Judith Blegen (April 27, 1943, Lexington, Kentucky) is an American soprano, particularly associated with light lyric roles of the French, Italian and German repertories. Blegen was raised and attended high school in Missoula, Montana, during which time she began voice lessons with John L. Lester, head of the voice department at the University of Montana. She studied first the violin with Toshiya Eto, and later voice at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with Eufemia Giannini-Gregory, and later in Rome, with Luigi Ricci. She made her operatic debut in Nuremberg, Germany, as Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, in 1965, where she subsequently sang Lucia, Susanna, and Zerbinetta. That same year, she appeared in Spoleto, Italy, as Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande. She made her debut at the Vienna State Opera, as Rosina in The Barber of Seville, in 1968, and the following year appeared at the Santa Fe Opera, as Emily in the premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's Help, Help, the Globolinks!, a role requiring her both to sing and play the violin. Her New York Metropolitan Opera debut took place on January 19, 1970, as Papagena in The Magic Flute. She sang there over 200 performances of 19 roles, including Marzelline, Zerlina, Nanetta, Sophie, Adina, Gilda, Oscar, Juliette, Blondchen, Gretel, and Adele. She made her debuts at the London Opera House in London, in 1975, and at the Palais Garnier in Paris, in 1977. She appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on December, 20, 1979, [YouTube image shown below] where she performed the Christmas carol, O Holy Night. A singer with a radiant voice, polished musicianship, and charming stage presence, she retired in 1991. She is married to former Metropolitan Opera concertmaster Raymond Gniewek. She is a 1983 recipient of the Montana Governor's Arts Award. *     *     *     *     * Judith Blegen at Lyric Opera of Chicago 1973 - Rosenkavalier (Sophie) with Ludwig/Dernesch, Berthold, Sotin, Gutstein, Merighi, Andreolli, Zilio, Gordon, Voketaitis; Leitner 1978 - Don Pasquale (Norina) with Evans, Kraus, Stilwell; Pritchard 1979 - Rigoletto (Gilda) with Manuguerra/Elvira/Salvadori, Pavarotti, Gill, Kuhlmann; Chailly 1986-87 [Opening Night] - Magic Flute (Pamina) with Araiza, Nolen, Salminen, Serra, Stewart; Slatkin, Everding --  Names which are links refer to my interviews elsewhere on this website.  BD

Some Recordings of Mozart featuring Judith Blegen To read my Interview with Teresa Berganza, click HERE. To read my Interviews with Daniel Barenboim, click HERE. To read my Interview with Thomas Moser, click HERE. To read my Interview with Leopold Hager, click HERE.

BD:    While we’re thinking about contemporary music let me throw you a curve and ask you about Globolinks.

JB:    Globolinks!  [Laughs]  That was fun!  I was four, going into five months pregnant for starters, and I was trying very much to hide it from Gian Carlo because I didn’t think he would take too pleasantly to the idea.  He would have accepted it, but I didn’t think that is what he would love to think about in terms of Emily.

BD:    He wrote the role though around you and your voice and your violinistic techniques?

JB:    Yes, he did.  I didn’t get to do the world premiere because at that time I was on Mr. Rolf Liebermann’s black list in Hamburg... and I suppose rightly so because he was very irked at me for many years because I didn’t accept the marvelous offer he made me.  He wanted me for three years continually, take it or leave it, and I just said no.  I didn’t want it at that point and so I didn’t take it, and I think his feelings were hurt.  So he decided he didn’t want to hear about me for a good many years, and that was just when Menotti was getting it ready.  He wanted me to do it, but...

BD:    Did he do anything to tailor the part to your voice?

JB:    Oh, sure.  I think he did, yes.  

BD:    Or did he tailor it to your type of voice?

JB:    Gee, I never thought about it too much.  I’m sure it must have been my type of voice.  After all, I prefer to go from the character because on the operatic stage it’s just the way I see things.  In the end I’m portraying somebody, and whatever credit I’m given as to my ability to get into a character and portray her is because I do approach it from that angle.  However, this goes on top of many, many years of very serious vocal study, really trying to build up a good technique, and even before that, years of string playing where I really learned musicianship and ear training.

BD:    So then, the

  When you cross that line a disaster can happen at any moment, so I always try to stay on this side of that line and don’t go over a certain point.

BD:    So you’re always aware then of these technical things?

JB:    Absolutely, always.

BD:    Has there ever been a performance when you abandoned all of that and just threw yourself completely into the spirit of the music and the drama?

