Whether young students realize it or not, what they’re seeking when they go to college is not just a university but a teacher: a mentor who will act as a sounding board, a wise guide, a sage advisor, and a personal support through the ups and downs of their training.
On June 4, many hundreds of singers from several generations lost one of their keenest mentors. The great Phyllis Curtin, one of the most impressive soprano voices in the recorded era, passed away at age 94, leaving behind a teaching legacy unmatched by any American pedagogue. As a two-time participant in her masterclass series as a vocal fellow at Tanglewood, I come here to honor my mentor and to say, on behalf of many American singers, thank you, Phyllis Curtin.
Thank you, Phyllis, for being such a warm and generous teacher. Regardless of our skill level, you treated all of us with respect and challenged us to find our very best vocalism, artistry, and personal excellence. You celebrated what made each of us unique, rather than trying to homogenize our singing.
“She taught me how to be my own artist and not someone else,” said baritone and voice professor Sanford Sylvan. “Thinking about her has kept me focused on what I am, what I have to give and, most of all, on what the music is. There is a lot of pressure to manufacture a sound or a persona other than yourself, and Phyllis wants nothing to do with anything like that. . . . She forces you to question all the old habits that creep in through tradition—you may want to adopt some of them in the end, but you can not accept them absolutely.”1
In addition to the artistic training you gave us, you were generous with your career advice. One of my most cherished memories is the “Lucy Booth” sessions at the end of the Tanglewood summers (named after Lucy’s advice booth in the Peanuts cartoon strip). Each of us got 15 minutes alone with you to talk about career advice too personal for public discussion. You spoke frankly and earnestly and gave countless young artists the wise counsel and encouragement they needed. As Stephanie Blythe stated, “You made us all feel like glorious flowers in your beautiful garden.”2
Thank you, Phyllis, for teaching us to champion new music. Your life was filled with it, from your own student days at Tanglewood performing in the American premiere of Peter Grimes under the baton of student conductor Leonard Bernstein, to your creation of the title role in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. As you often quipped, “I’ve done the first and last performances of more new music than I care to remember!” By that example, you taught us to be fearless and generous colleagues, to lend support to composers, and to challenge our audiences with music of our time.
Thank you, Phyllis, for showing us that technique must serve expression: “I was interested in technique, not as an end in itself but as a support for what I wanted to do,” you once said in an interview. “You should go for everything you can imagine artistically, and the technique must be adequate to service it.”3
You gave credit for your intuitive and practical technique to your teacher, Joseph Regneas. “What he taught was so lucid, so uncluttered, so enabling. Without the brilliance of his teaching, I would never have had a career at all.”4 You implored us to “talk, talk, talk!” while we were singing, to “put the word ahead of the tone,” to practice in front of a mirror (“My dear, you have to remember that people are going to be looking at you while you’re singing!”), to sing to the universe rather than to the audience, and to show our “tiger teeth.” And once we had achieved a solid technique, you gave us confidence in a profound way that resonates with me before every single performance: “You’ve built your house, now live in it.”
Thank you, Phyllis, for teaching us to value the poetry. You were ahead of your time in championing the singing of art songs in English, even when your management worried that audiences would expect mostly German. You insisted that we immerse ourselves in the text, and you encouraged us to never just make pretty sounds without knowing precisely what we were saying.
With remarkable cleverness, you guided your students to this ideal: “One year at Tanglewood, I had a very gifted student, a young Japanese girl, who was singing the Schubert song, ‘Heidenröslein.’ Everything was proper and right, but still something was missing. I said, ‘Did you learn this song in Japan?’ She said, ‘In Germany.’ But she did know it in Japanese. When she sang it in her language, then I heard the Schubert song. It was far more Schubert in Japanese than it was in her good German. She was really talking out of her comprehension, not only of the poem but of the music in it.”5
Thank you, Phyllis, for your glorious singing. As the New York Times noted, audiences praised “the purity of her voice, the sensitivity of her musical phrasing, and the crystalline perfection of her diction.”6 You showed your versatility by singing Mozart’s Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro, Violetta in La traviata, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, and the title role of Strauss’s Salome at all the great opera houses of the world. Your recorded legacy includes your electric portrayal of the title role in Floyd’s Susannah, a role which you famously created.
Add to this an invaluable recording of Copland and Rorem songs with the respective composers at the piano, a delightful South American disc, Ginastera’s Milena, several intimate recital discs, and many more. Two of your most timely recordings that future generations can savor are your performance of Shostakovich’s stirring Symphony No. 14 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a 2007 DVD release of the momentous 1963 American premiere of Britten’s titanic War Requiem with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf.
Thank you, Phyllis, for showing us that there is no “cookie-cutter” career path in the vocal arts. Your own career included not only your phenomenal singing but also your brilliant teaching, arts advocacy, and your service as dean of the College of Fine Arts at Boston University. You not only helped us sing better, you helped us to be better professionals—to follow our passions as well as our gifts. You spoke lovingly not only of your students who’d become the most famous singers, but also of those who’d found fulfillment and dignity in a completely unrelated career. You modeled the fact that how you do your business matters far more than what your business is. You often told a story of your response to a young voice student who’d decided not to major in music: “Good, you’ll have something to sing about!”
Thank you, Phyllis, for showing us that toughness can be beautiful. You must have suffered terribly from more than 50 years of rheumatoid arthritis, but you never let it show. In your speech, in your dress, in your manner you were eternally graceful, charming, and elegant. “Even on summer’s hottest days, Curtin shows up for her Tanglewood classes immaculately dressed in skirt and blouse (no uniform of jeans and T-shirt, like some faculty members) and with silvery hair immaculately coiffed. What’s more, she looks just as composed at the end of a grueling three-hour session as she did at the beginning.”7
And may we all live up to your own daughter’s description of you when she said, “she modeled grace and a joy of living and never ever complained about pain or anything having to do with herself.”8
Phyllis, I hope you knew that you had an incredible impact on the world of song. You are survived by an army of loyal and grateful students who emulate you in their singing, their teaching, and their living. Your life and work set a tremendous example for those of us who’ve chosen the path of the “singer-teacher” and you’ve modeled impeccable artistry, dignity, and kindness. We’re all so sad that you’ve passed, but we’re deeply grateful that you lived. On behalf of several generations of classical singers: thank you, Phyllis Curtin.
