The date was April 3, 2003, and I walked by Lincoln Center to check if tickets for that night’s Ariadne auf Naxos were still available. To my disbelief, I stared at the giant billboard announcing the debut of Christine Brewer in the title role. I rushed to the box office and bought as many tickets as I could afford. Soon, my fingers were virtually attacking my cellphone as I called every opera lover I knew in New York, insisting that they should cancel all plans for that night immediately.
The few instances in which I had heard Ms. Brewer in recital were enough to warrant my excitement. I first experienced her art in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. The constraints of the medium only hinted at the floodgates that would open in 2002. That year, in concert form, she was Brünnhilde in Act Three of Die Walküre, opposite Andrea Gruber’s Sieglinde and the Wotan of James Morris. With a dramatic situation of the grandest scale and the effervescence of Wagner inspiring her vocalism, I saw an artist who had arrived at her destiny. Today, Mrs. Brewer has established herself as one of the foremost dramatic sopranos of our time.
Recently, Mrs. Brewer returned to my hometown to perform Mozart’s Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and allowed me a quick glimpse of the woman behind the golden voice.
Let’s go back to 2002, when you made your Metropolitan Opera debut in “Ariadne.” For lack of a better word, you tore that house apart!
That whole night was very special to me. I had been offered roles at the Metropolitan probably 10 years before that, but I didn’t feel that they were the right ones. At that time my daughter was 8 years old, and I had to ask myself if I really wanted to take her away from home for 12 weeks to sing, say, First Lady in Die Zauberflöte. I don’t mean to sound snotty, or even that I am better than that. That would have been a wonderful experience, but perhaps not one that merited that sacrifice. I think the Met got a little annoyed with me, and there was a point where I thought I wouldn’t sing there. Then, the offer came for “Ariadne,” and that was perfect, because I am very familiar with that role. After I signed the contract, I was asked if I would like to bump up my debut and sing Cassandre in Les Troyens. I thought about it, but turned them down.
I probably say no as much as I say yes.
Is that the biggest weapon a singer has?
I think it is! You have to know when to say no. I had never sung Cassandre, and after looking at the role, I thought it was too low for my voice. For an important debut, the role should show off your voice in the best light. I stuck with my decision to debut with Ariadne, and I am glad that I did. Since I was in the second cast, there was little time to rehearse. Being familiar with the role proved to be a tremendous advantage. I had a 30-minute meeting with Jimmy Levine to go through some of the music, and after a while he said: “You just know what you’re doing with this!”
The night of the premiere, it hit me: “I’m making my debut at the Metropolitan Opera! This little girl from Grand Tower, Illinois!” I realized that I would never make my Metropolitan debut again, so I simply had the best time of my life. … It exceeded all of my dreams and expectations. When I finished “Es gibt ein Reich” and the audience started applauding, Jimmy started to go ahead (it’s not written for applause), and then he stopped. He took his baton and laid it down, put his hand over his heart, and looked at me. I will never forget those two nights for as long as I live.
That night must have been the culmination of talent, training, and a lot of hard work. How did this all begin for you?
My mom was a singer, and she had the most amazing voice you’ve ever heard. I probably learned most of my lessons from her about singing and performing. She sang jazz and gospel in a trio with two other women, and I grew up hearing them rehearse. Along with my brothers and I, my mother used to sing gospel music at church. So I never knew a time when I did not sing. That said, I never thought that it would be my livelihood.
I went to college with the idea that I would become a music teacher, and I got my degree in music education. The opera part was weird! I was teaching school and singing in the St. Louis Symphony Chorus. A couple of my girlfriends, who were teachers and also in the chorus, said to me that Opera Theater hired singers for the chorus during the summer while class was out. So we did it just on a lark. We had never done opera before, and here we were, acting in costumes, etc. I just thought it was so much fun.
