Nadine Secunde Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Soprano Nadine Secunde

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

American soprano Nadine Secunde (born December 21, 1953 in Independence, near Cleveland, Ohio) studied at Oberlin Conservatory, at Indiana University with Margaret Harshaw, and at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart with a Fulbright Scholarship. She has become a leading artist in the world's finest opera houses in the demanding Strauss and Wagner repertoire. Critical acclaim for her ”glowing, blooming soprano” and her ”brilliant character portrayal” has been ratified by tremendous popular success and reengagements by the theaters in which she appears. She made a triumphant debut at the Bayreuth festival in 1987 as Elsa in a new production of Lohengrin by the noted German film director Werner Herzog. The following summer she scored a great personal success at Bayreuth as Sieglinde in Harry Kupfer's controversial production of Die Walküre conducted by Daniel Barenboim which has been recorded for audio and video.

Since her Bayreuth debut she has appeared in many of Europe's great theaters. In Munich she has sung the role of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser conducted by Zubin Mehta. In Hamburg she appeared in the title role of Katya Kabanova and as Isolde; her debut in Vienna was as Sieglinde; there she has also sung Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Chrysothemis in Elektra. In this role she made her Paris debut with Seiji Ozawa conducting, and in Covent Garden with Sir Georg Solti. Anthony Papano conducted her first Lady Macbeth of Msenk in Brussels, and she was privileged to take part in the world premiere of Venus und Adonis by Hans Werner Henze as The Primadonna, conducted by Markus Stenz.

Her American debut took place at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is Peter Sellar's highly acclaimed production of Tannhäuser. Other important engagements have included her Los Angeles debut as Cassandre in Les Troyens, and her San Francisco debut as Chrysothemis, conducted by Christian Thielemann. In Seattle she sang her first Brünnhilde in the 1997 Ring, and her first Marschallin.

Since then she has garnered critical acclaim and enormous public reaction in her ”new” repertoire. Her first Bünnhilde in Die Götterdämmerung in Amsterdam is 1999 was greeted with ”an unimaginable outpouring of audience jubilation” Her debut as Elektra in the prestigious ”Leonie Rysenek Memorial Production” in Marseille was a stunning success with audience and critics, leading to new productions scheduled in Tokyo and Amsterdam in 2006.

Important orchestral engagements have included her American debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under André Previn in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which she also sang in Paris with Daniel Barenboim and in Rome with Christian Thielemann. She took part in the Towards the Millenium concert series in London's Royal Festival Hall as the soloist in Berg's Seven Early Songs conducted by Simon Rattle. Her Italian concert debut was a celebrated performance of Britten's War Requiem with Wolfgang Sawallisch. In the spring of 2000 she sang a concert performance of Die Walküre in the recently renovated Teatro Lyceo in Barcelona with Placido Domingo.

Miss Secunde made her recording debut as Chrysothemis in a concert performance of Elektra with Hildegard Behrens in the title role. Seiji Ozawa conducted the Boston Symphony in the Philips release. She also recorded the demanding role of Renata in Prokoviev's The Fiery Angel for DGG, with Neeme Järvi conducting the Goteborg Symphony Orchestra, The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten for Naxos, and a complete video recording of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser conducted by Zubin Mehta, with René Kollo and Waltraud Meier.

-- From her official website (with slight corrections and additions)
-- In this box and throughout this webpage, names which are links refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website. BD

Nadine Secunde appeared in two different seasons with Lyric Opera of Chicago, including her American Debut in the fall of 1988. Then, she was Elisabeth in the Peter Sellars production of Tannhäuser conducted by Ferdinand Leitner. Also in the cast were Marilyn Zschau and Sharon Graham as Venus, Richard Cassilly and John Duykers in the title role, Håken Hagegård as Wolfram, Jan-Hendrik Rootering as Hermann, Ben Heppner as Walther (!), Donald Kaasch as Heinrich, and Constance Hauman as the Shepherd. Secunde would return in the fall of 1992 for Chrysothemis in Elektra, with Eva Marton and Zschau in the title role, Leonie Rysanek as Klytämnestra (!), Barry Busse as Aegisth, and James Johnson as Orest. Leonard Slatkin conducted the Götz Friedrich production, which was lit by Duane Schuler.

It was in the midst of that debut engagement in 1988 that we had a chance to speak together backstage between performances. She was forthright in her responses, and gave much insight into the working world of an international soprano of this repertoire.

Knowing that we would come back to the Tannhäuser, she was mentioning some other upcoming productions . . . . .

Bruce Duffie: What are you working on now?

Nadine Secunde: I’m going to do a record in Boston with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony. We’re doing a version of Elektra with Hildegard Behrens and Christa Ludwig. It’ll be coming out next year sometime. Of course, when it’s on a record you really want to have everything as perfect as you can possibly get it, and if you have a pair of ears at your disposal, like John Fiore’s, who has also conducted here with the Symphony, who’s very talented, then you usually take them up on it. You grab them and drag them into a practice room somewhere, and they can listen!

BD: Are records too perfect?

NS:   [Thinks a moment] I don’t know. There are two points of view on it. It’s certainly wonderful to hear an idealized performance of a piece with everything as good as it could be. The only thing that worries me a little bit is that it may lead our normal public to believe that that’s what they’re going to hear when they go to the opera, which is – let’s say – both too much and too little demanded of the cast. Too much in the sense that we’re regular human beings. People have off-days and on-days. Sometimes it’s really great, and sometimes it’s maybe less than great. And too little in the sense that the record gives you no feeling of spontaneity whatsoever. It’s completely canned. There’s very little feeling of the drama that comes across, and most of us never give that stale a performance on stage. So, recordings have been a real blessing and a real curse for singers everywhere.

