Tatiana Troyanos (September 12, 1938 - August 21, 1993) The mezzo soprano whose career centered in New York was acclaimed in numerous major opera houses throughout the world. Raised in Queens, New York, Troyanos graduated from Forest Hills High School, studied at Juilliard, and picked up such singing jobs as she could, appearing as a chorister in the 1959 original Broadway production of The Sound of Music. In 1963 she made her professional operatic bow at the New York City Opera as Hippolyta in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the next year sang Marina in the company's first production of Boris Godunov. A mainstay of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976, she sang in several opening-night performances at that house including Adalgisa in Norma with Renata Scotto in the title role, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, and Didon in Les Troyens. A praised recording artist, Tatiana appeared in the title role of Carmen conducted by Sir Georg Solti, as Cherubino in Karl Böhm's 1968 reading of Le nozze di Figaro, and as Anita in Bernstein's operatic-style recording of West Side Story, among others. She earned praise as the Countess in Berg's Lulu, as Romeo in Bellini's I Capuletti e i Montecchi, and as Queen Isabella for the Metropolitan's world premiere of Philip Glass' The Voyage. Tatiana died of breast cancer, having concealed her illness from all but her close friends.  Maintaining a positive attitude to the end, she sang for other patients in the hospital the night before her death. Note: Throughout this page, names which are links refer to my interviews elsewhere on this website.

During her visit in the fall of 1985, she agreed to meet for an interview on the evening after her first performance as Romeo.  She was most gracious to allow me to come to her apartment, and made me feel very welcome during our conversation. 

Here is what was said at that time . . . . . . . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:    How’d it go last night?

Tatiana Troyanos:    Fine.  It was an experience.  It was great singing here.  I haven’t sung here since ’71.

BD:    That’s right, the Werther.

TT:    That’s right.  It’s a long time ago, so it’s like a debut in a most wonderful, wonderful opera.  Great bel canto singing, great demands and a great company.  I’m so impressed with Chicago Opera.

BD:    Good, I’m glad you are.  We get compliments from just about everybody.  It gives us a warm feeling to know that we’re doing something right.

TT:    Oh it’s a wonderful company.  They care so much and they’re so sincere.  You can tell by the little things

how they congratulate you afterwards, how professional the stage crew and the chorus are and how much they love it.

BD:    [Somewhat surprised]  Do you not find this everywhere else?

TT:    It’s very different, which is good.  That’s the way it ought to be.  It shouldn’t be the same everywhere.

BD:    How is the house acoustically?

TT:    I’m not used to it yet, quite frankly.  It’s so very long.  It’s very hard to feel like you’re getting to everybody.  It’s such distance I find that I have to stretch myself.

BD:    Do you make any adjustments for the size of the house or acoustics?

TT:    You have to be careful that you don’t over-give.  That’s a big tendency in any big opera house, but this one is so long and the balcony seems so far away.

BD:    [Re-assuringly]  But the acoustics are very good and everything can be heard.

TT:    Everything can be heard and that’s what you have to think about.  This particular set is made out of very hard materials, and everything bounces right off of it. 

BD:    I assume that is a good thing?

TT:    Yes, it is good, actually.  You have to get used to it because it’s raked, but it comes down forward as far as possible so that it brings the whole drama much closer to the public, which is good.

BD:    Are you conscious of the public when you sing?

TT:    I’m very, very near-sighted, so it isn’t as though I can see heads or anything.  I can’t; it’s too dark.  But yes, I am conscious of people there who are listening, who are coming for that purpose, to hear the performance.

BD:    Do you feed off of their enthusiasm?

TT:    Yes, I do, and I also feed off of their concentration if their interested.

BD:    Can you tell when a house is with you and when it’s not with you?

TT:    Yes.

BD:    What do you do when a house isn’t with you?

TT:    You just have to get with yourself.  That’s all.  They’ll get with you or they won’t.  You just have to make sure what you’re doing is what you want to do, and if it isn’t then you make adjustments.  It’s always different when you’re singing and there’s no one in a house than when it’s filled.  The capacity here has got to be about thirty-seven hundred, so it’s a large group of people.

