The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer

Table of Contents

 

“With plain spoken honesty and a wealth of technical detail made reader-friendly, Fleming has fashioned a manual that should be required reading for all young singers.”

“Fleming’s book is not only an indispensable asset to those who want to know her better, it’s also a huge asset to aspiring young singers.”

“The tone of her writing is as elegant as the tone of her voice.”

“Renée Fleming writes almost as well as she sings. . . . [A] revealing account of how an opera career is launched and sustained. Fleming is particularly good at describing the physical demands and mental challenges of making beautiful sounds while at the same time trying to act. . . . Illuminating.”

“Beautifully written, elegantly told.”

“As decorous as the author herself . . . Renée Fleming continues to make much of her great gifts.”

—
Terry Teachout,
Commentary Magazine

“Fascinating”

“[A] candid account . . . A realistic portrait of what it takes to succeed and a volume intriguing for its advice and honesty.”

“Her perceptive account of what it takes to become and continue to be a great performer will resonate with all those who dream big. . . . A beguiling self-portrait of a great artist at work.”

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE INNER VOICE

Renée Fleming’s vocal artistry is acclaimed worldwide as “the gold standard of soprano sound.” An international artist for more than a decade, she is recognized for her compelling artistry, beautiful sound, and interpretive talents. A sought-after performer onstage and in recordings, she has won two Grammys and has been nominated eight times for the award.

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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005

 

Copyright © Renée Fleming, 2004 All rights reserved

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-09888-2

1. Fleming, Renée. 2. Sopranos—Biography. I. Title.
ML420.F565A

 

Photograph, copyright Jacques Moatti.

 

 

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W
ITH THANKS TO:

Ann Patchett, whose silent work on paper is the equal of the most colorful songbird. I would never have had the courage to undertake this project without her friendship and help.

 

Richard Kot, my editor: patient, kind, and, fortunately, enormously knowledgeable about opera. His hieroglyphic attention touched every paragraph in this book.

 

Darrell Panethiere, my ever positive muse, inspiration, dear friend, and consultant on all things musical. I was your dependent for the length of this project.

 

Mary Lou Falcone, who has advised me every step of the way and in all things. You gave me the courage to be honest.

 

Alec Treuhaft, who made this possible and who convinced me that I had something to say right now.

 

Evans Mirageas, for solving my existential dilemma during a long afternoon in Köln with the complete history of recorded sound and the voice in twentieth-century culture.

 

Christopher Roberts, president of Universal Classics and Jazz, in whose crystal ball and fearless leadership I implicitly trust.

 

My family and especially my sister, Rachelle, for a lifetime of love.

Alison Heather and Mary Camilleri, for their daily support, patience, and humor.

 

At Viking: Patrick Dillon and Bruce Giffords, for their meticulous attention to every line in this book; Herb Thornby and Francesca Belanger, for their elegant jacket and interior designs; and Alessandra Lusardi, for managing very complicated traffic.

 

The following friends and colleagues, who helped me in the final stages with their thoughtful comments: Matthew Epstein, John A. Fallon, Ann Gottlieb, Mary Jo Heath, Matthew Horner, Pat Kingsley, John Pascoe, Costa Pilavachi, Jacob Rothschild, Sue Schardt, Dr. David Slavit, Ann and Bill Ziff.

I
AM NO STRANGER to having my luggage searched. Like any other international traveler, I have spent a good portion of my life waiting in customs lines while people I did not know rifled through my musical scores and peered inside my shoes. But the dogs were something new. I wasn’t in the airport, after all, but in my dressing room, waiting to rehearse Tchaikovsky in St. Petersburg, and the bomb-sniffing dogs had come in to make sure that I wasn’t a terrorist disguised as an opera singer. German shepherds shoved their muzzles into my purse and nosed between the gowns hanging in the closet. They sniffed at the makeup, the wigs, and the piano and then looked back at me with heavy skepticism, making me feel vaguely guilty.

I had come to St. Petersburg to take part in a gala performance, a beautiful evening filled with music and dance. I was the only non-Russian who would perform for fifty heads of state for the three-hundredth anniversary celebration of the city, and I was to sing Tatyana’s letter scene from
Eugene Onegin
on the stage of the historic Maryinsky Theatre. During the nineteenth century, this elegant theater had been home to the Russian Imperial Opera, founded by Catherine the Great in 1783. It had seen the world premieres of such landmark Russian operas as
Boris Godunov, Prince Igor,
and
The Queen of Spades,
and Verdi’s
La Forza del Destino
had been written for the house. The world-renowned ballet of the Maryinsky Theatre had premiered
Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker,
and
La Bayadère
all on this stage, and in the orchestra pit had stood Berlioz, Wagner, Mahler, Schoenberg, and, most important of all to me today, Tchaikovsky, conducting their masterpieces. I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the first time history had weighed heavily on my shoulders.

I had never been to St. Petersburg before, and many people had warned me about the dangers there. I was told to watch out for the mafia, potential kidnappings, hotel robberies, and at the very least a mugging, but my information was clearly outdated. Everyone was helpful, and the whole place wore an air of elegance. I found the city beautiful, with its splendid baroque palaces and neoclassical facades set out like a series of pastel cakes along the wide boulevards. The cathedrals, the canals, every street and sidewalk were groomed for the anniversary. The sea itself seemed to have a polished glow, and the government had even sprayed the clouds to keep it from raining during the visit of President George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder, Junichiro Koizumi, and other world leaders. It was the city’s finest hour, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t mine: my translator and guide was a fourteen-year-old girl who lived only for AC/DC, Alice Cooper, and basketball, and my hotel room had no window. When I say “no window,” I don’t mean that I had a bad view—I mean that I had, quite literally, no window. When I was told that there were no other rooms available, I pulled out my Valery Gergiev trump card and said I would have to call him about getting another hotel. There are many ways in which a soprano relies upon the guidance of a conductor, and not all of them are confined to the stage. As a result of dropping the most powerful name in Russian music today, I got a window
and
a view.

Some aspects of the performance turned out unimaginably well: I was given a beautiful nightgown and robe from a production of
La Traviata
to wear, and they fit me perfectly. Other things didn’t go quite so smoothly. There were no plans to block the performance, and I was simply instructed, “Do it the way you did it last time.” But I hadn’t sung the role for years and couldn’t remember where I had been standing on some other stage with a different set. The famous Maryinsky Theatre was an impossible maze of back passageways that all seemed to lead nowhere. I could have used the assistance of one of those bomb-sniffing dogs to find my way from my dressing room to the stage—a feeling that perfectly mirrored the hopelessness I felt inside the Russian language.

Though my German and French are fluent, and my Italian, taxi-, restaurant-, and opera-interview-proficient, my Russian beyond
nyet
and
da
is nil. I had learned the role of Tatyana by rote years earlier when I first sang it in Dallas, and of all the heroines I’ve sung, she is the one I feel most closely aligned to: “Let me perish, but first let me summon, in dazzling hope, a bliss as yet unknown.” Even if I didn’t speak the language, it was still my responsibility to find a way to sound as authentic as a national, especially since I was singing the most beloved soprano aria in the Russian repertoire to a house full of Russians. This requires, first, not only memorizing the words, but taking apart every sentence in order to understand how each word is translated. It also involves a painstaking study of their exact pronunciation and inflection. I pay close attention to how words end, whether the vowels are open or closed, which consonants are doubled. Many of the most challenging sounds for a singer are in the Russian language, and it takes a great deal of time and patience to learn how to make them seem authentic.