BD:   Is it more of a blessing or more of a curse, or does it shift back and forth?

NS:   In spite of all the problems that have arisen, it’s still more of a blessing because it’s brought up a broader public. The classical record business is certainly not Big Business, but it has served us well. Just take the case of the movie Amadeus. How many people got turned on to Mozart that way, and how many people were able then to buy sixteen different recordings of Mozart Symphonies, or something of that order, simply because they are available? So, in spite of everything else, I would have to still call it more of a blessing than a curse.

BD:   Is this recording of Elektra the first one you will have made?

NS:   Yes. I’ve done some radio work in Germany, but that’s a little bit different. I was just being told about the glories of digital recording these days, which makes me a little less nervous than I would be ordinarily, because I guess all you have to really do is get it right once, and they can put in that good note wherever you make a bad sound. But I’m a little nervous about it.

BD:   [Gently protesting] Is that what you really want — to give a sloppy performance, and have them put in the right note here and the right note there?

NS:   [Laughs] No, of course not. That’s not what you want, but until I did the radio work, I’d often wondered how singers could let such things go by on recordings. The answer is exhaustion. You do it so many times that you just can’t do it anymore. Then the last takes are often what they use because that’s when the orchestra gets it all right, and you sound like a pig. So, it’s really a tough thing to do — to get it right the last time with all the feeling of drive and spontaneity that you want to have with the first time, and still have everything go right with the orchestra, and the chorus, and everybody else that’s participating.

BD:   [Facetiously] Would it be better to lay down a track down of voice, and a track of orchestra, and a track of this and a track of that?

NS:   They’re trying that. I don’t know what it would sound like because everybody on those tracks would be at their peak. The question is so metaphysical. Is it possible to bring in all these people’s performances and have the result be an incredible whole thing, or is just going to be a bunch of people not relating to each other?

BD:   Would it sound like a bunch of tracks that almost meet?

NS:   Like ships passing in the night! I don’t know. It would be interesting to find out.

BD:   In your young career, have you already learned a lot from recordings, or have you learned more from your teachers and stage performances?

NS:   I would have to say I’ve actually learned practically nothing from recordings, simply because I don’t listen to them that much. I have the Solti Ring, and of course I have a few recordings of Elektra which I would listen to simply get a good idea of the performance, and what the orchestra is going to sound like underneath. But I have to say I get much more from a personal kind of hands-on teaching method, either vocal teaching — which of course I still study — and the coaching that I mentioned we do with people who have really good ears. I don’t think you can replace that with listening to somebody else’s idea of a role, so I don’t even try.

BD:   Does it take a woman to teach a woman’s voice? I know you are studying with Margaret Harshaw...

NS:   No, I don’t think so. She’s produced some of the best tenors that are singing, such as Vinson Cole, and one fabulous bass, Kevin Langan. Actually, she has a great luck with men.

BD:   Does she have great luck with sopranos, also?

NS:   Well, she’s okay with me. I don’t know. She always says that singing is singing, and if you can teach it, you can teach it to anybody. Probably you would have more affinity to one particular voice type or another. She often says that she has almost more of an affinity towards men and the way they sing, than she does to the extremely high voices. But teaching is teaching in its own way. I don’t know, though, since I’ve never tried to teach.

BD:   There’s so much that goes on in vocal technique — all of the little details. Should the public be aware of all this that you’re going through?

NS:   Oh, my goodness, I hope that they’re not aware of any of it! That’s one of the big problems. For example, with a very close-up shot of an opera performance when somebody is going for a high note. A high note is physically extremely hard work. It takes an incredible amount of concentration, and you’re going to see it on the singer’s face. The eyes glaze over, and there’s this incredibly atmospheric look on his face. It’s almost what you would see on an athlete’s face who is doing something incredible at the Olympics. In that moment in the opera Tannhäuser, the person ceases to be the Virgin Elizabeth, or the man is no longer in Troubadour times. They become people who are doing a very difficult thing, which is why I think opera really does belong at a distance from the audience.

BD:   Is singing an athletic contest?

NS:   No, I don’t think so... [laughs] though I hear it gets that way in the Italian opera houses sometimes! In our performances it certainly isn’t. It’s a contest against yourself to see if you can get that one extra thing, or do a really spectacular performance — which we hardly ever do, no matter how hard we try. You could call it a contest in the same way that a long jumper tries harder every time for that extra inch or two.

BD:   Are the Wagnerian singers the ‘milers’ and the Italian singers the ‘sprinters’?

NS:   Sprinters??? [Laughs] I really must say, I’ve never met a Wagnerian singer that I didn’t like. They are not placid, because there’s a lot of fire underneath, but they’re usually quite solid people in comparison to some of my Italian colleagues that I have met in passing in the halls, or singing in bathrooms as they tend to do. For that reason, the atmosphere usually in a Wagnerian opera will be almost, let’s say, kind of low-key and comfortable and gemütlich [pleasant and cheerful] in the old sense of the German word. Everybody’s trying very hard, but the resulting tensions are not what they would be if they were built on a bunch of very temperamental people. There are tensions, but it’s of a different nature than in the Italian operas.

* * * * *

BD:   How early on did you decide that you would go into the German Fach rather than the Italian Fach — or was it decided for you?

NS:   The German system in the theater, where I have been now for seven years, tends to pigeon-holing a bit. If you get into what they call a Fach [category], you more than likely stay there — especially if it happens to be in German or Wagner, simply because there are not that many people who sing it.

BD:   Did you start out as a German singer, or as an all-round singer?

NS:   I had a Fulbright Scholarship, and I went into the house in Wiesbaden. I sang Micaëla in Carmen, and The Bartered Bride of Smetana, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, and even Elisabeth in Don Carlos. But as I got a little bit older, it became increasingly clear that the quality of my voice was such that it would fit really well in the German repertoire. Then they started to give me things like Der Freischütz, which are your typical roles.

