{"id":65579,"date":"2012-05-22T14:50:46","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T12:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbopera.it\/?p=65579"},"modified":"2016-12-19T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T14:46:29","slug":"interview-with-june-anderson-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/interview-with-june-anderson-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with June Anderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A native of Boston, soprano June Anderson ranks among the most important singers in the international opera and concert world today<\/strong>: tones that keep their textures in the high notes, a vocal range that is rich and makes the singing of high and agile passages appear effortless, a tone that is constantly clear. She started to take singing lessons at the age of 11. When she was 17 years old, she became the youngest finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions. She then attended Yale University as a French major, graduating cum laude<\/em>. It was after Yale that she really began to think seriously about becoming a singer and studied with Robert Leonard. She made her professional debut with the New York City Opera in 1978 as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Magic Flute<\/em>. In 1982, she was invited to sing Semiramide at the Rome Opera. Since then, June Anderson’s career has taken her to virtually every major opera house in Europe and in the United States.\u00a0 She was the first non-Italian ever to win the prestigious Bellini d’Oro prize. It is June Anderson who sings the aria of the Queen of the Night<\/em> in the film Amadeus <\/em>by Milos Forman.\u00a0<\/em> June Anderson has just triumphed as Pat Nixon in a new production of John Adams\u2019 Nixon in China <\/em>at the Chatelet in Paris.
\nJune Anderson, you have described yourself as a \u201cstage animal\u201d… <\/strong>
\nWow, that was a long time ago… but what I meant by that was that I prefer the opera stage to the concert stage. I like getting in someone else\u2019s clothes, in someone else\u2019s hair, I don\u2019t like to go out as June, I really don\u2019t.
\nHow did you approach your characterization of Pat Nixon? <\/strong>
\nFunnily enough, when Pat Nixon went to China she was the exact same age I am now. \u00a0She was lucky to live at a time when the press was less invasive, we don\u2019t know a lot about her. In this \u201copera\u201d, there isn\u2019t really a \u201ccharacter\u201d to latch onto. We see the down to earth, supportive wife, American tourist and a woman outraged when confronted with what she perceives as brutality. But a character?\u00a0 Not in the way we find characters in operas. It\u2019s not even available in history. Pat Nixon is Nixon\u2019s shadow. She was in the limelight at a time when you could still be private. She went to college, became a teacher, but wasn\u2019t a professional person in her own right, like Hilary Clinton or Michele Obama. She wasn\u2019t a politician. Pat was a wife and a mother. Watching films of her, you see her smiling, looking attentive, but maybe she\u2019s thinking of Trisha, or Julie, her girls, rather than actually listening to a speech, things like, you know: \u201cDid I leave the light on?.\u201d \u00a0The main work of any actress is listening. And so that is what I do I in this role…I just react to my surroundings. I portray \u00a0her as a little mal \u00e0 l\u2019aise<\/em>, slightly uncomfortable. But is that a characterization? She is the only character who was not a political player and so actually comes to embody \u201chumanity\u201d in the piece. But there are really no three dimensional characters of flesh and blood presented. There are little sub-texts that Franco Pomponi and I have created on stage. Things like: \u201cOh dear, I\u2019m going to have to leave you now, and be by myself. I have to go and stand with those women. Do I look alright?\u201d. Of course, they have to be added in moments when we\u2019re not counting! Here, if you let yourself go and try to feel something, you\u2019re lost. A bizarre coloratura passage in Act 1 is extremely anti-vocal. At one point in the rehearsals I got lost and couldn\u2019t get back in, I simply could not get back in…(laughs<\/em>)
\nIs the role difficult to sing? <\/strong>
\nIt doesn\u2019t sound as difficult as it really is. In one of the prettiest, most melodic sections, the time signature changes every single measure. Learning the music, you have to memorize that this measure is in 3\/2, the next in 3\/4, then 4\/4, back to 3\/4, 4\/4…5\/4 and then back to 3\/4, 4\/4 and then three bars of 3\/4… While I\u2019m on stage and pretending to dance, I\u2019m actually counting on my fingers the whole time! It\u2019s even difficult for the orchestra and they don\u2019t have to memorize it. I mean it\u2019s not that I\u2018ve never done serious counting before… in Salome<\/em> and Capriccio<\/em> there are moments…but this is excessive. Every single part is very difficult for each vocal type in this first opera by John Adams. Pat Nixon is written in what we call the passaggio<\/em>. I\u2019ve never sung so many high Gs in any role in my entire career! You don\u2019t sing that many Gs in bel canto. Bel canto composers knew to only go there once and a while. G is the note which starts the high notes, but it\u2019s a tricky note because mi-fa-sol (E-F-G) is the place where the voice is changing registers and you have to be very, very careful. It\u2019s like singing in the cracks. Most of her role is written there. The aria sits right there, even though it\u2019s one of the most lyrical passages in the opera.
