Soprano  Carol  Neblett

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie



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Carol Neblett (February 1, 1946 – November 23, 2017) was born in Modesto, California and raised in Redondo Beach. She studied at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1969 she made her operatic debut with the New York City Opera, playing the part of Musetta in Puccini's La bohème. With that company, she continued to sing many leading roles, in Mefistofele (with Norman Treigle), Prince Igor (conducted by Julius Rudel), Faust, Manon, Louise (opposite John Alexander, later Harry Theyard), La traviata, Le coq d'or, Carmen (as Micaëla, with Joy Davidson, staged by Tito Capobianco), The Marriage of Figaro (as the Contessa Almaviva, with Michael Devlin and Susanne Marsee), Don Giovanni (as Donna Elvira), L'incoronazione di Poppea (with Alan Titus as Nerone), Ariadne auf Naxos (directed by Sarah Caldwell), and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt (in Frank Corsaro's production).

Her brief nude scene in a 1973 staging of Massenet's Thaïs, for the New Orleans Opera Association, made international headlines. In 1976, she performed Tosca, with Luciano Pavarotti, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 1977, she sang the part of Minnie in La fanciulla del West (one of her great successes), with Plácido Domingo, for Queen Elizabeth II's 25th Jubilee Celebration at Covent Garden.

In 1979, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Senta in The Flying Dutchman, in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's production, opposite José van Dam.

She sang with the Met until 1993, in such operas as Tosca, La bohème, Un ballo in maschera (with Carlo Bergonzi), Don Giovanni, Manon Lescaut, Falstaff (with Giuseppe Taddei), and La fanciulla del West.

During her career, she sang all over the world, including in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Buenos Aires, Salzburg, Hamburg and London. Her recordings include Musetta in La bohème, with Renata Scotto, Alfredo Kraus, Sherrill Milnes and Paul Plishka, for Angel/EMI, James Levine conducting (1979); La fanciulla del West, with Domingo and Milnes, Zubin Mehta conducting (DGG, 1977); Gustav Mahler's Symphony No.2 ("Resurrection") with Claudio Abbado, Marilyn Horne, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (DGG, 1977); and Marietta in Die tote Stadt, with René Kollo, Hermann Prey, Benjamin Luxon, and Erich Leinsdorf conducting (RCA, 1975).

She appeared in several performances on television, including a tribute to George London at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. She also appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 2012, Neblett made her musical theatre debut in a production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.

Neblett was an artist in residence and voice instructor at Chapman University in Southern California. She was also on the faculty of the International Lyric Academy in Rome.


==  Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.  BD  




Carol Neblett sang several roles with Lyric Opera between 1975 and 1980, then returned for a final visit in 1989.  She also sang and recorded in 1976 with the Chicago Symphony.  The full list appears in the box at the bottom of this webpage.

It was during the last trip that we met between her two performances, so that’s where we pick up the conversation . . . . .

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Bruce Duffie:   You’ve come back to Chicago at the last moment to fill in for another artist.  Is this situation especially difficult, or extra fun?

Carol Neblett:   It’s always a challenge because you have a bare minimum of getting together with your colleagues, and no orchestral rehearsal.  There is no chance to work on the stage with the costumes, or anything like that, so obviously one wouldn’t take this unless you knew the part very well, which I do.  Last year I was singing La bohème at the Met to celebrate twenty years in opera, and I received a call from Houston.  I got on the plane at three o’clock in the afternoon, and was on the stage at 7:30 pm in Un Ballo in Maschera.  I told them I could remember the music, but I was not sure I could remember all the words.  So I made up a lot of words.  But for this Tosca here in Chicago, they were really desperate, and Tosca is something I knew very well.

BD:   You had sung it here in 1976.  Did you remember the staging from that time?