JB:    There have been moments when I have done that and it was not a pleasant experience.  This is something that the audience would not necessarily notice, but I noticed it, and I noticed certain sounds or certain feelings in my voice in the process of doing it that I thought I didn’t want to do.  I definitely don’t want to cross over a certain line.  It’s not necessary to have to do that.  You can give your very best performance without crossing over that invisible line.

BD:    Does the size of the house make any difference to the way you sing?

JB:    Yes, to some degree.  I’m under five-two.  I’m five-one and three quarters and I don’t weigh that many pounds over a hundred, which is the right weight level for my height, and my teacher at Curtis, Madame Gregory, used to emphasize for me that I should absolutely never go for size of sound.  This is a big mistake being made by young singers, and they’re being encouraged from all sides to make this mistake.  I notice it all the time.  There’s so much talent around and beautiful voices, but when I hear so many of them, I think to myself it’s not beautiful.  It just seems to me that young singers are trying to make these big sounds that really don’t mean anything at all.

BD:    Who is encouraging the young singers to violate this trust of their voice?  Is it the teachers, the impresarios, the singers themselves?

JB:    It’s a combination of everything, plus the music business.  I don’t think the music business cares at all about the voices or artistry of singers, frankly.

BD:    It’s each singer’s responsibility to care about the art?

JB:    Definitely.  Absolutely.  It’s an individual responsibility.

BD:    Is there any way we can clobber an agent or impresario into thinking about the art?

JB:    I don’t think it’s a matter of clobbering anyone.  It’s a matter of understanding and enlightenment.

BD:    Was there ever a time when the business was interested in the art?

JB:    I am trying to speak from my own personal experience, and anything that happened before I don’t feel I should make an evaluation of.  I hear many, many stories coming from people I greatly revere, and some people I don’t necessarily revere so much, but they have to be taken for what they are, namely stories.  But when I’m asked my own opinions, I’m trying to base them on my own experience and knowledge.  I would say that it is a question of enlightenment, it’s a question of knowledge, and very much a question of taste.  I’m all for everybody getting into the act.  If a person loves music or wants to start getting into music, going to a performance might be a starting point.  But if he or she likes it, then by all means go on to the next step and get yourself into participating.  That is how we will start, individually, just one little drop in a bucket and one little step at a time.  If that could be done a million times over it would cause enlightenment in the society as a whole. 

BD:    In terms of audience participation?

JB:    Supposing you have a young person who likes to sing in the shower and is intrigued by the opera.  If he comes to a performance sometime and he likes it and thinks it is kind of neat and wants to come again and again and again and again, what would be a next step?  Why doesn’t he take his singing out of the shower and try it somewhere else?  Try getting involved with a choir somewhere.  Try getting involved with participation yourself.  That’s where the real learning comes in, instead of just being a bystander, watching and observing as a member of the public.  Get involved, roll up your sleeves and get in and do it yourself.  And for string players, play some chamber music.

BD:    Was it difficult for you to decide to get out of string playing and get into singing?

JB:    Yes, as a matter of fact it was very difficult.  I’ll never forget sitting down to write a letter to Oscar Shumsky who was my violin teacher at that time.  I saw it coming and I just didn’t want to have to see it.  But, as I always do, I think to myself,

that I wasn’t taking the violin out of its case between lessons.  I was faking it.  I would go into a practice room an hour before my lesson and quickly look at the music and try to do the best I could.  I knew that after a while Mr. Shumsky was certainly going to see through that.  Then my guilt started to get the best of me until finally I sat down with myself and knew I was going to have to decide one way or another.  Where does the truth lie?  Where is my future really going to be?  The answer was obvious, so I wrote the letter.

BD:    Ever have any regrets?

JB:    No, no regrets.  I guess I could say my only regret would be that I couldn’t do both.  That’s a great regret.  I keep thinking that I’d like to take the violin out of the case and do exactly five minutes every day.  That would make 365 times five minutes.  That’s how much progress I could make in one year, then I think about two years and three years.

BD:    Maybe after you’re through singing you’ll get back to playing a little bit.

JB:    I very well might, except I have a drawback there.  My husband, Raymond Gniewek, is the concert master of the Met Orchestra.  He’s got this thing about his wife.  He’s definitely got rose-colored glasses on me.  I don’t dare get out my violin.  Occasionally when I do, I’ll start sawing away on it for five minutes.  I’ve got really no left hand anymore, but whatever he hears me he says it’s marvelous, which is ridiculous.  It isn’t.  It wouldn’t be too bad if it would stop there, but he goes over to all his colleagues at the Met and says his wife is such a wonderful player.  It really is embarrassing, and his colleagues don’t have any other choice except to agree.  So I’ll take my violin out when he’s at work and do my five minutes a day and never ever let him hear me.

