In the fall of 1980, William Johns was back in Chicago as Lohengrin, and he graciously took time from his schedule to sit down with me for an interview.  We spoke a great deal about his Wagner roles, and those remarks were published in Wagner News the following year.  Now the entire conversation has been re-edited and posted on this webpage.  Note that (for example), Lohengrin the opera is italicized, whereas Lohengrin the character is not.  I hope I have done it correctly throughout, but if there are ny mistakes, kindly send me an e-mail so they can be corrected.

As the tape started rolling, he was talking about his professional activities . . . . . . . . .


William Johns:    I just began studying these roles.  There is limited study time with a lot of music to learn.

Bruce Duffie:    So now you’re learning Walküre.  I assume you will learn it in German, though I know you have done some roles in translation.

WJ:    Oh, yes.  Most of my repertoire I’ve sung in several languages.  For instance, Tosca I’ve sung in English, German and Italian.  Hoffmann is another I’ve done in all three languages.

BD:    Do you prefer to sing things in their original?

WJ:    I prefer to of course.

BD:    But the translations don’t bother you?

WJ:    No, but it’s much easier to sing in the original language because it’s also musically more to the point.  I’ve never experienced so much difficulty as with that Meistersinger in English.  That was very difficult to learn.
 
BD:    Who’s translation was that?

WJ:    It was kind of a hodge-podge.

BD:    Do you feel that it’s beneficial to the audience to have it in their language?

WJ:    That’s a good question.  In America, yes, and in Germany, yes.  They translate most of the Italian repertoire thoughout Germany.

BD:    Are those translations standardized?

WJ:    Not always, and that makes it more difficult.

BD:    I had been led to believe that most of the usual Italian works had pretty much a “standard” translation.

WJ:    Yes, well, before about 1965 there was one standard translation of most of the Italian operas into German, but then after that they started making more translations, so the singers have had to learn them since then.  Sometimes in Italy they still sing Lohengrin in Italian, and it’s very beautiful in Italian.  The music lends itself incredibly well to the Italian bel-canto school.

BD:    Do you enjoy singing Lohengrin?

WJ:    Very, very much.  It is very singable.

BD:    If you were asked to sing it in English, would you?

WJ:    No.

BD:    Tell me a little bit about the character of Lohengrin.

WJ:    It’s a relatively difficult character to portray on stage.  It presents unique problems because he has to have an ethereal type of aura, and he still has to be very human and realistic.

BD:    Is he really a human being?

WJ:    Oh, yes, definitely.

BD:    He’s sort of transported mystically to us.

WJ:    Right.  He’s endowed with super-human power through the power of the grail.  That is the point.

BD:    Do you think he would have been happy living with Elsa if she had not bombarded him with the questions?

WJ:    Absolutely.  The crux of the situation is about the feminine aspect of the curiosity.  All she had to do, according to Wagner and according to Lohengrin, was to have been true in her belief of Lohengrin for a year.  Then the problem would have been solved.  Of course Lohengrin is at fault to a degree because he didn’t tell her that.  He didn’t inform her of the fact that it would have only been a year.  For her, it’s an indefinite time period.  In the last act, one of his parting phrases includes the words, “Nur ein Jahr...” [only one year].  It’s a powerful phrase with a big A natural. 

BD:    So why didn’t Wagner see fit to impart that information to Elsa at the beginning of the opera?

WJ:    I think it’s because of Wagner’s personal psychological makeup.  He always expected absolute truthfulness and fidelity without question from anyone that had anything to do with him.

BD:    So he expected her to agree with no conditions, and then would relieve her of that burden after a year.

WJ:    Absolutely.  Her brother would have been returned as the protector, and he would have been the new Graf there, the new Count, and would have been in power.  It’s very clear-cut in the text.

BD:    Is there no way Lohengrin can prevent the tragedy, or does he try and fail?

WJ:    He tries.  I think that one weak point in the characterization

— Ariadne, Daphne, Schweigsame Frau, the Italian Tenor in Rosenkavalier which scares just about every tenor that ever lived...

BD:    Have you sung that one?

WJ:    Oh, many times. 

BD:    Is it upsetting at all to go from the long endurance required by a full Wagner role to the brief appearance of the Italian Tenor?