\nWhen Nixon in China<\/em> was first created in 1987, you were already a major international star. What did you know of it back then?<\/strong>
\nNot a lot. I vaguely knew about it. It seemed a totally bizarre title for an opera and a totally bizarre subject for an opera, which I still think it is (laughs<\/em>)… I\u2019d been calling it CNN Opera or Docu Opera, thinking they have to find a category to put it in because it\u2019s not really an opera. However, in these performances at the Ch\u00e2telet, it\u2019s being done more like an opera than ever before. This is the first time that it\u2019s actually been cast with opera singers. Nixon in China<\/em> has been produced with singers who don\u2019t necessarily make the rounds in opera houses, or if they do, they are specialists in contemporary or Baroque or a kind of mix between musical comedy and opera. Adams always insisted that Nixon in China <\/em>be amplified, that all the singers use mikes. This is the first time that singers are not being amplified, thanks to bigger voices than normal, and to a cooperative conductor and orchestra who agreed to play very soft. They happen to like singers. They\u2019re a good bunch. They get their kicks out of playing for the ballet scenes. There are moments where they can play loud and others where they really had to bring it down a lot. I don\u2019t know what I would have done if someone had asked me to do Nixon in China<\/em> years ago. It arrived at the right time.
\nIn 1989, you said you were a gypsy. \u00a0Do you still see yourself as a gypsy?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI do actually. I don\u2019t know whether I was born a gypsy or whether I became one because of my work. I would like to be a little less of a gypsy at this point. I\u2019m racing back to my little house in Connecticut the day after tomorrow because it\u2019s planting season. \u00a0I\u2019ve become a gardener and I have only three and a half weeks now.
\nAre you a morning or a night person? <\/strong>
\nWhen I\u2019m in the country, I like to get up very early, probably 6h30, sometimes 5. I might have a few little word games, scrabble games and things with my sister in Washington who also gets up early. Often she sends me something around 5h30, and I\u2019m awake to get it. Normally, I\u2019m Cinderella. Even on New Year\u2019s Eve I often don\u2019t make it to midnight!
\nWhat about technology in general? <\/strong>
\nAt the end of 1998, I saw the writing on the wall: we were about to enter a new century and I didn\u2019t even belong to the old one. So I gave my American Express card to a friend\u2019s son and told him to go buy me what he thought I needed. He bought me my first computer. I had to fly to Paris though before anyone could tell me what to do. I knew how to turn it on and get into my email address, but I didn\u2019t know how to turn it off! Now of course, I wish I\u2019d had one from the beginning. I\u2019d be a millionaire today with all the money I spent on phone calls. To be always in touch with the people important to you, is amazing.
\nAnd career-wise it probably changes things too? <\/strong>
\nIt certainly makes me happier…
\nDo you still prefer rehearsing to performances?\u00a0 <\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s never changed. I\u2019m a backstage person. I\u2019m not an extrovert, I\u2019m a one-to-one person. Interviewers often say I\u2019m not shy at all. I like talking face to face. But put me in a room of people and maybe I won\u2019t say a word.
\nDo you ever dream about being in the wrong opera? <\/strong>
\nNo. But something like that actually happened to me once. I didn\u2019t have to dream it: I did it! I was singing a Traviata aria and somehow a cadenza from something else got in there (laughs<\/em>). It was a little scary. Luckily it wasn\u2019t with orchestra. That\u2019s the thing…just letting your feelings come and go with the music is not what it\u2019s all about. It\u2019s fake…this is art, it\u2019s not reality.
\nWhat would be one of your best memories? <\/strong>
\nCertainly one of the happiest moments was working with Leonard Bernstein. For Candide<\/em> , he would have wanted Callas, which of course was impossible in 1989! I don\u2019t know who proposed me to him, but after listening to some recordings he agreed to have me play Cunegonde.
\nHans Werner Henze \u2018s opera Les Bassarids ? <\/em><\/strong>
\nThat was a challenge for me, that was the first really modern piece I had done since I was a kid…my first opera was a one-act Ernst Toch piece written in 1929 called The princess and the pea<\/em>. Now talk about counting, that\u2019s where I started, at the age of 14! The New Haven Symphony did it as part of their children\u2019s concert series.