BD:   Did you sing Agathe or Ännchen?

NS:   No, Agathe. I never quite got to Ännchen, thank goodness!

BD:   [Gently protesting] But she’s got a nice aria...

NS:   Yes, she’s got cute arias, but they’re so hard! They put you into Freia [Das Rheingold], and Gutrune [Götterdämmerung], and you sing a Norn or something like that, and they work you up. Then about three or four years ago, I finally got a crack at Tannhäuser. When somebody makes a debut in this kind of repertoire, and is fairly successful, it causes quite a bit of publicity simply because of the market there is for these kinds of voices. That immediately took me to much bigger houses, like Munich and Hamburg. Then you find that your telephone is ringing a lot of times, and they only want Wagner. I never really made a conscious decision to get into Wagner. I’d always loved the music of the German repertoire, but that was what I could sell.

BD:   Do you then make a conscious effort occasionally to get an Italian role or French role? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Poul Elming, and John Tomlinson.]

NS:   I haven’t been offered any in the last four years. It’s really that black and white a situation.

BD:   Could you tell your agent to look for them?

NS: I have mentioned it to both my American and German agents, and they say, “Okay, yeah,” and that’s all you hear of it. [Both laugh] That’s not where they’re making their money, so they don’t really go to help you that much. You can possibly get to a point in your career where you have a good relationship with the house, and say, “Listen, I will do your Ring for you, but I’d really like to do Don Carlos or The Masked Ball.” They will maybe give you one like the booby prize, but it’s always going to be going against the grain a little. However, I still sing The First Lady in The Magic Flute, and I still do a lot of high-flying things to try and keep the voice light. But I can’t deny it’s still in that direction, so I guess I’m stuck with it. I shouldn’t say ‘stuck with it’ because there’s no place I’d rather be in the whole repertoire, but I certainly would like to take a crack to Oscar [Masked Ball] or something like that at some point. It would be a lot of fun.

BD:   What is it about Wagner that has grabbed you?

NS:   [Thinks a moment] It is sort of like the pattern of human nature. Whatever you have most success at you like, and I seem to have an immediate affinity towards his characters. I come from a German background, by the way. I had an affinity for the language, and I really love the way his operas lie vocally. They work well for me, so I guess it’s six of one and half dozen of the other where my feeling of comfortableness with him and my love of his music starts. The one sort of feeds into the other. I did a concert version of the first act of Die Walküre when I was still at Indiana University. It’s a big school, and they do a lot of opera — including things like Tosca and Bohème — and although I had done a fair amount of performing, that first act of Walküre made me think that this was what I’d like to do more than anything in the world. It was that kind of love-at-first-hearing experience, and after that it just wasn’t the same. I thought that if I had the choice, that would be what I would sing.

BD:   What if you had been given a small soubrette voice, suitable for the French and lyric repertoire?

NS:   That happens a lot. It’s very sad, actually, that some people do totally lose themselves in Wagnerian or heavier roles, and they feel their own personalities get so suited to this music, but the instrument just isn’t there. I know of several colleagues that it has happened to. They’re people who simply can’t produce the kind of volume, or don’t have the appearance for this kind of repertoire. A lot of things have to come together to be able to sing these parts, including that one has to be a fairly intelligent human being. The music is very complicated.

BD:   Too complicated?

NS:   It is very deep. I love puzzles, so for me it’s great, and I’m always hearing new things every time I hear the Ring or Tannhäuser. I think, [excitedly] “Oh, let’s listen to that!” No, I don’t think it’s too complicated. It’s wonderful, but you have to look a certain way to be successful — in Germany at any rate. They like a certain appearance. You have to have a certain bent towards the dramatic characters that are in the opera. Not everybody can sell these characters. They can be very bland if they’re not done well.

BD:   When you get on stage, are you portraying these characters, or do you actually become these characters?

NS:   Oh, no! I don’t think any singer would ever say they really became a character because you simply must keep singing. That may be possible in straight theater, although I’d be very surprised if it were true. There’s always a certain amount of technique in what we do. You have to know your tools. You have to know what you’re doing and what you’re dealing with, and for that reason I don’t think identification is ever total. There is more or less a total possession by the music, which is not quite the same thing. You’re just totally caught up in this act of making music. You never let go of that thread of technique, and the idea that you are doing something at conscious level.

BD:   Where does the technique let go and the artistry begin?

NS:   I personally would say the technique never ever lets go. It becomes part of the artistry. In an ideal world, we would like people not to be aware of what we do. We like to be magicians and say, “Watch me pull this rabbit out of the hat,” and they will never know how I do it. But sometimes it’s just a little bit too hard, and I have not found it a good thing if you make an audience aware of how hard it is. If they can really see your concentration, then it has a negative effect on them. On the other hand, they tend really to appreciate it. I remember very vividly a master class my teacher once did. A tenor was singing a really hard aria, and she said, “Why are you trying to make this look easy? It isn’t!” People appreciate the effort that you’re giving them. If they think it’s too easy, they say, “Well, I can do that!” Let’s take the Prayer in Tannhäuser, which is one of the most difficult things to sing in the Wagnerian repertoire, simply because of the intonation. It’s me against the woodwinds, and they’re sometimes playing in several different keys... not in this orchestra, but it happens. You’re concentrating like a laser beam, trying to focus in on exactly what you’re doing, and people pick that up. It produces a vibration that they appreciate.

BD:   You’re concentrating and then they concentrate more?

