Dolora Zajick:    Oh, I do everything through my agents and managers.

Bruce Duffie:    I suppose that’s the best policy.

DZ:    It’s the safest one.  I just send them to my manager!  Some people I send to my PR manager, and some people I send to my manager.  If somebody’s offering me a job or is trying to finagle or something, I say, “Go talk to the manager,” and if somebody wants an interview, I say, “Go talk to my PR manager,” and he screens them.

BD:    Yes.  He called me and I had to explain what everything was about.  So I assume you get lots of requests for your services and for your presence?

DZ:    Yes.

BD:    Is it getting to be too much?

DZ:    Sometimes, but that’s their job, to screen it all.

BD:    Don’t you have any say-so in what you will accept and what you’ll decline?

DZ:    Sure!

BD:    Then at one point does it become too much work and not enough relaxation, and not enough rest and to prepare?

DZ:    You just gauge how much you can do, and then you don’t do any more than that.  You find out what your limit is, and then you always make sure you get a vacation.  You always make sure that you do everything with the right energy level, which means you have to have the right kind of rest.  Different people work different ways.  There are some people that go around from place to place, and with a few notable exceptions, I think that most people who do that schlock through it.  I don’t like to schlock through things.  I like to do it very thoroughly from the beginning to the end.

BD:    Does this permeate everything

BD:    Tell me the secret of being a Verdi mezzo.

DZ:    The secret?  You have to know the vocal technique.  That is a must.  It’s kind of a dying art, but it’s still around.

BD:    Why is it dying?

DZ:    For the reason why a lot of things are dying — people don’t respect the old teachers.  They make fun of them.  They laugh at them because the exercises sound silly.  Nobody listens to them.  The business has taken over.  Music is a business now, and it’s no longer the artistic endeavor that it used to be.  Just finding a good conductor is hard.  Often the really good people don’t make it to the top because they find it too frustrating to deal with the incompetence.  There is a lot of incompetence in the business, a lot of it!

BD:    So how do you stay away from it?

DZ:    You don’t.  You can’t.

BD:    Is there any way to overcome the lack of experience in the pit?

DZ:    The whole business would have to be completely and radically changed.  There’s a buddy system.  It’s a network system.  For whoever gets on the network there’s this series of connections.  People promote people, and it’s not just one person.  It’s a lot of people, and they’re all on these networks — and some of them are rival networks.  It is who you know.  That’s always been true up to a point, but now it’s even more important than what you know, especially for conductors and stage directors.

BD:    Is there any artistic achievement going on amongst all of this?

DZ:    Yes, it happens.

BD:    It sounds like it’s an afterthought.

DZ:    [Laughs]  Well, it’s like random reinforcement.  Do you know anything about behavior modification?  They tested these schoolboys.  They wanted to find out what provided the best results and motivation, so they looked at punishment only, encouragement only, reward only, random reward, random punishment.  What they found was that once they knew what the reward was and what the behavior was that earned it, random reward was the strongest reinforcer.  So when I think of singing, once in a blue moon you get that performance!  [Laughs]  It makes you go on, hoping it’ll happen again because when it does happen, it’s wonderful!  But it seems that for every twenty-five you only get it once, and that’s sad.  It should at least be twelve or fifteen, but that’s the way it is.

BD:    But you go out there every night to make the performance you best you can, so you not?

DZ:    Yes, but it takes more than you.  It takes an ensemble.  Sometimes it’s due to lack of ability, and there’s nothing you can do about that.  Sometimes it’s attitude problems like, “applaud me” techniques.  “I’m the star.  The light should be on me,” instead of making it a piece of art that people can get lost in.  It becomes a showcase for who can get the most applause, and that’s not what it’s all about.  You’re there to entertain.  I don’t care what anybody says.  Singing is a servant class; musicians are a servant class and I don’t see any shame in that.  The audience is paying you to create an atmosphere that they can get lost in.  They want to be entertained.  It’s like reading a good book or watching a good show or getting totally lost in a painting.  That’s your job, and in opera there are so many variables it’s hard to make that happen.  There’s always a missing link somewhere.  If you’re looking at an opera and you think, “Oh, the horns sound really good,” or, “Oh, that was a terrible sound in the orchestra,” or, “Aren’t the costumes beautiful?” or, “Boy, she’s gained a lot of weight,” when people start thinking like that there’s something wrong with the production.  If they get so involved with what’s going on in the opera that they don’t think about those things and they’re totally moved by what’s going on and they’ve become absorbed in it, then you have accomplished something.