Neblett:   Not particularly, but how many different productions have I done since?  However, it’s basically a traditional production with traditional staging.  I asked for the candles, but I understand they didn’t use the candles here.  I asked for them because directors had told me that it was originally a request of Sarah Bernhardt.  She was a pretty smart lady, so I wanted them too.  I’m a good actress, so, I got the candles back.  However, there was no cross.  There wasn’t the traditional putting the candles down and the cross on the chest.  I happen to like that.  Puccini wrote specific music for it, but I did some praying by the dead body.  It was a challenge, and it went really well.  There was a big audience response, and also from my colleagues.  They seemed very happy to see me.  They enjoyed working with me, and I feel very confident in that role.  I can pretty well guess what any conductor is going to do, and I just can sing it at any different tempo.  It’s one of those parts where I’ve done it for so long that I’m not still in the trepidation stage, whereas now I’m doing a lot of new roles.  Aïda is new for me, and even though I’ve done it in four productions, it still feels new.  It’s not that Tosca doesn’t have those moments.  It does.  One has to calm oneself breath-wise for Vissi d’arte.  Maestro Bartoletti said I sang the slowest Vissi d’arte he’s ever heard!  But he tends to conduct slowly, so I was surprised he said that.

BD:   Is he tending to follow you, or are you tending to follow him?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Renato Capecchi, and Italo Tajo.]

Neblett:   It’s a mixture.  Just before I went on the stage, he said that we’ll do it from the heart!  That was our choice!  You can’t do it from your heads!  It’s really from both, but what he was saying was that he was with me!  There were some places that he stretched out more than I’m used to, and other places where I did things maybe he’s not used to.  But we had a great time, and I’m a well-trained musician.  That’s my background.  I was a violinist for thirteen years, and a pianist, too.  I’m not a wonderful pianist, but I am a good musician, so I have to say it was not scary.  The only thing I was scared about was that I was just getting over a cold, and I was a little reluctant to come.  Getting on an airplane always dries you out.  But I took the late-night plane, and then I slept during the next day.  We worked in the evening, and then I was on.  So it worked all right, and we did fine.

BD:   Good, and you were working with a colleague you knew in the pit.

Neblett:   Yes.  I hadn’t worked with him in a long time, but we get along very well.  We’re going to work together in Florence in the May Festival.

BD:   I assume that all of these details entered into your decision, so you had enough on the plus side to come, rather than a weird production and a new conductor in a strange city which you might have turned down?

Neblett:   Yes.  Chicago is like an old home for me.  I sang here quite a lot at one time, but not in recent years.  In fact, I’ve been in and out of the business having had two more children.  I’ve got two little girls and a teenage son, so I’m pretty busy.  But I considered where I was coming, and whether it would be a triumph or a trial.  Of course, there’s the incredible amount of nervous energy that goes into putting it on the right way, but it actually was great fun, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would!  I was worried about coughing, and I had to go upstage and cough a couple of times.

BD:   Too bad it wasn’t La Bohème!

Neblett:   Oh, yes!  [Both laugh]  I could have coughed all the way through, right in front of the whole public!  But for Tosca, I get so emotionally involved, particularly in the second act.  When I killed the baritone, I started to cry.  I’d never done that before, and I don’t know why.  It was so real.  It was like it was really happening.  It was an interesting evening.

BD:   When you get on stage, are you portraying the character, or do you really become that character?

Neblett:   A bit of both.  If you totally became the character, you would not be able to perform.  You would not be able to sing.  But there are moments when you are so involved.  I’m always in character.  I feel I’m in character, and I’ll step out of character, but there’s another side, the mental side of you that says now I have to do this, and now I have to count.  Singing and acting in opera is a mixture.  I like to call it a hybrid art, like breeding three kinds of flowers together.  You’re doing several things at once.  You’re counting, you’re singing usually in another language other than English, and you’re responsible for the length of notes and the beauty of them.  All this, plus you’re responsible for playing the character.  I get very into Tosca.  I don’t have much trouble slipping into her shoes and feeling like I am her.  I don’t have much trouble with that in general.

BD:   Does your husband worry about you being that volatile?

Neblett:   [Laughs]  He jokes about it!  He knows I’m a volatile human being.  But he’s a good down-to-Earth medical doctor, and is very practical.  He gets a kick out of my temperament.  He says it’s my fault that our two girls are also like that!  But they have his traits, too.  The younger one is very scientific-minded.  You can see it!

