Twenty years ago, Opera News came out and said it. “It’s that simple. Marilyn Horne is the greatest singer in the world.” In subsequent interviews, the lady herself sighed, “If only it were that simple.”
Opera News was not alone. Critics for years had been praising this tenor’s daughter from Bradford, Penn. with the smooth, rich voice that could move faster than the A train, without sacrificing tonal beauty or dramatic expression. Horne’s 1983 memoir, My Life, brought us up to her 50th birthday celebrations, capped with a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo at the Met.
The book, and the tapes of the Rinaldo broadcast are still gold mines of drama, humor and musical dash. At 50, Miss Horne was far from finished. She continued her operatic career for another 10 years, bringing her famous Arsace in Rossini’s Semiramide to the Met. She sang Dalila in New York and San Francisco, and her fiery “Iris Hence Away” stole the evening from Samuel Ramey and Kathleen Battle when Handel’s Semele was presented in Carnegie Hall.
How does a great opera star celebrate her 60th birthday? Ten years ago, Marilyn Horne rounded up friends such as Ramey, Montserrat Caballe, Ruth Ann Swenson, Renee Fleming and Warren Jones, and with a spectacular Carnegie Hall concert launched the Marilyn Horne Foundation. Classical Singer readers of unfamiliar with the Foundation’s work should get themselves to www.marilynhornefdn.org post haste.
If anyone is going to build a new audience for the song recital and showcase young singers in this repertoire, it’s Marilyn Horne and her foundation. What young singers? To date, she has introduced Stephanie Blythe, Bejun Mehta, Lawrence Brownlee and Isabel Bayrakdarian in recital to national audiences.
Marilyn Horne turned 70 on Jan. 16. She has updated her memoirs: Baskerville Publishers published The Song Continues a few weeks ago. London Records, with whom she had a long-term contract, got in on the celebration by releasing a two-CD set called: Marilyn Horne, Just for the Record: The Golden Voice (DECCA B0001512-02). Buy it and learn what all the fuss was about. It’s all there, from Handel and Rossini, to songs by Wagner, Nin, Schubert and Copland. There are duets with Luciano Pavarotti, Renata Tebaldi (hair-raising, from La Gioconda) and above all, Joan Sutherland.
Horne’s collaboration with Dame Joan began more than 40 years ago, and pointed her away from the soprano repertoire to the florid Bel Canto mezzo roles of Rossini that sealed her fame. And don’t forget that the all-time best-selling opera recording in the United States is Bizet’s Carmen, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, with Marilyn Hone in the title role.
I first interviewed Marilyn Horne in the mid-‘90s. We were in her dressing room at the Met as she was preparing for one of her last appearances there, as Samira in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles.
It was bedlam back there before a performance, not the ideal ambience for a radio interview, but the only time Miss Horne could spare. The tape recorder wouldn’t work and I wasn’t helping calm her nerves by crawling around on the floor looking for another electrical outlet. Finally, the diva handed me a diet soda and said, “Sit down honey. You’re making me nervous, and you don’t have to sing. Let’s just sit down and chat.” And chat we did. It was a delight to catch up with her a few weeks ago.
You retired from opera performance about 10 years ago, but you are hardly retired as you approach your 70th birthday. What is important to Marilyn Horne today?
My grandchildren! Daisy is 5 and Henry is 11 months. And guess what? There’s one more on the way, a little boy expected this June.
But oh, you want to talk about music! OK. What’s important to me today is teaching.
I really enjoy teaching. I can’t hang out a shingle. I do have appointments at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara [Calif.], and I’ve been a visiting artist at the University of Oklahoma for the past six years.
I’m not in one place long enough to devote the time necessary to students consistently. You know, if you get started working with someone its just unfair to have to go away and leave them in the lurch. And while of course I concern myself with technical matters, I really consider myself more of a coach. I always work through the music. I don’t especially want to sit there and drill scales. I will do that, however, if I hear some technical problems that need to be addressed.
