Elizabeth Hynes Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Soprano Elizabeth Hynes

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Elizabeth Hynes has been a faculty member at the USC Thornton School of Music since 1995, and served as Chair of the Vocal Arts/Opera Department from 2005-2012.

Ms. Hynes has taught at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 2003. She was elected to the Aspen Music Festival Corporation in 2005 and has twice served as a New Horizons Faculty, endowing three students for three years study at the Aspen Opera Theater Center. Ms. Hynes has also taught at the Oberlin in Italy program in Arezzo, Italy. With a national reputation as a vocal teacher and mentor, Ms. Hynes adjudicates regularly for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and is in demand as a master class presenter around the country. Her students are consistently among winners of major competitions, and appear frequently with professional opera companies and orchestras throughout the United States.

Ms. Hynes has performed in major opera houses around the world, singing some of opera’s most demanding roles such as: Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Mimi in La Bohème, Marguérite in Faust and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. As Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Ms. Hynes has been heard at the Theatro Teresa Carrena in Caracas, Venezuela, New York City Opera, Washington Opera, Vancouver Opera, San Diego Opera and Seattle Opera, among others. The Seattle Times Review read, “…Elizabeth Hynes, is a passionately intense Butterfly, with a multi-dimensional portrayal in which no expressive detail is overlooked. This is an important voice, one of extraordinary and compelling beauty. Hynes generates a real radiance in the role; she illuminates the emotions and makes you believe in them.”

Throughout Ms. Hynes’ career, she has been recognized for her interpretation of Mozart roles, appearing frequently as Susanna, and Pamina. Her portrayal of the Countess in the PBS Live from Lincoln Center broadcast (September 25, 1991) of Le Nozze di Figaro gained public and critical acclaim and she made her European debut at the English National Opera as Donna Elvira.

A sought-after concert artist, Ms. Hynes has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti, and the orchestras of Cleveland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis and Los Angeles, among others. She has sung with the orchestras of Madrid, Barcelona, Vancouver and New Zealand, and with the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Vienna on two American tours. Vocal performances on the USC campus include: Mahler’s 4th Symphony, Britten’s War Requiem and Górecki’s Third Symphony with the composer conducting.

Ms. Hynes can be heard in the role of Fennimore on the Nonesuch recording of the American Premiere of Kurt Weill’s Silverlake and in the role of Wellgunde in Das Rheingold on the archival Chicago Symphony recording: The Solti Years, Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Georg Solti, cond.

At the beginning of her career Elizabeth Hynes was the recipient of the National Opera Institute Grant, William Sullivan Foundation Grant, the Liederkranz Foundation Scholarship, and served as an Affiliate Artist with the Ft. Worth Opera for three years.

== Biography from the USC Thornton School of Music website (with corrections)
== Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website. BD

Elizabeth Hynes performed in Chicago on four occasions — twice with Lyric Opera, and twice with the Chicago Symphony. First, in 1981, she was Marzelline in Fidelio with Johanna Meier/Eva Marton, Jon Vickers, Paul Plishka/John Macurdy, Leif Roar, James Hoback, and Dmitri Kavrakos/John Del Carlo, conducted by Gustav Kuhn and staged by Hans Hotter. The following year, Hynes was Despina in Così fan tutte with Rachel Yakar, Anne Howells, Gösta Winbergh/Gualtiero Negrini, Richard Stilwell, and Domenico Trimarchi, conducted by Julius Rudel and staged by Graziella Sciutti. [Interesting that both stage directors had themselves been famous singers.]

Next, in 1983, Hynes was a Rheinmaiden in Das Rheingold with the CSO at Orchestra Hall and at Carnegie Hall in New York conducted by Sir Georg Solti. Siegmund Nimsgern, Hermann Becht, Gabriele Schnaut, Siegfried Jerusalem, Robert tear, Jan De Gaetani, Malcolm Smith, Gwynne Howell, Mary Jane Johnson, John Cheek, Denis Bailey, Michelle Harman-Gulick, and Emily Golden made up the cast. Finally in 1984, Hynes was again at Orchestra Hall for Messiah with Anne Gjevang, Keith Lewis, and Gwynne Howell. David Schrader was the harpsichordist. Solti conducted the CSO, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus was prepared by Margaret Hillis.

In November of 1982, during the run of Così, Hynes graciously agreed to sit down with me for a conversation. It was early in her career, so some of her observations from back then might be different now [2024], more than forty years later.

Bruce Duffie:   It is very nice of you to see me today.

Elizabeth Hynes:   Thank you. It’s very nice of you to come.

BD:   How do you like Chicago? This is not your first trip...

Hynes:   No, I was here last fall for Marzelline, and I’ve been to Ravinia a couple of times. I love Chicago. I lived for eight years in Milwaukee, and coming to Chicago was always the big trip when I was a child. We’d go to the museums, or come down here for dinner, so it’s always been the glamorous spot for me. [Laughs]

BD:   Now you’re a resident member of the New York City Opera?

Hynes:   Yes. I’ve never sung in Europe. I’ve only been there as a tourist.

BD:   Making your career without going to Europe seems almost like a turn-around from what used to be, when all the American singers had to go to Europe, and then come back.

Hynes:   That’s right.

BD:   Do you find it’s harder or easier to be bucking the norm?

Hynes:   Well, I really can’t compare it since I didn’t go to Europe at all. I have no way of judging the difference.
hynes

BD:   Maybe when talking with other singers?

Hynes:   Yes. This really is the way things are becoming now. To have a really international career, of course, you have to include European engagements eventually, but I think a lot of young American singers are making their first steps right here in America.

BD:   Are there enough places here to make those first steps?

Hynes:   There are never enough places for everyone, but it’s amazing how many opera companies there really are in the States.

BD:   Is it more interesting to sing with a bigger company than with a smaller company?

Hynes:   Not necessarily. It depends on the cast and the director. Sometimes you have the best musical experiences in the strangest places. [Laughs] There’s really no real rule. Of course, singing at the Chicago Lyric is very exciting for an American, or for any singer, because it has a great reputation. In New York, when I sing at the City Opera, you have a different kind of strain because there seems to be stress involved with just singing in New York City.

BD:   More competition?

Hynes:   There just seems to be a feeling that it’s very important. However, at the City Opera there is such a family feeling, so it’s a different atmosphere.

BD:   More so than at some of the other houses around?

