CONVERSATION PIECE :
Soprano SHERI GREENAWALD
By Bruce Duffie
[This interview was originally published in The Opera Journal in December, 1992.
The photos, bio and links were added for this website presentation.
Names which are links refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.]
Sheri Greenawald was in Chicago in February of 1992 for appearances with
the Chicago Symphony and their presentation of the three Da Ponte operas
of Mozart led by the then-new Music Director Daniel Barenboim.
With mostly the cast which appears on the recordings, Greenawald stepped
into the role of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.
The semi-staged performances were a triumph for all concerned, and Greenawald
would later return to Chicago for roles at Lyric Opera.
She agreed to meet with me during the CSO engagement, and we chatted a
bit about the need to set and re-set internal clocks, and the necessity of
relying on time . . . . . . .
Bruce Duffie:
How much time does it take you each day to prepare for the theater and be
ready when you're going to perform?
Sheri Greenawald:
I try to eat at least two to two-and-a-half hours before curtain time.
I'm one of the few singers who eats before rather than after. I won't
go out afterwards anymore because it's so bad for your stomach and for your
weight and so on. Even if I don't go onstage right away, I still allow
that amount of time before the opera begins to build up that energy.
When I go on right at the beginning, I have to allow enough time to pace and
work up some adrenaline.
BD: At what time
do you become the character — when you step onstage,
or while the makeup is going on?
SG: I must belong to the Laurence Olivier school.
I can be talking to the stagehands two seconds before I go on, and when I
walk on the stage I'm there. Particularly if you've had a good rehearsal
period, you're so ready for that character that I can just immediately do
it when I'm out there.
BD: You walk
on and switch on.
SG: That's how
I do it.
BD: Do you walk
off and switch off?
SG: Pretty much
so, but you can't switch off the adrenaline immediately. There's an
enormous amount rushing through your body even at the end, so you don't just
automatically relax. But I don't carry the character home with me.
I don't get funky if I'm doing a depressing role. I know how to act
and I just go and do it. The famous story is from the filming of Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman and Laurnece
Olivier. Hoffman stayed up two nights in a row to look really tired
for the dental scene, and Olivier said to him, "Why don't just act my boy?"
BD: Does the
music which is always around you in an opera help you to get into each little
acting bit?
SG: Yes, particularly
in Mozart. He's such a genius that he gives it to you. You hardly
have to think about character because it's so written into the music.
Each character in each Mozart opera is set up, particularly in the recitatives.
The way he sets the words gives you the whole acting message right there.
All you have to do is physicalize it, really. That's how I feel about
Mozart, and Verdi is very much that same way as well. If you read
correctly what most composers say — the tempi and musical indications, the crescendos and diminuendos — they
really give you such an accurate character that you just need to physicalize
it. A good director will set up the framework for that action.
BD: What can
you do when you get a director that sees it differently, or tries to impose
something else upon the music?
SG: That can
get very frustrating and it's not easy to deal with.
BD: Let me turn
it around. Are there many ways of physicalizing a role correctly?
SG: Oh yes, I
think there are. They can be physicalized in many ways. Emotionally,
if someone is angry, one will slam a fist on the table, others may kick over
the wastebasket. What I mean is that the emotional drama is there in
the music, and it does leave you a palette so you can go in different directions
with it.
BD: So updatings
and strange stagings can work within those frameworks?
SG: I am all
in favor of that to a great degree, yes. With David Alden (who directed
the three Mozart operas here with the Chicago Symphony), I did a very updated
version of The Rake's Progress by
Stravinsky for the Netherlands Opera. People asked how we could do this
to an eighteenth-century story, but the composer and librettist were working
in 1950, and were affected by the events to that date including the dropping
of the atomic bomb. You can't really dismiss those things from your
subconsciousness or even your consciousness. So you can't say the music
has nothing to do with the story. I find it fun and enjoy seeing something
taken out of the old cliché settings. I like to have my imagination
piqued by new ideas. I may not agree with absolutely everything, but
I like those kinds of productions. I can certainly do traditional productions
and work within a traditional framework, but I do feel stronger when I do
something in modern dress because I feel that I don't have to worry about
movement and action. I don't have to ask if this is really an eighteenth-century
gesture. It's much more "me" then. I am more free to be me, a
1990s woman.