BD:   How do you balance your life between being mother and wife, and being an opera singer?

Neblett:   With a lot of difficulty, but I’ve had the same woman living with me for thirteen years, and that makes the big difference.  She’s the other mother, and without her I wouldn’t be able to do this.  For singers in general — both men and women — there’s a big tug-o’-war about what kind of personal life they can balance with a career.  You can do it, and you have to know that your children are smart enough to understand.  You have to give them credit for knowing that you are not going away forever, that you’re coming back.  I talked to my girls last night, and they’re counting how many days until I will be coming home.  Grandma’s going to visit them on Tuesday, and I’ll be home on Thursday.
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BD:   [At this point, the phone rang and Neblett had a brief conversation about doing a benefit concert.]  Are you glad that you don’t have to go out fundraising all the time?  Do you want to be just an artist?

Neblett:   At some point in my career, I might want to do some kind of artistic management.  I don’t know for sure.  I seem to be good at judging in competitions with singers.  I’ve seemed to have had good luck helping singers like Jonathan Welch, whom I heard when he was not really doing anything.  I told him it was time that he went on to the big-time.  It took a little bit of letter writing and my calling the Metropolitan Opera to say they must hear him, and he did his part by singing well.  You can’t do anything for anybody if they don’t do their part.  But I’ve enjoyed listening to young singers and helping them.  I teach quite a lot of masterclasses now.

BD:   When you’re listening to a young voice, what do you look for, and what do you listen for?

Neblett:   Several things.  The quality of voice, and whether they have the technique that will hold up under pressure, and then interpretation of how they deliver their piece, their aria.  When you’re listening to young voices, you rarely get to hear anything more than two or three arias, so you try to figure out within those two or three arias if this person could also play the whole part, or even learn the whole part.

BD:   So there really is a major difference between singing an aria or two in a studio and being a character on stage?

Neblett:   Oh, yes!  There are people who are professional contest winners, who are not so good in the long-haul.  So I really try to listen for something beyond whether the person sang absolutely perfectly at that moment.  For me that doesn’t count as much as the perception I get as to whether they would be a total artist or not, and have the strength to hold up under that.  There are ways of judging that.  You hear one number, then ask for the next.  They usually sing a number of their choice first, and then you ask for something different.  I always ask for the most difficult thing they have listed.  [Both laugh]  You’d be surprised at how often somebody would come and be able to sing the aria with high Cs from La Fille du régiment, and then cannot sing with a long simple line from Una furtiva lagrima.  I always ask for the piece that has the line, and requires the control of the breath.

BD:   I assume they hope you won’t ask for that.  [Vis-à-vis the video shown at left, see my interviews with Tatiana Troyanos, Catherine Malfitano, and Anne Howells.]

Neblett:   Yes, they think we won’t want to hear that because it’s so simple, but that’s what I want to hear.  I need to know if the person can sing a long line, a simple line.  There’s some very good talent out there that I keep trying to help.  They ask what to do next, but what they really need is management consultation.  So I don’t know whether I’d want to run a theater.  I don’t think that would be my goal.  I’d be more interested in helping artists by being a consultant or a part-time teacher, coaching them through roles, or maybe working with a director and a particular production that had young artists that needed teaching of various things.  I’ve worked in productions here and in San Francisco where they use their apprentice artists for various things.  Kurt Adler once told me to take a young singer up on the stage and get her to walk across the stage.  Just get her to walk.  I agreed, but wanted to take her to a room first, to let her get to know me, and relax a little bit.  When people feel uncomfortable on the stage, a lot of that is just nerves.

BD:   What advice do you have for the young singer who wants to make the big career?

Neblett:   [Laughs]  Besides learn how to sing?  [More laughter]  Besides get a technique that is strong enough that it holds?

BD:   One assumes that comes with a certain amount of experience.