Hynes:   It’s just different because it is a roster situation. There is a feeling that it’s almost your home base, whereas when you come to a company like the Chicago Lyric, you’re a guest artist for maybe six weeks, but it doesn’t really mean that you are a member of the opera house. Besides, I sort of grew up at the City Opera. It was my first professional engagement when I debuted there, so I have a much different feeling toward that house.

BD:   You’ve sung in opera houses all around. How do the different acoustics affect your vocal performance?

Hynes:   They do affect from the feeling of how comfortable you are on stage. But generally speaking, once you’re out there you can’t worry about the acoustics all that much. You just have to depend that your technique and your sensations are doing the right thing. The rest is really beyond your control.

BD:   What about the size of house? Do you scale back a bit when it is a small house?

Hynes:   Yes, and the size of house affects singers very much in their attitude. It can be a big problem in the States because so many of the opera houses are so large.

BD:   Too large?

Hynes:   Yes, they tend to be too large. It puts a lot of strain on a young singer, because you see that huge place, and you think you have to give more to fill it, and that can be a problem. You can get into trouble doing that.

BD:   That’s when you have to rely on how you feel, and make sure you feel the same?

Hynes:   Right.

BD:   Have you worked with a scrim?

Hynes:   Yes. The last time I worked with a scrim was a production of Carmen in Fort Worth. The whole third act, which has my big aria as Micaëla, was behind a scrim. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but once I got used to it, I just forgot about it.

BD:   In talking with Janis Martin, she said it’s like singing into a paper bag!

Hynes:   Yes, it is strange at the beginning, but it’s not really a sound thing. It’s a sight-psychological thing because you see something between you and the audience.

BD:   Does it affect your view of the conductor? [Vis-à-vis the program shown at right, see my interviews with David Gately, Vinson Cole, Brent Ellis, and Archie Drake.]

Hynes:   Usually not.

BD:   Have you ever sung in the round?

Hynes:   No. The closest I’ve come to that would have been several years ago in St. Louis, where they have a thrust stage. You have the feeling that the audience is around on three sides, but it’s not really theater in the round.

BD:   Did you have to play consciously to one side and then the other?

Hynes:   We were directed that certain scenes always had a different attitude. It’s been several years now, so I don’t really remember the details.

BD:   So, instead of each scene being on the whole stage, you would try to move your Proscenium?

Hynes:   Right. The director worked with the theater to make it more interesting that way, which they also do for theater in the round. Some of those summer tent things used to have musicals done like that. Frankly, for the operatic voice, it never really felt good. From the audience standpoint, I can’t imagine it’s really the best situation for a singing voice.

BD:   In some instances can you get too close to the audience, physically?

Hynes:   You probably can. That theater in my memory probably is the only time I’ve ever felt too close to an audience, except maybe in recitals or orchestra concerts, where that first row is really very close.

BD:   Then there’s no pit between you and that first row.

Hynes:   It is very close, and from their standpoint the voice probably goes right over their heads, with the best sound being behind them. But in another way, lots of times children are in the front rows, and they get a kick out of being so close to the singer.

BD:   Do you like watching children when you are in a recital?

Hynes:   Generally I don’t really pay too much attention to the audience. I find it distracting, and in the big houses, it’s awfully hard to see.

BD:   I just wonder how much you can blot them out.

Hynes:   I would say my concentration is good, and generally I try not to look at specific people.

BD:   Does it affect your performance if a parent or a lover is out in the audience?

Hynes:   Yes, it does make a difference. It used to make me terribly nervous, but now I’ve gotten to the point where I like it because there’s somebody out there on my side. I’ve grown up to the point where I don’t feel I have to prove myself to my family anymore, but it is very nice to have a personal involvement with somebody in the audience. I don’t look for them though, because it really can jar you back from wherever you are. This is why I don’t like to focus on individual people in the audience because it suddenly brings me out of the realm of where I was. If you’re involved in a certain time-period, or a story, suddenly to be brought back to your own life I find very jarring.

BD:   Having said that, do you then really become the character?

Hynes:   I’m trying to. That is something actors say, and singers really work toward. I don’t know that I can really say that I become the character, because there’s always that consciousness on the outside. You are making sure that you’re doing your musical cues, and you’ve got your eye on the conductor. So, it would be very hard to be totally involved in the personality. You have to keep your mind on a lot of different things.

BD:   Do you decide at rehearsal which things you can keep your mind on, and then let the rest carry itself?

Hynes:   You have to keep your mind on the performance as it’s going each night with what you’ve built into the character during rehearsals and during years of doing that character. It will all come out naturally. That’s the trouble with so many of the roles I do now, they’re all brand-new ones for me. This was the first time I had done Despina, so you don’t know how to pace the role.

BD:   You have to do it a few times before you know it?

Hynes:   That’s right.

BD:   You’ll be happier in a year or so when you come back to Despina?

Hynes:   Right, although I thoroughly enjoy singing this role, and I so enjoy working it with Graziella Sciutti [who directed this production] because, of course, she was a great Despina. She was wonderfully gracious, and so giving of her attitudes and ideas and personality traits. We’re very different... she’s so Italian, and very tiny, and I feel so mid-Western. These ethnic qualities are very hard for somebody who grew up without any of that just to take on. But she was so good about giving me inflections, and it brought out a whole different quality to my characterization.

BD:   Did she work harder with you because you’re Despina, rather than with Rachel Yakar, who is singing Fiordiligi?

Hynes:   I don’t think so, but I certainly never lacked for attention.

BD:   I trust she didn’t impose anything on you, or ask that you do something you really didn’t really want.

Hynes:   No, she didn’t really. I tried to work her suggestions through my own personality. I don’t feel I was just copying her. That would have been very difficult to do. I think it was the attitude. The first day of rehearsal, she came up to me, and the first thing she said was that she didn’t want a pretty Despina. So, I understood immediately what she was after.

BD:   Did she feel that Despina is a bitch???

Hynes:   Well, she is Earthy and a little mean.

BD:   Perhaps she’s got something going on the side with Alfonso?

Hynes:   Every time he comes near her, he pinches her! So, she’s got him sized up, and he doesn’t ruffle her. Maybe eventually there could be something intimate... [Both laugh] She’s a real peasant girl. She lets things hang out in life. She’s not perfect, and she doesn’t have the vulnerability of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. She doesn’t have that kind of soft quality, and she doesn’t love Fiordiligi and Dorabella. I’ve always believed that Susanna really loves the Countess, and she has a very special relationship with her. But Despina is not at that point.
hynes

BD:   How old is Despina?

Hynes:   I suppose maybe sixteen to eighteen. Age is hard to pin down for me.

BD:   Would that make it different if she were twenty-five? Then she should have had a few sexual experiences.

Hynes:   Well, she knows enough about it, whether or not she’s actually had any experience. [Thinks a moment] She probably has had experience. When I say she is sixteen to eighteen, I’m thinking back in those times. In our days now, one might think of her as being in her twenties as an independent working girl.

BD:   Is she a women’s libber?

Hynes:   She has things figured out. She’s pretty tough. She’s had to work all her life. She came from a family where things were out in the open. She has probably come from a small peasant town, and she’s on her way up in the world.

BD:   Where does she want to eventually be?

Hynes:   That’s interesting... Probably not a maid! [Both laugh]

BD:   Does she want to marry somebody nice, and be taken care of, or would she rather not just be taken care of and pampered?

Hynes:   She would probably like to be pampered, but I’m not sure that she would go into a relationship where somebody would have to take care of her, because I think she likes ruling. She likes putting these girls on, and she likes getting paid for it. She’s not above that, so she has a different kind of quality than some of the other ingénue roles.

BD:   Do you like playing this kind of part?

Hynes:   It has been very good for me. She’s got a lot of spunk, more spunk than some of the other roles that I’ve done. I had just finished Pamina, and that’s a whole different personality than Despina. I’ve also done a lot of Susannas.

BD:   Have you done Zerlina?

Hynes:   Yes, I’ve done Zerlina, too.

BD:   Is there any relationship between Despina and Zerlina? Are they country-cousins?

Hynes:   I always think of Zerlina as being really more naïve. There are some people who will disagree with me, and I’ve only done one production of it, so I may change over the years. But with Despina, I really see that she is somewhat of a little bitch, and with Zerlina I don’t see quite that hardness. She has not quite got that street-knowledge yet. Maybe she’s a little bit younger. My views are tempered by the fact that Zerlina has those lovely little arias to sing, and when she sings to Masetto, it’s very hard to think that she doesn’t really have a real softness for him, because of what she has to sing to him is so lovely. With Despina, the music doesn’t have that nostalgic or tender quality to it.

BD:   She figures to get what she can out of life.

Hynes:   Yes!

BD:   Despina pushes Fiordiligi and Dorabella into these new relationships. Would she be happy if the two girls actually ran off with the Albanians, and to hell with Ferrando and Guglielmo?

Hynes:   I think she’d probably be surprised. I don’t know, though, because I’ve never thought about that.

BD:   Who should end up with whom at the very end?

Hynes:   I’ve done it both ways because when I was in school I sang Fiordiligi. I also sang Fiordiligi in Philadelphia, but I do think I’m better suited to Despina. Sometimes in one’s career, it takes a while to find the area you really are better in. But I have sung productions where they switched the characters around at the end, and they went with the Albanians. That makes it very interesting!

BD:   Whichever pair they wind up with, are they happy, or is it like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice? [Both laugh]

Hynes:   In those days and in those relationships, who knows what the marriages ended up to be? In that society, the way they start out, these may have been arranged marriages. What do the girls really know of love and romance? I always thought that practically everything they know about, they’ve read in books.

BD:   Or heard from Despina!

Hynes:   [Laughs] They’re learning from Despina, and she’s not above giving them some advice. She loves bossing them around, I’m quite sure!

BD:   But how much do they actually absorb?

Hynes:   It does sort of filter in, but then again, she’s advising them to do things that they probably are dying to do, but it is really out of their mode of behavior. They probably grew up knowing that these were the men to whom they were engaged, and that was how it was going to be.

BD:   It’s never really satisfactorily explained why the men’s uniforms are in the girls’ closets.

Hynes:   [Laughs] There are a lot of things that are not explained. Why are these girls living by themselves. Are their fiancés living with them in that big house in an estate? Where are their parents?

BD:   Is it right for us to try and explain all of these unexplained problems and loose ends in Mozart?

Hynes:   Singers probably come to their own conclusions. They think through some roles and problems to satisfy their own curiosity. There’s something a little unreal about Così Fan Tutte, and there are certain things in the story that you just accept.

BD:   [Mimicking the announcement at the beginning of each episode of the TV show Dragnet] “The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect Mozart and Da Ponte!” [More laughter]

Hynes:   Why doesn’t Despina recognize them? In a recitative that was cut in this production, Alfonso doesn’t worry about that. The one I have to worry about is Despina because she can see through this, and the only way you can justify that yourself is that she’s so taken by the costumes that she’s not thinking about the reality of the situation.
Geraint Evans

BD:   I assume she’s not expecting it.

Hynes:   She’s not expecting it, and after she talks to Don Alfonso, she’s thinking about the tip, that little bag of gold that he’s going to give her. So she’s willing to go along with just about anything.

BD:   How do you receive the gold? Does he just hand it to you? In the production we had here ten years ago, Don Alfonso dropped it into her blouse! [Photo at right shows Urszula Koszut and Geraint Evans in 1972. The photo is from a commercial website, hence their ‘watermark’.]

Hynes:   [Smiles] Throughout the opera at various moments, I tap him on the shoulder and say, “I think it’s time for my pay now,” and he keeps saying, “No, not now, not now!” Finally at the end of the opera, the original lovers are back together, and they go to Don Alfonso and say, “Now’s the time,” and that’s it! [Much laughter]

* * * * *

BD:   You sing mostly Mozart these days?

Hynes:   Recently I’ve been doing a lot of it.

BD:   Do you like singing Mozart?

Hynes:   Yes. I think I have a special inclination for it. I’m not exactly sure why...

BD:   Your voice dictates which parts you will be able to sing. Do the roles suit you temperamentally?

Hynes:   They do. The way I look suits a lot of those roles visually, because I’m not too tall. So it’s easy to cast me with other singers. Susanna has really become the role that I feel the most comfortable in now.

BD:   Are she and Figaro happy in ‘Act Five’?

Hynes:   That’s what directors always tell me. They say that Figaro is going to have his hands full. I think that Figaro knows well what he’s getting into. He’s a very knowledgeable man. He’s been around, if we believe that he comes from the story of The Barber of Seville. He’s no dummy, and he sees something very special in Susanna.