NS:   Yes, that’s it. We all give these waves back and forth to the audience and the audience to us. The second act is really great, but because that Prayer was so hard, you have to concentrate. That also, interestingly enough, is a basic theme of anything that Peter Sellars does. He said, “I make it as hard as I can to do so that everybody has to concentrate so hard that this comes over the ramp.” And it works, yes!

BD:   Where is the balance between this dramatic force and the musical ideal?

NS:   That’s probably something everybody has to answer for themselves. There are operas where the plots are so stupid that you’re probably thankful that nobody understands them. Then there are operas — like Wagner’s — where his dramatic ideas — mind you, I don’t say the texts always — but the ideas are at least as important than the music, or almost as important as the music. In this case, you have to make a conscious decision to devote a certain amount of your brain power to what’s going on dramatically on the stage. Ideally, what happens is this serves as almost a springboard where you can get into the next level of technical concentration, and the whole thing moves up one notch simply because of the combination of your technical skills and your dramatic concentration. If you’re having trouble that night, there’s no way you’re going to get there, so you just chuck it out and realize that this is one of the hard-work nights, and that’s all there it to it! But sometimes it works.

BD:   You mentioned Peter Sellars, and he has taken this Tannhäuser, the whole opera, and changed it around and remolded it in his own image.

NS:   Hmmm... a little bit, yes. I think in the American image.

BD:   Is it a valid image, whatever image it is?

NS:   I have a big problem in my profession, and that is I have absolutely no sense of judgment when it comes to people that I like. I happen to really love Peter Sellars as a person. He’s been one of the most really wonderful people to work with. He has produced an incredible atmosphere of comradeship and good humor, and just pulling together the team spirit, or family, or whatever you want to call it, in this production. So right away, that takes away about fifty per cent of my judgmental capacities. I’ve probably done about forty or fifty productions by now, and usually they’re somewhat old. Take the production in Munich, which is seventeen years old. Hans-Peter Lehmann was the one who did the direction, and that was a lot of years ago. As far as I know, he’s never seen it since then. I know him pretty well, and I think he would have told me. There’s a ‘book’ that says where you go, and there’s a stage manager who knows how to do it, and that’s Tannhäuser.

BD:   So you have a road map and a traffic cop!

NS:   That’s it. Or take the classic case in Vienna, also a fifteen-year-old production, of Walküre. You get told, “There’s the tree and the sword, and there’s the tenor, there’s the door, now do what you want.” These things happen in Europe. I don’t think anybody would disagree with me about the new Tannhäuser in Cologne. It was musically wonderful and ultimately a disaster. What I’m saying is that it’s very refreshing for me to do a thought-out production of Tannhäuser. For all the ‘updating gimmickry’, what happens within this oddball setting is very solid theater. I don’t think anybody can deny that. You may say yes or no to how he does it, but what he does would work in any century.

BD:   Do you have different expectations of the audience when they’re coming to this kind of a production, as opposed to a fifteen or twenty-year-old standard production?

NS:   Oh, definitely! I expect them to get excited about it one way or the other. Either they hate it, or they love it. I expect them to be alive. I expect them to have some kind of a response to something besides the musical side that’s going on.

BD:   Does the aliveness of the audience change from city to city, and country to country?

NS:   There’s really no replacement for a German audience hearing its own music in its own language. For example, we have Håkan Hagegård singing probably the most beautiful Abendstern aria that I’ve ever heard, and there are people coughing! If this was Bayreuth, these people would get the death penalty. There is a level of sheer reverence that a German audience produces that I’ve never experienced in any other country. On the other hand, American audiences are much more capable of a lively spontaneity. If they would have done this production in Germany, they probably would have ripped down the house. We had enough trouble with Bayreuth, and it wasn’t anywhere near what this is, and these Chicago people welcomed it with open arms. It was something they could understand.

BD:   So now we’ve gotten into a total reversal of acceptance. Usually it’s the German houses that are doing things that are way off the deep end, and American houses are much more restrained.

NS:   Yes. German theater has come a whole long way in the last ten years. It’s gotten quite progressive in a lot of ways, but still, the Americans, as far as newly radical productions, are still pretty much in the forefront.

* * * * *

BD:   Now you sing mostly in Europe?

NS:   Yes, almost exclusively.

BD:   The houses there are smaller. Is it difficult singing in a house that is this size [Civic Opera House in Chicago, 3600 seats]?

NS:   I was very worried about it, because even the very large houses, like the Paris Opera [Palais Garnier, 2000 seats, later (since 1989) the Opéra Bastille which has 2700 seats], or Munich [National Theater, 2100 seats], don’t get close the size of this place. Fortunately, I’m so happy that my first experience in an American house is here because this house is lovely to sing in. It’s really acoustically a great joy, and I also think it adds a lot of luster to a voice, which other bigger houses simply don’t do. I haven’t found it to be a problem, which is a great relief for me.

BD:   Do you have more engagements now in American houses?

NS:   I’m doing in San Francisco a Ring, and we’re going out to do this Elektra in Boston, and a couple of things in Seattle, so I’m moving home and gradually.

BD:   What are you doing in Seattle?

NS:   I’m going to do Tannhäuser, and then in about three years, Fidelio. I’m looking forward to it because they really have a great working company out there with a really wonderful atmosphere.

BD:   Yes, it’s a nice house. I’ve been out there a couple of times for the Ring. Will you be singing Sieglinde and other roles in San Francisco?

NS:   I just do Sieglinde.

BD:   Not Gutrune?

NS:   I hate Gutrune in a big way! [Laughs] She’s a stupid girl, and she has stupid music to sing. She has very ungrateful, ridiculous music.

BD: Is that because she is an ungrateful character?

NS: She’s a ridiculous character. There’s really nothing to her at all.

BD:   Is there no way to brilliantly portray this stupid character?