Neblett:   Yes.  They also have to have the burning desire to do this, because you are alone a lot.  You’re on the road alone without your family or friends.  You make friends on the road, but you also have to be alone because you need the rest.  You need the vocal rest, and the time to study.  [Points to a table on the other side of the room]  I’ve got piles of music over there, and usually most of us are learning something else while we’re traveling.  So, I tell them they have to have a certain moral character, strength, and belief in something greater than themselves so that they can carry on under adverse circumstances, because there are always adverse circumstances.  It’s rarely perfect.

BD:   Is it all worth it?

Neblett:   For me, it is.  I obviously came into this world to sing and to express.  That’s another thing.  It’s not just the voice.  It’s the whole thing.  I love good music and I love to express good music.  There have been times when I’ve wanted to throw it all away and give it up, and in my own way I’ve done that by going home and having children.  To hell with this!  I’m going to stay home for a while... but every time I’ve been lured back!  I’ve had my babies and I’ve stayed home for a while, and then all of a sudden, there’s an urge which is incredibly strong.  It’s something greater than yourself.  That’s all there is to it.  ‘Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’amore!’  I live like that.  For me the major inspiration is the music itself.
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BD:   When you’re looking over roles, and you’re asked to sing this or that, how do you decide which ones you’ll accept and which ones you’ll either postpone or turn down?

Neblett:   I’ve made some mistakes like everybody else.  I’m more careful now than I used to be.  I sang Turandot many years ago, and it wasn’t so hard to sing.  In fact, it was rather easy to sing.  I was surprised, but I hated the part.  I hated the character.  It had so little for me.  I’m a woman who likes to create lots of under-characters within the character.  For example, when I’m doing Tosca, I have a whole scenario about what kind of child she was, and where she lived, and how she grew up, and how she came to singing, and how naïve she really is.

BD:   How old is Tosca when we see her?

Neblett:   About eighteen, with a mature voice like Rosa Ponselle!  I see her as this Italian woman, very beautiful, very young, who has only trained maybe two or three years.  She was shipped off to Rome to live in the company of queens, and treated very royally because of her beautiful natural voice.  To her, being a diva is the most natural thing in the world.

BD:   She really is the diva!

Neblett:   Yes.  Not from training but from her inner being of her singing.  But she’s also very naïve.  She really doesn’t know what’s going on politically.  She not in tune to what her man believes.  She’s in love with him, and she’s breaking every rule in the book for the little good Catholic girl.  She’s not married, yet she’s living with this painter.  It’s everything that is not the usual.  Of course, that’s what opera is about anyway.  It’s a soap opera, and she gets caught in this situation, and goes to pieces.  It kills someone.  Everything is totally against what she is, and I have fun with characters like that.  So that helps me decide about whether I want to do a role or not.  Also, I have turned down Salome over the years, but I might consider doing it if there were a particularly good production.  I’m not sure I would like that character either, but musically it’s fascinating.

BD:   And of course you have the dance...

Neblett:   Yes, and I suppose that’s tempting if I keep walking and doing my exercises!  [Both laugh]  When I went to sing my first Norma, Rosa Ponselle was one of my teachers, and she said not to sing Norma too soon, but don’t sing it too late, either.  She felt you needed to be at the height of your vocal powers to sing it, but not over and not too soon.  She sang it quite young, but she was one of those incredible mature voices at an early age.  She also retired very early.  I look at scores to see if I like them, and if I’m attracted to them musically.  For example, even if my voice were to change and go lower, I still don’t think I’d want to do Carmen.

BD:   Speaking of French roles, you’ve sung several of Massenet, including Manon, and Thaïs.  Did Massenet write well for the voice?
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Neblett:   Yes, I think so really.  There are some difficult phrases.  I’ve sung the Manon, and Thaïs, and Werther would be an interesting challenge for me.  It’s a little lower, but I do take on roles that are a little lower once in a while.  I’m going to be singing Dido in The Trojans, which is lower.  I like the French repertory, but as I was just saying, I don’t think I’d ever sing Carmen.

BD:   Why not?

Neblett:   I just don’t like it!  It’s funny... if you ask a violinist or pianist what their favorite score is, they’ll say Carmen!  I like to go to Carmen.  I like to sit there and watch it, and I have a good time, but whenever I’ve looked at her part, I thought it is an ungrateful sing.  It’s a very fine acting part but...