WJ:    The Italian Tenor only sings about five minutes, but it

BD:    Are you a good audience?

WJ:    Yes.  I like to go to as many other performances as possible.

BD:    Do you attend works where you have a role, or do you avoid them and just go to works where you have no role?

WJ:    Both.

BD:    What do you think about when you attend a Lohengrin or a Meistersinger?

WJ:    I try to be in rapport with the particular artist, and try to put myself in his position on stage and to identify with the interpretation.  If the interpretation adheres to the score, then I’m very happy; if it departs from that, then it upsets me.

BD:    If you notice something that you like, do you incorporate that into your own interpretation?

WJ:   Yes.  Sometimes.  I wouldn’t call it imitation because we’re all different, but I think that an artist should be objective enough to learn from anything and anyone else.  

A little bit about the two tenors referenced earlier in the conversation . . . . . Domenico Donzelli (February 2, 1790 – March 31, 1873) can be regarded as an offshoot of the so-called Bergamo tenor school which had originated with Giacomo David and Gaetano Crivelli, and which also included Giovanni David, Andrea Nozzari, Marco Bordogni, and Giovanni Battista Rubini. Donzelli made his debut in his home town, in 1808, as a second tenor in an opera by Johann Simon Mayr. He soon moved to Naples and performed many roles there, including that of Cinna in a revival of Gaspare Spontini's La Vestale. He became well known in 1815 when Rossini wrote for him the role of Torvaldo in Torvaldo e Dorliska, and when, the following year, he made his first appearance at the Teatro alla Scala as the protagonist of Ferdinando Paër's Achille. His career made subsequent headway in major Italian theatres, in Paris, and in London, gaining fame for many of his Rossini roles, especially Otello. His performances ranged from the protagonist of Pacini's Cesare in Egitto (1821), to the role of Cavalier Belfiore in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims (1825), from the first Pollione in Bellini's Norma (1831) to the chief part in Mercadante's Il bravo (1839). He appeared also in several premières of Donizetti operas, for instance, as Almuzir in Zoraide di Granata (1822), Ugo, conte di Parigi in the opera of that name (1832), and Don Ruiz in Maria Padilla (1841). Donzelli retired from the stage in 1841. He returned briefly in 1844/45 to sing in Naples, but his voice had irreparably deteriorated. He died in Bologna in 1873, at the age of 83. In Donzelli's artistic career, it is possible to discern three separate periods. In the first he was mainly a comic opera tenorino; the second, more substantial period (enduring until about 1822), was spent as a singer of the Rossini stamp; the third, and most significant, was spent as a "tenore di forza" (a category of dramatic tenor). Donzelli was in fact an old-fashioned baritone-type tenor in the traditional Italian manner, with a fairly narrow vocal range. In the central period of his career he could sing up to high C, but only in "falsettone", a sort of head voice, but much more forceful and expressive than the proper falsetto. Little versed in coloratura, but decidedly powerful of voice, he had a dark timbre, a firm accent, great phrasing and passionate acting. Despite criticisms of his voice's strenuousness and lack of agility, Donzelli can be held to represent the junction between the old neoclassic style of baritone-type tenor and the romantic "forceful tenor". He was the model for the real founder of the latter category of singers, Gilbert Louis Duprez, who was to become famous as the first practitioner of the high C from the chest. Stories are told that an attempt to emulate Donzelli's robust singing style might have been the cause of the demise of a young colleague of his, Americo Sbigoli, who had been engaged, together with Donzelli, in 1821, to execute the première of Donizetti's Zoraide di Granata at Rome's Teatro Argentina. In trying to match Donzelli's performance during rehearsals, Sbigoli reputedly burst a blood vessel in his throat and thereupon died. ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===   === Gilbert-Louis Duprez, to give his full name, was born in Paris December 6, 1806. He studied singing, music theory, and composition with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and made his operatic début at the Odéon in 1825 as Count Almaviva in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. He worked in that theatre without much success until 1828, when he decided to try his luck in Italy. There, the operatic scene was more active and developed. As a result, Duprez was able to immerse himself in work, beginning principally with tenore contraltino roles such as Idreno in Semiramide and Rodrigo in Otello, both by Rossini. He appeared, too, as Gualtiero in Bellini's Il pirata. The latter role proved to be his first undisputed stage success, probably because it was free of elaborate coloratura passages, which were not considered