The third season I was there, I was asked to be the understudy for Elettra in Idomeneo. Because I was so ignorant, I didn’t realize that it was difficult. Slowly, I started thinking about singing as a potential career to pursue, but I was still teaching. In 1989, my life changed forever. I asked my husband if he had gotten our teaching certificates renewed. He said: “Yes, I got mine renewed, but not yours. I think you’re just using this as a crutch. You’ve decided that you don’t really know if you want to sing professionally or not, hence you keep your teaching certificate. That’s why I didn’t renew it.”
Well, that must have been the single most wonderful yet infuriating thing ever!
Oh, I was so mad at him. But that year I won the Met auditions, the Richard Tucker auditions, and I got my management at IMG. I also won an award at Opera Theater, which eventually led to working with Birgit Nilsson. Those were really turning points in my life. My husband was the one who finally forced me to make that final decision, and as they say, the rest is history.
Did working with Ms. Nilsson inspire you to make the change from the classical to the heavier Strauss and Wagnerian repertoire?
I knew all along that Wagner was something I wanted to sing. In 1989, after singing for a master class given by Birgit Nilsson in Washington, [D.C.], she invited me to work with her in Germany for a six-week master class. I had a lesson with her every day, and I was present as she worked with other singers. That in itself was educational. Ever since then, we’ve kept in touch, and in the early ‘90s she advised me to let my voice develop slowly. “You are singing Mozart so beautifully. Keep doing that for as long as you can, because it will keep your voice healthy.” So I took her advice. I sang the Wessendonck Lieder and some of the Wagner arias in concert just to get familiar with Wagner’s language. But I wouldn’t let anyone talk me into undertaking those big roles too soon.
While working with Ms. Nilsson, did you ever feel intimidated?
Of course! When I sang my first “Immolation Scene” in Stockholm two years ago, I just kept putting off telling her about it, because she is brutally honest! I wrote her a letter about the upcoming performance, but I never heard anything back. After the first performance, the stage manager came to tell me that I had a phone call at the stage door. “It’s Birgit Nilsson!” he said. I almost fainted, and ran downstairs. She had just gotten home that day from holiday, read my letter, and tuned into the live broadcast.
“I just wanted to hear your speaking voice,” she said. “Your speaking voice still sounds beautiful and healthy, you don’t sound hoarse, or as if you were talking really high. Obviously, you were singing correctly. Now, let me give you a little bit of advice: All the low bits that you sang were loud enough. Do not let any conductor push you to sing any louder in the lower register than you did tonight. That is dangerous and you risk developing a wobble. You did it just fine tonight: It came across over the orchestra, it was dramatic, and it was enough.” So when I did that first Isolde in London, I sent her a tape of the radio broadcast and she wrote back, and started the letter with “Frau Isolde!!!!” with four exclamation marks.
Making a major vocal and career decision, such as taking on Isolde and Brunhilde, can keep singers awake at night. How was that process for you?
Until then, I had remained cautious in my repertoire choices, and a lot of people had been frustrated along the way. Thankfully, I had managers who understood my long-term goals. I have a manager in London, Peter Bloor with Askonas Holt, and I have been with him since about 1993. In New York, I have Alison Pybus as my manager with IMG. When it came to how I was going to start singing Wagner, we determined that my ideal scenario would be to sing with a really great conductor and orchestra, in concert format, the first few times. That way, I would be able to concentrate on the music, and work with a conductor who knows this repertoire inside and out. This led to working with Donald Runnicles and the BBC Symphony. The first thing we did was the third act of Die Walküre.
My goodness!
Exactly! I thought he wanted me to sing Sieglinde, and Donald said that he wanted me as Brünnhilde. When I voiced my doubts, he insisted that I at least look at it. I took the score to Christine Armistead, my voice teacher at Washington University in St. Louis, and we sang through it. Her advice to me was so wonderful! She said: “I think you need to approach this like a lyric soprano. Approach it with the voice you have today. Don’t try to imitate somebody you’ve heard through recordings. Approach it through the text. In fact, I don’t want you to sing the music right now. Go home and read the translation you’ve made of the text until it says something to you.” So I read it in the German, and then in the English several times, and as the words began to speak to me, it was obvious that I could sing the music.