BD:    In other words, they shouldn’t think of “Soprano X” and “Tenor Y,” they should think of Aïda and Radamès?

DZ:    Yes.  They’ve become involved with what’s going on, and that only works if everything is right.

BD:    If they’re thinking of Aïda and Radamès, how much emphasis should you make it so that they’re thinking of Amneris?

DZ:    You don’t do it that way.  That’s not the way you do it.  You respond and you react to what’s going on dramatically, and the attention is focused on the whole scene.  It’s not a thing of scene-stealing.  You will win the audience over doing what you’re supposed to do.  You can do that, and I do it time and time again.  You can even do it in a small role.  I saw a Marriage of Figaro where the gardener stole the show.

BD:    [Gently protesting]  But you just said it shouldn’t be scene-stealing!

DZ:    He didn’t play dirty tricks to take it away from the other people.  The other people were good.  He just did what he was supposed to do, but he did it superbly.  In small roles, character roles, you can make a real contribution to what’s going on.

BD:    Do you want to make a contribution, or do you want to make an impact?

DZ:    What do you mean by an impact? 

BD:    More than just contributing to the whole, but really being there completely.

DZ:    In the sense of the being there completely for the audience, yes, but the audience is like trained seals.  They’ve been conditioned to go “Bravo,” when they see somebody make the big gesture and when they come out for their curtain calls.  They’ve been trained.  Nothing can replace honest applause, and if they liked what you did they will give you honest applause.  Here’s a typical example.  There’s this one part where I go up to hit Aïda.  It’s a very dramatic movement and the typical scene-stealing thing would be turn around and make a great big gesture that would distract.  But that wouldn’t make me look good, not in the reality.  Instead, I keep my back is to the audience, and now it’s her show, it’s her move.  All I do is lower my arm, and when she says “Pietà,” she’s begging me and I’m looking right at her.  All they can see is my back.  Okay.  She grabs my forearm and I just take it away.  Don’t you think that’s much more powerful?

BD:    It’s more subtle, yes.

DZ:    But it reads more.

BD:    But it requires concentration and more alertness on the part of the audience.

DZ:    No, it doesn’t.  They will pick it up.  They always pick it up when you do that.  Then they start getting involved with it because that’s a much crueler move.  Then you’re really being nasty to her.  She’s begging you, and you’re just shaking her off like, “Don’t touch me, you bitch.”  You can make that read; they don’t have to see your face.  Then it’s her show.  She has the reaction, but it worked because then they see the interplay between the two, and the interplay is what is read.  It’s the reaction.  That’s what I mean by doing your job of acting and reacting.  If you’re responding to each other and there’s an interaction going on, it’s the relationship that is read.  That’s what makes it powerful.  They respond to that much better.  Let’s face it, there are a lot of singers out there that hire claques — twenty or thirty people to go “Bravo” in the middle in the arias and things.

BD:    I take it you’re not doing that kind of thing.

DZ:    No.

BD:    That’s good.

DZ:    I don’t.  I don’t believe in it.  You can tell when the audience really likes somebody.  Some singers pay people to throw paper and streamers from balconies and toss flowers onto the stage.  You don’t need to do that because when you take your bows, it’s the audience who decides who the star is.  Nobody else can make that decision.  You can work as hard as you can, and the opera companies will pick the people that are the showcase for the audience, but when it comes down to the bottom line, it’s the audience that decides.

BD:    Is the audience always right?

DZ:    I think they are, more than people realize.  As a whole they may not be able to say why it’s wrong, but they somehow sense that something’s missing.  They may not have the technical grasp of what’s going on; all they’ll know is that they’re not interested.  It’s not as enjoyable as it could be and they respond less.

BD:    You say they sense when something’s missing.  Do they also sense when there’s that extra spark and that special thing?

DZ:    Definitely, most definitely.  No doubt.  They’re very good at that.  [Laughs]

BD:    You’ve been talking about singing as entertainment.  Where does the artistic achievement fall into all of this?

DZ:    For me, the bottom line is the music.  The music is the most important thing in the whole scheme of things.

BD:    More than the drama?