BD:   You wouldn’t want to do Micaëla?

Neblett:   I did Micaëla in the early days.

BD:   Do you still get repercussions from your Thaïs [where she briefly appeared nude]?

Neblett:   I thought it was appropriate for that opera at the time.  It was done very well, and I looked good, so why not?  I don’t know why they made such a thing out of it.  They took pictures out of context of what was going on.  I had no idea the photographers were hanging on the rafters.  I was pretty naïve about all that.  I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight when I sang that role, and I was so busy worrying about the role, which was hard enough as it was, and the direction, which was beautiful.  It was quite romantic, and we worked hard.  The conducting was a little iffy, which made it hard to sing.  But it was such a big success beyond all the fact that I stood for twenty seconds with my back turned.  The photographers got the whole front thing, which wasn’t what it was all about.  Anyway, it made sense in the scene in the context of the words and music.

BD:   Leaving that aside, tell me a little bit about the character of Thaïs.

Neblett:   She’s a very interesting character.  She goes from being a woman of the flesh, so to speak, and living in the world of flesh, and living by her beauty, and her creativity with men.  That’s how she attracts them.  She’s like the best courtesan in that part of the world.  We used to call her the Blonde Turk!  [Both laugh]  She goes from that to spirituality, a total change.  The monk, Athanaël, promises her eternal life, and she thinks he means eternal beauty, an eternal life in the flesh.  But she begins to see the true picture, and as she sees the true picture of what eternal life is, he becomes the other way, and starts desiring her as a woman.  It’s an incredible part because it’s such a mental change as she treks across the desert with him.

BD:   Is there a moment where the two paths cross exactly so they meet in the same kind understanding and desire?

Neblett:   Yes.  It’s in the duet where they sing, “Bathe with water, my hands and my lips.”  They’re in this oasis in the desert, and she is bathing him with total spirituality, and he’s now desiring her body.  It’s incredible, and it’s such a simple gorgeous duet with a long line.  It’s really touching.  I would love to record it.  It’s been recorded but I’d like to record it with the justice that it deserves.  I don’t believe there is as recording out there like that.

BD:   If you had an aria recital coming up, would you include that duet?

Neblett:   If I were singing with a baritone.  I used to do that duet with a very fine baritone from Los Angeles who went on to have a different kind of career.  He left the world of opera to sing Gospel music.  Everybody has their changes of decisions in life, and I thought he was one of the best baritones I’d ever worked with.
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BD:   You mentioned recordings.  Are you pleased with the ones you have made which have come out?

Neblett:   Most of them.  You can sit and pick them apart, saying I wish I’d done this, and why couldn’t we change that...

BD:   But overall?

Neblett:   Overall, Die Tote Stadt is a wonderful recording.  Most people feel that the character is really there, even though it’s a recording.  The hardest thing in recording, besides just singing beautifully, is to keep the character there, and not get into the studio way of singing.  I’m always surprised when I work with certain colleagues who stand one inch from the microphone and sing half-voice.  That’s impossible for me to be the character if I do that.

BD:   So, you stand back?

Neblett:   I stand back and let it out, and let the engineers worry about it.  That doesn’t always make the most perfect recording, or the most perfect high C, but I’m not interested in that.

BD:   What are you interested in?

Neblett:   I’m interested in the truth.

BD:   What is the truth in opera?

Neblett:   The truth is finding the character through the music and the words.  Just about every composer was inspired by some play, or some poem, or some set of words, and they have been painstakingly careful to set their words to music properly.  So our job is to reinterpret or recreate what they put down on the printed page.  The way you study music is crucial to how you perform.

BD:   Does being a violinist and a pianist make you more accurate, and more concerned about the music?