Is the text the key to how you find your interpretations?
Yes, until the text speaks to me first, I don’t put the music with it. It is usually the words that inspired the composer to write the music, not the other way around. So for me, I start with the poem first, read it, translate it, read it in the translation, and then read it in the rhythm of the music. Only then do I put the music with it. I must admit, there are days when I don’t always enjoy spending my day translating text, but there aren’t many shortcuts.
Once I understood the text, I could finally understand that third act of Die Walküre, which is so heart wrenching that I choke up thinking about it. When we finally did the concert in London, with James Morris as Wotan, it was such a great experience. This was my first time stepping into this repertoire, and there is nothing like stepping right into the fire like that, so to speak.
Literally.
[Laughs] Exactly! When Donald and I had our first piano rehearsal together, sometimes I would ask his guidance as to how other singers would do a particular phrase. “You know,” he said, “you seem to have a sense of what you want to do with it, an instinct.” He then asked me if I liked to sing this music, and I said I did. “That’s good,” he said. “I think you’re born to sing it. Some singers who have that ability do not love this music, and it becomes a love-hate thing. But it seems that you really do.” And I do! Whenever I pick up another Wagner aria or act to work on, it just feels organically right for me to sing it.
So right that you moved onto Isolde in 2004, first in London, with the acts given on separate nights.
In London, we did Act One in December, Act Two in February, and Act Three a week later. I found that not just for the singers, but for the audience, it is a nice way to do it. Each act can stand on its own, and everybody gets a chance to absorb each act and think about it. My husband, who had never seen me do Isolde, said that he could really concentrate on the music and drama from each night. I had a couple of friends who couldn’t afford to come to see all three performances, so they just came to see one act—and they loved it. Incidentally, I am finally singing “Tristan” all the way through in August at the Edinburg Festival. It has been a good progression to do it a couple of times one act at a time, and then sing it all at once.
Your next foray into Isolde was the much-publicized Tristan Project in Los Angeles, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and directed by Peter Sellars. It inspired a worldwide pilgrimage, thanks also to the novel video visuals by Bill Viola. How was it to work with such a concept?
Some of my older friends, who may have attended traditional performances for a long time, found the video distracting. My husband, who hadn’t seen Wagner before, found it enhancing. The way I look at it, it’s just another form of art, another way of presenting this great music. It shows me that Wagner is so powerful, the music will stand up to new things.
Personally, I was just thrilled to be a part of what I felt was an important and moving event. During rehearsals, Peter showed us parts of the video for the second act, with the trees and the sunset. I just started weeping. And everyone around was just staring at me, but I knew I had to see the video. I couldn’t risk seeing it by chance in performance and be caught unawares. By the time I saw the third-act video, I was just wiped out. Cliff Forbis, my Tristan, got me some tissues and said to Peter: “You’re going to have to show her some cartoons or something…” But even in mid-performance, during the Liebestod, I purposely didn’t look up.
Following the “Tristan” performances, there were public rumors that you were recording Isolde for EMI.
Well, I will tell you the true story on that. EMI wanted me to do that recording. They heard the “Tristan” broadcast in London, and they sent a copy of it to Tony Pappano, with whom I had sung before, and one to Plácido Domingo. Next thing I heard, the big news on the Internet was that I was starring in the new EMI recording. I was confused as to why the information was being released on the Internet like that, and asked my manager if we had a contract. We didn’t have proposed dates yet. All we knew was that EMI really wanted me to do it.
In the meantime, the Tristan Project came up in L.A. I have a good relationship with that orchestra and I love Esa-Pekka Salonnen, so we signed the contract. After we signed with L.A., I got a call from my manager telling me that we got the dates from EMI, which conflicted with the dates in L.A. I asked if we could negotiate.
I would be singing Isolde in L.A. I could have been ready to get on a plane and record the next day. Really, it was just a matter of a couple of days. But unfortunately, they couldn’t alter the dates. It would have driven me to break the L.A. contract, and I just don’t do that. In truth, it was a disappointment to me because I would have loved to be a part of that recording. But you know, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.
