{"id":69677,"date":"2014-03-03T00:16:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T23:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbopera.it\/?p=69677"},"modified":"2016-11-26T12:28:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-26T11:28:01","slug":"susan-graham-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/susan-graham-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Graham Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0One of the world\u2019s most sought-after mezzo-sopranos for more than two decades, Susan Graham<\/strong> continues to explore new possibilities, to return to some roles (Didon in Les Troyens<\/i>, Handel\u2019s Xerxes), and to acquire new ones \u2014 including some surprising turns in operetta and musical comedy, exploiting her stage presence and her keen wit. Acclaimed especially for her forays into contemporary American music and French chansons<\/i>, she remains a busy recitalist and concert artist. To this avid admirer, she sings with all the skill, warmth, and fragrant sensuality she\u2019s always displayed. But at age 53, she knows that changes lie ahead. In addition to concert appearances in coming months, Susan Graham returns to the Metropolitan Opera in February and March, making her role debut as Sycorax, the sorceress, in a revival of the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island<\/i>, an adaptation of Shakespeare\u2019s The Tempest<\/i>. (The role was created by Joyce DiDonato at the Met in 2011.) In June, she returns to Paris \u2014 where this New Mexico native was named a Chevalier de la L\u00e9gion d’Honneur \u2014 and on the very stage where she first essayed Didon in 2003, she\u2019ll star opposite Lambert Wilson in Rodgers & Hammerstein\u2019s The King and I<\/i>, another first for her.
\nI first met Susan in 2002, and since then have followed her beyond the Met to hear her in Paris, Brussels, San Francisco, and Houston; this season I have reviewed her performances in Argento\u2019s The Aspern Papers <\/i>in Dallas and Offenbach\u2019s La Grande-Duchesse de G\u00e9rolstein <\/i>in Santa Fe for this magazine. This month, during a relatively quiet moment in a spectacularly busy season, she welcomed me to her home in New York City, where we talked about some of her recent engagements and her future prospects, as well as the ways in which her childhood in New Mexico and Texas prepared her for a remarkably rich career. Susan Graham website <\/a>
\nWhile you always incorporate comic songs in your recitals, your stage roles have mostly been more serious \u2014 until recently. You sang Offenbach\u2019s Grand Duchess in Santa Fe this summer, and Orlofsky in Houston this fall; Sycorax in The Enchanted Island<\/i>, which you\u2019re singing at the Met this season, also has strong comic elements. How do you approach comedy?<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s what I do every day of my life. It\u2019s just like living.
\nHow so?<\/b>
\nIn my real life, I love to look at the funny side of things, and I\u2019m very easily amused. I\u2019ll find the comedic take on something, just about the first thing. Then when you have a script, it\u2019s easy to find the double entendre<\/i> and sarcasm, especially the sarcasm. A character like the Grand Duchess, that was very easy, because she was haughty and a woman of a certain age, and rather hedonistic. And I wouldn\u2019t say \u2014 I\u2019m not haughty<\/i>! [Laughs.] So I found her a little bit relatable.
\nYou never force the joke. How conscious is that?
\n<\/b>It\u2019s a self-conscious thing. Because I have a fear of being perceived as \u2014 and this is just a big, broad general life thing \u2014 as a person who\u2019s \u201cWell, she\u2019s trying too hard. Over-selling it.\u201d I guess it\u2019s a weird take on a kind of modesty. But any kind of over-forced humor makes me cringe, and the last thing I want to ever do is make anyone cringe. So I will probably risk that they don\u2019t get the joke before I will consciously over-egg it. That\u2019s not to say that I\u2019m always subtle. Because I\u2019m not.
\nBut comedy shouldn\u2019t be overdone, pushed, or forced. I think that for me, the fun is letting the audience in on the joke. To let them feel like they just figured it out, rather than I\u2019m shoving a pie in their face. That was the fun of those jokes that we added in Grand Duchess<\/i>, like \u201cthe fish called Wanda,\u201d which your Italian audience may not get. I wanted to say, \u201cOh, a fish called Wanda.\u201d But the director very wisely [made a different suggestion], because he\u2019s of the same mind and didn\u2019t want to push the joke too hard. The character\u2019s name is Wanda Fish, and my sarcastic character couldn\u2019t resist making a joke out of it. I just said \u201cA Fish \u2026\u201d and then let the audience get it. That\u2019s how I like to do in the comedy in my recitals, too. That\u2019s more one on one, because I\u2019m very close to the audience. But I like to present the situations and draw them in to find funny what I find funny.
\nOffenbach is funny, French, and sexy \u2014 three things you excel at. <\/b>
\nThose are three elements that led me to agree to do the piece. But still, the singer in me and the musician in me wanted more meaty things to sing. And that\u2019s where Sycorax comes in. That\u2019s real singing. And certainly Orlofsky doesn\u2019t have any of that, and Grand Duchess <\/i>doesn\u2019t have much of that and Belle H\u00e9l\u00e8ne<\/i> doesn\u2019t, but Merry Widow<\/i> does. And I always feel shortchanged when I don\u2019t have much to sing \u2014 something good to sing. [Note: Susan Graham sang H\u00e9l\u00e8ne with Santa Fe Opera in 2003; she has sung Hanna Glawari in Houston, New York, and Los Angeles.]<\/i>
\nIt occurs to me I\u2019m Vivian Vance. Sometimes! [Laughs.] I guess maybe Eve Arden is a better comparison, because Eve Arden was sometimes the more glamorous leading lady, but many times she was the best friend. I watched this interview with Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball, and they hadn\u2019t seen each other in a long time. It was on The Dinah Shore Show<\/i> in the late \u201970s. It was like watching me and Ren\u00e9e [Fleming] fifteen years from now. They were obviously so fond of each other and embraced warmly and then just laughed about stuff that they had done. Vivian was me, she was the matter-of-fact one saying, \u201cRemember that time,\u201d and I was just mentally inserting Susie and Ren\u00e9e stories: \u201cRemember that time when your dress got caught on the chair and if I hadn\u2019t loosened it you would have dragged the chair stage left while you were singing?\u201d That\u2019s the way Vivian Vance was with Lucy. The mezzo is always the one putting out fires \u2014 as the boyfriend, the sister, or the best friend.
\nAnd yet in your career you have played a lot of leading roles.<\/b>
\nThere came a point, probably when I was just turning 40, that we started seeking out what we were calling the \u201cbig girl\u201d [as in grown woman] parts. I started seeking out title roles, and fortunately my management agreed, and fortunately so did opera managements. [Laughs.] If not title roles, then leading lady roles. And there\u2019s a lot of stuff in the French repertoire that would very much support that.
\nHow hard did you have to look?<\/b>
\nNot that hard. Because really, if you look in the right place, the leading mezzo part, if it\u2019s not the title role, it\u2019s the protagonist. If it\u2019s French. There\u2019s Charlotte, there of course is Didon, B\u00e9atrice, Margu\u00e9rite in Damnation<\/i>, Iphig\u00e9nie \u2014 and Alceste, should I choose to go down that road. Now, then you go into Handel. Xerxes, Ariodante, and although Alcina is the title character\u2019s name, Ruggiero is the leading man. Even in Clemenza<\/i>, Sesto \u2014 it may be the Clemenza of Tito, but it\u2019s the journey of Sesto. \u201cIl Viaggio di Sesto.\u201d So that\u2019s another one.
\nAnd this has been rewarding? <\/b>
\nIt doesn\u2019t suck.
\nCan I say that in Italian? <\/b>
\nIt\u2019s up to you. They\u2019d probably figure it out if you say it in English! But yeah, it\u2019s great. It not only offers great stimulation as an artist, and challenges, but it adds to \u2014 it creates an enormous elevation of confidence and how you value your place in the artistic world. You know, there\u2019s a whole repertoire of secondary mezzo roles. And a lot of my mezzo colleagues stay there happily, and they perceive themselves as not-the-leading-lady. I was given an opportunity to learn what the sopranos feel like, and to be one of the mezzos who gets to feel glamorous, and gets the opening night, and gets the last bow. And it gives me confidence as an artist. It lets me walk out on the recital stage at Carnegie Hall and feel like a diva, in the best way, because I\u2019ve earned it. For me that\u2019s important, because I can still slip into [feeling like] little Susie from Texas, who thinks they\u2019ll figure out that it\u2019s all fake.
\nBeverly Sills used to say that she was just reaching her peak when the curtain came down, and that after a good performance she wanted to start again from the top. More-substantial roles certainly give you opportunities \u2014 like Didon in Les Troyens<\/i>, where you let forth this incredible outpouring of artistic energy, \u201cturning it up to 11,\u201d as we say. <\/i><\/b>
\nWell that\u2019s just Berlioz! There\u2019s no choice, that\u2019s how Berlioz wrote it. Thank God Berlioz wrote that at the end and not at the beginning, because there\u2019d be no way to continue! Whatever you\u2019ve got left at the end of Act V, you spend it. That\u2019s how I viewed it. Because the woman is literally at the end of her rope.
\nSo you store up your energy in the dance breaks? <\/b>
\n[Laughs.] That\u2019s in Act IV, and I just lie there and say, \u201cOkay, the next act\u2019s not going to be so easy!\u201d Actually, I never think about that. I have observed myself before, during, and after, and realizing that, for better and for worse, I\u2019m always exactly in the moment, and I\u2019m never thinking about what\u2019s coming up. Maybe I should.
\nYou performed symphonic pieces in concert with some great orchestras this season: Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s Lied der Waldtaube<\/i> and Mahler\u2019s Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen<\/i> with the Ensemble Contemporain in Europe in January, and Ravel\u2019s Sh\u00e9h\u00e9razade<\/i> with the Boston Symphony in America a few weeks later. What are the challenges of those appearances? <\/b>
\nWell, the thing coming up in January is tricky, because the Mahler will be great fun. I\u2019ve sung it before, and Mahler and I are old friends. The Sch\u00f6nberg on the other hand is new, and it\u2019s really hard! It\u2019s just hard! It\u2019s hard music to learn. There are a few phrases that are tricky to sing, but I\u2019m sort of slowly falling in love with it, which is good. The challenge of something like Ravel in \u201cSh\u00e9h\u00e9razade\u201d is just giving over to the atmosphere and hoping that I can create the kind of world, tonally and colorfully and expressively, that the piece needs, and I can jut inhabit that. It needs to be technically well sung but textual color needs to complement the orchestral color\u2014 which Ravel and Haitink and the BSO will take care of, but I have to do my part, too.
\nWhen I\u2019ve heard you singing in concert with a symphony orchestra, you\u2019re generally not playing a character. You become almost an abstract, an instrument in the ensemble. <\/b>
\nIt\u2019s funny that you say that about becoming part of the ensemble, because one of the things I do, the first day of rehearsal and up until final run-through, I sit facing the orchestra. I\u2019m one of them. If I have something that the clarinet has to echo or do in unison, I\u2019m always fixed on them and we take care of it together. Sometimes I just bypass the conductor, and the instrumentalist and I will work it out on a break. I have been known, when working with les experienced orchestras, to go into the orchestra and stand next to the instrumentalist, so we can work it out and they\u2019ll know what I\u2019m doing.
\nPerhaps the really big news is that in June you\u2019re going to play Anna in The King and I <\/i>at the Ch\u00e2telet \u2014 which represents a return to the Broadway musicals of Rodgers & Hammerstein. <\/b>
\nHow about that!
\nI know that you played Maria in Rodgers & Hammerstein\u2019s The Sound of <\/i>Music when you were in high school. But this is a repertoire you haven\u2019t tried on for quite a few years. <\/b>
\nNo! But I\u2019ve always approached something like Dorabella as if it were musical comedy. Or Hanna Glawari. Or Grand Duchess or Belle H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. You know, the technique of the spoken word is a craft that I will have to learn. I have a certain amount of natural ability in that area, but certainly it\u2019s an art in itself, and I have people to work on with that, I have some Broadway people who are going to work on it with me, through my friend Peggy Hickey, who is choreographing A Gentleman\u2019s Guide to Love & Murder<\/i>, <\/i>her Broadway debut [a musical comedy that recently opened in New York]. It\u2019s hilarious, the funniest thing ever.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot for me to work on. In The King and I<\/i>, even the songs \u2014 that one song, \u201cYes, your Majesty! No, your Majesty! Tell us how low to go, your Majesty!\u201d is almost spoken word. And then we\u2019re trying to decide what kind of accent she should have. She\u2019s Welsh, but in our ear we hear it as Hoch<\/i> English, and I\u2019ll negotiating it all with a ten-foot-wide hoop skirt and a corset so tight I can\u2019t breathe.
\nHave you tried on the costume? <\/b>
\nOh, no, but I\u2019ve seen pictures. Yeah, it\u2019s a lot. It is a lot. And if I count up from this time last year \u2014 let\u2019s see. The learning curve, from Les Troyens<\/i>, which I had done \u2014 but still! Then there was the Ren\u00e9e tour; The Aspern Papers<\/i>, difficult contemporary American music. Then Grande-Duchesse<\/i>, lots of French, lots and lots of words and dialogue \u2013 in two different languages! Fledermaus <\/i>wasn\u2019t that much, but still I had to learn it. Enchanted Island<\/i>, which is a lot, and King and I<\/i>. And that\u2019s all in 18 months time. If you don\u2019t count the Ren\u00e9e tour, is that really six roles?
\nYes!\u00a0 <\/b>
\nBut that\u2019s probably why I feel an affinity for [musical comedy]. I did a decent amount of musical comedy in high school and college, and a lot of Gilbert & Sullivan.
\nI know that you did The Sound of Music<\/i>, but what else? <\/b>
\nCarousel<\/i>, My Fair Lady<\/i>. I didn\u2019t do lead parts in all of them, but I was in them. In 1776<\/i>, I was Abigail Adams. And then Pirates of Penzance<\/i> and H.M.S. Pinafore<\/i>, and what else? I did a handful of them.
\nFor American audiences, Broadway musicals are a good way to prepare to listen to opera. The songs are in English, and so by listening to them, we\u2019re conditioned to understand that the songs are meant to communicate feelings, characters, and stories. In opera, there\u2019s more singing and the language may be Italian or German, but the fundamental purpose is the same. <\/b>
\nThere are two things that contribute to my ability to be understood by the audience. One is that, which you just said. And the other is that I perform onstage and I communicate as if I were communicating to people who are unschooled in opera. Because where I came from, very few people were [familiar with opera], so I figure if I can make my mother get it, if I can make people in my family who are not experienced in opera, if I can make them understand me, then I can make anybody understand me.
\nThat includes me, too. Because I want to strip everything else away, I want to strip expectation away, I want to strip tradition away, and I want to get down to the essence of what a word means or what a gesture means or what a phrase means, or what a movement means \u2014 and by \u201cmovement,\u201d I mean musical movement. Because I came into this without a big opera background, and I think this is something that everyone always says, \u201cHow does a great opera star come out of New Mexico or Texas or Kansas or Wyoming, when they didn\u2019t grow up with it?\u201d And I think it\u2019s actually an advantage, because we come into it pure and na\u00efve, and we have the ability to take the words and notes off the page and have them make sense, without having to go through a lifetime of hearing 16 artists perform it at the Metropolitan Opera over a lifetime. It sounds counterintuitive and probably sacrilegious, and I don\u2019t advocate staying way from the Met, but if that\u2019s how you grew up, you can use it to your advantage. I have to be so P.C. [politically correct]. People are going to say, \u201cDon\u2019t listen to her recordings.\u201d But that\u2019s how I grew up, and you have to use it. I don\u2019t know if Joyce [DiDonato] would say the same thing, but she has made so much music her own, without doing it the way that anybody else did. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve tried to do, too. And I certainly have colleagues that, before they sing a note of a role, they will listen to every single recording available and glean what this one did and that one did \u2014 and to me, that\u2019s a scrapbook, not a performance. It\u2019s a quilt. It\u2019s not authentic to who that artist is; you\u2019re just taking bits and pieces of other people. That\u2019s my soapbox for today. I\u2019m gonna need to have a show called \u201cSusies\u2019s Rants.\u201d I get on my soapbox so easily these days.
\nLet\u2019s talk for a moment about your future, and where you go from here. <\/b>
\nEveryone wants to talk about the circumstance \u2014 I won\u2019t say \u201cdilemma\u201d or \u201cplight\u201d \u2014 but the circumstance of the transitioning artist. Certainly I no longer play boys who jump out of windows. In fact, I don\u2019t play very many 17-year-old boys any more at all. The things that are on the horizon are \u2014 I still do title roles, but there are some operas in which I don\u2019t have to carry the show. Fledermaus<\/i> is a perfect example; they had to talk me into it. I didn\u2019t want to do it, because I\u2019ve never enjoyed Fledermaus<\/i>, but this production really was terrific. I enjoyed it. There was some joy in not having the responsibility of having to carry the whole show. I wouldn\u2019t want to make a steady diet of that \u2013 and eventually I will<\/i> make a steady diet of that. But it was weird, it was hard to get used to. But there are operas like Capriccio<\/i>, in which I sing Clairon, and Lulu<\/i>, in which I\u2019ll sing Countess Geschwitz. Those are two examples.
\nThey\u2019re both good roles for you. <\/b>
\nYeah. And in Poppea<\/i>, the next time, I will probably sing Ottavia, and not Poppea. I think the last time I sang in Italy, I did a recital, but I did Poppea in Maggio Musicale.
\nWhen you sang Poppea in Houston, Frederica von Stade sang Ottavia. She made me understand that Ottavia really doesn\u2019t believe she\u2019s done anything wrong. It\u2019s a great role; I hadn\u2019t fully appreciated it before. <\/b>
\nYes! It is. But that\u2019s Flicka, too. That\u2019s the grace of Flicka, that she would bring to Ottavia, \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything wrong. I\u2019m just the cast-aside wife, addio, addio.\u201d I think it\u2019s brilliant.
\nAre you ready for the transitional phase of your career? <\/b>
\nI\u2019m a little afraid of it. I\u2019m a little afraid of change, and saying goodbye to the last bow. But I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll adapt. I mean, honestly, the real story is that where the professional life starts to transition, so does my personal life, and my personal life is fine. That can have some room to bloom. [Note: Graham reunited a few years ago with her college sweetheart.]\u00a0 <\/i>The other thing that\u2019s interesting is that what I\u2019m noticing now, in this phase of my life, is that I\u2019m starting to be called on to participate in things that are non-singing or non-operatic. I\u2019m asked to do interviews [during broadcasts and HD simulcasts], to host events, to do things as a personality. Which I love. When hosting, or just in general, onstage, too, people know I\u2019ve been at it long enough, that I\u2019ve earned the opportunity to stand back from it and make a little bit of fun if I need to \u2014 in a loving way, of course! And that\u2019s my comedy right there in a nutshell. We\u2019ve come full circle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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