The past 20 years of your career were the gravy, weren’t they? When you really didn’t have to prove yourself any more?
Sure. It got easier. I’m still singing concerts today, but let’s face it, the lighter repertoire I do today is not as hard. I love it, but I made my career singing some of the most difficult music written.
What grabs you when you are hearing a singer for the first time? What must you have from them to really excite you?
First of all, the quality of the sound. You can tell in a few notes if the quality itself is going to be really arresting. And I want a big personality. Originality of expression.
You know, you and I have talked before about all of these overproduced, slick recordings coming out now. You hear a lot of beautiful sounds, sure, but there’s a cookie-cutter problem with singing today. I think stage directors have taken over opera, and they discourage singers from really performing. You must use expression with the words and the music to grab your audience. Originality should never be discouraged.
I’m worried about all these generic singers. They work hard to be correct musically, but they don’t put themselves into their work. Or they are prevented from doing so, by directors and by the record companies. Pretty sells! And it could be they are listening to too many recordings!
I was lucky, in a way. When I began singing all the Rossini mezzo roles over 40 years ago, there was really nobody to listen to. I had to go at it myself. I had help of course, but there were no recordings to turn to.
Hmm. Recordings. Dare I bring up the term pirate?
Go ahead. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I never listen to studio recordings, even my own! The live stuff, that I do listen to.
Back to audiences…
I’m concerned too, that audiences today expect everything to be spoon-fed to them. People listen very differently today than when I was starting out. When I was young, you could still sing 20 or 30 recitals a year, plus opera. You didn’t have to have a name. Audiences would turn up to hear live concert music. Now TV and all the electronic media are very tough competitors, and attention spans seems shorter. And we really are living in a visual era.
This business of opera singers needing to look a certain way on stage, whether they can sing the role or not, it’s disturbing! TV is partly to blame for this, and I watch TV!
I like TV, but it hasn’t helped singers develop the big personalities they need to really dig into their roles. The visual is engaging us more than a singer with an A-1-plus instrument. But I really have to have the personality when I hear a singer, added of course to the musicianship and the talent—and the quality of the voice.
Let’s talk technique. What’s your idea of breath support? Some teachers suggest that the support activates as a result of air moving. Others suggest that air alone is not support, that the air must be supported by inner resistance.
When you say inner resistance, you mean compressed air. And that’s an absolute must! You have to engage all of the muscles: the diaphragm, the buttocks, the legs. Tighten the buttock muscles to give yourself extra support!
Tighten? Doesn’t that lead to tension? A restricted sound?
Not at all. It gives the underpinning, the foundation upon which to build the sound. Tightening the buttock muscles allows for more freedom for the diaphragm. There’s a real physical connection between the diaphragm and the buttock muscles.
But look, you have to begin with good posture. I know that sounds pretty basic, but you need to stand in correct alignment so the muscles can work. There are singers who begin to tuck the stomach under as they breathe out. Disaster! Because then two sets of muscles work contrary to each other.
I heard a girl recently at a seminar in France who was breathing all over the place. She had her muscles out of alignment; they were all fighting one another. I took five minutes to tell her what she was doing wrong. She went away and worked. I mean she really worked, because when the seminar ended 10 days later she had it down very well. All of a sudden, she could sing a beautiful legato. She told me, “Well, I’ve had a life altering experience.” Yes, I can explain it quickly but it takes work to redirect those muscles.
The other problem is the best use of air. A lot of people take in a good, well-supported breath but spend it all in the first notes of a phrase. Whoosh! Out goes that air. You’ve got to know how to feed the air through evenly, so that every note gets its share. And some will need more than others, depending on the style you are singing, the orchestration, the hall, and keeping up with your colleagues on stage.
But you know, if a technique is working for you it becomes second nature. It really is like riding a bicycle. But to this day, even though I know longer sing opera or “classical music” in public, I never do any singing that does not engage all the muscles from the diaphragm, legs and buttocks. Everything is supported, all the time.
Was the coloratura a natural gift? Were you born with it or did you train for it?