to be his strong suit as a vocalist. In 1831, in Lucca, Duprez took part in the premiere Italian performance of Guglielmo Tell, singing for the first time (in an opera theatre) a high C sung not in the so-called falsettone register, as other tenors of that time were accustomed to do, but with a full voice, often described as coming "from the chest". His Italian career then proceeded on a highly successful course. It embraced, among other things, two premieres of operas by Donizetti, namely Ugo in Parisina at Florence in 1832, and, more significantly, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at Naples' San Carlo in 1835. His Italian reputation strongly established, Duprez returned to Paris in 1837 and scored an immediate success at the Opéra with his exciting new style of vocal delivery as exemplified in William Tell. Consequently, he obtained equal billing with Adolphe Nourrit as "principal tenor" of the theatre. Nourrit responded by leaving for Italy in emulation of his competitor; but unlike Duprez, he failed to master the new singing style during studies with Donizetti and committed suicide. Duprez maintained his leading position at the Opéra until 1849, singing the title role in the première of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini in 1838, and taking part in several further Donizetti premieres, including those of La favorite (as Fernand) and Les Martyrs (as Poliuto), both in 1840, and Dom Sébastien (in the title role), in 1843. Ironically the role of Poliuto, which Donizetti had written expressly for Nourrit in order to help him to maintain his exalted position, was to become associated in the public's mind with Duprez. After singing in London at the Drury Lane theatre in the years 1843-1844, Duprez began to cut back on his stage performances, with a notable exception being the lead role in Giuseppe Verdi's Jérusalem. His last public appearance was in 1851 in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Théâtre des Italiens. He then devoted himself to teaching, first at Paris's Conservatoire (where he had been appointed to a professorship as far back as 1842), and afterwards privately. His students included the celebrated French virtuoso bass Pol Plançon (1851–1914), whose voice is preserved on gramophone recordings made in 1902-1908. Duprez also devised a system of written exercises for singers and composed a few less than successful operettas. In his 1880 book Souvenir d'un chanteur, Duprez, a close friend of Donizetti's, related in deeply felt terms the bitter setbacks and obstructions which the Bergamo composer had suffered in the theatrical world. Duprez died at Poissy, near Paris, in 1896. One can differentiate two distinct phases in Duprez's artistic life. Initially, being equipped by nature with a clear but comparatively thin voice, he appears to have stood in the French haute-contre tradition of singing. So, when he first went to Italy, he naturally assumed equivalent tenore contraltino roles in operas written by Rossini. However, he failed to make any great impression on Italian audiences with his Rossinian endeavours, perhaps because of his deeply rooted disinclination to indulge in displays of coloratura. While in Italy, he began by modelling himself on the bel-canto tenor Rubini, whose bravura vocalism was a byword for sweetness and elegiac inflexion. Soon, however, he found a new source of inspiration in the person of Domenico Donzelli, the then greatest living "baritonal" tenor. Donzelli possessed a robust voice and a deliberately darkened timbre, coupled with firmly accented diction, immense nobility of phrasing and a vibrant, intense method of acting. The merging of Rubini and Donzelli's contrasting styles in Duprez, and the introduction of the famous high C from the chest (which soon became a standard feature of Romantic singing), gave rise to a fresh category of tenor, the tenore di forza. The dramatic tenor of the present day is a direct descendant in terms of range, tessitura and tonal thrust from this kind of mid-19th century voice first exemplified by Duprez. Duprez was a small man and, regrettably, the chest high C was an element of his vocal mechanism which soon took a toll on his physical resources. According to Berlioz, his voice sounded "hardened" as early as 1838, at the premiere of Benvenuto Cellini, and over the next 10 years, despite some isolated successes, his singing continued to deteriorate. Finally, Duprez was driven into an early retirement from the stage and he took up teaching.

© 1980 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 30, 1980.  Portions were transcribed and published in Wagner News in November, 1981  The transcription was completed and re-edited, photos and links were added, and it was posted on this website early in 2016.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.  To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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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, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.