Soprano  Lucine  Amara

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Lucine Amara (born Lucine Tockqui Armaganian; March 1, 1925 – September 6, 2024) was an American soprano who was chiefly based at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut to Armenian immigrant parents who had survived the Armenian genocide. She grew up in San Francisco, and studied at the San Francisco Community Music Center under Stella Eisner-Eyn and sang (initially as a contralto before her voice gradually rose) in the chorus of the San Francisco Opera, 1945–46. In 1946, Amara made her concert debut at the War Memorial Opera House. Continuing her studies at the Music Academy of the West with Richard Bonelli in 1947, she won a contest to appear at the Hollywood Bowl in 1948. She continued as a student at the University of Southern California, and as a soloist for the San Francisco Symphony for the following two years. Amara appeared in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos and as Lady Billows in Britten's Albert Herring in 1949. Amara made her Metropolitan Opera debut as the "Voice from Heaven" in Verdi's Don Carlos, the opening night of Sir Rudolf Bing's inaugural season as general manager, on November 6, 1950. She continued at the Met over the course of 41 seasons until 1991, singing 56 roles in 882 appearances, nearly 60 of which were broadcast on radio and television. Appearing regularly as Micaëla in Carmen, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Nedda in Pagliacci, Mimì in La bohème, her repertoire also included Leonora in Il trovatore and Aïda. In the mid-1970s, Amara was given only a 'cover' contract – essentially a contract to be a stand-by for an indisposed singer – and was scheduled for fewer and fewer performances. In 1976 at the age of 51, she successfully sued the Met for age discrimination, but sang only sporadically with the company after that, and was absent from the roster from 1977 until 1981, when she was given a new contract. In the last years of her Met career, she sang only one or two performances a season (one performance each in 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1991, and two in 1987; the 1985 performance took place at the Kennedy Center where the Met was on tour; the 1986 performance was presented by the Met in Brooklyn's Prospect Park). Amara did not appear with the company at its Lincoln Center home between 1983 and 1987. Amara also performed in Europe, Asia, and South America, including at Glyndebourne (1954–55, 1957–58), the Edinburgh Festival (1954), the Vienna State Opera (1960), Russia (1965), and China (1983). Amara made a few recordings, notably as Musetta in La bohème under Thomas Beecham, and as Elsa in Lohengrin under Erich Leinsdorf. She recorded the role of Nedda in Pagliacci three times, and also recorded Verdi's Messa da Requiem. After retiring, Amara became the artistic director of the New Jersey Association of Verismo and taught master classes in the United States, Canada and Mexico. On January 23, 2005, she performed as a special guest artist with the Musica Bella Orchestra. The Times called Amara "the greatest lyric soprano of our time". Time Magazine wrote that "she brought to the stage the kind of dazzling vocal splendor that made the Met famous". In 1989 she was inducted into the Academy of Vocal Arts Hall of Fame. ==  Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.  BD

In mid-December of 1983, I wrote to Lucine Amara asking for an interview, and she graciously agreed to let me call her on the telephone.  The conversation ranged over a selection of musical topics, and I was able to present some of her thoughts on WNIB when we played her recordings.  Now, in 2026, I am pleased to present the entire chat.

As I was adjusting the equipment to record our conversation, we spoke briefly about the projected sound in various houses . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:   How much does the acoustic property of each house have to do with that?

Lucine Amara:   It has something to do with it, but you cannot depend on the acoustics.  You really have to have a vocal technique, and work with it.  That’s what saves singers.

BD:   How can you overcome a poor acoustic?

Amara:   Sometimes you don’t get a feedback, and you think you’re not giving enough voice.  That is when you start pushing, and that’s bad.  You just have to sing the way you always do, and not pay attention to the acoustics of a house... at least I feel that way.  For instance, when you sing in a studio you have to sing full.  Many teachers make the mistake of having their students sing lighter, and cut the voice because the room is small.  When the voice is too big it hurts their ears, so they make them cut the voice down.  If you cut the voice down in the studio, you’re going to do the same thing when you get on the stage.

BD:   So the teachers should really dampen their studio so that students can sing full out?

Amara:   Absolutely!  Blast out in the studio, full voice.  Don

See my interviews with Theodor Uppman, Jerome Hines, and Sandra Warfield

BD:   Let me ask about the dramatics.  When you’re on stage, do you become the character or are you portraying the character?