I had only sung the role once, and I really should wait until I have sung it a few more times. In just one year’s passing and singing the role again, it means something different to me already. It’s better to record those things which you have a personal relationship with. I don’t think I have that with Isolde yet.
Will you be recording music that you do have a long relationship with?
Yes! I am going to record Strauss’ Four Last Songs. Now that’s a piece that I have been in love with since I was about 19. I was in college, and my voice teacher took me to hear Heather Harper sing them with the St. Louis Symphony. They just blew me away. I bought the score and brought it to my next lesson. My voice teacher, a very wise man, told me that I was simply too young to sing them. Not just vocally, but also in life experience. I didn’t start singing them until 1993, and my life has changed so much in 12 years.
My mother died six years ago, from Lou Gehrig’s disease, at 61. It was horrible to see a vibrant person just go before your eyes. Being a part of the normal life cycle, and going through death with a really close loved one, has redefined my life. It certainly changes the way I sing that song cycle. Now, the time is right, and I am recording them with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
Wagner and Strauss place arduous demands on a voice, and the need for guidance in this repertoire cannot be overemphasized. You mentioned earlier that your voice teacher is Christine Armistead.
Yes. I like to tell people that she was one of the best-kept secrets until about five years ago. Now it’s hard to get a lesson with her. Everyone has discovered that she’s one of the best teachers in St. Louis.
Do you also have a regular singing coach?
Yes, I have a coach in St. Louis, Alice Nelson. Whenever I am in town, I will send her an e-mail and ask when she is free. She also plays for my voice lessons, so she can hear what my voice teacher tells me. I always say that it takes a village to teach me how to sing! (laughs). But it’s nice because we can all work together when I am studying new roles. I also have a coach in London, Tony Legge at the Royal Academy of Music. He has really helped me with Wagner.
It’s so important to have a coach who helps you learn your music. There is nothing more frustrating than going to an assignment, and there is one person who hasn’t really prepared. Now, I know it’s expensive. I remember teaching and trying to afford voice lessons. Coaching was an added luxury that maybe one couldn’t afford.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but maybe instead of taking one voice lesson every week at the expense of a coaching class, consider alternating voice lessons and coaching every other week. It’s important to have someone help you with the language, the phrasing, the interpretation, someone whose ears you can trust. I’ve said this to my teacher and my coach: “I’m not coming here for you to tell me how wonderful it sounds. I want to know if I am going on the wrong path.”
Aside from the text, do you employ any other methods for learning music, such as the use of recordings?
I normally don’t listen to recordings when preparing a role. I listen to recordings once I am done with the texts and the translations, broken it down into sections, and worked on the piece musically with my teacher and coach. Then, a couple of months down the line, we may listen to a recording to see what the orchestra is doing. My biggest fear is the temptation to imitate another singer’s interpretation or way of singing. I have to find my own voice.
When learning new music, one thing that has helped me, particularly with the big roles like Isolde, is to break things down into sections. I think about the overriding emotion of a section, and I will identify it as the declamatory section, the feminine section, or the “sounding like Bach” section. It may be nonsense to someone else looking at my score, but it makes sense to me. So when I am going through the piece, I will think: “OK, I’ve done the feminine section, now unto the declamatory section,” etc. This helps take away the overwhelming quality and panic of singing big roles. If I break it down into sections, and calm down, that seems to help me a lot.
Do you have any desire to essay music you may not be associated with?
Many people ask me why I’m not singing Verdi or Puccini. While I can certainly do the fundamentals, the music doesn’t speak to me like the German repertoire does. I can take a new Strauss role, and it automatically feels right for me. However, I will admit to flirting with a role that no one would think of me singing. When I first started, I sang a great deal of coloratura, and had the pleasure to sing Haydn’s Armida in St. Louis. That role was such a kick to sing! It took me up to high Ds and Es. Ever since, I began to flirt with the Queen of the Night. I find that role to be so exciting, especially if sung by a dramatic coloratura. It’s just killer!