NS:   Oh, sure! Eva Bundschuh, who did it in the summer in Bayreuth, made her so perverse that she was interesting, which was great. But you have to have a great director to do that. You can’t have everybody else doing a traditional Wagner — leaning on their spears — and have this incredible Lulu-Gutrune. You’d have to have the whole production more that way. She had that production, and she did a wonderful, brilliant character study of Gutrune. But you have to be in that kind of show, and, as far as I can see I’d never encountered that kind of a Gutrune, so I’m avoiding her.

BD:   You sing Sieglinde. Are you going to be moving into the role of Brünnhilde?

NS:   No, not within the next four years anyway. The middle thirties is a funny time for a singer. Things start happening to a voice, and it really can go this way or that way depending on which way you mature. You never really know what’s going to happen. I feel at some point it would be possible, especially when I read biographies of singers who didn’t get into this repertoire until they were in their forties. I would probably have no problems singing the repertoire in Europe, but whether I would ever come back here to a house like Chicago, or even the Met [3800 seats], with its huge dimensions, I don’t think I would really be comfortable in this size of a house, but I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going to happen within the next four years.

BD:   Tell me about Sieglinde. What kind of a woman is she?

NS:   I loved the way she was this summer because she was great. She was so sexy, and so aggressive at the same time, which was fascinating for me.

BD:   She really wanted Siegmund?

NS:   It was an aggression that comes out of a despair that most people can’t identify with. It is also a total resignation. The despair was that deep that she never thought she’d get out the situation, so when one flicker of hope arises, she goes to work with everything she’s got. Most people thought the first act of Walküre was one of the most successful things that Harry [Kupfer] did this summer, and I certainly felt that it was totally abandoned, totally sensual, and at the same time had an incredible energy of despair from both people — Siegmund [Peter Hofmann] as well as Sieglinde. It was really meaningful and different, a different kind of Walküre.

BD:   Does that carry for all three acts, since you do appear again?

NS:   Yes.

BD:   You’re mostly in the first act, and then you have the central scene in the second act, and then there’s that little bit in the third.

NS:   The second entrance is always difficult because it comes after that incredibly long Wotan Monologue, and unless it’s spectacularly done — and even if it is spectacularly done — there is a drop in the energy level of the audience. It’s unavoidable.

BD:   You’ve just got to be wildly frenzied?

NS:   You’ve got to be just incredible. I really felt like we had a run-around the Festspielhaus three times, just to get ourselves really worked up for this. But if you have enough careful rehearsing, and you know what kind of energy you have to kick into to get that kind of thing going, then it’s repeatable. I found that the second act was really, for me anyway, much more meaningful and much more interesting than I had done before because of this. He tortured us, he really did in all the rehearsals. He said, “You people really have to come out and look just totally out of it. You both have to almost be on the brink of insanity.” And if you do it often enough in rehearsals, you get the idea of what that feels like, and then you can reproduce it. He also had a wonderful gimmick. The second act opened with us out on the ground, like after the fact. We then ran all of the 120 meters to the back of the Festspielhaus, which must have looked incredible. Everybody talked about it. Basically, we vanished in the distance at a full-speed run, and that gave the whole act a real kick-off, which also made the second entrance a little bit easier.

BD:   It prepares the audience?

NS:   Yes, because they remember what the characters were doing. There were a lot of really good ideas. Harry’s another one who really knows what he’s doing as far as solid dramaturgy goes. You have a lot in those things, and in having a partner like Peter Hofmann. I know a lot of people don’t think a whole lot of his voice, or the rock-type of singing he does in Germany, but he is one of the most commanding stage presences on the German stage today. On the opera stage, a part like Siegmund that really is almost as much acting as it is singing, you play off of each other, and get really going on these almost hysterical scenes.

BD:   I assume this is a several-year contract, and you’re going back next year with basically the same cast?

NS:   We are, and there’s talk of filming it, so it’s a big deal. Because I know how hard Harry works, I know we will be able to recapture this kind of energy level after a whole year has gone by. It’s not always easiest thing in the world, but I think we’ll be able to do it because I know he’ll be back with his whip! [Laughs]

BD:   [With a gentle nudge] Does he have an Alberich Complex?

NS:   He’s one of those directors who always want a little bit more than you can give them, and that’s fine.

* * * * *

BD:   You’ve sung in all of these various houses, and then you get dropped into Bayreuth, with that hood over the orchestra. How does that change the way you produce the sound, or the way you hear the sound?

NS:   You can just do things in Bayreuth that you couldn’t possibly do any place else. You can sing softer. You can sing almost like you were singing a Lieder concert. It’s the easiest house in the world to sing in, really. There’s a certain time warp at first because you hear very little orchestra because they are so deep. This is a little bit off-putting at first, and then you learn to live with it and let it carry you, which is great. I would not be the only singer to say that it really is the easiest place to sing. I can’t imagine a better acoustic than that.

BD:   You’ve also sung Elsa there?

NS:   Yes. That was my schizophrenic summer, last summer, because Werner Herzog — who is also a lovely, lovely man — did an extremely static production of Lohengrin.

BD:   Stand-and-Sing?

NS:   Stand-and-Sing. That is what we did, and it was visually gorgeous, one of the prettiest things anybody has seen. Everybody adored it, but it was really a Stand-and-Sing production.

BD:   Similar to what Wieland Wagner did in the late-fifties?

NS:   Sure, and some things never change. People still like to see that because they think that’s what Lohengrin is all about, and the big joke was the laser. When Lohengrin came in, it was the first big laser effect, and it was stunning, just stunning. So, it was a huge success, but it was very difficult for me because I kept confusing what style of acting we were doing that day. I would have Mr. Herzog tell me I’m too active, and then I would go to the next rehearsal and have Mr. Kupfer telling me that I was being too lyrical, and asking me, “Where’s that biting aggressiveness that I like in you?” It really was very confusing sometimes.