Amara:   I feel that I am portraying the character.  When I was doing Butterfly for the first time, it was very difficult for me because I had gone through a miscarriage.  At the scene where I had to say ‘Tu, tu, tu, tu?  Piccolo iddio! Amore, amore mio...’, I was so involved that the tears would rush to my eyes and to my throat.  I choked, and could hardly finish getting through that.  I finally learned the trick, that I had to divorce myself from the words, and not concentrate on them so strongly.  That way I was able to get through the opera.  In the third act of La Bohème, I cried real tears, but it didn’t get across to the audience.  When you yourself become emotional and the tears run down your face, it doesn’t come across the footlights.  When I would play-act that I was really crying, the audience came forth and applauded.  It cannot become personal.  You can’t play for yourself.  You’re playing for your audience.

BD:   Do you think that opera belongs in translation?

Amara:   Some operas I think need to be translated.  I think The Magic Flute and Così Fan Tutte should be done in English.

BD:   Even at the Met???

Amara:   Even at the Met.  They were done at the Met in English, and they were delightful.  The audience laughed because the words were understood.

BD:   Did you work harder at your diction when you knew the audience can grasp every word?

Amara:   I had to work at the diction, yes.  In fact, when I sang Eugene Onegin in English, we worked much harder on the diction so that the audience would understand.  One of the things the critics used to complain about was that they couldn’t understand what we’re singing.  They didn’t understand the English, but that’s because the singers took their language for granted, and didn’t work on it.  You must know how to sing English.  You can’t sing English as you speak it.  You have to give much more enunciation to it.  For instance, ‘Though it destroy my soul’ came out ‘though-wit’.  You have to liaise on the last letter of the first word to the next word.  You can’t say ‘Though/ it/ dee/ stroy/ my soul’. You have to say 'though-wit' and you’ll hear the 'it' on the next word.  Also, ‘I sweh/ rit’ instead of ‘I swear/ it’.  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interview with Martha Lipton.]

BD:   What about his new gimmick of supertitles in the theater?

Amara:   I haven’t seen it yet...  Actually, I did see it in Chinese when I saw The Marriage of Figaro in Peking.  They did it with the recitatives spoken.  They can’t sing those lines with the Chinese words because they have different sounds for them.  The same word, and if you sing it, wouldn’t come out right, so they spoke the recitatives and sang the rest of the opera in Chinese.  It was really very peculiar to hear this.  The singers that performed were stockier than the usual Chinese.  They were chunkier and taller.  I found this most interesting.  [Laughs]  It shows that you have to have a little more girth to sing opera.  You cannot be street-weight of 115 pounds and expect to sound like Joan Sutherland or Lucine Amara!  [Both laugh]

BD:   So there is a little bit of correlation of weight for the voice and weight on the body?

Amara:   Absolutely.  Definitely!

BD:   [Gently protesting]  Stage directors now are trying to demand that the singers be slim...

Amara:   Yes, and what do they expect?  With so slim a build the voice doesn’t carry.  You can’t support it.  You have no stamina to support such a big sound.

BD:   Where should the balance be in opera between the music and the drama?

Amara:   A person’s weight should not be that important.  Look at Luciano Pavarotti, and Louis Quilico, and Monserrat Caballé.  They haven’t let their weight disturb them and hang up their career.  True, it’s a little difficult to have someone the size of Monserrat Caballé as Mimì, but which is better?  You want to hear the beautiful singing.  You can close your eyes and not see her, but you really want to hear the voice and the sound.  It’s wonderful if you can get both, but usually one or the other suffers.

BD:   You would rather have more voice?

Amara:   I would.  That’s what opera is all about.

BD:   You’ve made some recordings.  Do you sing differently in the recording studio than you do in the opera house?

Amara:   No!  I gave full voice.  I sometimes span out a lot more pianissimo tones than I do now, because if I spin out too many now, it doesn’t go with the rest of my voice.  It doesn’t go with the middle and low registers.  One time I came off stage from singing La Bohème, and I asked my teacher if she liked those pianissimo tones.  She said,

BD:   Lets change the subject a little bit.  Do you think that opera works well in concert?

Amara:   Some operas do, and for some the staging and the costumes and the sets are important.

BD:   The Lohengrin in Boston was sung in concert and then recorded?

Amara:   That’s right.  It was fantastic that way.

BD:   What made that special?

Amara:   We did it in two segments.  We did the first and the second acts on one day, and then we did the third act the next day.  It was in Tanglewood, and was a wonderful experience.  From there we all went into the recording studio, so it was fresh.  We weren’t exhausted from costume changes, and the lights, and the movement on the stage.

BD:   You’ve also sung Elsa on the stage?

Amara:   Yes, I just did it last season in Washington DC with the Met.

BD:   Tell me about the character of Elsa.  Is she too pure of heart?

Amara:   No, if she were too pure of heart, she wouldn’t have been able to be influenced by Ortrud.  Elsa is a very loving person, but also very curious in wanting to know about Lohengrin.  Even when he says not to ask him where he’s from or what his name is, she says she must know.  In the end it gets to the point where he has to tell her, and then must leave.