BD:   That’s why he picks her?

Hynes:   That’s why he picks her.

BD:   How old is Susanna?

Hynes:   I always think of her in her early twenties, but I don’t know if that is accurate as far as the story goes.

BD:   How old is Figaro?

Hynes:   Probably in his thirties?

BD:   So, he has waited a bit?

Hynes:   Yes, he has waited a bit, and he’s had fun while he’s been waiting. She is not naïve about that.

BD:   Have Susanna and Figaro been fooling around? Maybe their relationship has grown out of their sexual situation.

Hynes:   Perhaps. The sexual question isn’t ever as important to me as the fact that they feel something very special for each other. They recognize in each other very intelligent people. He is really marrying for love. This is why you have to read through stories to make sense for yourself. I don’t know why Susanna would go through all this if she didn’t really feel that this was the most important thing for her. She doesn’t want to go with the Count on the night of her marriage. It is incredibly important to her not to do that before her marriage. That is what the whole story is about. Susanna is a bit of a puzzle to him. She’s unlike a lot of the other serving girls that have been around. She’s educated. She writes, and she’s had much more education than probably the others in the serving class in the castle.

BD:   Why did she get that education?

Hynes:   That’s a good question!   My idea is that she grew up with the Countess, and for some reason was given special attention, and was educated, though I don’t think it ever says that in the story. Her uncle, Antonio the gardener certainly isn’t a high-class person. Susanna comes out of very civil elementary roots. But there’s something special about her, and it’s in her intelligence and her vulnerability. She really has a loving heart.

BD:   For Figaro?

Hynes:   For Figaro, and for the Countess. She’s also crazy about Cherubino! She loves him like a little brother. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t tease him, and doesn’t knock him around every once in a while, but she has that special quality. Again, these are all my thoughts about the role. The wonderful thing about singing is that it totally reflects your mind, your personality, your emotional basis, and those things change. They alter your idea of encounter.
hynes

BD:   You’re going to look at these relationships differently in twenty years.

Hynes:   That’s right.

BD:   Should Figaro be done with one intermission or three?

Hynes:   When I’m doing Susanna, all the intermissions are necessary! At the City Opera, we used to do acts three and four together without an intermission. But that’s hard on the Susanna, because then she has no rest in between the first and second acts. It is the most physical role, because she runs from beginning to end.

BD:   Have you done the Countess?

Hynes:   No. [As noted in the biography at the top of this webpage, and as shown at left in the cast-list of the PBS telecast, Hynes did sing the role of the Countess! See my interviews with William Stone, and John Copley.]

BD:   Do you want to?

Hynes:   Not so far. It’s the same when I sing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. I’d love to sing the Marschallin, but certain things I’m not meant to be. But one never knows what’s going to happen. I may not be singing in five years. Lives change, and you have to follow the course.

BD:   [Genuinely surprised] You are the first singer I’ve talked to (who was not at the end of the career) who would be happy not singing.

Hynes:   I don’t know. I’ve never not sung except after I graduated from school. I stopped singing because I really was convinced that I was in no way suited for a singing career. So I don’t really know how I would react without it. I keep saying that I can live without it, but I don’t really know because I haven’t tried it. I don’t know what else I would do, so that sort of concerns me.

* * * * *

BD:   Do you like being a wandering minstrel?

Hynes:   No! I have trouble with that. One reason that I love Chicago is that I have family very close, and some of my best friends from college, who are still my best friends, are here in Chicago. It’s a very comfortable city for me to spend six weeks. I really have a good time here.

BD:   Will you be coming back?

Hynes:   I hope so. I’ll be back in the spring with the Symphony, but that’s just for a week or so.

BD:   You’ll be in the Rheingold?

Hynes:   Yes.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge] You’re not a Wagner singer, though?

Hynes:   [Smiles] It’s very interesting, isn’t it? I giggled all the time I was buying the score.

BD:   Do you have any latent desires to sing Norma or Brünnhilde?

Hynes:   [Emphatically] None! But he’s cast the Rhine Maidens with voices similar to mine.

BD:   The three Rhine Maidens are very special. They should be Mozart-type singers.

Hynes:   Right. I was quite surprised, but that’s his idea of those voices. I was more than happy to accept. I’m looking forward to it because I’m really anxious to work with Sir Georg.

BD:   Does opera work in concert?

Hynes:   I’ve never done any in concert before, although I have been doing a series of Rosenkavalier evenings. It’s sort of hit-tunes from the opera, and they work very well. They fit in very nicely for Viennese evenings.

BD:   Do you do it with two other women?

Hynes:   Two other women, but no bass. Just the women’s parts. One of the reasons Der Rosenkavalier is so fascinating is that so many people switch around in the three women’s roles.

BD:   How old is Sophie, and how naïve is she?

Hynes:   [Smiles] Oh, age again? Let’s see...

BD:   It seems that I’m talking about age and sex today... That’s terrible! [Gales of laughter]

Hynes:   I thought they were your favorite subjects! [More laughter, then she resumes the conversation] It’s hard to judge. I would say Sophie is in her teens. In those days, she was probably even younger, but when I think of age, I try to relate it to contemporary times. So that changes your concept. Sophie has been pretty sheltered.

BD:   What would she have done if it had been anyone but Octavian delivering the Silver Rose? Would she have gone through with the marriage to Ochs and just put up with it?

Hynes:   Probably not. I always thought that the Rose Presentation is really like Hollywood. It’s love at first sight. I’ve often thought of it being in time-suspension. Time stops because there are rays going between the two of them. It’s similar to West Side Story. There is the scene in the gym with the dancers, where you just see the blur around them, and the two of them are going towards each other. I do think that’s what happens to Sophie and Octavian. She snaps out of it, and then starts chattering, and starts trying to remember her manners.

BD:   But at that point, she knows she won’t ever go with Ochs?

Hynes:   I don’t really think so.

BD:   Is it all a fantasy for a while?

Hynes:   I don’t really think so, because at the end of her little discussion with Octavian about how she’s going to be a wife, she says, “Oh, I have to go now because my husband is coming, ” and then she sees him!

BD:   That’s right, they haven’t seen each other yet.

Hynes:   It’s also the way he acts. But she’s so programmed by what is happening to her then. I’m not sure she really knows she’s in love with Octavian when it happens. I think she is zapped, but as I say, she’s so programmed by her duty as a daughter with this marriage, that it never occurs to her that she’s going off that path.

BD:   What is she expecting?

Hynes:   Somebody unlike Baron Ochs, I suppose. Maybe she did have a picture... That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that.

BD:   Do you enjoy the final trio and the final duet?

Hynes:   They’re wonderful. It’s a wonderful opera, but it’s hard for the audience.

BD:   Is it too long?

Hynes:   I don’t know if it’s too long. Musically it’s a complicated show. It’s so lush, and full of different lines. I’m not describing it in very precise musical terms, but you know what I mean. The score is complex to listen to, and it’s hard on the audience. When you’re singing it, and you’ve worked through all those lines, they all make such beautiful sense, and that is a thrill.

BD:   Of course, the audiences have been prepared by hearing the waltzes all the time in concert.
hynes

Hynes:   That’s right.

BD:   Would you ever sing it in English?

Hynes:   I did in Fort Worth.

BD:   Does opera work in translation?

Hynes:   I’m not sure that one did. [Both laugh] I’ve done The Marriage of Figaro mostly in English.

BD:   Is it difficult to separate the English from the Italian?

Hynes:   No, the hardest thing is doing a different translation of the English. I just performed Pamina in English at the City Opera this fall. It was the new Andrew Porter translation, and once I was used to it, it was wonderful. I love the translation, but it was very hard getting the other English translation out of my mind.

BD:   What will happen when you have to go back to the other translation?

Hynes:   So far I haven’t had to.

BD:   Coming back to Der Rosenkavalier, let me ask about its ‘fourth act’. Are Sophie and Octavian happy?

Hynes:   [Thinks a moment] They probably are happy for a while. I was talking with director Bliss Hebert when I was doing it in Fort Worth, and he said that Sophie and Octavian are happy for a few years, and then they break up. Then he fantasized a whole story about a great composer who brings them back together again. But as Strauss and Hoffmansthal laid it out, I think they probably are happy. They have a marriage of that society, of that class.

BD:   So, she’s happy with him, and he goes off and strays a little bit?

Hynes:   Probably.

BD:   I just wondered if Sophie could keep him happy after he had been with the Marschallin.

Hynes:   Maybe she becomes a bit of a Marschallin herself. [Laughs]

BD:   Really??? Do you think that she has lovers, too?

Hynes:   She could. She probably has that potential. She certainly saw that model, and at a very vulnerable time in her life. I think she understands about the Marschallin very well... maybe not to the point where she could verbalize it, but throughout the end of the opera, she knows what has gone on, and she senses the graciousness of that older woman. She doesn’t have a mother herself, so I’m sure she is affected by the gracious quality of the Marschallin. I always think of that at the end.

BD:   It doesn’t bother her that the Marschallin is not particularly happy with her husband, whereas she, Sophie, is happy with Octavian?

Hynes:   The Marschallin was probably happy at the beginning, too. It’s just a different way of looking at relationships and marriages when you get into the class structure of those times. The American idea of marriage is to settle down with your husband and children. In those older social classes it was very different. Many of the marriages were arranged, and the person you were married to wasn’t necessarily the love of your life. It had to do with financial and political and social terms.

BD:   Does that older kind of a marriage being portrayed on stage speak to us today?

Hynes:   I think people understand that it is in the long-ago period. I’m sure there were still marriages of real love.

* * * * *

BD:   Back to Mozart. What kind of a woman is Pamina?

Hynes:   She really is a princess. It’s a little harder to get a grasp on the characters in The Magic Flute because so much of it is a fairy-tale. It’s a little difficult to get a human grasp on them because you tend to think of them in those terms.

BD:   Are they not human?

Hynes:   No, I think they are, actually. But for instance, Tamino looks at the portrait and instantly falls in love with Pamina. There’s a lot of fairy-tale thinking in that, and Pamina doesn’t even see Tamino. She only talks to Papageno who says the prince is looking for her, and he fell in love with her as soon as he saw her face. So, instantly she’s in love with him!

BD:   Is she in love with him, or is it just fascinated by the fact that this guy has fallen for her?

Hynes:   It’s probably mostly fascination. Again, Pamina is young and protected, so you have to think of her in terms of that. Sarastro, in his own way, knows that Tamino and Pamina have the goods to be a fine ruling couple. He puts them through the trials, but he knows that they have the strength and the intelligence to get through them.

BD:   Do they rule wisely?

Hynes:   I think they probably do. Pamina is a very strong girl. The thing is that she’s been protected, and she believes what people around her have told her. What else does a young child do? When she’s in the hands of her mother, she believes that Sarastro is an evil person because everything she’s ever heard is that he is evil. When she’s confronted with him, she changes her mind, and she realizes that he is good. But when he tells her not to believe her mother, that very hard for a young girl.

BD:   It takes a lot of strength to actually change this idea.

Hynes:   Yes! She does change a great deal during the opera.

BD:   Could she have gone through with the suicide?

Hynes:   She probably could have. In the last production I did, we changed the order around so that the trio saying good-bye to Tamino came before my aria. It’s confusing because those scenes get so disjunct. I say good-bye to Tamino, and then I sneak back and sing my aria because he won’t speak to me.

BD:   What was the point of shuffling it around?

Hynes:   It’s always been very awkward. With the trio in front, it makes more sense. She is given the dagger by her mother, and then bids farewell to Tamino. She sneaks back and says she has to say good-bye to him once more. He doesn’t speak to her, and she is crushed. So what does a girl do, but turn the knife on herself? Then after the aria, the next scene is the suicide.

BD:   Being sung in English, do you bring the same amount of intensity to the spoken dialogue that you do to the arias?

Hynes:   We really try to. It is difficult in The Magic Flute because you’re saying things like, “My dear, tender mother.” These are lines that need a lot of care not to be confusing to the audience. But strangely enough, it made the story more believable, more understandable to the audience. I had reports that this added more to connect the scenes, and to explain the story.

BD:   Was all this original dialogue, not newly-invented words?

Hynes:   Oh, yes! It was all taken from the original, not things that were made up by the director. He went back to the original dialogue, because usually so much of it is cut here in the States. You end up having a series of different scenes, and nobody understands what has been going on.

BD:   The characters aren’t developed nearly as much.