BD:   But you managed to keep them separate?

NS:   [Laughs] Oh, no, I think not. Some little things from one crept into the other. I know I did a more active Elsa than I did the summer before, and I don’t know if Harry was completely of my opinion, but there are some sex scenes in the first act, especially in Walküre, that became quite lyrical. We really just went down a notch and let the thing breathe a little bit for a while, and I don’t think it really hurt the production.

BD:   As you look at your career and at dates in the future, will you try to separate these two kinds of productions, one from the other, and not do them together?

NS:   Oh, no. It’s a lot of fun to do them that way. You find yourself demanding a great deal of yourself. You have to concentrate very hard on both at the rehearsal level, and you have to sing too! [Both laugh]

BD:   Yes, oh, and by the way, sing!

NS:   Yes, everybody has to sing! I think, though, it probably only would be possible in a situation like Bayreuth where you really don’t do anything else. It’s very isolated, very much a summer-camp kind of atmosphere. Everybody’s pulling together. Whether I would juxtapose those kinds of productions when they were in Paris and London, or Paris and Munich...

BD:   ...or Paris and Paris?

NS:   Yes, even Paris and Paris, but that would be something I’d have to try out because the traveling between cities cuts off your concentration level. There’s no doubt about it, traveling is exhausting, and to go back and forth between such geographically distant places and still try to keep the two productions separate in your own thoughts would be a real challenge. I don’t know if I could do that.

BD:   How far ahead are you booked?

NS:   Oh, 1992 I guess.

BD:   Is that a good feeling to know that on a specific Thursday two or three years from now you’re going to sing a specific role in a specific city?

NS:   Oh, sure! Knowing you’re getting a specific salary for that specific role is just fine!

BD:   You don’t feel that you might have outgrown that role and gone beyond it?

NS:   I don’t book them in that case. I wouldn’t book a Bartered Bride 1992. I simply wouldn’t do it, or a Freischütz for 1991, or anything like that. No, you keep your own progress in mind, and book a Fidelio for 1992, not a Bartered Bride. Also, things happen in Europe. I’m not familiar enough with the American scene, but a lot of things crop up in between. People get sick, or maybe get called to do this or that, or somebody cancels. So, it’s not like I have my life set for the next four years, actually not at all. Let’s just say I have a broad frame of reference for what’s going to be going on.

BD:   How easy is it to turn things down if it starts to look like you’re being overbooked, or if you’ve got too many heavy things too close together?

NS:   An agent or a management’s job is not to let that happen.

BD:   [Gently protesting] But you’re the one who signs the contracts.

NS:   Not always! [Has a huge laugh] Sometimes they do it for you! They would always ask, and if I look at a calendar and say, “No, that’s simply not possible,” then they don’t do it. I’m very conservative about my bookings. I’ve always been very conservative about it, and I very rarely sing more than thirty performances a season. It’s very rare for me to do more than that. I might if there are other performances to sing — like the First Lady, or things that really don’t take so much effort. I have been told many times that I err more to the side of not doing enough than to the side of doing too much. It’s just part of my personality. I don’t think I’ll have any problem with that.

BD:   That’s good.

NS:   It is and it isn’t. You probably do come to a point, let’s say in your middle forties, where you simply have to step over that and say, “No, never,” but I’ll worry about that when it happens.

BD:   You’re in it for the long-haul, as far as your career goes?

NS:   [Thinks a moment] I think so. I’ve talked to many colleagues about it, and of course the ideal thing would be to get to the point where you can do exactly what you want. You can say, yes there’s a Lohengrin production being done with this or that director, with this or that conductor, and I would really like to sing it. Or no, there’s a production being done, and the people that are doing it have absolutely no interest, and I don’t care how much the pay, I’m not going to do it. If you can maintain some kind of a financial sanity about what you invest in and don’t invest in, and keep your feet on the ground as far as your ultimate market-value, then there’s no reason you can’t do a very successful long-haul, and not be forced to sing anything you don’t really want to sing.

BD:   Do you ever feel that you are a commodity?

NS:   Oh, that’s what you are! There’s no doubt about it.

BD:   Should you have shares of your career traded on the Big Board [New York Stock Exchange] on Wall Street?

NS:   On the Big Board, right!   Shares in this and that, shares in Wagner today!

BD:   Or shares in Nadine?

NS:   [Laughs] I don’t know if anybody would buy those!   You touched on a very psychological aspect of the business. It’s very hard, when things are going well, to keep a perspective about what you actually mean to your manager, to your boss in the opera house, to a conductor, because music people are very open. They’re very loving a lot of times, and they talk a good game, especially managers and bosses of opera houses. The one thought that can keep your feet on the ground in this business is that you are a commodity, and the moment you cease to sing as well as you do now, you are a lifeless commodity. Never mistake the emotions of somebody approving of you for the emotions of someone liking you. There’s nothing personal in them firing you, just as there’s nothing personal in them hiring you.

BD:   You can separate what’s in your throat from the rest of you?

NS:   Yes, from the rest of your life if you’re clever, because in any entertainment business — and opera, for better or worse, is an entertainment business — the feeling of approval, the feeling of being liked by all the people that you work with, is important. We’re vulnerable creatures, all of us. We want to be approved of, and we want to be liked, and you are led to believe — it’s a very old soundtrack — that they’re interest in you is personal. Now if you ever try to bank on this, well, let’s say I wouldn’t put it on the Big Board because that’s simply not the way it is. Yet, I find myself buying into it. I catch myself really believing that these people like me and not because of what I do.

BD:   Is there no one in all of these people who are managing and manipulating you that really do have a little affinity for you?

