutely. And very short, without flexibility. Marian Anderson, Maureen Forrester, Kathleen Ferrier, for them sol or la is maximum. Alto is a short, dark female voice.
I have three voices in my range—soprano, mezzo, and alto. I have a huge range and flexibility, coloratura. Alto doesn’t sing coloratura. I have a huge and unusual chest voice, and a high register like a soprano.
Yes, springing clear high notes. Have you had trouble being misunderstood, having intendents not knowing what parts to cast you in or how to use you?
Yes! But in fact I can sing almost everything. Two weeks ago I sang Erda in Siegfried because it is really for this kind of voice. (She demonstrates in a booming chest voice of baritonal darkness and directness, thrilling and enveloping when the singer is sitting next to the listener in a living room.)
Wow!
It is written for this kind of voice. When mezzo-sopranos sing it, they use their head voice. (She sings the same phrase in the bottom of her head voice, producing a cloudy, much less impressive sound.) It is not natural. Doesn’t fly. It’s too low to sing with head voice.
Right. But people are beginning to understand your voice, I believe.
Not everybody! (Laughs)
It is like the case of Maria Callas. Many people didn’t like her voice either. But you know what she always said, “I think that if people don’t like my voice, they should not come to hear me sing.”
I will not change my voice, I can’t, to make pleasure for everyone. For you I don’t not use my chest. And for you I use my head.
They have to come to you prepared to understand and accept what you have to offer.
Love me or leave me!
They say, “There’s a huge difference between her chest and her head voice.” But of course there is difference between (Sings extreme low note) and (Sings the same note three octaves higher.) There should be, it’s impossible to make the color the same.
But I think, except for the extreme notes, you can sing any note in your compass in any of your registers.
Of course. And I sometimes use the chest up very high, to emphasize the drama.
At Carnegie Hall your voice sounds enormous.
At Carnegie Hall everybody sounds huge. So many vibrations, too much echo for me. And I can’t control. I like to hear my voice, every note, to manipulate something, to create something.
What is your favorite theater for good acoustics? Where do you especially like the sound? The Concertgebouw, perhaps?
No, no. It’s a little bit similar to Carnegie Hall. Too much, too much. I like this “horrible acoustic”—every singer says it’s a horrible acoustic—in Philadelphia.
At the Academy of Music?
Yes. I just hear so pure, every note. It is not covered, the voice doesn’t fly away from me. No, it’s perfect.
What about the Metropolitan? You sang Handel’s Rinaldo at the Metropolitan on February 14, 1984. I don’t think they really understood what you are.
I was a little bit too inexperienced. I had just finished my school, and I had never had a contract outside of Poland. It was my first audition in my life for James Levine. I had no example to follow. It’s much easier to sing Carmen because everyone is singing it. But Rinaldo! I had no recording to guide me. Nothing! Now I am ready. For many years I am ready. But probably they have in the computer that maybe I am not good enough. There was nothing wrong in this performance.
It just wasn’t the right time. You could do it now, though. You would take them by storm now. The Met could certainly use your Tancredi today.
Ah, I would like! Because it’s no good when small mezzos start to sing Tancredi, and try to add color (demonstrates).
You have that commanding, heroic, almost male color. These are male parts. I would think you would be the Arsace of dreams. Even Semiramide, herself. Malibran sang both of those parts. They didn’t have the Ffach system then. You just sang what was comfortable for you.
I have the high register, but I don’t like to stay up there too long. Tessitura is very important. People get in trouble when they start to sing repertoire a little too high for them. This can kill the voice, absolutely.
When you warm up, do you use scales?
Absolutely, everything, from bottom to top, even if I have only to sing one small aria, like in Alexander Nevsky. I use always my whole range and coloratura.
Well, that’s where you are unique. I mean, to sing these heroic Rossini roles with the coloratura and the style! Is there any repertoire that you would like to sing now that you’ve stayed away from because you feared it wouldn’t be good for your voice?
From very beginning, I was very careful about repertoire. I had proposal to sing Azucena, Eboli. In this period, my voice was very light. I had the deep chest and the high notes, but in the medium register, it was very light, not so dark, so huge like right now. So in this period, I didn’t want to touch Verdi. But never say never. I am was CarUbino Cherubino or Angelina, Rosina not Azucena. (laughing) Now, I am not anymore Carobino Cherubino orin Cenerentola, so now I can start to sing Azucena.
Your Carobino Cherubino is now a grown man, he’s not just a boy anymore.