Neblett:   Oh yes, I think so.  I’m not here to judge others.  I am just personally very concerned about how I learn music, and how I deliver it, and how accurate I am.  I’m known in the business to be a good musician, so obviously I am accurate.  I don’t coach anymore.  I still work vocally with someone, but I don’t go for learning the part with anybody.  I learn it myself, and I’ve been doing that for about the last six years.  I really enjoy doing it that way.  It’s a new way of learning.  I really look at the music differently, and no one dictates to me.  If I feel I’ve prepared well, then I’ll take it to the conductor who is going to be doing the production.  I’ll tell him that this is how I learned it, and now I’d like your input.  They’ve studied it, so they must have some thoughts about it, and if they’re good conductors they’re usually very helpful.

BD:   Have you ever gotten involved in a production that is completely wrong-headed?

Neblett:   Oh, yes!  If you mean not well conducted, or not well directed, or both, then yes, sure!  I’ve been singing for twenty-five years, and twenty years in opera, so I’ve run into it all.  I was in Nice not too long ago, and the director didn’t know what he was doing.  It was La Fanciulla del West, and I know this work backwards.  The conductor was old, and he was once a great conductor... maybe not great, but one of the named Italian conductors.  But he was so old that he really couldn’t do it.  He was just dying down there, so everything was ludicrously slow and was without any life.  The director didn’t know what to do, and I told him this piece absolutely demands that every prop is there from the first entrance.  All the cards, and the money, and the boys, and the game, and the Bible reading, all of it.  Everything relies on timing, and I ended up directing the show.
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BD:   Did you direct everyone else, too?

Neblett:   Oh yes, everyone else too, and they loved it.  They’d been working for two weeks with him before I arrived, and they still didn’t know what they were doing.  They were a mess!  They were all over the place.  They didn’t know where their props were, and they didn’t even know how important their props were.  I started saying we need this and this and this.  It was a little bit tiring, to say the least, but in the end the director said it was wonderful, and he seemed grateful.  At least he wasn’t angry about it.  Any director really has to study the music, not just the words.  This one was directing from the words.

BD:   Isn’t that kind of the way Minnie is, sort of a mother to the whole camp?

Neblett:   Yes, but what you crucially need is very good comprimario singers.  They need to know what they’re doing, particularly your bar tender, Nick.  Then there is the timing!  Everything is timing in that piece.  That piece lives and dies on whether the person opens the door on time.  It’s worse than almost any opera I had ever done in that way.  Every opera is entrances and exits, but this one is particularly tricky.

BD:   How can you bring that across on an audio recording?

Neblett:   The timing?  Usually if you stay pretty true to the music in the score, it works.  Sometimes there are sound effects used, such as opening and shutting doors, and throwing cards down on the floor, and things like that.  The problem of recording is how to bring the visual to the aural side.

BD:   Fanciulla is a piece that you’ve also put onto video.

Neblett:   Yes, that was fun.  I had just had a baby, and was a little bit broad in the beam, so to speak.

BD:   So, the costumes would have been made carefully for you.

Neblett:   Yes.  Fortunately, it was that type of costume, and Piero Faggioni really understood that this was an opera of the Old West, not the Wild West!  There’s such a difference.  When the director doesn’t understand that, the piece does not do as well.  It’s an Old West piece, before the shoot 'em ups.  Sure they had riffles, but there were no Colt 45s, and there was no Annie Oakley or Buffalo Bill.  These were the old miners who came across in covered wagons hoping to strike it rich.  There were only a few women in the country at the time, so they had to be tough.  I have ancestors who went West very early, and they are the most incredible looking people you’ve ever seen!  [Laughs]  They have on those severe heavy wool dresses, and their hair was pulled back in a bun.  They weren’t into glamor.  It’s not like running a saloon for glamor.  Minnie is not a glamorous woman.

BD:   She’s a tough woman?

Neblett:   She’s a tough woman, but she’s a girl.  She’s just what Belasco and Puccini called her, La Fanciulla.  She’s a girl.  She’s not a woman yet, and she’s never been kissed.  She says so.  She lived there as a little girl, and in the text she says that her mother and father died there, and she stays to run this place.

BD:   How old is she when we see her?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interviews with Robert Lloyd, Robin Leggate, and Gwynne Howell.]