I went to my teacher to see if there were some high F’s in me, and unfortunately they’re not consistent, so I couldn’t sing the Queen. However, I hope to sing Armida again, and Elektra, which I prepared as an understudy in St. Louis. Other than those, I can’t say that I am dying to sing, say, Turandot. In fact, Birgit Nilsson specifically told me not to sing that role. As she put it, it doesn’t need to be sung by a beautiful voice, and I would risk ruin by singing it.
Has that lightness and flexibility played a big role in your vocal health?
Yes. I have kept that in my voice, for warm-ups in particular. Before performance, I sing either an aria from Armida, or that florid aria from Oberon: “Oh my wild exalting soul.” If I can sing that, I have my lows and highs.
Incidentally, your voice, as I have experienced it, is one of dark richness, in the same line as Anita Cerquetti and Jessye Norman. Did the birth of your daughter alter your voice?
Absolutely! I was 28 when I gave birth to my daughter, and I noticed a real change in my voice even as I was pregnant with her. My gynecologist told me that when a woman is pregnant, not only do you gain weight, but your ribcage actually expands. Women may lose the baby fat, but you can’t get rid of the expansion. So, if you measure your ribcage before and after, there would be a bit of a difference. My daughter was a large baby, 10 pounds and four ounces, so you can only imagine. Also, there is a lot more estrogen in your body, and it all adds up.
From age 28 to 30, my voice got bigger, the upper register got higher, and I also felt that it acquired a richer quality. I wonder if some of that comes from being a mother, the fact that some part of you grew inside of you and now here it is! That is so overwhelming and so much bigger than we are. So I not only saw a lot of changes in my voice, but also how I approach life.
With your hectic schedule, how do you keep yourself healthy?
Fortunately, I am pretty healthy to begin with. I also try to work out my schedule so I have a few days between performances. For instance, I got here two days ago from London. I could have gone home for those two days, but the thought of going home and then coming here so quickly was a bit exhausting. I’d rather stay in Atlanta and use these days to get myself acclimated. I need some time to relax. Sometimes, I have to say no to some performances because I have to make sure I’m not hopping from plane to plane.
Would that be your advice to aspiring singers, to relax?
Not exactly. I think that being patient is the most important thing, especially if you have a voice that is going to sing bigger repertoire. I can’t tell you how many times, during auditions, they would say: “We can hear this dramatic soprano voice under the surface, but we don’t have anything to offer you.” I wasn’t ready for Elsa, and they couldn’t offer me Pamina. That was very frustrating, so I auditioned for conductors who were involved with choral societies, and I built up my concert repertoire. I sang Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth, Missa Solemnis, The Creation, etc. I did a lot of those things for smaller groups in St. Louis, and once that resume had developed, I then could go to the New York Philharmonic and sing Missa Solemnis.
If your voice type has not developed enough to get a role that you are destined to sing, do not despair. Continue to work on that with your coach and teacher while you work on your recital repertoire. There is nothing like doing recitals to get you ready for opera. You are the singer, conductor, performer, and director. I did a lot of recitals when I was younger, and still do.
Ultimately, it means that you get to sing!
Yes! Any chance you have to perform, take it! I grew up in a very church-based environment, and I still sing at our Methodist church. I also sing at the nursing homes and schools in my town. If you can perform for school children, you can do just about anything. You just have to use your gift, and if it’s going to happen, it will happen. Let your voice just mature on its own, and use the voice you have today, because it’s going to change. My voice is different than what it was before I had my daughter, and it changed after I sang Armida.
There are some roles that change your voice, and they take it to another level. It’s exciting! Don’t try to force it, or be somebody else. The key is to just use your voice, and to be open to whatever path is thrown your way. If I had never gone for that audition at Opera Theater for the chorus, I would not be here. That’s why I tell my daughter: “Take that art class, the drawing class, whatever!” You never know what’s around the corner.