Hynes:   Right.

BD:   Do you have any sympathy with people who will not listen to opera in translation?

Hynes:   I know the problems. When I first started working on Susanna, learning it in Italian I thought would kill me because it’s so long. But I must admit it was easier to sing in Italian, and it has a different quality to it in Italian. On the other hand, certain operas for certain audiences I feel should be in English. In America, Così is very successful in English, as is Figaro because of all that recitative. An audience can really be pulled into it by understanding the language. The Germans have been doing that for years. Americans are so insecure about our opera tradition that we really hesitate to do anything that we think is going to show up our naïvety.

BD:   Does opera work on television?

Hynes:   I think it does. [Remember, this conversation took place in 1982, when opera on television was just getting started, and had yet to become the solid visual and sonic productions we have in 2024.] It has to be very carefully done. Certain operas lend themselves more easily to television. For instance, some of the more chamber-like operas seem to work extremely well. It’s been very interesting to see some of the operas which have been made for television. Those have been fantastic. The big problem I have with opera on television is that the sound still is not as good it might be or could be. They’re getting much, much better, but that still is a weakness. It is hard to be photographed close up when you’re an opera singer, but it has brought so much more opera to the American family. Everybody has seen some kind of opera on television, and it can be very effective. I was discussing this last night with a friend. We were out for dinner, and he said that most of his experience with opera came from records. We both agreed that this is not opera! Opera is a live theater experience, but anything that can entice an audience to go into the theater is a good thing, and television has done that. Seeing singers and watching it may entice a few people to go to the theater and investigate it. Once they’re in the theater...

BD:   ...they’ll be bitten by the bug?

Hynes:   Possibly! It is different because the voices sound different in the live theater than they do on records. They re-did the State Theater last summer and it’s much better. It really has improved. I don’t know from the audience standpoint, because I’ve never been out in the audience since the renovation took place. But as a singer, it’s a much more comfortable theater to sing in.
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BD:   Are you a good audience?

Hynes:   I think I am.

BD:   Do you sit there and sing and breathe with the singers?

Hynes:   No, I just enjoy it. I’m going tonight to Pagliacci [with Vickers, Josephine Barstow, Cornell MacNeil, Lenus Carlson, and David Gordon], and the Poulenc opera [La Voix Humaine, also with Josephine Barstow, and both conducted by Carlo Felice Cillario.]

BD:   Is it different when you see an opera where you have sung a role?

Hynes:   Yes! You have so much more connection with the piece. You know the little problem spots, and the worry spots, and that sort of thing.

BD:   Do you worry for the singer on stage?

Hynes:   Not necessarily. Not usually. I really go hoping with all my heart, that I’m going to be thrilled to death, and when that curtain goes up, I want to be absolutely swept away.

BD:   Are you?

Hynes:   Sometimes. [Both laugh]

BD:   Have you sung any contemporary music?

Hynes:   A little... I did The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten, but that’s about as contemporary as I’ve sung. My debut at City Opera was Margaret in Lizzie Borden by Jack Beeson. But that again is not twelve-tone or anything like that. It’s very melodic.

* * * * *

BD:   What roles are you looking forward to?

Hynes:   Interesting that you should ask that! [Laughs] I would like to sing Mimì again now that I’m a bit older and wiser. That is a role which develops as you develop. I’ve always loved Massenet’s Manon. It’s a wonderful role.

BD:   Is she something like Sophie?

Hynes:   [Thinks a moment] No, I think Manon is very self-centered in a way, and almost heartless, but not really because she does come around. She certainly is after the good life, but I don’t know if I would ever sing her. I’ve also been very interested in Tatyana in Eugene Onegin. She is a such a wonderful character the way she develops and grows as a woman. She starts as a young vulnerable person, and by the end of the opera she has got it together.

BD:   [Gently protesting] But that’s not so much Tchaikovsky as it is Pushkin.

Hynes:   Yes, and it shows the strength she has by the end of the opera. I love roles where you really see a female who has a development of character. They go through changes and they grow up.

BD:   Is that more believable?

Hynes:   It’s like life. I really believe that Sophie goes through changes in Der Rosenkavalier.

BD:   Doesn’t Despina change?

Hynes:   Despina’s been taught a really good lesson, because Don Alfonso caught her napping. He puts one over on her. She didn’t recognize those men, and she can’t believe he was able to do that.

BD:   Are there any characters you sing that don’t change?

Hynes:   I’d have to say that Susanna is the same person. She starts out at the beginning and just has one heck of a long day. [Both laugh] She is really putting herself on the line. This is really important to her, but she is basically the same person at the beginning as she is at the end. You see different parts of her character during the opera.

BD:   Are there any roles where you wind up dead at the end?

Hynes:   Manon...

BD:   Do you like dying in an opera?

Hynes:   [Laughs] I haven’t done too much of that. The roles I sing generally don’t die at the end. I haven’t been doing the heavy heroine parts. The Governess in Turn of the Screw is an interesting role, but it would be a heavy part for a large house. I did The Marriage of Figaro in Kentucky this last spring, and we did several performances in Louisville, and then we went over to Lexington where they have a tiny jewel-like old opera house that they have resurrected and redone. It is just stunning, and to do something like Figaro there was wonderful. American audiences are generally very polite, and it’s a growing audience. Opera is also a growing tradition in America, and it never ceases to amaze me when you go to a place like Lexington. You’ll go to a party after the opera, and there’ll be four or five people who are just absolute opera buffs. They know everything, I suppose mostly through recordings. Many of them started with the broadcasts from the Met, and they still listen. Now I listen every Saturday afternoon, but I knew nothing about the broadcasts when I was growing up. I didn’t know anything about opera. But so many Americans were affected by those broadcasts all their lives.

BD:   Is opera a museum, or is it really a living theater?

Hynes:   Oh, I think it’s living theater! When I was in school, the big slogan was ‘Opera is Dead!’

BD:   I trust you don’t think that’s true.

Hynes:   I can’t think that. The great operas have the same problems and the same human conflicts that we’re having now, personality-wise. We’d be dressed up in different costumes, and something like Figaro probably wouldn’t happen because we don’t have a Count here in the United States who can abolish, or not abolish, rules of behavior.

BD:   Would you agree to sing in a production where the Count was a Ward Committeeman, and there was going to be a precinct worker, and Figaro was going to be the city comptroller?

Hynes:   It’s a hard question because some of that updating can be really difficult. I have never been involved in any of it. I’ve never been in a production like that, so I don’t know how I would react. I heard of a Così Fan Tutte A-Go-Go, and it was like Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon at a beach party.

BD:   If you were asked to step into that production, would you?

Hynes:   I think it would be very difficult, because if you had to do a production like that, you’d have to be in the rehearsals from the very beginning with the director in order to understand what he was trying to do. They tend to update Così all the time, perhaps because of some of those unanswered questions we spoke about. People always have to be finding new things to do with that opera.

BD:   To try to attract a different kind of audience?

Hynes:   Perhaps. I think that was done in a school some place.

* * * * *

BD:   Let’s touch on one more character, Micaëla! Is she a weak girl or a strong girl?

Hynes:   I think she’s a very strong girl. It’s funny... when you talk to a soprano about any of these roles, who of us would admit that one of these characters was weak? [Laughs] For your own self-preservation, you do have to find the strength, and, when you think of it, she really is strong. These were very basic people. Think about somebody from a tiny farm town in Kansas, who hears that her next-door neighbor went to New York and is in trouble. So she gets on a Greyhound Bus by herself, and goes to New York. You could put it in that context... So Micaëla is a strong little girl, who probably is scared to death, as she says in her aria. But she’s got to do this because she feels it’s her duty.

BD:   Would she take Don José back if he left Carmen?

Hynes:   My opinion is that she won’t. Don José is a fascinating character in Carmen. I think he’s crazy, and he gets more crazy as the opera goes on. He’s always been on the brink with that violent nature right under the surface, and Micaëla knows it. She’s known for a long time what he’s like.

BD:   She doesn’t want to be Mrs. Don José?

Hynes:   It was always assumed in the village that they would end up with each other.

BD:   What does she do after he’s put in prison for murdering Carmen?

Hynes:   This is the thing! I think it goes too far for her, but she still feels the loyalty, because I’ve always thought that Don José’s mother has become like Micaëla’s mother. I can’t really tell you if there’s anything to verify that, except that she says to Don José that his mother has sent her with these messages. I have a feeling that Don José’s mother is a close friend of Micaëla, and has been like a mother to her, too. But she’s also smart enough to see this crazy nature in Don José. She still feels the loyalty when she comes back for him, but her love or maybe her childhood crush has passed. She’s there to do her duty. It’s not like a lover coming back to claim her man. At least I’ve never felt that way.

BD:   Does she want to get him to a shrink? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interview with Harold Prince.]

Hynes:   She wants to get him home to protect him.

BD:   Even though she knows that he’s beyond help... or does she know that he’s beyond help?

Hynes:   I don’t think in the third act she knows he’s beyond help. Besides, his mother is dying. That’s why she’s there. Why didn’t she come before that? She loves this woman, and she wants to grant her final wish, which is to see her son. It really makes her go through the whole situation. Imagine going up in the mountains. It would be very frightening in those days, with all those robbers and mountain people.

BD:   I’m surprised she makes it without being robbed or murdered.

Hynes:   Right. If you read the score, in the first act Micaëla delivers the letter and the money, and has a duet with Don José. Then she leaves, and you don’t see her again. In one of the productions I did, she comes back right at the end of the act, and sees Don José being taken off to jail, which I always thought was interesting. She knows he’s in trouble.

BD:   Does she know that he goes off with Carmen rather than coming back to her?

Hynes:   She probably hears about that, yes.

BD:   She doesn’t go to the guard house every day to bring him a little food?

Hynes:   Possibly.

BD:   But she’s not there to meet him when he comes out?

Hynes:   I don’t think so. She goes home. She has come quite a distance to get to Seville, so she probably goes home. But I would imagine that they get reports back. So when the mother starts dying, she heads for town and tries to find out what happened. So she knows the story by the time she sees him in the third act. I haven’t really thought about that actually. That’s the second act, and I’m not in the second act. [Laughs]

BD:   Someday you’ll get a director that will want to have some silent action behind the scrim during the entr’acte.

Hynes: The tenor Jacque Trussel is a wonderful Don José, and he told me about a production where you actually saw Carmen and Don José having a good time together during the entr’acte. It was a wonderful idea because in the opera, you don’t really see them having love-time, or building that relationship that keeps them together. I thought that was an interesting idea. In Figaro, you don’t really see Susanna and Figaro sharing much time together. That’s why the first two duets and recitatives are so important.

BD:   But they don’t get married until the very end?

Hynes:   Right, but this is something that each singer has to remember inside themselves. What is the basis of this relationship? You have very little time to set it up for the audience.

* * * * *

BD:   Do you enjoy giving recitals? There, if you sing an aria, you have to create the whole opera in four minutes.

Hynes:   I haven’t done very many of them. I did some Community Concerts several years ago. I used to get terrified because the whole evening was my responsibility. I did enjoy them, though. I was an Affiliate Artist for three years, too. It’s like an artist-in-residence program.

BD:   Where was this?

Hynes:   I was in Fort Worth, and that meant singing little talk-recitals in every kind of situation you can imagine, such as a Sears store in front of teen kids, and all sorts of different situations. Those aren’t really recitals, but you certainly learn a lot about communicating. The children were wonderful audiences. I used to sing Mimì’s first-act aria, and explain the story, and they were just fascinated by it.

BD:   Would you sing it in Italian or English?

Hynes:   I did it in both. Children are wonderful vehicles for opera because they have such fantasy ability to not to be embarrassed about things. They used to love my vocalization. That was just wonderful for them.

BD:   [With a wink] You can’t put anything over on a child.

Hynes:   No, you cannot. I remember when I first started out, what did I know about this? I was so green. A couple of times I sang things like Getting to Know You, and there was nothing. No response! They’ve heard it a million different times. But then I gave them something really to hold onto, like the Mozart Alleluia, and Mimì. All sorts of things. The Barber Hermit Songs made a big hit, especially The Monk and his Cat. I used to tell people in Fort Worth that baseball is an American tradition we’ve all grown up with, and you would never go to a game without learning the rules. We don’t need to think about it, but opera needs a little homework. Once you do a little homework, then suddenly the whole world opens up.

BD:   I assume you’re optimistic about the future of opera?