BD:    At least he’s a fan of yours.  He could be saying that it’s awful and tell you to put it away.

JB:    I almost wish he would because that is where the truth is.  I really am awful.

BD:    Next time you should get involved with a trombone player or a football player.

JB:    I’m not going to get involved anymore.  I’m happily married now.

BD:    You have a very special case.  You live in New York, your husband works in New York and you sing a lot in New York.  You have your home life all revolves around a major part of your career, but when you go elsewhere, or for others who really don’t have this kind of stable base, is it hard to coordinate family and career?

JB:    For me it’s impossible!  It’s not hard, it’s impossible!  The biggest regret in my life is the realization that I’m not an everyday, 24-hour-a-day mother to my son from my first marriage.  I haven’t been since I got divorced in the spring of ’75.  I made the decision that my son would be best off if I gave custody to my ex-husband.  I knew darn well that my husband would ask his parents to rear my son, and his parents are two people that I absolutely adore and always have.  So I really did feel that my son would have the best chance of growing up normally and stand the best chance of his own happiness.  So that’s my very biggest regret. 

BD:    Have you stayed in touch with him?

JB:    Oh, I’m in touch with him all the time.  We talk all the time on the phone, and he comes to visit me and I go to visit him.

BD:    Are you encouraging him to get into music, or are you encouraging him to stay out of music?

JB:    No, definitely not!  Definitely not!  I not only was encouraged, but I was slave driven to get into music.  That’s something I would never want to do to my own son, no.  And he’s not interested in music.  He’s a very laid back California kid now.  He’s sixteen and he’s thinking definitely of going to college maybe major in business administration or something.  So that is just fine.

BD:    Do you feel you’re a slave to the voice, still?

JB:    I don’t like that word

BD:    Are there different publics?  Is the concert public different from the opera public, and is the public in one city different from the public in another city?

JB:    It’s so funny.  I wish I could give some sort of brilliant answer to that, but I don’t have a brilliant answer.  To me, people are people, and when I sense that the communication is good from the stage to the audience, then I am fortunate enough to enjoy the feedback from the audience to the stage.  That’s where it’s at.  That’s what’s marvelous.  It’s funny though... I don’t sing for my public.  I guess I’m probably very much in the minority there, but I don’t sing for the public, and I’m not ashamed of it.

BD:    For whom do you sing?

JB:    I sing for myself and I try to bring out the best in myself.  I really try to aspire to the mountaintops of what I think these great composers had in mind.  That’s really what I sing for, definitely.  I’ll gladly not be the most popular singer of the evening.  I don’t even worry too much about the fairness of it, though the unfairness of it sometimes hurts.  At times in the past it’s hurt deeply, but the continual striving to learn the whys of things has taken a lot of that pain away.  So that doesn’t bother me so much anymore, no.

BD:    Because you have the light lyric voice do you regret not being able to sing some roles that you would really like to sing?

JB:    No.  It’s almost like regretting not being me, and I don’t regret being me at all.

BD:    Which role have you sung the most?

JB:    I never count my performances.  I remember that for a while I couldn’t look at Despina in Così fan Tutte, and even today I sort of get a stomach ache when I think of Despina because I had to do 28 performances in one season.  It was in my first season in my first house, and I wasn’t prepared for the reality.  I had no idea what was meant to be a professional opera singer.  I had no idea when they mentioned to me the premiere would be this or the premiere would be that, and they weren’t sure whether I’d do the premiere.  I had not the vaguest idea what they were talking about, and then when I asked,

I haven’t actually cared for too much because it seemed to me they were into their whole thing, or that there was some hierarchy, that his word had to be obeyed.  In other words I had better kowtow to what he wants, and sometimes I felt a little stifled.  I couldn’t say that about any of the most famous directors, though.  Really, it’s been some of the directors who are not so famous and not necessarily so nice either.  But as to the assistants, I’ll never forget working on a Romeo and Juliet which had come out years before that at the Met.  Fabrizio Melano was the assistant stage director at that time.  He had taken over the production and he was just absolutely wonderful.  I just loved working with him.  Placido and I and he, really the three of us just figured out our whole staging, what we wanted to do, and it was very poetic.  It was an absolute equal among the three of us, and it was just really wonderful.

BD:    Is there too much emphasis today on the staging?

JB:    I suppose so.  It depends.  I hate to make a generalization because I shouldn’t have too many personal opinions about other stagings in which I was not a part.

BD:    Are there some stagings you’ve looked at which you were glad you were not involved in?

JB:    I got sued for one!  I was gladly sued if they were going to do that to me.  I’ll take that over having to do the production.

BD:    You had gotten involved in it and then pulled out?