\nYou began singing lessons at the age of eleven?<\/strong>
\nI started out as a dancer and then I had a tumour in my knee and had to stop dancing after the surgery. So my mother, who was a bit of a stage mother, said: well she can\u2019t dance, I\u2019m gonna have her sing!
\nWhat did you study at Yale? <\/strong>
\nI was a French lit major.
\nWhat century?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nMostly 19th<\/sup>…
\nYou went to New York after Yale and took private singing lessons with Robert Leonard? <\/strong>
\nHe was like a big brother…he was my mentor, he wasn\u2019t just my voice teacher. At the age of 21, I had a very natural voice that was perfectly placed. I had no major problems when I went to him, but I had never learned to breathe and support the voice properly. He taught me. Which is why I\u2019m still singing now and getting through all this music in the passaggio <\/em>all the time! (laughs<\/em>) Thank you Robert! \u00a0He introduced me to all the non-commercial Callas recordings and convinced me to start working on Norma. From my twenties, I worked on certain things just for technique, not that I was going to do them right then, but simply because they would serve my technique. Robert steered me in all the right directions.
\nTell me about the choices you made in your career. <\/strong>
\nWell, I was always very prudent, very cautious, almost too cautious. I\u2019m not what one would call a betting person, I\u2019ll only bet on a sure thing and so that\u2019s kind of the way I ran things. And I was very careful. I always thought I had a kind of glass throat and if I did anything wrong, it was going to break.
\nDo you collect things? <\/strong>
\nYes, I\u2019ve always been a collector. But over the years my collections and tastes have changed. But that said, I have no trouble throwing things away. When my mother died, most of my stuff was at her house. I was going to sell the house so I was getting rid of things. I threw out most of my archives…
\nWhy was that? <\/strong>
\nOh, what was I going to do with them? I didn\u2019t have any room for them… and then I decided to keep the house, and I\u2019d already thrown the stuff away. But even more important than my archives, I got rid of a lot of all my textiles!
\nYour textiles? <\/strong>
\nTextile collections, all kinds of fabrics. I didn\u2019t give away the best things obviously, but I was a compulsive fabric buyer.<\/p>\n

What about your paintings of famous sopranos of the past?<\/strong>
\nThey\u2019re stashed away in a cupboard.
\nYou like to go forward, to turn the page? <\/strong>
\nOh, I can throw things away, yes! Absolutely, when I sold my wonderful New York apartment, in 2005, everyone said: \u201cHow can you do that? That apartment is you, this is your apartment, you\u2019ve lived there fifteen years and it\u2019s so you\u201d, and I said \u201cWell, it\u2019s time, it\u2019s time.\u201d So I just sold it. But unfortunately, I made the mistake of buying another one right away which I\u2019ve regretted ever since!
\nWhat do you think of when you look at yourself in the mirror? <\/strong>
\nWhere did you come from? And what have you done with the other one?
\nIs there a piece of music, something like your theme tune? <\/strong>
\nMany people have a hard time understanding it, but when I\u2019m not preparing something, music is not part of my life at all. It used to be, but it\u2019s a busman\u2019s holiday now. If I\u2019m not preparing something, I won\u2019t sing at all. In my house in the country, I put the radio on sometimes in the morning, unless they start playing opera and then I\u2019ll turn it off.
\nAny music you associate with precise circumstances? <\/strong>
\nI\u2019m a very nervous flyer. When I started flying and feeling nervous, Ah non credea <\/em>from Sonnambula \u00a0was a very lyrical, sustained aria that I knew very well. I\u2019d never done meditation or yoga, but breathing for singing is very Zen. If things got bumpy, I would start singing to myself: Ah non credea<\/em>… \u00a0It had this calming effect. Until one day I thought, what the hell are you singing, Ah non credea mirarti<\/em>, \u201cI never thought to see you die so quickly\u201d, in a plane!
\nWhen you were a child, what would you have liked to be when you grew up? <\/strong>
\nA 1930s movie star… that\u2019s still my dream.
\nA composer you identify with more than another? <\/strong>
\nThough Rossini was my fairy godfather, I feel that Bellini represents me more as an artist. Bellini at his best gets right down to the nitty-gritty. For someone known as a donnaiolo<\/em>, he really knows his women. His women characters are extraordinary. His writing gets right down to the emotion. In bel canto, every little dot is important. You make that dot mean something that goes with the word and with the music. Norma is the culmination. That was my goal from the time I was in my twenties. Everything I was doing was aiming for Norma. Norma is perfection, because her words and music go together like a pair of hands, as if they\u2019re made for each other. In Verdi there are moments when the rhythm of the language goes against what he\u2019s actually written, but I think in Norma there are none of those moments. Bellini speaks intimately. I feel like he knows me. Bellini knows all women.