Hynes:   I am, but I’m worried about the state of the arts, and unemployment. Times are changing in the United States, but I think opera is in good shape. It’s hard for me to know because I don’t get involved with the financial backgrounds of companies. I do worry when I hear that an opera company is not having a season this year, or a symphony orchestra has closed down due to lack of funds, and that has been happening. Many of the smaller festivals have cut way back on performances or productions. It’s frightening. I’m such a product of the 1960s that part of me thinks I should be out doing social work some place. As a singer, what good am I really doing for mankind? There’s that Peace Corp guilt that is still hanging around.

BD:   [Gently protesting] Doesn’t opera really do society some good???

Hynes:   Oh, I think it does! Art is like vitamins for a community. It nourishes people. The trouble with opera here is that it is thought of as a rarefied atmosphere. A lot of people still look on it that way, but we have to have the arts.

BD:   Do we make it too elitist?

Hynes:   I don’t think we purposely make it so, but we do need to work much more at building up audiences. Not enough work has been done in the schools. I’m not an expert on this, but I had a little experience with it in Fort Worth. We started a program with the Girl Scouts. They had an opera badge down there. It wasn’t all that complicated, but the girls were wonderful, and we had a thousand of them at a time show up for The Magic Flute. These sorts of programs really work to build audiences.

BD:   Do those thousands of girls who came to The Magic Flute continue to come?

Hynes:    That’s the big question, but I do think it’s the only answer. If we’re going to continue having productions, we’d better continue building up the audiences. That’s why I said television has brought opera into a lot of households. Whether or not we see a reflection of that in the theater audiences I just don’t know.

BD:   What’s a good first opera for kids?

Hynes:   Hmmm … [Thinks a moment] Maybe Carmen, but that’s pretty violent.

BD:   [Feigning wide-eyed enthusiasm] Yeah, it’s got good sex and violence! [Both roar laughing] We need to get you into more operas where you’re killed off!

Hynes: Give me some drama!

BD:   I often ask baritones and basses if they would rather kill or be killed on stage. Have you had to murder anybody?

Hynes:   No, I don’t think so. I have sung Marguerite in Faust, and that was wonderful because she goes crazy at the end. I guess it’s because of my happy disposition that I keep getting these kinds of roles. [Both laugh]
hynes

BD:   They suit your temperament.

Hynes:   Right, I guess that’s true.

BD:   You’re a happy opera singer.

Hynes:   Yes, but I’m not always happy. I have my melancholy moments too just like everybody else. A lot of it has to do with vocal type. You start getting type-cast, and it is hard for people to imagine you in other roles.

BD:   [With a wink] You can’t go to Ardis Krainik and say you’d like to sing Tosca???

Hynes:   No! I wouldn’t do that! [Both laugh] I’ve loved being here both times. Last year was so thrilling to be involved in the Fidelio production with Paul Plishka [shown in photo at left], and Jon Vickers, and Johanna Meier, and Eva Marton. It was exciting to hear that quality of singing, and this year has been a great experience for me, too because it’s been such an ensemble feeling. Tomorrow night is our last performance.

BD:   Is the closing night harder to do?

Hynes:   It’ll be interesting to see. The trouble is you’re generally packed up ready to go home. I’ve been here six weeks, and the European artists are getting a little lonely. But the last performance should have a bit of excitement about it, I would imagine.

BD:   It’s the last time you’re ever going to do this opera with this ensemble.

Hynes:   Yes. Lyric is one of the few places where I do so many performances of one opera.

BD:   For most it’s just two or three?

Hynes:   Yes, which is very unfortunate, because you put all that work into it, and then don’t have time to build up the performances. When you’re performing it is really the time to learn about a role.

* * * * *

BD:   Do you enjoy being an opera singer?

Hynes:   I’m enjoying it more and more.

BD:   You didn’t start out enjoying it???

Hynes:   No. I was pretty insecure and nervous about the whole thing, but I’m getting much calmer as time goes on, and it allows me to enjoy it much more. I’m more surprised than anybody that I’m an opera singer, so it took a little getting used to. I’m learning how to enjoy the traveling, too which was a big problem because I would get very lonely. [Brightening] I’m getting married this summer!

BD:   Congratulations!

Hynes:   Maybe that will help me.

BD:   How is he going to react to your going off for six weeks at a time?

Hynes:   Well, he’s also a singer, and he has some private business interests, so he understands the separations. Right now he’s been able to join me for a week or two everywhere I’ve been, which has been very nice. It’s not easy, but then again there’s nothing wrong with separations every once in a while. It’s interesting to see the growth you go through when you’re by yourself. The trouble is keeping in contact with people. It is very difficult, and you’re constantly involved with other people. When you start on a production, it almost becomes like your family. You see them every day, you rehearse with them and you get involved with their lives. Then suddenly the person at home is the distant person, and that can be the danger.

BD:   Can a production get over-rehearsed?

Hynes:   I suppose it can. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been in one that was. I hear these stories about the European houses of weeks and months of rehearsal. I suppose it just is not a problem here. The other way is the problem in the States, because things are so expensive here.

BD:   [Speculating] Two rehearsals and a run-through, and that’s it?

Hynes:   It’s awful. It’s really disturbing.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge] You don’t like being in something where it’s just thrown together?

Hynes:   No, but it happens all the time. It’s not really even a matter of being thrown together.   For instance, I will go out to Los Angeles with the (New York) City Opera on tour. They go out there for a month. I had done the Figaro production last spring. But when I go out to LA to do it again, I’ll only have a week of rehearsals to put it together.

BD:   Won’t it be the same production and many of the same singers?

Hynes:   Yes, but still it’s not ideal.

BD:   I hope you come back to Chicago again.

Hynes:   I hope so, too. I’m very happy about what’s coming up. I’m very excited about it so I feel optimistic.

BD:   I wish you good luck in your marriage. [Aside] You’re not going to be like Tiny Tim and get married on the stage, are you??? [Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury) married Miss Vicki (Vicki Budinger) on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, on December 17, 1969. It was the second most-watched broadcast that year, only beaten by the Moon Landing.]

Hynes: [Laughs] I see him in the grocery store all the time in New York. He shops at the same market because he lives very close to where I am. He’s this very strange man picking up yogurt... I see Dustin Hoffman there a lot, too...

BD: Thank you for this conversation.

Hynes:   Thank you. I enjoyed this interview. You’re very good at it!

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This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 9, 1982. This transcription was made in 2024, 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 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.