NS:   If you’re fortunate, you maybe have one or two that you’ve known for a long time, who will really tell you like it is, and who will also warn you against buying into the rest of this business. But really, it’s your own job of self-discipline that has to keep your feet on the ground about it. You have to keep reminding yourself that if tomorrow you start to sing like a pig, nobody’s going to care. I find that thought rather refreshing, because it puts the whole business of opera — as wonderful and as crazy and as artistic as it is — in its proper perspective, which is a business. It’s what I do, but it’s not what I am.

BD:   Is it what you love?

NS:   It’s what I love more than anything else. I can’t imagine doing anything else to make money, but it’s still a job, and I try to keep it at that. I don’t want to base my opinion of myself on the fact that sing opera. That would be a mistake, although you can’t deny to the world that you do it, it becomes a big part of your personality.

BD:   You know what you are to your management, to your agent, to the management of the house. What are you to yourself?

NS:   What I probably am not is an opera singer, and if you can really keep clear on what you’re trying to do with your life, rather than what you’re trying to do with the career, then your problems are pretty well solved. It’s not easy. What I’m spouting off here is one of the most difficult things to do in this business, and it requires constant attention and constant discipline. But I do believe it’s possible because I have known one or two people who have done it! So, there’s hope for the rest of us! [Much laughter]

BD:   I take it you’re coming very close to success?

NS:   Hmm... No, I don’t think so. When you have to fight with it as much as I have to, then I don’t think it’s successful. But I think that I’m chipping away at it.

BD:   You say you only sing thirty performances a year. Do you have a home life and a family that are supportive of all of this?

NS:   Yes. My life in Germany is quite stable, thank goodness. My family here in the States is a big part of the business, but in a kind of an odd way for me. They really don’t know a whole lot about it at all. They’ve only know what they’ve learned through me and what I tell them. When I described what’s going on in Lohengrin before they came to Bayreuth, they laughed, and they thought it’s pretty silly. Then they go to see it and are impressed, because when I go home I’m just me, and I’m fairly successful at what I do, and I’m making a good living. But it has nothing to do their feelings for me.

BD:   Would Mama and Papa rather you’d be some place nearer home, with husband and six kids?

NS:   Oh, they probably would have liked that. They probably would have liked whatever I did. They really didn’t care, as long as doing something that I really like, which is great. That kind of unconditional support is great, just to do what you feel like and have a good time, and come and tell them about it. But, they were pretty freaked out when they came to Bayreuth last summer and saw people asking for my autographs because they never really computed what this kind of thing was like. But it’s okay, because when I go home the dog’s there, the cat’s there, and I have to mow the lawn, and things are basically the way they were when I was there.

* * * * *

BD:   Let’s talk about another of the Wagner roles. You’ve sung Eva?

NS:   Yes.

BD:   Is she a fun character?

NS:   It’s a great character. It’s a wonderful character if you can really get into her. She’s a brat, but a lovable one, a very lovable brat, and she has a distinct personal opinion, which I think is really great.

BD:   Would she have been happy with Sachs if Walther hadn’t come along and she’d married Sachs?

NS:   I think so. If Walther hadn’t come along to rock the boat, probably she would have married Sachs. Quite simply, there’s no one else who is interesting. If she had married Sachs, they wouldn’t have written an opera about her because she would have been basically everybody else. But she’s not, so that’s what makes her really interesting. She’s a fascinating character. Actually, for most of those who sing it, Eva is one of the most difficult roles in the repertoire because she is basically written for two different sopranos. The second act is written for one soprano, and the third act is written for another, which makes it very hard. You have to warm up two hours between the acts to try and sing successfully, especially the quintet.

BD:   You have to reset the voice?

NS:   Yes, you really do. Otherwise the aria sounds like a Brünnhilde cry, and you don’t get through the quintet. It’s a hard part, but because she requires so much concentration she can be really fascinating. I enjoy playing her. We did a lovely production in Cologne, and it was very successful, with a very good Sachs, Bernd Weikl. It was a lovely experience, really, really great.

BD:   Do you sing better when you better colleagues?

NS:   Yes, definitely. I wouldn’t know if I would sing better, but I certainly sell myself better when I have somebody to play-off off.

BD:   You feel better about it?

NS:   Oh yes. I’m always so much happier when there are really excellent people on stage, because I work better and, like I say, we play off each other much more successfully than if you’re trying to carry a load of the show by yourself.

BD:   You mentioned that you explained the operas to your family, and then they go. Should opera be for everyone?

NS:   No, I don’t think so, no more than Rilke, or Shakespeare. Well, Shakespeare is a little bit more universal, but Proust? We’re getting into some pretty esoteric things here. I would like to believe that in an ideal world everyone could accept the fact that operas are about everybody, which they really are. That is often the theme, but no, I don’t think it’s for everybody. I certainly wouldn’t want to take my taxi driver, or even my downstairs neighbor in Germany to an opera. She wouldn’t like it! I would feel guilty about having dragged her there.

BD:   What is the purpose of opera, then?

NS:   The purpose of any cultural institution — be it opera, be it painting, be it straight theater — is to basically elevate the entire audience, the entire cast, the people that are looking at the picture, into a place that we simply don’t get in a normal human experience. Any really serious cultural experience is looking into a better world for a short time. I happen to believe very strongly in the theory of Hindemith’s The Harmony of the Spheres. I really do believe that an opera audience experiences that kind of metaphysical harmony when they come to a successful opera performance. The Greeks we’re not far off of it when they said that art was a catalyst to experiencing with the people, being elevated by their actions, and that’s really the only excuse for culture. Otherwise, we should buy more low-income housing, or something. You really have to believe that these things you’re hearing are making better people out of those of us that are there. We are all being changed in some way.