BD: Taking this one step further, if Stravinsky
was conscious of the dawning of the nuclear age, how can you relate the
Mozart/DaPonte/Beaumarchais Countess to today's audiences who know all of
this history which has happened since that age? Does she still speak
to us today?
SG: I think so.
The Marriage of Figaro is much more
set in its time because you're talking about the "droit de seigneur" [the "right of the
(feudal) lord" (to have sexual relations with subordinate women)], and that
sets the opera a bit more in its place than, say, Don Giovanni which is very universal.
For me, Giovanni never feels like
it's stuck in the 18th century at all. Even Così is about men and women, and
God knows we still have the fights and arguments going on today!
BD: So some operas
are easier to bring forward into today than others?
SG: I think so.
I don't mind Figaro being put into
the 20th century. It never bothers me, and in fact I'm doing Cappriccio next, and the production will
be the first time for me in the 18th century. I'm so used to doing it
in the 1920s that it will be a little bit tricky to figure out how I'm going
to play it with that sensibility.
BD: She doesn't
pick either suitor at the end, but whom does she favor?
SG: That's a
point I don't ever want to argue with a director because he may want to argue
in another direction. For me, it has a lot to do with how I feel about
the two men playing the roles. That influences me, but I do think that
Flamand's relationship with her is so much more tender and introspective,
whereas Olivier's is this passionate, constantly crashing-against-walls kind
of relationship. I always have the feeling she chooses the music in
the end, but that's just my personal sentiment. Certainly Strauss
gave no indication per se, except I think he does musically. When she
says goodbye to Flamand, she holds onto the notes as she sings them, whereas
she has sort of dismissed Olivier. The special tenderness with which
she speaks to Flamand rather than to Olivier touches me.
BD: So you have
to make sure that Flamand is not a crashing bore . . .
SG: Hopefully!
BD: In the rest of the operas in the world, where
is the balance between the music and the drama?
SG: With the
great composers, it's a real wedding. With Mozart, it shows particularly
in the recitatives. Mozart recitatives are some of my favorite things
in the entire world. They're incredibly ingenious, and with so many
operas it's balanced. For instance in The Rake's Progress you have W.H. Auden
doing the words, and that kind of poetry is fun to have and to sing.
But I never worry about that balance. If they're good enough, they've
taken care of it for me.
BD: Of your many
roles, is there one that might be perilously close to the real Sheri Greenawald?
SG: Are there
any crazy enough? [Laughs] When I sing the Countess in Cappriccio, I must confess I feel very
at home with her. I like her humor. I think I'm a somewhat diplomatic
human being, and I try not to ruffle too many peoples' feathers. She's
very good at keeping people in their place and calming them down. I
like her a lot. I can't say that I'm really her, but I feel very comfortable
with her. When I did Natasha in War
and Peace, I understood that character's passion. When I was
young, I was very much like Natasha. I was ready to elope and jump out
windows and take poison and all of that. I felt a deep compassion for
that character as well, and the way Natasha evolves in the book
— becoming a nursing mother as I have been. We all would
like to be Natasha in a way. She's one of the great heroines of all
time.
BD: Now you bring
up the fact that you have a family. How do you balance the career with
the demands of being wife and mother?
SG: Well, it's
sort of unbalanced at the moment in that my daughter travels with me.
She starts school next year so then I'm going to have to figure out how to
balance it. To date it's sort of built-in.
BD: Does she
like flitting all over the globe with you?
SG: She's had
a good time seeing zoos in every part of the world.
BD: Do you like
flitting all over the world?
SG: It's getting
less and less fun, I must say. The glamor wears off very quickly, and
if I never saw a suitcase again it would be too soon. But, it's part
of my job, and you're lucky if you get to go places often. I hope I
can come back to Chicago again. I've spent there and a half months here,
and I really like Chicago. It's a great city. I'm a Midwesterner
myself, and I feel very at home here.
BD: Where is
home now?
SG: Home is in
France in a small village southwest of Paris. I go to Seattle often
and spend a lot of time in Santa Fe at the festival there. So it's nice
when you go back to familiar places. You don't feel so away-from-home
always.