JB:    Yes.  I was at Aix-en-Provence and it was a production of Magic Flute.  I had just come from my first production of the work which was in Hamburg with Achim Freyer.  He was the designer and stage director, and was quite an artist.  But I thought his production was ridiculous and I told him so.  I got called on the carpet by Dohnányi.  Freyer had complained about me being difficult.  So I was very embarrassed, and apologized immediately to Mr. Dohnányi.  I was very sorry to have offended somebody that deeply.  I had said to Freyer,

re making recordings?

JB:    Surprisingly enough, I found doing these recordings that it was impossible to sing sotto voce.  I ended up singing everything full out even in the recording sessions.  It’s funny, I would never have dreamed that.

BD:    Do you enjoy making recordings?

JB:    No, I don’t.  It’s too hard.  It’s too tedious.  I’ll never forget in my first solo recording for RCA.  I put my heart and soul in it.  Martin Katz and I [seen together in photo at right] worked endlessly over it, and when they invited me to hear the finished playbacks, the edited tapes, it was just marvelous! It was so beautiful.  It was really very, very nice and I was thrilled.  Then a little while later, after the record was pressed they sent me a complimentary copy and on the phonograph I swear it was a different recording.  I don’t know what they did.  They did an awful lot of doctoring.  They raised the pitch, for one thing, I guess maybe to add more excitement to it, but it also made the vibrato a little too fast for my taste and I didn’t like it.  So as far as I’m concerned for the recording industry, that’s where it’s at with them... although, I shouldn’t seem so ungrateful.  I’m not at all.  I’m grateful for every invitation I get.  I just recorded The Creation with maestro Bernstein and the Bavarian radio orchestra.  It just meant more than anything in the world to me at that point, and I’m very grateful for that.

BD:    Were these recordings made in performance?

JB:    We had two live performances in Munich, and they recorded those performances.  Then we had another day for retakes after the editors had checked and listened and re-listened to things for slight flaws here and there.  When you have that many people involved

  Well, darned if a minute hadn’t gone by and I was won over completely.

BD:    You hadn’t seen them at all in rehearsals for the Magic Flute?

JB:    No I hadn’t seen them.  I still haven’t seen them.  I do know I have to be prepared for just an outburst of laughter when Sarastro says something to me.  I can’t remember exactly what it is now, but I have to be very careful to look down at the floor because I want to laugh also.  I’m facing Sarastro and he’s facing the audience, so nobody would see my laugh, but they would sure see Sarastro if a smile broke out on his face.  So I very dutifully look down at the floor and try not to laugh.

BD:    Do you get a better response with the surtitles than when you we’re singing in the language of the audience?

JB:    Oh yes, it’s all the difference in the world.  And if we’re going to get that much more communication, then I say by all means let’s have it.

BD:    Should we have the surtitles in operas that are in the language of the audience?

JB:    Yes.  As a matter of fact, when I did the video tape of Hansel and Gretel from the Met, I was sorely disappointed that they hadn’t used subtitles there.  [DVD cover shown at right.  Also, see my interview with Jean Kraft.]  I thought about all my work, and I had just assumed they were going to use subtitles because on other Live from the Met broadcasts I had seen them.  I was sorely disappointed they didn’t use them for Hansel and Gretel.  English is the most difficult language I’ve ever had to sing in.

BD:    Why?

JB:    The number one issue would deal with how difficult it is phonetically.  So many of our vowel sounds are diphthongs.  They are two vowels such as the word

BD:    How do you divide your career between opera and concert?

JB:    Basically I sketch out what operas I’d like to accept and how I’d like to plan that out, and then I accept the concert and other engagements and basically work around that.  However, when I receive an invitation from maestro Bernstein to record The Creation, that just becomes number one in my mind, in my whole life.  [CD booklet cover shown at left.]  As a matter of fact, it was a very difficult thing for me to do because I really did a job on myself.  As far as I’m concerned Lenny’s just a genius.  He is a walking Mozart in every aspect, and what I demanded from myself was to start from the point of perfection and go from there.  When you go from that attitude, you’re going to lose, period.  So I did a real job on myself.  I had to recuperate.  I wasn’t myself for at least four or five weeks after that.  If he would invite me for something else, I just don’t know if I can go through that again.

BD:    When you’re singing a concert you’re in front of the orchestra but in opera you’re in back of the orchestra.  Does that change the vocal production?