BD:   Would they have been happy if she’d have kept her mouth shut?

Amara:   I think so.  Definitely!  It’s interesting... I always used to think of Elsa as such a goose!  [Both laugh]  I don’t know why she had to ask him.  Couldn’t she be happy not knowing where he was from as long as they were happy together?  But as I got into the character, I understood her better.  It was the evil influence of Ortrud who put doubts in her mind.

BD:   How old is Elsa?

Amara:   Elsa is really eighteen.

BD:   How old is Lohengrin?

Amara:   He couldn’t be much older.  You could say he was about twenty or twenty-five at the most.

BD:   Tell me about working with Erich Leinsdorf.

Amara:   That was interesting.  Before we went to Tanglewood, I drove up and worked with him privately so that I would get a right feeling and enunciation of German.  He wanted to be sure that my German was good, so I drove up to his beautiful home near Tanglewood.

BD:   Was he an inspiring conductor to work with?

Amara:   In some ways, yes.

BD:   Do you sing any contemporary music?

Amara:   The only contemporary music that I sang was Peter Grimes and Albert Herring, and now I’m going to be doing Dialogues of the Carmelites.

BD:   But these are more melodic pieces.

Amara:   Yes.  I’ve never really enjoyed contemporary music.  I love melodies, and to me it’s important to sing melodies. That’s why I love Verdi and Puccini and Mozart.

BD:   Even Wagner?

Amara:   Even Wagner, and especially Wagner now.  There was a time when I found Wagner very difficult, but as I’ve gotten older I find some of those musical phrases are so incredible.  Think of the build up to the ‘Liebestod’ in Tristan und Isolde.

BD:   Have you sung either the role or just the ‘Liebestod’?

Amara:   I started to prepare the ‘Liebestod’ and then I decided no.  I would let Isolde go by for now.  I have still good years of singing the Italian repertoire, so I said no.  I’ll stick with the Italian.

BD:   Have you sung any other Wagner besides Elsa?

Amara:   I sang The Mastersingers.

BD:   Tell me a bit about Eva.

Amara:   That is not an easy role.  Eva is composed in the middle register of the voice, and if you don’t have a good middle register, you’re not heard.  Then it goes up to the B-flat.  It’s up and down, and it took me a year to prepare.  But after I had learned it well, it was a wonderful character to play, especially when she goes into the shoemaker’s shop looking for Walther, and making all sorts of excuses that her shoe is hurting her.

BD:   This is just a little subterfuge.

Amara:   Right!  Ha ha, absolutely!

BD:   Have you got a favorite role?  [This is a question I practically never ask, and she gives a wonderful answer!]

Amara:   The favorite is the one that I’m singing at the time.  Turandot is very much on my mind right now.  I do enjoy that role, and it’s a short one, so that makes it great. [Both laugh]

BD:   Are you optimistic about the future of opera?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interview with Maureen Forrester.]

Amara:   [Hesitates]  I don’t know how optimistic I can be.  If we don’t build young singers today, we’re not going to have opera in the future.  There are not going to be any singers to sing it.  Everyone is going to be burned out too quickly.  If a vocal career ends in five to ten years, where is that future of opera?  It’s important that we do build the young artists.

BD:   It is symptomatic of our society.  We’re living in a disposable age.

Amara:   That’s right.  Everything is fast... fast food, fast this, fast that...

BD:   ...and fast careers?

Amara:   Yes.

BD:   We have to make sure that the young singers try to last longer.

Amara:   Right.

BD:   How can we lean on young singers not to accept all these parts?

Amara:   [Sighs]  If they want to be a flash-in-the-pan, and make it now and then go and do something else in the future which is singing, then that’s fine.  If they want to be a computer operator or something else after their five years of career, great!  But if they want to be singing for a long time, it’s important to know when to say no.  For instance, many young singers take advantage of the jet-age by flying back and forth, and it doesn’t do any good for the voice nor the body, either emotionally or physically.  I think singing two performances of opera a week is not very good either.  There was a time when you sang a role once a week or once every two weeks.

BD:   [Very surprised]  That’s all???

Amara:   If you look back on the annals, there were seven different operas a week.  It’s not done that way now.  They do three operas twice a week, and if you sing a role on Monday, you have to sing it again on Thursday, and the next week you sing it on Tuesday and again on Friday.  Then the following week it will be Wednesday and Saturday.

BD:   Is that too much for the voice?

Amara:   I think it is.  The voice needs rest, to recoup and be fresh for the next performance.

See my interviews with Martial Singher, Herta Glaz, Shirley Verrett(-Carter), and Jon Vickers

© 1983 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded on the telephone on December 13, 1983.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB in 1990, and again in 1995 and 2000.  This transcription was made in 2026, 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.  To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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