DZ:    More than the drama.  I think the drama is extremely important, don’t get me wrong, but the bottom line is the music.  You have to have an instrument that is capable of communicating that music, which is able to perform that music.  The conductor has to be able to conduct it.  The instrumentalists have to be able to play.  So you have to have the technical facility in addition to execute the music.  Then comes the drama, which comes out of the music.  The drama is in the music, and more often than not it makes a lot of sense.  All you have to do is study the text!  Look at the text and look at what people are saying.  Look at the instructions that the composer gives.  It tells you what to do!  It tells you when you’re angry; it tells you when you’re sad; it tells when you’re laughing, and then you respond.  People ask, “Are you really crying up there?”  The act of wiping tears is a very effective way of looking like you’re crying.  All you have to do is wipe your face, and that reads instantly to the audience.  That’s an external thing.  You can even make yourself tear, and it’s still external.  The tricky part about singing is thinking back to when your dog died to make you cry doesn’t work for singers because then it gets in the vocal mechanism.  That’s very dangerous.  So singers have one of two choices.  They can either act externally, which, if you’re good at it, reads just as well, or they don’t act at all.  Some people do it as a matter of choice.  It takes so much energy to do everything that they decide the acting is not as important as the singing, and if they have to make the choice it’s going to be the music and the singing.  Some people try to do something with it.

BD:    So you’ve made this conscious choice to do what you can with it?

DZ:    Yes.  Because it’s very stressful, everybody has a way of drawing their own limits as to how much they can handle.  It’s such an all-consuming profession.

BD:    So then you’re really portraying, rather than becoming each character?

DZ:    Yes, and for me that’s most effective.  When you look at really good actors and you look at the bottom line, it doesn’t seem to matter whether they’re feeling it or not.  Both techniques work from a straight acting point of view.  For singing, it’s not a good idea to be feeling it because there’s just too much you have to be aware of.  You have to be thinking things like if the conductor misses the beat, or there’s something happening that’s wrong or that’s distracting, you can’t lose the pacing at all.  Whereas when you’re acting, you can improvise.  You can come up with something to fill that gap.

BD:    You have the time to do it.

DZ:    Yes.  As a singer, you don’t.  You have much more that you have to deal with.

BD:    Does the prompter bother you when she’s screaming at you all the time?

DZ:    Most prompters bother me.  Once in a while you get a really good one, and usually when they’re good enough to be that good of a prompter, they’re good enough to be conducting.  That’s the truth.  There is a prompter — his name is Jim Johnson — who I think is one of the finest conductors I’ve ever seen.  He sits in the little prompter box and gives cues, and they’re fabulous cues.  He’s wonderful and he’s very musical.  But somebody like that is really quite rare.  Most prompters are a pain.

BD:    Do you rely on the prompter even if they’re a pain? 

DZ:    No.  I tell them to be quiet.  Some of them are very nice and they know when to lay out and when not to.  If you have a problem with a certain spot, all you have to do is just go out and say, “I just need help with this spot, this spot, and this spot.”  Some of them are very sensitive.  They just have hawk eyes, and when they see somebody look down at the prompter box, then they know that they’ve got to be ready for a cue.  But most prompters can really screw you up.  Really, in most cases I prefer not working with a prompter unless they can be truly helpful.  There’s very few I would depend on.

off-kilter.  I think the business of doing it with a computer is a big mistake.  It should always be done by hand, like spotlights.  I think lights should not be done by computer.  Lights should be done by hand because each night it’s a little different; to sense that, I prefer the human touch.  The light cues need to be in tune with the musical cues.  But I’m also for English translations if they’re good.  The problem is that there are very few good English translations.  You have to be as good as the librettist to write a good English translation.  I’ve seen it done on rare occasions, but it’s usually not done well, and that’s the real problem.  But I prefer singing in the original language with supertitles, rather than singing in English — unless it’s a comic opera, in which case I think sometimes you’re better off doing it in English.  A lot of people think they have these great translations, but the truth of the matter is most of them stink.

BD:    If you get one of these translations that’s not much good, do you work on it and improve it a little bit?

DZ:    It depends. 

BD:    Being now on the international circuit, I don’t know you’re going to get much opportunity to sing opera in English anymore.

DZ:    No, not really.

BD:    Does that make you sad at all?

DZ:    No, not for the kind of things I sing.  I wouldn’t mind doing a Falstaff in English if it’s a good translation, but the Italian’s so wonderful.  Once you really start thinking in that language when you’re singing, it’s marvelous.  Falstaff is so brilliantly set, the whole opera.  It’s one of my favorite Verdi operas.  Actually, my favorite operas are The Marriage of Figaro and Magic Flute.  I like Gluck and Mozart and I like Handel and Bach.  It’s really interesting because when I first started out in music I was more interested in the Romantic stuff.  Then I got into the post-Romantics and I kept going back to Mozart and Bach.  Then I went through the thing of Schoenberg and going through all these different ideas.  I really got into Lulu and I got into Charles Ives.  I love Charles Ives.  I also go back to Mozart and I always go back to Bach.  I never get tired of it.  The others I get tired of.  I’m so sick of Madama Butterfly, and I’m even getting tired of Bohème.

BD:    Are you getting tired of the Verdi roles?

DZ:    I’m getting tired of some of them, although Puccini kind of wears on me after a while... but I like Tosca.

BD:    But these are all operas that you either don’t have a part in or don’t sing anymore.

DZ:    I’m talking about just listening.  It’s like most operas, you reach a saturation point after a while.  You can only listen to a certain composer after a certain period of time.  When I’m studying different things, such as a role or something, I want to hear how different singers interpret it.  So I’ll listen to maybe twenty different Aïdas, for example.  So that got really old, but I never get tired of listening to The Magic Flute.

BD:    Perhaps if you were singing it and rehearsing it and performing it, you might get a little more tired of it.

DZ:    I don’t think so.

BD:    What about Wagner?  Are you going to sing any of his works?

DZ:    I doubt it.  It’s not suitable to my temperament.  It’s not suitable for me in a lot of ways.  I can sing it, but there would definitely be an Italianate sound in it.  Now some people like that, but I don’t really have an affinity for Wagner.  I do have an affinity for Hugo Wolf, however.  It isn’t that I don’t like German.  I think Mahler is much more suitable for me than Wagner.

BD:    So you’re going to go along the lines that Kathleen Ferrier had.

DZ:    In a way, yes, but I think I’ll be singing more opera than she did.  I don’t want to be exclusively an opera singer or exclusively a concert singer.  I want to be both.  I love concerts.  I love singing concerts.

BD:    Do you change your vocal technique at all because of the size of the house?

DZ:    No.

BD:    Do you sing differently for microphone than you do in live performance?

DZ:    Nope.

BD:    You just get out there and sing?

DZ:    You do what you can do and you tell the mixers to lay off.

BD:    [Laughs]  Is that really possible these days?

DZ:    Sometimes.  This whole idea of mixing voices is to get them to balance.  If they would just put the microphones further back and let the singers balance themselves, it would sound so much better!  Then you would get a more true sound of what’s going on.  But this idea of turning this singer up here and this singer down here and then people fighting and bribing people to turn it up at this point... it’s ridiculous!  Where’s the ensemble?  Where’s the art?  That’s the part about the business that I’m really disgusted with.

BD:    I take it you don’t particularly enjoy making records, then?

DZ:    No.

BD:    You’ve made a couple of fine recordings.  Are you pleased with the ones that have come out?

DZ:    [Laughs]  I’m one of those people that when I see myself onscreen or if I hear myself on recordings I can’t stand myself.  I don’t know why that is, but I listen to myself and I scrunch up.  I don’t like the sound of my own voice on a recording.  I don’t know why that is.

BD:    But I hope you’re pleased with it as you’re making the sound.

DZ:    Oh, yes.  A lot of people seem to like it, so I guess it’s worth something.

BD:    You’re pleased with the artistry you’ve given as it goes into the tape?

DZ:    Yes.  I’m the happiest when there’s real musicianship going on.  That’s why I do it.  That’s why I’m in this profession, and when I can have a good musical experience, that’ll make me happy for a month.  I’ll be on cloud nine.  For example, I did an Alexander Nevsky with Rostropovich, and I was on cloud nine for two months after that.  That was one of the most exciting musical things I’d ever experienced, and I just sang one aria.  He conducted the rest with the orchestra and it was just wonderful!

BD:    It’s in his blood.

DZ:    Yes.

BD:    Did he infuse it into your blood, too?

DZ:    The great thing when good musicians get together is that they don’t have to explain anything.  They get together and it happens, but it only works if they’re good musicians.  There are a lot of people who think they’re good musicians, and have to talk a lot and explain a lot.  It just means they can’t do it.  With a good conductor you can read it in how they conduct it.  It’s so easy.  They know what you want to do, you know what they want to do, and you both know the confines that the composer has set.  You both know the conventions.  You know where the liberties really exist, and each one takes them where they believe it’s possible.  Then you only have to adjust in a few small places.  I have found that when I work with a really good conductor, we don’t have to communicate by talking.  It happens.  A good accompanist is same way and also good singers.  Really good singers who have a real keen sense of ensemble and really understand ensemble from its finest point don’t have to explain things to each other.  You don’t have to say, “Don’t sing too loud,” or, “I need more sound here.”  You don’t have to because you know what you’re supposed to be doing and you feel the rallentando together.  You feel the ritard together.  You know the difference between a rallentando and a ritard.  You know how many people don’t know the difference?

BD:    It’s a subtle difference.

DZ:    But it’s a very important one.  Very important.

BD:    Let us talk a little bit about the couple roles.  You’ve recorded Preziosilla, so tell me a little bit about her.  What kind of a woman is she?

DZ:    She’s fluff.

BD:    Is she fun fluff?

DZ:    Yes, she’s fun fluff.  It’s like Shirley Temple in a movie to spice it up a bit and to have some contrast.  She doesn’t advance the plot.  You could do the whole Forza without her.

BD:    But would it make the same impact if you didn’t have that kind of relief?

DZ:    In this case I don’t think it would create impact.  It just keeps you from falling asleep.  [Both laugh]  Forza is not an opera that I particularly enjoy.  There are great moments, but it’s not like Rigoletto where it’s this incredible thread of continuity from the very beginning to the very end.  Rigoletto is one of the most finely crafted operas from a complete sense of unison, in the sense that it just flows.  By the time it gets to the end, it’s had this sense of movement, and when you get to the end it’s over the opera seems shorter than it really is.  It’s crafted very well that way.

BD:    So then would you accept to sing Maddalena even though it’s a fairly small part?

DZ:    Possibly.  It would depend on a lot of things.  For me, I would rather do a concert work like a Mahler Eighth.  It’s a not a matter of ensemble and it’s not a matter of big or large roles.  It’s a matter of what I would prefer to be doing if I had to make a choice between the two, and I would much rather be doing the concert.

BD:    I assume you don’t always have that kind of choice, though.  It’s what’s offered at that time.

DZ:    Yes, but people are offering me a lot of different things now.  For the first two years I’ve been saying no for these parts.  For a debut it’s got to be Amneris or Azucena.  After that, it’s open to negotiations.  Then we do other things.  If they can’t accommodate me — if they’re not doing it or it’s already been cast

BD:    You’re getting famous for Azucena.  Tell me a little bit about her.

DZ:    She’s an interesting character because she’s not insane in the typical sense.  She’s a very, very obsessive woman and she’s lived through a horror.  She saw her mother burned alive.  Then she killed her own baby and now she’s torn.  She feels she’s got to do something and always fix everything.  If she kills Manrico to avenge her mother, she’s killed another baby.  No matter what she does, it’s going to be the wrong thing.  If she has di Luna killed, then she’s going to have her son committing the same crime she had, and she’ll be condemning him to it.  I guess her logic is, “If he never knows that he kills his own brother, then it won’t be any problem.”  But she’s a lulu!

BD:    Are there any redeeming qualities about her?

DZ:    She does love Manrico.

BD:    Despite his lineage?

DZ:    Oh yes, she loves him like her son.  That is her son, in her eyes; that’s the baby she lost.  I guess the one to get even with is the one that you’re not with, because you don’t know that person personally.  So she goes after di Luna to avenge her mother because her mother told her, “Avenge me, avenge me!” and she feels like she’s let her mother down.  So no matter what she does, it’s going to be the wrong thing.

BD:    But at the very end of the opera, she screams that she has avenged her mother.  Does she die happy?

DZ:    That depends on how you interpret it.  I think she just feels it’s wonderment, or she’s gone really bananas at that point.  I play her, usually, as she’s really gone around the bend completely and she just is in total wonder and awe that her mother was avenged in spite of everything; that her mother somehow found a way to do it, as if her mother was a spirit there.  “It happened!  You did it!”  Then she’s out to lunch.  That’s how I play it unless you get a really good stage director, and then I’ll play it differently.

BD:    You’re open to other ideas, then?

DZ:    Oh, sure.  When I get with a really good stage director or a really good conductor, I’m very pliable.  It’s very easy to work with me.  If I get with somebody who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, then I dig my heels in, so.  I don’t believe in throwing tantrums.  I think you can accomplish just as much

This interview was recorded in Chicago on January 3, 1989.  Sections were used (along with recordings) on WNIB later that month, twice in 1991, and again in 1997.  It was transcribed and posted on this website in 2013.

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.