JB:    Most established orchestras that have the routine worked out are really so expert that it doesn’t bother me much at all.  Then I use the rather standard technique for singing beautifully.  But a lot of orchestra concerts that I’ve done over the years are with smaller groups that might not be totally professional.  Even with the great orchestras

the soloists sometimes get the raw end of the deal.  They sometimes rehearse their regular orchestral repertoire in the rehearsal time.  They’ll allow the allotted time for that, and then I’ve come on for the rehearsal and I’ve only got one half hours’ worth of rehearsal.  This happened in Minneapolis with the Brentano songs by Richard Strauss.  Those are very complicated and are not done very often, and we had maybe a total of a half an hour rehearsal.  I was really burned about that.  Thank heavens the orchestra put it together just like that, but it really is hard on my nerves.  For singing with orchestras, where perhaps some of the players aren’t as professional and practically all of them are doing this repertoire for the first time, for me it’s like walking with lead shoes.  I have a beautiful aria I do by Bellini from his Capuleti e i Montecchi, his version of Romeo and Juliet, and when you start putting in bel canto ornaments and all and the whole bel canto style, it’s something that is so different from the usual things they play.  You have to be a real teacher in that situation.  It’s not as though I don’t like it; I’m more than happy to do it, but I want to be really careful.  I don’t want to step on the conductor’s toes.  I certainly don’t want to offend him and I don’t want to offend any of the musicians.  But either I do say something and show them how this should go or I’m going to get killed. 

BD:    If you don’t get much chance to rehearse with the orchestra, don’t you get a chance to be with the conductor and work with him in a musical rehearsal?

JB:    Yes.  I found the greater the artistic excellence and the technical expertise, the easier the collaboration.  The most difficult times are generally when it might be an inexperienced person, a dumb person, or an unmusical person.  That’s when it’s so hard. 

BD:    Do contemporary composers know how to write for the voice?  Again, I know I’m asking for a big generalization.

JB:    Yes, sure.  I haven’t done that much contemporary music.  I’ve been saving that as a certain compartment that I want to get into because I can’t wait to.  Surprisingly, right now I’m working up a group of three very short pieces by Webern.  They are atonal and they are serial. 

BD:    It’s a twelve tone system?

JB:    Yes, a twelve tone system and you have to use each tone before you can repeat any one of them.  A general opinion is that this is unvocal, but now I’m making some progress on it.  I want to do this.  I’m doing them in a couple of weeks at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and I definitely want to do them without music if I possibly can... which means I have to have such command of those songs because if I go off, forget it.  The whole piece is out the window completely and we would have to start from the beginning again.

BD:    You’ve got to pick the notes out of the air.

JB:    Well, that’s not a problem for me because I do have absolute pitch.  When I’m practicing it by myself, the vocal line is no problem at all.  But then when I get together with the pianist, then I catch myself and know the piano just pulled me off of my pitch!  It’s quite a complicated deal to put together.  I can have a much better opinion from personal experience after I actually get these songs under my belt, and I can say yes or no that this contemporary composer does or does not write well for the voice.  It’s going in the direction where I think I’m going to find out that it’s fine.

BD:    So a role like Lulu, if you were not against the character, it would be something that you could sing and be happy with?

JB:    I can only surmise.  If my hunch regarding these Webern songs turns out to be true, which I’ll know soon, I will go ahead and assume that it’s possible that with Berg too, I would end up feeling the same way.

BD:    Do you know any contemporary American music beyond the Menotti things?

JB:    No, and I take all the blame for it.  I’ve had one or two comments come at me from a couple of different directions saying that Miss Blegen doesn’t do contemporary music or Miss Blegen doesn’t care about American contemporary composers.  The only thing I can say in my defense is that Miss Blegen does do a lot.  It’s not that I don’t want to do it or I don’t think it’s valuable, it’s that I haven’t put aside the time for it yet.  I’ve done very little so far.

BD:    You’ve recorded The Medium... [LP jacket shown farther down on this webpage.]

JB:    ...and I have recorded the Berg Lulu Suite with Boulez.  It’s on Columbia (LP jacket shown at right] and we won a Grammy for that, as a matter of fact.

To read my Interview with Tatiana Troyanos, click HERE. To read my Interview with Kiri te Kanawa, click HERE. To read my Interview with Kurt Moll, click HERE.

To read my Interview with Regina Resnik, click HERE. To read my Interview with Jorge Mester, click HERE.

To read my Interviews with Sherrill Milnes, click HERE. To read my Interview with Ruggero Raimondi, click HERE. To read my Interviews with Sir Georg Solti, click HERE.

To read my Interview with Robert Shaw, click HERE. To read my Interview with Michael Tilson Thomas, click HERE.

© 1986 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on October 1, 1986.   Portions were broadcast on WNIB in 1991, and again in 1996 and 1998.   This transcription was made in 2016, and posted on this website at that time.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM.