From the Met to La Scala, from Paris Opera to Wiener Staatsoper, from Glyndebourne to Athens, from Lyric Opera of Chicago to San Francisco Opera, from Berlin to the Bolshoi, and lots of major houses in between—and through many CDs and films—Delores Ziegler has touched and thrilled audiences everywhere with repertoire extending from Bel Canto to Verismo!
She has received such praise as “The married-in-heaven voices of Carol Vaness and Delores Ziegler scored one slam dunk after another” (Opera News). “[Ziegler] sang with exceptional warmth, suavity, and elegance . . . and she proved herself a compelling dramatic force” (LA Times). “What a radiating, warm luminosity, sincerity, tenderness in phrasing, what belief in the ‘heilige Kunst er Musik’ flowed from this joyous voice! An interpretation to kneel before” (Vienna’s AZ).
A few years ago, Ziegler asked me to team-teach a January short course for our alma mater institution, Maryville College in Tennessee. We presented this intensive opera scenes course for two years. During this time, I witnessed firsthand Ziegler’s mastery as a teacher. What I found to be extraordinary was her astonishing generosity of spirit. The care she held for each and every student came from a profound and sincere place in her soul. I like to call her “La generosa!” And, in true fashion, she generously agreed to discuss her career and life over a series of interviews.
How did your small-college undergraduate experience prepare you for graduate studies at the University of Tennessee?
At Maryville College, we were not necessarily being groomed to perform, which is not a bad thing! We were focusing on problem solving, garnering an education with breadth, critical-thinking skills—we had the freedom of not focusing just on vocal technique. The negative side was getting to graduate school and realizing how far behind you are. So, you do one of two things: either you buckle down and try to come up to speed or you give up!
At Maryville, language classes were required, though we had no official diction class. What we did have was outstanding training in theory and music history. The professor for music history was Victor Schoen, and he was an opera fanatic! He and his wife, piano professor Sallie Warth Schoen, hosted student gatherings every Saturday afternoon in the family room of their home centered around the weekly Met radio broadcasts. He would have several scores open for us on the floor for us to follow, and there would always be beer and snacks. These were shattering, mind-blowing experiences hearing in context for the very first time the “Bell Song” or Zerbinetta’s aria or “Come scoglio.” These were transformative experiences. That was an education!
You lived in Germany full-time for 14 years and then traveled back to Europe subsequently for numerous singing engagements. Did you have experience with German as a spoken language prior to moving?
Let’s just say it was extremely limited when I first arrived! I knew a year ahead that I had the contract, and we decided to move over. I was in Knoxville, so I didn’t have lots of opportunities to speak German. However, the choir director at First Presbyterian Church taught German at UT, so we took sporadic lessons with him. He was passionate about it, but he wasn’t a great teacher.
I was so nervous about going into that first rehearsal when we arrived in Germany—I was Emilia in Otello in Bonn. I arrived at the rehearsal and turned to my friend and said, “They’re not speaking German—this is Italian! Help!” I spoke even less Italian at that time. But there was a wonderful assistant stage director from South Africa, and he spoke all of the languages. He was new there too, so I stuck to him like glue. You couldn’t move me from his side.
There were a lot of American singers in Germany at that time, but I tried really hard to stay away from that trap of just hanging out with them. We met a German couple who were parents of my daughter’s best friend in Bonn, and they would not speak English to us, so this was actually a huge help. We got books and we were around German 24/7, so after the first year, I could speak OK. After 14 years, I could do quite well. But I do wish I had had more conversational-style foreign language in college—it’s so helpful for singers.
Describe the transition back to the U.S., after the years in Germany, and how you ended up in Maryland.
I returned to the USA in 1995 and knew that I wanted to settle in a metropolitan area. My husband, tenor Randy Outland, was at Catholic University, and our son Adam preferred the Washington D.C. area so that he could be close to both parents. So, I was hired by the University of Maryland in 2001 and was fast-tracked to associate professor. I served as chair of voice and opera for about seven years. My teaching career continues to be immensely satisfying.
As a teacher, do you have a basic technical approach that is applicable for all voice types?
Breathing—but that’s tricky. All bodies are built differently, and there are physiological differences as well . . . each body is unique. All mouths are different. One size does not fit all! For classically trained singers, all vowels are tall—yes—high soft palate and that “lifted feeling” we seek. That’s probably true across the board for all singers.
My own technique is a mixture, but is largely Italian. You know, what is dangerous about the American way is that teachers often homogenize the sound. All singers tend to sound the same in terms of an ideal sound. We must cultivate individual sound! I love the unique and interesting characteristics in young voices and I work to maintain them. We need all types of singers—the super-bright sopranos as much as the darker Netrebko-types.
Teachers should avoid placing students in a Fach too early, based on where the passaggi lie. We often misread the passaggi or put too much emphasis on them. The passaggio is not a measuring stick for all voices. You know, mezzos who sing a lot of pants roles are typically high lyric mezzos—a second soprano really. Sustaining the tessitura is the problem, of course. Where does your voice like to sing? I was able to sing Fiordiligi’s arias for instance, but the ensembles hang a third higher, and I couldn’t sustain them. With the passaggio, I try not to go there immediately with students. Instead, we address navigating in and out of the passaggio.