I liked it from the time I was a little girl. Lily Pons was my idol; I wore out her recording of the “Bell Song” from Lakme. Maybe because I was so young when I first heard it—8, 9 years old—I got that sound into my head. That might have helped.
When I was just starting out, my teacher would play the Pons recording as a treat for me after an especially good lesson. Later, I began to sing oratorio: Handel and Bach. That’s when I began to use the coloratura.
I don’t think it can really be taught. You have to hear it in your head. People today are often aspirating all over the place: “ha-ha-ha.” That’s not coloratura. That’s cheating. I used Rossini’s volumes of vocalizes, and I would go vocalize up and down on arpeggios. Once I got the coloratura ability I pretty much kept it. But I found that if I went a few days without singing I would get rusty. Two days rest is okay, even three days. Four days, no. Then I had to get back to work.
What is your advice for late bloomers? It seems there’s a void in training and promotion for those developing their careers later in life.
This is a problem I hear a lot. I can’t comment much on people who are just getting going professionally in their 30s or 40s. Getting going in your 40s will never be easy.
What’s even harder is starting up again. I had several colleagues, very fine singers, people from the Met with careers, who took time out to raise families. It’s a very tough call for women. It’s probably easier for men. But you know, if you’ve taken the time to start a family, you’ve made a choice. And all choices have consequences.
I had my baby when I was 31. That was late back then! I was already well established, and I could take her along with me until she started school. When she got older, I was at the Met for long periods of time and we lived in Jersey, so I was home more. And there is nothing worse, believe me, than to get on a plane, leaving a child behind. I spent many a flight crying my eyes out.
One colleague of mine was happy raising her kids, but then her husband left and she wanted to come back. There was nothing wrong with her voice or her talent at all, but it just didn’t happen for her. Be aware that if you drop out before you are well established it’s going to be difficult getting back. So try and get the career going before taking a break. Get yourself established as a working singer.
What do you like most about singing duets?
Duet singing is so much fun. There’s the old rule, where the sum is greater than the parts!
I began singing duets with my sister when we were both kids. She’s a few years older than I am. Later I started singing with a gal named Joanne Pagones, who eventually became my sister-in-law. It was singing with them that first taught me how to listen to a colleague, and certainly how to blend. And we sang everywhere: churches, PTA meetings, socials, picnics, political meetings, you name it. I was there with Gloria and later Joanne.
And it was duet singing that brought me into the Bel Canto repertoire. Remember that all through the early years of my career, and well into the 1960s, I was a soprano. I sang soprano repertoire. In Germany, I sang Mimi, Minnie, Tatyana, and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra. My big break in the States was as Marie in Wozzeck, in San Francisco. I also sang Marie inThe Daughter of the Regiment there, along with Musetta! And I had always sung the soprano parts in the Verdi Requiem, in Messiah.
I wasn’t really aware of the Bel Canto repertoire. But along came Joan Sutherland. She was making her New York debut at Town Hall in 1961. The opera was Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda. I was cast as Agnese, the seconda donna. Still not what I would call a mezzo role. Ricky Bonynge heard us in the rehearsal and he got on the phone to Terry McEwen, who was with London Records. He said to Terry, “Get down here. There’s a girl singing with Joan who sounds like Rosa Ponselle!”
The performances went well, and we all became friends: my husband, Henry Lewis, who was a conductor; Ricky Bonynge, who was beginning his career as a conductor; and Joan. We got together again to record the album The Age of Bel Canto. Then Joan and I did Norma together, and for Adalgisa, it’s all about the duets with Norma. And let me tell you something: Adalgisa is a soprano role. She has to do everything Norma has to do. I still thought of myself as a soprano when I began singing Norma with Joan—but then Semiramide came along, in 1964.
You bet. But if I was going to sing that, then maybe I wasn’t a soprano, because those big Rossini roles—Arsace, Isabella, Tancredi, Malcolm, Neocle—they are not mezzo roles. They are contralto roles, my dear, requiring a great deal of power and all that coloratura. But I found that I could do it. I was comfortable singing there, and no one else was doing this repertoire. I could either be another good soprano or do something no one else was singing.