Neblett:   She could be any age really.  I feel she’s a little older than most of the other Puccini heroines, who are fourteen and sixteen.

BD:   So maybe twenty-two?

Neblett:   [Laughs]  Yes.  She’s in her twenties, which is already old.

BD:   And never been kissed?

Neblett:   Yes, and never wanted to be.  She never allowed it.  She has been pecked on the cheek like brotherly, but never the real romantic kind.  She’s waiting for the real thing, and then in it walks à la Dick Johnson.

BD:   Do they live happily ever after when they walk off into the sunset?

Neblett:   I believe so!  It’s one of Puccini’s happier endings.  The sadness of that is that they leave the place that she loves so much.  She loves those men, and she loves those California mountains.

BD:   How far away do they go?  Is it just over the mountains, or all the way to Wisconsin?

Neblett:   They probably go to Silver City, New Mexico, or some place like that.  I don’t know.  That’s something fun to leave to the imagination.  You could leave the stage every night and where are we going this time?  [Laughter]  But you must realize that he’s a wanted man.  They might even have to go to Mexico.  For sure, they have to get out of California.  Perhaps Utah, or Oregon, but you really feel that they have to leave because of the situation.

BD:   It’s not their child who becomes Annie Oakley?

Neblett:   Oh, no!  They probably get married and have a bunch of little kids, but I don’t think that would be the situation at all.  First of all, that’s not her nature.  She teaches Bible lessons.  She’s not teaching shooting.  She shouldn’t be so handy with a gun.  I was not really fond of the production here because of the shooting the rope off his neck.  Come on!  First of all, guns weren’t that accurate in those days, and second of all, she isn’t supposed to be that kind of a woman.  She’s not supposed to know that much about guns.  She knows how to use a gun in defense and to shoot game, but she’s not a sharp-shooter.  That’s why I like the video, by the way.  Piero Faggioni is a very fine director, one of my favorites.
BD:   Do you feel opera works well on the small screen, or even a large screen, as opposed to the opera house?

Neblett:   If it’s well-directed, it does.  Often what happens is it’s not well-directed, and somehow it looks ridiculous.  It’s too big, or it feels like something’s wrong.

BD:   I assume the direction had to be completely different?

Neblett:   No!  We did the exact same direction as we did in Covent Garden when we filmed it.

BD:   You weren’t a little more subtle with gestures and facial expressions?

Neblett:   Maybe a little more subtle but, he was for subtlety all along.  However, he didn’t take away the passion of the opera gesture.  There was no emotion that wasn’t real, so even if it was strong on television, it wasn’t too strong because it was real.  Maybe one of the problems with some televised operas is that you don’t feel the realness of them.  Maybe when it filters through into the auditorium, you get a little more of the realism, but I don’t think so.  You’re either a good actor or you’re not, and whether you’re on television or on the stage there’s not much difference.  Yes, your face can look overly animated, but it’s more fun for people to see what it really looks like to sing than opera made for film, where they use voice-over.  I don’t like that all!  I know that many operas were made that way, and I’m sure it’s interesting in many ways, but I like to see the real thing.  I like to see a singer sweat!  [Both laugh]  I like to see what it takes to do this.
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BD:   Do you like to be seen sweating?

Neblett:   I don’t mind.

BD:   How much should the audience be concerned with the fact that you’re working hard?

Neblett:   Not too much.  In fact, if you’re working that hard and you’re that much of a mess, then you’re not doing it right.  Yes, you do get hot, and yes, you do perspire, but if you look like you’re in pain while you’re singing, then something is wrong.  So that particular film is really rather remarkable because everybody looks good.  Domingo looks good, I look good, Carroli looks good.  Everybody looked in character, and was not sweating too much, but we were strong enough to make it believable that it was filmed live, which it was.

BD:   Was the record taken from the film?

Neblett:   No, the record came first.  The record was made in 1977, and the film was done in 1982.  I almost didn’t get to do the film because I’d just had a baby.  They wanted me, but they also had one of those situations where it was the only dates they could get Domingo.  So I said I was coming, baby and nursing mother and all.  I didn’t want to miss out.  I was a little concerned I’d be able to sing, but I was fine.