BD:    Do you ever sing in a house that’s as small as say twelve hundred?

TT:    I love it.  It’s great.  It’s a wonderful relief to go to a place like Geneva where I am going in January and sing a Handel opera.  They’re all just right there in front of you and it’s heaven.  One should do that in your calendar if you can so as not to sing constantly in large opera houses or in large concert halls... which reminds me, I sang a recital here in Chicago at the Auditorium.  That was certainly not meant for intimate recitals.  It’s an enormous hall, but acoustically wonderful.

BD:    When it was built Jean de Reszke said it had the best acoustics in the world.

TT:    Oh, I agree, I agree.  But it’s very healthy for a singer to be exposed to a smaller space.

BD:    You sing Handel, you sing Romantic, you sing 20th century.  Do you purposely try to balance it with a little bit of each?

TT:    I don’t do lots and lots of contemporary.  I certainly did when I was starting in Hamburg.  I had to because I was on that kind of a contract where I had no say. 

BD:    You were handed roles and told to sing them?

TT:    For the most part.  If I really disagreed, I would go up to Professor Liebermann and tell him so.  But for the most part I had to do them.

BD:    Was Liebermann at all conscious and aware of the problems and technical things involved in singing?  Was he careful about each singer?

TT:    Yes, he was.  He guided our careers magnificently in those years, yet what was most important was his theater and his ensemble and his repertoire and his excellence.  The people that he surrounded himself with could do what he wanted.  That’s why he hired them.  He hired a lot of Americans because of the willingness, the versatility and eagerness to work.

BD:    More open mindedness toward new ideas?

TT:    Yes, that also.  He left Hamburg for many, many years and just returned a year and a half ago.  So a lot of us are going back just for guest performances.  It’s going to be great.  I’m thrilled to be going back.  It’s like going home. 

BD:    Are there enough of these kinds of situations in various houses where they have an ensemble to bring along young singers for several years before they go out on their own?

TT:    The major companies are now trying to do that with their young talent because talent is rare and it has to be fostered and looked after and supported and guided.  The big impresarios in this country are looking to take the best care of their talent that they can, and I think that’s very wise.

BD:    Are there enough young singers around, or are there too many?

TT:    When I listen to the Metropolitan Auditions of the Air, you realize that there are so many people involved in gathering the talents of this country together and putting them on the stage

BD:    Does he understand the voice?

TT:    I don’t think so.

BD:    Should he go and take voice lessons for six months or six years?

TT:    I don’t think he cares about it.  He cares about the music that he’s written, and he wants it to be performed.  I have not heard his latest opera but I don’t think he has the same protective attitude towards vocal cords that a singer would have; even conductors don’t.  A singer has to know what they can and cannot do, but I knew then that I certainly could not concentrate my vocal talent to just one composer or one style. 

BD:    You feel that he uses the voice like a clarinet or a flute?

TT:    It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at that particular score, but I do remember it was not easy.  It took months and months to get it right in my voice, and it took some months to get it undone so that I could go on to other things.  It took its toll, yes.  I wouldn’t want to do too much of that. 

BD:    Did the composers of the 19th century understand the voice?

TT:    I think more so, yes.

BD:    And the 18th century?

TT:    Yes, for sure.

BD:    So the line is losing the understanding of the voice as it gets closer and closer to the present?

TT:    Right.

BD:    Are there some composers today who do understand the voice?

TT:    I’m sure that there are, but I’m afraid I’m not the person to ask about that since I don’t really sing those parts.  They seem to write more for a particular person or have a particular performer in mind more than they used to.

BD:    Is that a good thing?

TT:    I think that’s a good thing, yes.

BD:    Then is it a good thing for someone else to try to sing something that was tailored for another voice?

TT:    One can try it.  It may not exactly suit you.  I don’t know if I would sing something that was written specifically for Janet Baker.  We have different temperaments, we have different timbres, we have different ways of expressing ourselves.  So I don’t know.  I probably would not.  I’d rather have someone write something specifically for me.