I remember your voice as being straightforward and naturally well coordinated from the outset. What other approaches do you embrace for teaching technique now in the studio?
You have to focus on technique, and then you have to find a balance. If the student can make a good “noise” and demonstrates good breath management, we can work on other things. If the student isn’t making a good noise, we start from the beginning with breath control, resonance, soft palate, passaggio issues, etc. I do my utmost to avoid having the students get stressed out and inhibited from constant detail. Singing must be natural! If you’re too physiological and too detailed, the students become restricted or somehow disabled from it.
For undergraduates, I believe you must convey technical information very carefully and keep the all-important technique as natural as possible. We all know that some students are over-thinkers, and others just want to sing with no intention or else with mimicry. Each student has unique and individual needs—that is the real key!
How can we teach young singers to overcome self-centered behaviors?
Know who you are and be comfortable with who you are. Love who you are. Be grounded in yourself. Be comfortable alone. Being an opera singer can be a lonely experience, and you are often far away from all of your support systems. Nowadays, we have the Internet and Skype, etc. Before, there were no lifelines. Use today’s lifelines when alone—really use them. Being a performer takes up your whole life. This can be dangerous. You must have something outside of yourself to think about.
Don’t let your whole life be consumed with you. It can make you totally neurotic! You’ve got to learn to separate, and there must be something else of great interest in your life.
What are your memories and thoughts regarding collegiality onstage and especially offstage? What advice can you offer aspiring young artists today?
Mind your own business unless you’re asked specifically. Don’t give your colleagues rehearsal notes. If something is bothering you, talk to the coach or the conductor or director, preferably.
I once played Emilia in Otello, and the Desdemona was the renowned Maria Chiara. I was inexperienced at that time. She taught me how to comb her wig onstage without pulling it off her head—ha!—and how to cross side-by-side while maintaining sightlines. I needed to know!
So, you can give advice depending on if the actor is older and wiser and depending on how you give it. If it is a peer, be careful! Guard against giving advice to your colleagues. Make every effort to personally connect with colleagues, because ensembles are better and staging is better in terms of personal contact. In the “Così” , Carol Vaness and I had such a great time together—it was so much fun to “read” each other.
Don’t throw in the towel if you don’t like your colleague. You won’t always like them. But you can use that onstage—it creates electricity.
What advice would you offer young singers regarding how best to work with conductors?
When starting out, you have very little to say—aloud. [Laughs.] You do your homework. You are the artist, not just the “taxi.” You’ve worked hard to prepare and to be able to “make music.” The conductor may want something different. He or she might want a breathier sound in a certain spot, and so you have to interpret. Does he mean more intense? Sometimes, conductors who are not singers have difficulty explaining. So you must interpret and experiment.
Do not talk back—ever. Keep your distance. They are not your best friend, so do not address them on a first-name basis unless that is requested. Sometimes tempo issues can destroy runs and one’s phrasing in terms of breath. You may talk tempi in a one-on-one rehearsal or else try talking to the conductor alone before or after a rehearsal. One time I recall saying, “Maestro, I would love to take your tempo, and I like that tempo, but I can’t make my voice do that. Would you have a few minutes to work with me to show me how I can do it at that tempo?” Then she will likely see that you cannot do it at that tempo. Most conductors want to assist the voice. They’re human too, and they get excited in a performance, and then what do we do?
I’ll never forget one time when I was doing Sesto, and we were performing the “Parto, parto” aria with those deadly triplets at the end. Talk about the conductor getting excited in performance! I hung on for dear life and met him at the end.
What I do, and what I ask my students to do, for both coloratura sections as well as for super-slow lyric lines is to practice with a metronome within a range of tempi. Adrenaline will often assist you in performance! But I write into my score for each section of coloratura or very slow, long lines what the range on a metronome is that I can pull off. This system enables me to adjust my tempi either slower or faster to enable those of the conductor’s.
On a more negative note, I did have an unfortunate encounter with a conductor during a production of Norma in Buenos Aires. The conductor was terribly abusive to everyone in the cast, and I finally broke down and let him have it. I had previously decided that I would be fired for doing this. In the end, I was not fired, but it was a lesson for me that there are situations where you have to stand up for yourself, even if it means losing the job.
Would you please share your thoughts about maintaining good vocal health for singers?
Have good genes. Have a good immune system. You’re born with it or you’re not. Obviously, we cannot just avoid being around others who are ill—we deal with air travel, sick children, etc. We personally get sick. But you must not get neurotic about it. Vocal health is not drinking until 3 a.m., though there are famous singers who did carouse, ha! Sleep enough.