\nIs there some place you would like to go to on vacation? <\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve only ever been to places where they have opera-houses, or orchestras. I only really travelled for work. A vacation was staying at home, wherever that was at the time. I love going to new places, but only if there\u2019s someone to take me around. I\u2019m not that good at being a tourist on my own…I think there\u2019s nothing sadder. I just stay with my books and my reading…
\nWhat do you read? <\/strong>
\nI read a lot of things, almost all fiction, but as a constant traveller the easiest things to read are mystery novels. I read everything that comes out, on my Ipad, on my Kindle, on real life paper… I like to have one thing in paper, because you can\u2019t use your Ipad or Kindle at take-offs and landings… what a geek!
\nYou used to have a lot of little cats in your dressing room that you used to touch before going on stage…are you superstitious? <\/strong>
\nUm… yes. But I don\u2019t have those cats anymore. It all began with Jamil, my cat when I was at Yale. When I went to Europe, a friend took him. He had to be combed, he was a Himalayan colour point…she combed his hair and weaved it into yarn until she had enough to crochet this little fake cat that was the mainstay of that collection. Everybody started giving me little cats. Finally, I was travelling around with this small bag full of cats…but Jamil was the one I would touch every time before I went on stage. When Jamil disappeared one day… it was in Barcelona and I never knew how…I stopped travelling round with the cats because Jamil was the centrepiece.
\nDo you give master-classes? <\/strong>
\nI do. And I really enjoy it. I never saw myself teaching. But some fifteen years ago, a thyroid disease nearly destroyed my voice. In fact, it did…and I had to learn how to sing again. Robert was dead by then. The thyroid is connected to 2 little muscles that are connected to the pharynx, and those muscles were atrophied. All of a sudden, I had to find new muscles to do the old job. It was very weird, I was losing the volume, the colour, and it became very wooden. I was losing what I thought was my best quality which was my phrasing, my ability to sculpt phrases. I couldn\u2019t do that anymore…I mean that\u2019s not something you just lose if you\u2019re musical and able to phrase, so there was something that was wrong. It\u2019s a very mundane disease as long as it doesn\u2019t happen to an opera singer….but it happened to me. I came very close to giving everything up, but I\u2019m someone who likes a challenge. Even though I\u2019ve wanted more than once to stop singing and always had a strange relationship with my career.
\nYou have always been devoted to your art? <\/strong>
\nWell, yes and no. I needed to be devoted to something… but\u00a0 I would have given it up in a minute if I\u2019d found Mr Right!
\nIf you were to do it all again? <\/strong>
\nI\u2019m absolutely sure that if I were starting again, I would probably never have a career because the world has changed so much. I thought it was enough to have talent and just do your job. It\u2019s an industry now. When I got into the music business in the 70s, it was already changing, but now, they\u2019re giving courses in self-promotion in universities and conservatories! I\u2019m nice to people, but I don\u2019t play up to them. It\u2019s not in my character, my personality. I\u2019m very down-to-earth. And I\u2019m the worst self-promoter in history… now I am convinced that starting out today I wouldn’t have a career.
\nWhat\u2019s your motto?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nFor my entire career, people have been asking me to be different than I am, to be more aggressive, more ambitious. Things just kind of happened and if they didn\u2019t happen, I never got upset about them. Some of my friends were more upset about things not happening than I was. \u201cIf you had only had the chutzpah<\/em>, you could have done this, this and this,\u201d they said. But, though it may sound trite, I can\u2019t change, this is the way I am. This is my personality. I don\u2019t sell myself, I don\u2019t play games, I\u2019m honest even to a bad point, almost pathologically honest. I try very hard not to say anything if I don\u2019t like something, but it comes across as fake. People have often told me that when I\u2019m thinking about something, there\u2019s something about my face that comes across in the foot-lights. That\u2019s how I live my life. I can go to sleep at night, because I haven\u2019t hurt anyone deliberately. That I haven\u2019t done it accidentally I can\u2019t say because to be truthful, you do say things that maybe you shouldn\u2019t have said, but I can sleep at night…my motto would be something like: \u00a0\u201cTo thine own self be true<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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