BD:    Have you had that?

TT:    I’m hoping to.  So that should be really fun.

BD:    Is there any competition at all amongst mezzo-sopranos?

TT:    I’ve never thought of it.  Everyone is who they are, and if they have a strong enough personality it isn’t a question any longer of competition.  Maybe it is when you are starting out.  You’re very aware of who’s doing what, but once you become more established, I’m aware of what people are doing but I’m also much more aware of what I’m doing and how I want to do it.  I’m not as aware of competition as such. 

BD:    Are you glad you are a mezzo rather than a soprano?

TT:    Oh, yes I am.  Yes, yes.  I am a mezzo.  I’ve always been a mezzo.

BD:    No latent desires to sing Norma or Brünnhilde or anything like that?

TT:    No. 

BD:    Then I’ll ask the fatal question.  Why do some other mezzos want to try to force their voices up?

TT:    It isn’t that they even think they’re forcing their voices up.  A lot of mezzos, colleagues that you and I both know

BD:    Let’s move to Wagner a little bit.  Do you consider yourself a Wagner singer?

TT:    No, not specifically.  No I don’t.  I sing Venus in Tannhäuser,  which I enjoy a great deal, and I sing Brangäne which has become an old friend.

BD:    And Kundry...

TT:    Yes, and I sing Kundry.  Now Kundry is the borderline Wagner part for me, mainly because of the last ten or twelve pages of the second act, which is a really Schreierei [yelling].  It’s very hard to get over the orchestra.  It doesn’t matter really what you sound like as long as you get it out, and I’ve always found that part to be a borderline one for a mezzo-soprano.  Certainly a mezzo-soprano with a high extension and with some personality and with a big enough voice can manage that part, but it’s very elusive.

BD:    Would it be better sung by a dramatic soprano?

TT:    It can be.  I heard Leonie Rysanek sing it this past season at the Met with Jon Vickers.  I went backstage to see her and she said, “Tatiana, you sing this role.  How do you do it?

  She asked me that!  I read an interview with Régine Crespin where she said she gave up the role because of those last pages of the second act.  It just wasn’t worth it.  Often I finish that second act and say, “Why am I doing this?”

BD:    But, of course, you come to those few pages and you realize that’s the last thing you have to sing all night.

TT:    Yes, but you don’t want to feel like it’s got the best of you and not you of it.

BD:    Would you rather go home then instead of having to be on stage for most of the third act?

TT:    No, I like being on stage for the third act.  I really do.  It’s a great cleansing, a wonderful, holy experience.  I identify a great deal with that.  I find her fascinating.  Her character is so fascinating.  It is so hard to grasp, so hard to get ahold of.  I’ve only done a run of it twice or three times, and each time they’ve gotten better.  That’s a role you’re going to give up or you’re going to give it a chance.  I’ve given it a chance.  I love the opening of the second act especially, when she becomes again the seductress.  The whole Herzeleide scene and all of that is fine until her fury at not getting what she wants just overpowers her.  That’s where it gets overpowering for just about any singer.  Again, it depends what theater you’re doing it in.  I’m doing that part here in Chicago in September with Jon Vickers, and we’ve performed it once in a concert version with Erich Leinsdorf at the Hollywood Bowl.

BD:    The whole opera?

TT:    It was just the second act.  So this next series will be the first time I’ll be performing it on stage with Jon, and I expect I’ll learn a great deal from him.  It’s a tremendous challenge.  It’s one of the most challenging parts I’ve ever done. 

BD:    You said that Julius Caesar is very long.  Is Parsifal too long?

TT:    I don’t find it too long, no.  Parsifal is a long opera, yes.  Most Wagner is.  It is what it is, and it’s tremendous.

BD:    Do you object when they make cuts?