BD:   In some way, or in a positive way?

NS:   It really has to be a positive way.

BD:   Are there other Wagner roles that you sing? Have you done Senta?

NS:   I tried Senta twice, and that was about the end of that.

BD:   You don’t like her?

NS:   I don’t like the role. I love the character. She’s fascinating, but I don’t think Wagner knew a whole lot about vocal writing when he wrote it. He obviously did, but he wrote a couple of pages that were written for a flute or something, so I don’t really enjoy that role at all. I fit well into the Fach of what they call ‘jugendlich-dramatischer’. That’s my repertoire. Also, as far as appearance and acting abilities and voice, I anticipate staying very comfortably in these roles for my foreseeable future anyway.

BD:   Any other Strauss roles besides Chrysothemis?

NS:   I probably will do the Marschallin someday. I did Arabella. That was fun. There were lots of pretty costumes. That’s about it for the time being. I’m playing around with the idea of Salome, but I have no affinity for her at all. [Laughs] I just don’t understand her!

BD:   I don’t think anybody understands her!

NS:   I know, but some people like to try...

BD:   Perhaps anyone who really understands Salome should seek psychiatric help... [Both laugh]

NS:   Probably true.

BD:   Some of the ladies that are portrayed on the stage are the old-fashioned helpless woman who are victims, but you don’t do too many of those.

NS:   No, I don’t. Very few. Wagner women always know what they want.

BD:   That’s true. Do you feel that the ones you play speak more to women of the 1980s than, say, a Verdi heroine, or a Puccini heroine who is really a victim?

NS:   Any opera heroine who’s portrayed convincingly and with a lot of heart can speak to women of any age, simply because we have a lot of common emotions with all women. As to this little quorum of wanting to sacrifice oneself for one’s mate, you’d have to go a long way to find a woman that absolutely wants none of that. Sure, they don’t all do it like Elisabeth. They don’t all go out and die for their man, but they do it on an everyday level. They do it by working four years to put him through college, or they do it by staying home for years and years as a housewife while he goes out and does the career. It’s a very common phenomenon, and that’s what you do as a performer — you find these emotions that people have in common, and build on them, and make them mean something to the people who are listening to the opera. That is just my theory!

BD:   One last question. Is singing fun?

NS:   Oh, it’s a blast! [Laughs] It’s wonderful fun. Even if things aren’t going a hundred per cent your way, it’s total fun, but you pay a big price for it. There’s no doubt about it. It’s not the easiest business in the world. I have to laugh sometimes at people’s concept of how we live. They think we get up at noon, run through a few scales, eat bonbons at the piano, put on our negligees, lounge around the house, and then go to the theater! [Laughs] And we never rehearse! We drink champagne before and after the performances. It’s very, very funny.

BD:   And then you go to a party.

NS:   Right, and then go to an enormous long party that lasts until four o’clock, and then get up the next day, and sing another performance! Sure! [Both are laughing hysterically at this point] The truth is, that especially in something physically demanding, as this Bayreuth production, we live like nuns... nuns who go to body building studios! That’s our lifestyle, and to somebody that I really cared a lot about who was thinking of going into singing, I would certainly tell them to think twice about it.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge] Twice, or three or four times?

NS:   Or a dozen times, because it does require, on a personal level, a private life of sacrifices that a lot of people are not willing to do.

BD:   You obviously feel that in your case it’s worth it.

NS:   Well, I have a very understanding person at home, and that’s more than any money can really pay for. He is somebody who says, “Well, dear, I see you in two months.” Another time he says, “I’ll fly over a couple of times,” and it’ll be okay. Not everybody finds people like that, and that makes it doubly hard if you don’t have somebody who is going to pull with you. People really have to understand what they would be giving up for this career. I have a lot of discussions with my sister. While I am performing at Lyric, I live with her in Oak Park [first suburb west of Chicago], and she has what most people would call a normal lifestyle. She’s a nurse, she has a baby, and she has a very little house. It’s chaotic because there’s a baby there, but it’s still a house with a yard and things like that. She talks about how I went to Paris, and I look at her and think she’s got the world with a fence around it because this is what I dream about when I dream about an ideal life. So I guess it’s ‘the grass is always greener’, but certainly there is a big price tag on this kind of a career, and people should do some serious self-evaluating before they even make one step in this direction. It seems like it would be glamorous, but it’s simply not what it appears to be.

BD:   It would be terrible to put in a lot of hard work in school, and get started in the career, and then all of a sudden find out this is really not for you.

NS:   It happens a lot, or worse yet — and this is really the fault of some vocal teachers — they come to the point where they should be selling themselves, and they discover they really don’t have the instrument to do it. That happens a lot, but I guess that happens in every profession. It would be a lot easier if the people themselves would think, when they are eighteen years old, do I really want to spend the rest of my life like a gypsy?

BD:   Is that something that an eighteen-year-old can make a decision about?

NS:   I don’t know... It would have to be a pretty smart eighteen-year-old. But judging from what’s important to them at eighteen — what kind of home life they have, and what they were raised to believe is normal — that could make some kind of an impact. If it could go either way, that might tip the balance as to whether they want to be a high school music teacher, or I would like to be something else, but I do not want to be an opera singer.

BD:   Or, would they like to be a wife and singer, with occasional performances here and there?

NS:   Maybe they would like to be the star of Oak Park, Illinois, and sing all of their chamber music, which is just as defendable.

BD:   Now I wish you lots of continued success. It’s been fun talking with you.

NS:   Thank you so much. I’ve never done it in English before. I’m much more convincing in German. A lot of the lingo that we use in the music business, I only know in German!

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This conversation was recorded in Chicago, on October 15, 1988. Portions were broadcast on WNIB three days later. This transcription was made in 2018, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

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, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.