BD:    Do you work harder when you know it’s being broadcast?

VM:    When you’re on TV, it’s important that very good singers also be very good actors, and that is a difficult thing to find.  If it’s not being relayed live, you can do one “take” and then another, so it’s not as hard on you.  But if the broadcast is going out as you’re doing it, the concentration has to be immense, and you have to work a lot ahead of time.  We had very long and extensive musical rehearsals before going on TV.

BD:    Can a production get over-rehearsed?

VM:    These days it is hard to rehearse too much.  There most you get is two or three weeks for a new production, which is just enough.  I saw many of the Felsenstein productions which were beautifully rehearsed, but there was too much emphasis on the acting all the time.  The singing suffered because they were so exhausted after the long rehearsal period that they had no voice left over for the performances!  He demanded that they sing out full-voice all the time.  He didn’t let them “mark” at all.  In my opinion, some voices were destroyed in the process of working with him.

BD:    Going back to the idea of filming over several days – does this not become a fraud?

VM:    It is a fraud in a sense because they modify things that are bad so they become good.  I can remember specific instances where things went pretty badly, but after the editing, the end result was really quite nice.  The problem is compounded in audio recordings because they can repeat a note twenty or thirty times until it comes out just right, but the public is getting a different product than it originally was.  In the old recordings, one could hear where a change was made, but now the technique is so perfect that they can do anything they want and change everything.  I myself buy very few opera recordings unless they were done in performance.

BD:    Are the critics – and the public – expecting too much when they go to the theater?

VM:    Perhaps it’s the fault of the recordings that the public comes and expects to hear the same perfection they experience at home.  The human voice doesn’t work that way.  On the other hand, the public in the large theaters in the big cities is always wonderful.  Recordings are so cold, but in the live performance it’s whatever happens.

BD:    Are you glad that some of your performances are preserved via broadcasts?

VM:    Oh sure, just as I’m glad to have tapes of performances by Bjoerling and Tucker and the other great tenors.

BD:    Do you like being a Verdi tenor?

VM:    I also sing a lot of Puccini, and the roles that have been most successful for me and that I like the best are Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut and Cavaradossi in Tosca.  But I am glad to be both a Puccini tenor and a Verdi tenor because they both wrote so wonderfully.  Sometimes, it is hard to sing some of what Verdi wrote, but on the whole his operas are great for the voice.  Puccini also knew the voice very well, but his orchestration is so loud and so big that it is hard to go over it.  I would never advise a young tenor to start with a Puccini role.  Even the role in Butterfly, which is essentially just the one act, has to fight the orchestra which is very loud when the tenor is singing.  You really have to work very hard.  There is a fashion today to start tenors with Bohème, and that is a very hard role.  It is really a spinto role, and I feel one should have a certain vocal maturity to approach Puccini.

BD:    OK, where should a young tenor start?

VM:    I can only speak from my own experience, and I began with Belmonte and Don Ottavio.  I always had a big voice, and soon did Traviata.  I never had a light “tenorino” sound.  I did some performances of Don Pasquale and Elisir d’Amore, but the only Donizetti I still sing is Lucia.

BD:    Is there a competition amongst tenors?

VM:    I always read about it in the press, but there are so few tenors that there is room for everyone to make a good living.

BD:    Does that mean there is too much opera being given?

VM:    That depends.  It Germany, the theaters which do only modern things don’t have any public any more, whereas there are places that only do conservative repertoire, and that is not right, either.  Theaters should mix things up like they do elsewhere.

BD:    Do you have any advice for the composers writing operas today?

VM:    I think the biggest problem is that they don’t have any regard for the human voice.

BD:    What’s the role of the critic?

VM:    I have many years to sing yet, so I have nothing to say about them!  Everyone can welcome and appreciate criticism of a constructive kind.  One doesn’t always need praise, but the critics should be a bit more fair than they are.  The notion that they have to say something bad about everyone is getting out of hand.

BD:    Do the prose writings and letters of composers have an influence on your performances?

VM:    Yes, very much.  Sometimes, a conductor will point out something which the composer wrote, and that will have any impact on how I do the role.  It can be very useful.

BD:    Tell me about your current role – Pinkerton.

VM:    People tend to complicate Pinkerton’s character way too much.  He was very young and he loved women, but he did have heart and sensitivity.  He liked Butterfly a lot and wanted her, and did what was expected at the time.

BD:    Many of your characters wind up dead.  Do you enjoy getting killed onstage?

VM:    To play it onstage, I don’t mind it.  Sometimes it doesn’t go quite right.  I remember the Ballo in San Francisco, and at the end the baritone couldn’t get the gun to fire.  After a while, I simply fell down because I couldn’t wait any longer to die!  Most of the characters I play are positive ones.  My tendency is to sweeten them all because that is my nature, but I have to control the natural desire to make everyone sweet and good.  From a dramatic point of view I could do so many things, but the voice just will not sing certain parts, so I don’t do them.  Some of the roles I do require a strong voice, but the tessitura must be right before I can sing them. 

BD:    Are you optimistic about the future of opera?

VM:    I am very happy about the situation of opera today, especially when I go to see the student performances.  The new generation going to the theater is wonderful.  It is good to present to the youngsters operas like Madama Butterfly that are easy to understand.  If you’d invite them to see something like Tristan, you’d ruin them for life!  They have to develop a taste for opera, and should be exposed to more accessible music first.  You should give them things that are very lively, with singers who are good actors.  Operas like Don Pasquale or Mozart cannot fail to please everyone.

BD:    Can Mozart please someone who adores rock n’ roll?

VM:    Definitely.  I think they would become interested in opera even though they like the rock n’ roll.  It’s important for them to see opera and to hear it, and perhaps something will come out of the experience.  The theater has a very special atmosphere that children understand, and they might want to repeat such an experience.

This interview was recorded in a dressing room backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago on December 15, 1982.  It was published in The Opera Journal in March, 1987, and posted on this website in 2012.  Photos have been added for this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. 

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