TT:    Yes.  I don’t like cuts, really, as a rule.  But it’s very hard to argue with your colleagues when they look you square in the face and they say, “Tatiana, don’t you think this ought to be cut?” and it’s clear that they might have a problem with it.  Or if the director doesn’t want that section, it’s not my place to say.  It can be done, but if I feel terribly strongly about it, I don’t like cuts generally, no.  As a matter of fact, when we did Rosenkavalier at the Met we did open some cuts that were always closed.  It takes getting used to, but I much prefer that than leaving out the sections that are always cut. 

BD:    What kind of a woman is Kundry?  Is she two different women?

TT:    Oh yes, definitely... probably more.

BD:    Would it be wrong for a stage director to have two different performers in the role?

TT:    It’s been done.  I think Karajan did it that way.  If they were to engage another singer, as long as they could sing those last pages of the second act, I would be delighted to have them do it.

BD:    Then you have to squabble over who appears in the third act.

TT:    [Smiles]  It would be a toss-up for the third act. 

BD:    Would it be wrong for the director then to have both of them appear for the third act?

TT:    No, I think there should be just one because she has to come together as finally someone who has had her own salvation.

BD:    I guess I just wonder if stage directors today often go too far?

TT:    This is what a lot of people say.  I’ve been very fortunate in working with the people that I do.  Sometimes they have ideas that I don’t think correspond with what the composer wrote, but if you’re a good enough actress, then you can correct it yourself without getting into a big number about it.  Obviously I cannot do something that I don’t believe in and that I cannot compromise.  Otherwise I would not be giving a true performance.

BD:    Has it ever surprised you when you take some direction thinking it won’t work and then you find it actually does work beautifully?

TT:    Yes, and I think that is what one always has to do.  You have to try and do what the director wants you to do to see if, in some way, it cannot become valid for you, or if in some way it cannot stretch you as an actress.  Yes, I think that’s important.  Then if you find it’s not going to work for you, you try and work it out.  You try and do everything you can to make it work and to make it believable and to look at it from a different point of view.  I think one has to do that.  That’s what a stage director is there for, too.

BD:    We’ve been taking about drama and music.  Where is the balance between drama and music on the operatic stage?

TT:    Sometimes you see one and then you see the other.  It’s wonderful when you see them both, when they both come together.  That’s what everybody’s looking for and what everybody wants.  It takes a lot of hard work.

BD:    Too much work?

TT:    No, I don’t think so.  It takes a lot of looking into the role yourself to see what it is you can bring to it.  Perhaps that’s work that one does by one’s self alone with the score, which is really where a lot of creativity is accomplished

in solitude, really. 

BD:    Then it has to be integrated with everything else that’s going on?

TT:    Yes, but you have to integrate it within yourself.  That’s what’s important.  You have to get up there and do it.  You have to have an idea of what you want to present and how to present it.  It has to make sense to you.  It has to be integrated in yourself, and the only way to do that is to think about it, then do it, and then make mistakes and do it again over and over until it becomes a part of you.  Then maybe you can get the drama and the music so that they’re both speaking and they’re both alive.

BD:    Do the Wagner operas have a more integrated concept because the librettist was the composer?

TT:    I think so, yes.

BD:    Is it special for you to sing Wagner?

TT:    Yes.  I never thought I’d ever be singing Wagner. 

BD:    [Genuinely surprised]  Really, why?

TT:    I didn’t think I had the right kind of voice to sing Wagner.  I started singing it in Hamburg when I would do a Rheinmaiden or a Norn. 

BD:    Are those grateful parts or are they just too short?

TT:    They were fun parts.  They were good parts for a young mezzo in an opera ensemble in Germany, but I never thought I would be singing things like Tannhäuser or Parsifal or Tristan.  That’s all the Wagner I do.  There are times when I say Brangäne is a good friend, and she sort of is.  She’s always come into my life when I’ve needed a Brangäne, when I didn’t need any pressure to carry a performance or to be the lead in the performance, but just needed to do some real good healthy singing. 

BD:    It’s a non-pressure role?

TT:    That’s right, and she’s come in and out of my career just when I’ve needed her.  So she isn’t anybody I throw away too readily.

BD:    Tell me a bit about Brangäne.  Is she more of a help than she should be to Isolde?

TT:    I don’t think so.  Her instincts are quite good, quite correct.  She’s really necessary in the whole scheme of things, without which there wouldn’t be that glorious, glorious music because she’s fooled around with her potions.

BD:    It is a conscious desire?

TT:    She wants Isolde to be happy.  When the opera starts she’s just destroyed inside, and she wants some happiness and some peace and some love for her lady.  That’s what she sets her mind on doing.  And of course it’s a very rewarding part because some glorious music is written. 

BD:    Is the Warning a nice set-piece in the middle?

TT:    It’s something that everyone identifies with Brangäne.  If you can sing that beautifully, this is all they want.  You can be up there...  I remember at the Met production I was up very, very, high singing the Warning.  There has to be a certain quality and beauty to it.  It has to set up that love duet in an incredible way.

BD:    It almost has to come from another world, really. 

TT:    Yes, yes.

BD:    Has anybody ever asked you to sing it from the pit or from backstage or from out in the house?

TT:    No, no, no.

BD:    Would you be willing to do that?

TT:    I don’t think I would do it in the pit, no.  I’m not much for singing in the pit.  I’ve not worked all these years to do that.  [Laughs]

BD:    What happens to Brangäne in the (nonexistent) fourth act?  Where does she go and what does she do?

TT:    She’s done her deeds and she witnesses the end of the saga.

BD:    So what happens to her then after both Tristan and Isolde are gone?

TT:    Perhaps she goes into some other area of service.  Serving is her calling in life, and that’s not such a terribly bad thing to be called upon to do.  So this is what she might continue to do.  I don’t know.  I haven’t really thought about what she does afterwards.  I guess I’m so grateful to get to the end when we do because it takes me many hours to come down after singing Wagner.  It isn’t that I can take my makeup off and go home and that’s that.  It’s such an extraordinary experience.  After performing Wagner and being a part of it for so many hours, it’s very hard to let go of it.  I find it takes me at least two to three hours to just come down from it because it’s a great experience for the singer as well as it should be for the audience.

BD:    Sure.  The audience should just float out of the theater.

TT:    Yes, and it’s the same way it is for me.

BD:    Would it be good in Parsifal not to have applause after the first act?

TT:    Certainly...  [Ponders a moment]  Would it be good not to have applause at all?

BD:    [Asking the question]  OK, would it be good not to have applause at all?

TT:    It would be a very difficult thing to achieve.  Perhaps they can manage something in Bayreuth.  I don’t know exactly how they do it, but I don’t think that there is applause after the first act.  But applause isn’t something that you crave or that you want at all.  It’s like your part of this metamorphosis of experiences, and it isn’t anything that one wants applause for.

BD:    So you’d be content for the lights to just fade out, and go back to the dressing room and spend your two hours coming down?

TT:    Yes, I would.

BD:    Are there any other composers that take you that long to come down after?

TT:    No.

BD:    Tell me about Venus.

TT:    The great Love Goddess.  I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve only sung that part in the Met production which is very, very beautiful.  You have to be alluring.  You have to really sing that music in the most beautiful and seductive way.  The change of moods have to be very definite so that she really never gives up, and the audience realizes, and so does Tannhäuser, that she doesn’t give up easily.  She has to use everything that she possibly can.

BD:    You’ve recorded Carmen.  She’s not really a seductress, but rather a free woman.  Is she a woman of the 1980s?

TT:    She can be, certainly, yes.  When she’s in love she’s in love, and when she’s out of love she’s out, and then she goes on to the next one.  She’s not a vamp or a tramp or in that sense a loose woman at all.  She’s very proud and very passionate in her love, and it’s very present.  It’s now.  It’s what’s now that’s important to her.

BD:    She just gets tired of one man or another?

TT:    Yes.  She perhaps tires easily, or she realizes the affair is coming to an end, and that’s a very tricky situation to be in at any time.  If a man is still very much in love with you and you’re tiring of the whole situation and you want to end it, murders are committed every day because of these kinds of emotions.  But so much is in the music... the Habanera and the Seguidilla, the Card Aria and the whole second act, and her seducing him and her rages of jealousy, and then her boredom.  It’s all there in the score, and if you can interpret that you’ve got already quite a bit.

BD:    Is that opera too popular?

TT:    I don’t think there’s such a thing as an opera being too popular.  It’s popular.  People love it.  People identify with it.  They know the arias.  There aren’t that many operas for a mezzo-soprano that you could call protagonist roles, so there is one right there.  Everyone sees Carmen as they want to see her.  That’s one of the tricky parts of singing Carmen because everyone has their own viewpoint of how a Carmen should be.  So there you’re at a bit of a disadvantage.  I don’t want to discourage young singers from singing Carmen.  I think that they ought to, but after a time it becomes somewhat ungrateful.  It may sound strange because you get the complete opposites all the time.  You have the wonderful Michaela, and it’s all innocence and beauty and beautiful music to sing, and she can come on in the third act and absolutely take the whole thing.  Carmen works terribly hard the entire evening long, and after a while I just don’t find it as grateful a role.

BD:    Should the audience be happy or sad that you are killed in the end?

TT:    That’s what they want, and that’s fine.  That’s what they expect from a mad, jealous lover, who repents it immediately after he does it.  It’s part of the drama, of course.  It should be in there.  It’s very important.

BD:    Which version do you prefer doing

the recitative or the spoken dialogue?

TT:    I prefer the spoken dialogue because I can get much more into the character.  I love it.  I love the combination of the speaking and the singing voice on the same stage with the same performers.  It shows if you’re an actress if you can present the spoken dialogue well.  I do prefer the spoken dialogue version much more.  It gives it a great deal more color, more flavor, everything.  I like it.

BD:    When you’re on the stage, are you portraying a character or do you become the character?

TT:      I certainly think it’s healthier to portray a character.  There are times when you actually do become the character, but there’s always somewhere you’re watching yourself so that you don’t entirely lose yourself, that you’ve lost all control.  It’s like life.  You don’t want to just lose the control.  You want to present a dying scene, but you want to die in a theater and you want to die in a way that’s believable.  I’m thinking of Romeo now, where you’re still singing what he wrote for you, and if you get so totally immersed in it you won’t make any sense and you’ll be too emotional and you’ll be a mess.  There’ll be absolutely no point in your being on the stage.  You are there to perform, so you are there to portray a character.  That’s how I would answer the question.

BD:    Do you enjoy making recordings?

TT:    I do, although I enjoy performing on the stage better.

BD:    I just wondered if recordings can then be made too perfectly with the take and retake and retake?

TT:    They can today.  I find it more rewarding to sing a performance than sing a recording.

BD:    Do you prepare a role differently when you are going to be recording it?  [Note: Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, and also the Carmen recording shown above, the diction coach is Janine Reiss.]

TT:    Mm hmm, yes.  You certainly want to bring the essence of the character into the recording studio, but you have to almost use a little bit more control so that you don’t just rock the microphones.  But this is what they want today.  They want not such large voices.  They want voices that they can handle easily in a recording studio.  They don’t want a great deal of emoting.  It has to have control and concentration and substance and meaning, but the great recordings are the one’s that bring not just these pure, pure sounds but the characterization that you can listen to because you can’t really see it but you can hear it.

BD:    Let me ask you about one last role

Troyanos in Mozart, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Scarlatti To read my Interview with James McCracken, click HERE. To read my Interview with Werner Klemperer, click HERE. *     *     *     *     * Note: A few of my other interviews with singers who appeared on recordings with Troyanos have been subsequently posted, including Paul Plishka, Peter Schreier, and Sherrill Milnes.

© 1985 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded at her apartment in Chicago on November 16, 1985.   Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following year, and again in 1992, 1993, 1997 and 1998.   This transcription was made in 2015, 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, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.