* *
* * *
BD: Let's talk
of some French roles. Tell me about Massenet.
SG: People tend
to downgrade him, but if you examine his scores there's as much detail as
in Puccini. I've sung Manon
and Cendrillon, and they're really
interesting scores to learn. I've really enjoyed them. He's
a wonderful composer, very colorful, and the orchestrations are exciting.
He's much neglected, actually. He's in and out of fashion, and he
is not being done at the moment.
BD: Is it especially
difficult to do him in France?
SG: I did Manon
in Nice and also in San Francisco, which is where I did Cendrillon. They say the French
like music except for French music, but it's interesting because you have
the immediate contact via the language without using the surtitle-bridge.
I only did one performance in Nice. Neil Rosenshein was
the Des Grieux, and we had a huge success that night. I enjoyed it
a lot, and the audience really got into it. But that's the south of
France, so it's like being in Italy in a sense. In Europe I work in
European-size houses, which are a lot smaller than the ones in the U.S.,
so the relationship to the audience is more palpable. You can really
feel the audience in a much stronger way. It's not that you don't feel
them here in the bigger houses, but it's something that you're more aware
of. The acting that I do is sometimes very subtle, and it's easier
for me to do my preferred kind of work in a smaller house where people are
going to see a much smaller gesture or an eye-movement. When you're
in a big house, you really have to adjust your acting style a bit.
Small movements aren't going to carry, and they can't really read an expression
in your eyes.
BD: So you adjust
your stage-deportment. Do you also adjust your vocal technique? [Vis-à-vis
the recording shown at left, see my interview with Arleen Augér.]
SG: You can sing
much softer in a smaller house. You can't afford to in a big one.
You can also sing off into the wings in small house, but in a big one you
need to sing downstage half the time. The requisites are different.
BD: Are the audiences
different from country to country or city to city?
SG: [Laughs]
Oh yes. I immediately think of the Parisians who can be just vicious.
I have heard them boo people within an inch of their life, and it's frightening.
American audiences are quite polite. They may not be real warm to
you if you've sung badly, but they won't usually boo. I have been very
lucky, knock on wood. I've never had the experience personally of being
booed in France. I had to step in at the last minute to do Gluck's Armide in Paris at the Chatelet.
They were expecting Montserrat Caballé, so let me tell you, I was
nervous that night. But it went very well, thank you Gods of Music.
BD: Were they
rooting for you, or putting you on trial?
SG: They were
judgmental in the first act, but they can be intensely warm after they've
embraced you, and that is what happened to me.
BD: Are they
as critical about pronunciation of the French as we've been told?
SG: I live in
France now and I speak it fairly decently, so I don't know. I've not
had that experience. Perhaps if the singer was really mangling the
words...
BD: Is it better
to sing in the original languages rather than translate?
SG: It's easier
to sing because the composers have set those particular words on those particular
notes. I complain about the surtitles especially in comedy because the
laughs will come at the wrong times, often before we've played out the joke.
BD: Some singers
have told me they hear one laugh for the surtitle, and another when the action
happens.
SG: Perhaps if
it's a visual joke, but not if it's a word-joke. So that can be frustrating.
But I understand how much the surtitles bring to the audience, letting them
be simultaneously involved rather than just in a general way. I see
both sides of the coin, but I am always grateful when I can sing in the
original language.
BD: One last
bit of Massenet. You've sung Cendrillon,
so how is that different because people are perhaps more used to seeing Rossini's
Cenerentola?
SG: It's set
so differently, and the music so far afield. The Massenet is more like
the fairy-tale in a strange way, and it's more romantic because the music
was written so much later. When I did it, we had a beautiful carriage
and the whole bit, so that helps.
BD: Do you particularly
enjoy singing title-characters?
SG: I'd rather
do that than not. Which singer doesn't? [Laughs]
BD: Have you
sung any evil characters?
SG: I'd be real
good at them!
BD: Really?
[With a smile while moving away just a bit] Why?
SG: Oh they're
fun to act. I would love to do the title role in Blitzstein's Regina, but that's for a more dramatic
and mezzo-ish voice than mine. Maybe when I'm an old lady I'll try
to do it. And the Governess in Britten's Turn of the Screw (which I've done) wreaks
havoc on the evening and brings everything to the fore. She's fun to
play and I enjoy doing her a lot, but mostly I get to play heroines.
BD: Are most
of your parts victims?
SG: Well, that's
the whole thing of opera. We all have to die, I guess. Opera is
about sex and death. Mimì is certainly a victim in La Bohème. I have a director-friend
who wants to stage Traviata with
Violetta tied in a chair for the whole evening. I can understand that
idea because she is a victim of everything including her health and society
and everything.
BD: Would that
make Alfredo or Germont sado-masochistic?
SG: Well, they
are in a strange way.
BD: So is opera
really true to life?
SG: It should
be.
BD: [With a bit
of sadness] That doesn't speak very well for us, then.
SG: Let's face
it, the human race is not all sweetness and light. That's why a really
good opera can translate into modern language because of the kinds of foibles
that go on. Figaro is a good
example. A lot of men are not faithful to their wives in this day
and age, so the kinds of pranks that went on in the 18th century are going
on in the 20th.
BD: You've done
some world premieres. Are they particularly rewarding because you can
help to shape them?
SG: They're fun
to do, and I've always enjoyed them. You don't always get to shape them
as much as people might think. I did the world premiere of Bernstein's
A Quiet Place, and I remember Lenny
calling me up and saying, "How high do you want to sing?" I said, "No
higher than a D," so he did stick a high D in once. So I guess it's
my fault that the note is in there, but that's the amount of shaping or molding
I was able to do on that piece.
BD: Does that
give any other soprano license to alter that note, knowing it was written
for you?
SG: That was
the standard practice for years and years. Singers would always change
notes to accommodate themselves. A long time ago, people changed whole
keys for arias, and that goes on today, though people may not be as aware
of it. Most roles were written with someone in mind. Mozart had
a certain soprano in mind when he wrote Constanze and the Queen of the Night,
and we're cursing him still!
BD: Do you have any advice for composers who want
to write operas as we hurtle toward the next millennium?
SG: They have
to be able to set conversation to music, and yet I still like to have something
that's lyrical. I sang Cordelia in Lear by Aribert Reimann, and
for all the atonality of it, it was very lyrical — my
part particularly. I really enjoy that, but I don't care if it's atonal
or whatever. If you can maintain a lyrical line for the singer and
keep in mind that the voice functions best in a lyrical manner, that would
be the advice I would give, and I would hope that the composer would respect
that.
BD: Do many respect
that these days? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right,
see my interview with Ashley
Putnam.]
SG: Oh yes, I
think they do. It would be really difficult to be an opera composer
in this day and age. Which tree are they going to bark up? My
friend Thomas Pasatieri writes in a lyric, late-romantic style, and his works
get killed because the critics say it's nothing new. Others write
very new music and are told it's unlistenable.
BD: So what's
a composer to do?
SG: Tear their
hair out, I guess. Just follow your muse. Do what you feel you
have to do. Tom cannot write anything but the music he writes, so why
should he try to be something he's not? Write from your heart.
Whatever speaks to you, that you must do.
BD: Where is
opera going these days?
SG: I hope it's
not going into a museum. That's another reason I appreciate directors
who take chances and do things that are a little out of the ordinary.
That production of The Rake's Progress
that I spoke of had the usual Netherlands Opera crowd the first night, but
then word got out that this was a special production. We had everything
from motorbikes to cars to dwarfs doing handstands. Baba the Turk is
from the circus, remember, so here she comes with her entourage. By
the end of the run, I would look out at the audience and see punk clothing
and hairstyles. When I would sing the lullaby to Tom at the end, he
was in a straightjacket and was lying across my lap, and I would see many
in the audience crying. I don't know how many productions of this work
leave people in tears, but this one certainly did. So, obviously, it
really was working, and that is the best. Keep in mind that people are
used to seeing rock videos and situation comedies. We are inundated
with images and information, so the opera must keep people's imagination,
and that's difficult because of this competition.
BD: Should the
opera producers try to attract the audience that usually watches rock videos?
SG: Why not?
Why shouldn't we? We're entertainers, and the minute you forget that,
you're in big trouble. Mozart was the Andrew Lloyd-Webber of his time.