Semiramide scared me. It really did. I thought it was too low and that I wouldn’t make it. Joan and I sang it together first in 1964 in Los Angeles, then in Carnegie Hall, later in Boston, on records, and in Chicago. I finally got to do it at the Met in 1990, with my third generation of Semiramide, Lella Cuberli. Meanwhile, I had sung it all over with Montserrat Caballe, thank you very much. That was fantastic. Montserrat and I went on to do a couple of tours in duets and they were pretty spectacular. And I did some wonderful duet recitals with Benita Valente. We grew up in California at the same time. Later, at the Met, we sang Rinaldo together.
But finally, I decided to specialize in Rossini and Bel Canto. I had the field pretty much to myself. And Joan, and later Montserrat, wanted to tackle this repertoire, too, and they needed someone to sing with! It was just meant to be.
Did you ever become discouraged? It must have been hard not to! What kept you going in your early years?
I’ll remind you of a story I tell in my book. My father had just died unexpectedly. I was on my way to Germany for my first contract in Gelsenkirchen. We had just buried dad. My brother Dick told me, “Remember Jackie, it’s OK to fail. You can always come home. We love you no matter what.” All these years later I get weepy remembering that.
And you know, I lost that brother. He was killed in a plane crash years later. But no one had ever said that to me before, and it certainly kept me going over the years.
I tell my kids I was in a hurry. I did things a lot earlier. The opportunities were great when I was growing up in L.A. We had all the movie studios in production all the time. I was a member of the Roger Wagner Chorale. What other singer besides me recorded 64 madrigals by Gesualdo?! Stravinsky lived in L.A. and I got close to him. I even sang Webern. Schonberg was still teaching at USC. I never met him, but people like that spread their influence around, and audiences and opportunities followed.
Then I met Lotte Lehmann. She was a tough customer and I had my run-ins with her. She once insulted me badly in master class, in front of a lot of other students. I swore I would never do that. I would never embarrass a young artist. And I would try never to say anything destructive to anyone, in public or in private.
But you know, Lehmann had gotten after me for my German–and she was right. My German needed work. We made peace over the years and I often turned to her. Years later I heard a tape of her singing Sieglinde back in the ‘30s, in San Francisco, with Flagstad and Melchior. It was an incredible, magnificent performance. I had never heard Lehmann in the theater and this was so magnificent that I sat down and wrote her a note. Her reply was beautiful: “Dear Jackie, That was my time, and this your time. As the Marschallin says: Jedes ding hat seinem zeit [Each thing has its time].
Do you miss singing?
I don’t really miss singing opera. I don’t have the time. I don’t miss the need for constant concentration at all! And you can never really get your voice out of your head, not after all these years. So even if I use it less, its still with me.
When my daughter was young, the career might have prevented me at times from completely giving myself over to her. We’re so close, thank God, and I can give to my grandchildren. And the phone still rings!
I was offered all kinds of projects, even in the past few years, things that didn’t work out: Broadway shows, a TV project or two. There’s always something cooking around.
I may have retired from classical singing, but I know I could go back to it if I wanted to. But it’s very important to pass the torch. Lotte Lehmann was so wise when she told me that she had had her time, that now it was my turn. And now, years later, its someone else’s turn. Meanwhile, I have pupils, a foundation to run and don’t forget, a new grandchild on the way!
Marilyn Horne: The Song Continues by Marilyn Horne and Jane Scovell is new From Baskerville Press. ISBN # 1880909715
MARILYN HORNE, Just for the Record: The Golden Voice is a 2-CD set from Decca, with arias by Rossini, Bizet, Saint-Saens, Meyberbeer, Thomas, Gluck and Donizetti. It features duets with Joan Sutherland (Norma), Luciano Pavarotti (Il trovatore) and Renata Tebaldi (La Gioconda), and songs by Schubert, Wagner, Nin, Copland and Foster.
Enjoy!
