Read Online The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer by Renee Fleming - Free Book Online
Authors: Renee Fleming
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arrived. When I finally remembered what I had done, I crept back into the kitchen and picked the phone up off the floor, certain that if Erica was still on the line she would inform me that Juilliard had changed its mind. She was not amused; but then, as I was to find out later, she was never amused.
Juilliard had a postgraduate training program then called the American Opera Center. Being accepted there was an enormous boon to me for many reasons, not the least of which was that it was free. For two and a half years I could audit any language class and study voice, perform in opera productions, and coach both music and diction. The only expenses I had to cover were my room and board. I could never have afforded to live in New York City and pay for so much instruction. I would have been lucky to manage the occasional voice lesson, maybe a bit of coaching, but I never would have been able to learn as much as I did. I still had a very long way to go.
After witnessing my heartbreak over the failed Met audition and the tumultuous period of growth that followed, my father didn’t want me moving to New York. “You’ll end up jumping off a bridge,” he warned me. He worried that living in the city would overwhelm me, but I loved it. I found a temp job in Rockefeller Center with a group of opera singers at a law firm, assigned to an enormous asbestos case—a case from which my own grandfather ultimately would benefit. The firm had well-educated, reliable, and honest workers in us, and we had almost complete flexibility regarding our hours. I had earlier acquired excellent secretarial and touch-typing skills while temping, which was probably related to the eye-hand coordination I had developed through years of studying piano. This job enabled me to take advantage of everything Juilliard had to offer. I also added to my income by singing in New York City churches, which used students to supplement their amateur choral ranks.
Jorge Mester was slated to conduct the production of La Bohème in which I would appear, and Graziella Sciutti, who had only recently retired from the stage, would be directing it. Musetta would have been her role, whereas I was anything but typecast. My extreme inhibitions prevented me from displaying any of the sass and sway needed for a seductive Musetta. Sciutti finally threw up her hands and said, “I cannot make this girl do anything!” That was when my favorite coach, Ubaldo Gardini, stepped in. Ubaldo would work with me for hours. “Why do you want to bang on that note?” he would whine, as I pressured out the high A in “Dove sono.” He also gave me some advice that I follow to this day: “Sing in the mirror. If it looks funny, it’s wrong.” He was as frustrated with my Musetta as Sciutti was, and he finally ordered, “Just walk across the stage and swing your hips.” But I couldn’t manage even that. Musetta, of course, is a legendary coquette, and I was a famously shy girl from upstate. Even if I could learn how to talk the talk, I was hopeless when it came to walking the walk. Still, I was confident that once I got my costume on everything would be fine. Back then, I could be Musetta only if I looked like Musetta. I had to be physically transformed before I could become a character onstage. Fortunately, I got over that. Learning to quickly assume a role is a necessary part of the profession. In my current rehearsal days, murder, rape, sobs, and vengeance often follow a coffee break. One has to swallow and simply take the plunge, embracing the dramatic, emotional language of opera.
Of course, swinging my hips and batting my eyelashes as Musetta was a minor dilemma compared with what I faced in my next Juilliard production, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Tamu-Tamu. Then the question was whether or not I’d go onstage topless. Tamu-Tamu opens with a middle-class family reading the newspaper, talking about how tragic things are in a third-world country they’ve never heard of before.
Juilliard had a postgraduate training program then called the American Opera Center. Being accepted there was an enormous boon to me for many reasons, not the least of which was that it was free. For two and a half years I could audit any language class and study voice, perform in opera productions, and coach both music and diction. The only expenses I had to cover were my room and board. I could never have afforded to live in New York City and pay for so much instruction. I would have been lucky to manage the occasional voice lesson, maybe a bit of coaching, but I never would have been able to learn as much as I did. I still had a very long way to go.
After witnessing my heartbreak over the failed Met audition and the tumultuous period of growth that followed, my father didn’t want me moving to New York. “You’ll end up jumping off a bridge,” he warned me. He worried that living in the city would overwhelm me, but I loved it. I found a temp job in Rockefeller Center with a group of opera singers at a law firm, assigned to an enormous asbestos case—a case from which my own grandfather ultimately would benefit. The firm had well-educated, reliable, and honest workers in us, and we had almost complete flexibility regarding our hours. I had earlier acquired excellent secretarial and touch-typing skills while temping, which was probably related to the eye-hand coordination I had developed through years of studying piano. This job enabled me to take advantage of everything Juilliard had to offer. I also added to my income by singing in New York City churches, which used students to supplement their amateur choral ranks.
Jorge Mester was slated to conduct the production of La Bohème in which I would appear, and Graziella Sciutti, who had only recently retired from the stage, would be directing it. Musetta would have been her role, whereas I was anything but typecast. My extreme inhibitions prevented me from displaying any of the sass and sway needed for a seductive Musetta. Sciutti finally threw up her hands and said, “I cannot make this girl do anything!” That was when my favorite coach, Ubaldo Gardini, stepped in. Ubaldo would work with me for hours. “Why do you want to bang on that note?” he would whine, as I pressured out the high A in “Dove sono.” He also gave me some advice that I follow to this day: “Sing in the mirror. If it looks funny, it’s wrong.” He was as frustrated with my Musetta as Sciutti was, and he finally ordered, “Just walk across the stage and swing your hips.” But I couldn’t manage even that. Musetta, of course, is a legendary coquette, and I was a famously shy girl from upstate. Even if I could learn how to talk the talk, I was hopeless when it came to walking the walk. Still, I was confident that once I got my costume on everything would be fine. Back then, I could be Musetta only if I looked like Musetta. I had to be physically transformed before I could become a character onstage. Fortunately, I got over that. Learning to quickly assume a role is a necessary part of the profession. In my current rehearsal days, murder, rape, sobs, and vengeance often follow a coffee break. One has to swallow and simply take the plunge, embracing the dramatic, emotional language of opera.
Of course, swinging my hips and batting my eyelashes as Musetta was a minor dilemma compared with what I faced in my next Juilliard production, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Tamu-Tamu. Then the question was whether or not I’d go onstage topless. Tamu-Tamu opens with a middle-class family reading the newspaper, talking about how tragic things are in a third-world country they’ve never heard of before.
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