Why should we put it in formaldehyde like it's going to wither and lose
its color and become something dead?
BD: Was Mozart
the Andrew Lloyd-Webber of his time or the Madonna or the Michael Jackson
of his time?
SG: There's not
too much difference as far as I'm concerned. They're popular entertainers
attracting a wide crowd, and we're competing with that.
BD: Are we winning?
SG: I don't know
if we're winning, but we have to put up the good fight.
BD: Are we at
least holding up our end of it?
SG: In many cases
we are. Some of us are certainly trying. We're out there dancin'
and singin' and tryin' our best.
BD: Are you optimistic
about the future of opera?
SG: I try to be and I hope to be. I'd like
my profession to go on for a few more years, but the music is so great that
I don't think we have to panic. I can use my daughter as a gauge, and
she watches rock videos sometimes, but she also watches Nick Jr., and Walt
Disney animation. She also watches A&E, and she loves to watch ballet.
There was a new version of Swan Lake,
and she watched it from beginning to end. I don't think she would have
stayed with it if it had been totally traditional. The images of people
in modern dress spoke to her more readily. She also comes to the operas
I'm in, and often starts to sing along, and she sings to me in the style
of the work when we're at home. So this week, with the three Mozart
works at Orchestra Hall, the tunes she's making up for me are very Mozartean.
So, I guess, yes, we can win.
BD: Should we
take a straight Mozart work and make it in the rock video style?
SG: You mean
a film of an opera? I don't care for films of operas because I can
always tell that people are lip-synching. That really irritates me.
I can't deal with it because I know it's not real. But if you could
make the film and simultaneously record the sound, I'd go for it. A
staged work in a film atmosphere would be very good. Why not try it
and see what it means, ultimately. If it's meaningful, why not?
If it's not meaningful, it won't be successful. I'm in the business
of recreating. I'm not a creator, so we have to try things.
BD: When you
are recreating, how do you decide which roles you'll work on and which you'll
let go?
SG: That's fairly
easy because the voice has a certain range and certain possibilities.
You automatically fall into a category, or a fach. I'm falling into the Strauss/Mozart
fach because that's what my voice
is most suited for, and that's where I'm most comfortable. But I don't
want to limit myself to those parts. I'm dying to do Ellen Orford in
Peter Grimes because I love that
opera. I say I'm going to sing Strauss, but I won't do Salome because it's too heavy and demands
too much sound. That's one of the problems of this media-age
— we're getting so used to canned performances, and I like live
ones. TV is canned, and CDs are canned.
BD: Even some
of the "live" rock concerts now are really canned.
SG: The good
ones are still live. I think that exposing the problem was one of the
greatest things. It was good to
take back the grammy award from Milli-Vanilli. However, the other
side says here were two guys who looked great paired with two guys who could
sing, and since rock videos are all lip-synched anyway, why not make the
package? I don't think it was scandalous except when the two lookers
were expected to sing. They should have been honest about what was
going on. Audrey Hepburn didn't sing in the movie of My Fair Lady. Does that mean her
performance was any less good?
BD: But how many
people know it was Marni
Nixon singing?
SG: I knew, but
I was aware of that.
BD: Do you like
being booked two or three years in advance?
SG: Sometimes,
sometimes not. I have to think how old my daughter will be when these
contracts are dated, and it's confusing and frustrating sometimes. When
I consider a job, I have to consider her as well. I turned down a lot
of offers during the time she was starting school because I wanted to be
there. It's a big adjustment for her, and I didn't want to be gone
then.
BD: Do you take
your husband into consideration, also?
SG: My husband
is an agent, so he understands these things. It's often his fault that
I'm gone, anyway! Thank goodness he's very considerate and accommodating.
I've often thought how difficult it would be to have someone who didn't understand
all the exigencies of my life.
=======
======= =======
======= =======
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- --
======= =======
======= =======
=======
© 1987 Bruce Duffie
This conversation was recorded in Chicago in February of 1992.
Portions were broadcast on WNIB in 1997. This transcription was made
and published in The Opera Journal
in December of 1992. It was slightly revised, the photos, links and
the bio were added and it was posted on this website in 2015.
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.
* * * *
*
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.