I grew up in Georgia, and we drank milk all the time. One time I was drinking a milkshake right before a big orchestra rehearsal, and one singer looked at me in horror and said, “What are you drinking?!” I responded, “I don’t know—I guess I’m drinking a milkshake.” Well, ever since that episode, now all I can think about is that milk products create mucous! We psyche ourselves out.
Don’t allow yourself to be tricked by your own fears. Don’t focus on your fears. Our brains are so amazing—so fascinating and powerful. I mean people really skilled at meditation can lower their blood pressure and control serious pain. So, don’t let your fears control you. Get out of your brain’s way.
Vocal health is a very individual thing. Can we sing/perform on three hours of sleep? Yes! And well! But we can’t sing on three hours of sleep night after night.
Just don’t freak out—adrenalin will assist you. How many times were there when my son Adam might be up all night, and I had important rehearsals or performances the next day. You can sing under a lot of adverse circumstances because you are so focused.
Focus on doing your job. Use common sense. Mix your opera roles so that they aren’t all so demanding—pace and vary them. Drink more water than you ever dreamed possible to flush out illness.
You know, I remember when I worked with Teresa Stratas that she never ate anything on the day of a performance. How could she do it? Everyone is different, but it worked for her. Eat a good diet—doesn’t have to be perfect, but you should be conscientious.
You have taught for many summers for Oberlin in Italy’s program. What is that short-term experience like compared to the academic year teaching experience at the University of Maryland?
When you only have four or five lessons with someone, you try not to confuse them. I try not to start anew or to have them discard previous things—it’s too confusing. So, we try to take what they already know and build on that and tweak it. I try to give them food for thought. I often say, “Take this idea home to your teacher and see what they think about it. It might work or it might not, and we only have four lessons together.” I try really hard to honor their regular teacher.
When you have someone for four years as an undergraduate or for two as a graduate student, you can really build the technique from the ground up, and I find that very rewarding. I remember my teacher Ed Zambara often saying that people would come to him when he became famous and was working at Juilliard, and they wanted a “quick fix.” And he responded, “I’m not the kind of teacher who wants to put a Band-Aid on something.” In four or five lessons, you feel as if you’re having to use a Band-Aid on something that needs to be addressed more fully.
What was your most interesting, fulfilling, satisfying role?
Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. It has everything an opera singer could ask for: beautiful music, beautiful lines, comedy, drama, and acting—which includes not only being a believable boy, but being believable as a boy pretending to be a girl. So, it’s really complex, especially over four hours, because you really have a chance to develop the character. They all undergo a tremendous metamorphosis. Hofmannsthal’s libretto is brilliant, and Strauss himself had lots to do with that as well. It touches your soul.
Do you have a particular routine for learning a new role or song?
Sometimes. It all depends on how much time I have. I start by reading the text or libretto. If it’s an opera, I get a sense of who the character really is and what colors I’ll be going for. Is he or she really angry when saying that line? Is he or she really in love with that person?
Then I love to speak it in rhythm—this is so important, especially for recitatives. And it makes memory much easier. Then I roughly sing through the entire piece so that I know where the most difficult sections are. And then I start the learning process at those points.
If there are recitatives, I do those first and then I go next to the ensembles and arias. The ensembles are often the most difficult and they are hard to learn alone. You need a great coach or even a répétiteur. Those are generally the steps I use, and by the time I get that far, I’m always amazed at how much I have memorized. Oh—and I always mark the beats, even if it’s an easy rhythm.
I have students who have been working on a score for maybe four or five weeks, and there is nothing on the page! Shocking! It makes for fewer mistakes and for quicker learning.
What do you consider your most challenging role?
My most challenging role was Romeo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. It’s long, and the range is so huge. The very first time you come out, he’s a real warrior—it’s a super-dramatic aria. And then you’re sword fighting, and you’re angry, and then you have this big duet with the tenor, and then you have to sing this incredibly lyrical aria that has huge emotional impact. You have to scale your voice down from the angry part to this beautiful lyrical singing that hangs right in the upper passaggio. It’s so hard.
The first time I finished singing that role, I said, “Never again!” But my agent, who was present for the opening night, said, “It was really great!” I just knew I had killed myself trying to do it. He said, “OK. Do three more performances, and then we’ll talk about it.” Well, he was right. I didn’t know how to pace the role yet.
The first time I sang it was at La Scala as a last-minute replacement for another mezzo. Muti was in the pit, and I had no orchestra rehearsal. It was terrifying! It was the only time in my whole career that I prayed that before I stepped out on that stage, I would faint and have to be carried off to the hospital! Ha! That probably had a lot to do with my not wanting to do that role ever again. But I did sing it again and I figured it out. I sang it a lot after that.
Is there anything you’d like to add that I have not asked?
There’s so much that goes into our lives and so many people who touch our lives. And we don’t even realize it until we make the effort to look back. When we take the time to reflect, we know that we never did it by ourselves. Every step of the way, there was somebody who said something, who did something, who offered something.
All of those people who believed enough in me to give me the first opportunity to show if I could do it or not—I am so deeply grateful to each and every one of those people.