Now I can sing Ulrica, Azucena, Eboli, Erda.
Do you listen to recordings of other people?
No, not for pleasure. Never. I don’t have time. Only when I have to study something.
Do you listen to your own recordings?
No, I don’t like them. Always I prefer live performance. Recording is not natural. You have to record for three hours, to repeat because of noise, because we were not together, because the plane flies over. It kills your emotion, your message. I prefer even with small mistakes, to do it once. Otherwise, it’s too calculated.
So, when you make records, you can never really forget and just sing the way you do in the theater?
No. I sing for people, for my audience. For me the audience is so important. And the quality of the audience. There is a big difference between the audiences in New York and Sarasota, for example. You know, it is kind of collaboration, relationship between me and the audience, and I feel from the very beginning whether they understand my message, my art. It’s my own art. I’m only Ewa Podle≠. I don’t like to imitate somebody else. I hate to be compared with somebody else. If you want to hear Marilyn Horne, please go and hear her. I am Ewa Podle≠. I don’t want to imitate Marilyn Horne. And we are different. So different.
How would you compare the artistic climate of Europe and here? Are there differences in the way singers are treated, the way audiences respond?
In big cities, in centers of art—Paris, Vienna, Moscow, Warsaw, San Francisco, Washington, New York, Detroit, Chicago—the public is prepared. They have seen and heard many good artists. They know, they can judge for themselves. But, in small cities, people come sometimes to see how I look; am I bigger or smaller? But they don’t understand music. Sometimes when I talk with concert promoters and I give them my proposal, my program for recital, for example, they tell me, “Oh no, this is too difficult for our public.” And this makes me so unhappy. I sing, I am on the stage, and I am asking myself, what am I doing here?
When I performed my Chopin recital with Garrick Olsen, the public was really horrible. Garrick came to me and told me, “Don’t think about them. Sing for me and for yourself.” I said, “No! I don’t sing for myself! For myself, I prefer to drink red wine! I perform for people, not for me. It is not a pleasure for me to sing for myself in the bathroom. I can’t sing for myself and for you. I open myself—everything—my heart, my body.” I want people to understand, to appreciate that I am here. Sometimes before the last note, the people stand up and go, go, go, go. Listen, I worked for you two hours with my own body!
And countless more hours to prepare. What is the music, spiritually, that you feel that you can share most directly with people? Is there a particular composer or kind of music that touches you more than others? That feels really good for you to sing?
I try to love all music, all opera. Sometimes when I begin to study from the very beginning, I don’t like this music. Then, step by step, as it becomes my own, I grow to love it, especially tragic music. Something very emotional, very deep, dramatic.
Do you ever change your ornaments in Rossini—do you vary them?
I change sometimes. It depends what I want to show, my low register or my high register, or both of them.
Do you change on the spur of the moment?
No, no, no. I don’t improvise. I did once, and it was nothing (laughs). You have to be prepared. You have to be sure what you want to do, every note.
When my husband played piano for me, it was the best period in my life. Now he’s not able to play because of a problem with his back. So, I’m looking still for a pianist…
For the perfect accompanist.
Not accompanist. Never. Partner. I need big personality with me.
You’re not afraid of being overshadowed?
No, no, no! Just open the piano and play! They are afraid to be with singers. Even very good pianists—soloists—they change their playing when they work with a singer. They start to be accompanists.
Are you nervous, do you have a problem with stage fright?
Not nervous. Responsible. And I am never happy with myself. Never. Probably everybody has the same problem. Always, it can be better. But it is live performance. Anything can happen. Nobody asks “How do you feel today?”
It’s so personal. It’s part of you. You are both the instrument and the artist.
And sometimes, your own instrument refuses to collaborate with you. (laughs) “I refuse. We have to rest a little bit.”
Do you sing every day?
I don’t like to. When I sing everyday now, it’s because I have to. The big maestri from Italy, the teachers, always said voice should rest a minimum of 48 hours. Two days.
Because now we are so busy, we work so much, everybody pushes us to sing everywhere, even with general rehearsal in the morning on the same day of the concert. I got invitation to perform in Verdi’s Requiem, with only one rehearsal, the morning of the performance. It is impossible. Of course, it is possible. They did it. But I refused. I could have done this also; I know this piece perfectly. But I said, “No! It is inhuman. We are not machines, you know.” They kill us. Money, money, money—the people who sponsor, they don’t want to pay for the hotels, for the rehearsals, for the orchestra—just one day. That’s all.
Now it’s fast music, like fast food. It doesn’t work.