BD:   You didn’t want to redirect it so that Minnie was nursing a little child?

Neblett:   [Laughs]  Somehow, I don’t think that would work.  It’s not Madam Butterfly!

BD:   Is opera for everyone?

Neblett:   Of course not!  It just like Rembrandt is not for everyone either, or reading Thomas Mann.  I don’t think it ever will be, but it has become more popular now that people can read the words above the stage.

BD:   Do you like the surtitles?

Neblett:   I don’t know whether I personally like them, but I must say they’ve opened the doors to a lot of people who were really intimidated about going.  I don’t agree with James Levine when he says he will never have surtitles at the Met.  He ought to have a partial season with surtitles.  He’d get a big crowd, and he’d be surprised how many people would go if they knew what they were seeing.  A lot of people just don’t take the time, nor have the time, nor the interest.  A busy executive who thinks maybe it would be nice to go the opera and take his girlfriend, or his wife, doesn’t have the time to sit down and read the libretto, or listen to a record of it.   He doesn’t want to come out looking stupid either, saying he didn’t understand what was going on.  So, I’m not against this at all.

BD:   Is opera really for tired business people after a long day of knocking their brains out at the office?

Neblett:   Why not?  It’s just as good as a football game.  It has its elements of entertainment, and it can be very uplifting.  I’ve been to an opera myself when I thought I didn’t want to go because I was too tired.  But I decided to go because somebody might be very good that night, and I will be glad that I went.

BD:   Where is the balance then between the artistic achievement and an entertainment value?

Neblett:   That’s a hard question.  It’s always both.  If it’s really good artistically, it is entertaining, and if it’s poor artistically, it’s poor!  It’s not entertaining when it’s not good.  The better it is, the more entertaining it becomes.  No matter how unschooled one is in listening to opera, if it’s good you know it.  My husband’s a doctor, and he doesn’t know anything about opera except what he has learned in the last few years.  We’ve been together nine years now, and he’s got incredible taste.  He’ll say, “Oh, that tenor’s not good, is he?  Maybe he hasn’t warmed up,” and he’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  Then, when the second act comes, he says, “Getting worse, let’s go!”  [Both laugh]  He is somebody who will not sit and suffer through it, and this is not a person who is schooled in opera.  So this is very interesting.

BD:   Is it good for you to be with someone who’s a real member of the public rather than another musician?

Neblett:   Yes, very good.  I get a really honest opinion about what he thinks about everything.  He’ll say it like it is from a layman’s point of view, and I like that.

BD:   Thank you for all the music you have given us, and for spending the time with me today.

Neblett:   I’ve enjoyed it.  Thank you.

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                                      Carol Neblett with Lyric Opera of Chicago


1975 - Elektra (Chrysothemis) with Brenda Roberts/Schroeder-Feinen, Boese/Mignon Dunn, Stewart/Tyl, Little; Klobucar/Bartoletti

1976 - Tosca (Tosca) with Pavarotti, MacNeil, Tajo, Andreolli; Lopez-Cobos, Gobbi

1977 - Idomeneo (Elettra) with Tappy, Ewing, Eda-Pierre/Shade, Shirley, Little, Kuhlmann; Pritchard, Ponnelle
         - Callas Tribute Concert with (among others) Vickers, Fournet

1978 - Fanciulla (Minnie) [Opening Night] with Cossutta, Mastromei, Andreolli, Voketaitis, Ballam, Kuhlmann;
Bartoletti, Prince

1980 - Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira) with Stilwell/Morris, Dean, Tomowa-Sintow, Winkler, Buchanan, Macurdy;
Pritchard, Ponnelle
         - Italian Earthquake Relief Benefit Concert

1989-90 - Tosca (Tosca) with Jóhannsson, Nimsgern, Tajo; Bartoletti


As shown in the LP cover at right, Neblett also sang the Symphony #2 of Mahler with the Chicago Symphony in February of 1976, conducted by Claudio Abbado.  The CSO Chorus was under the direction of Margaret Hillis.  While Marilyn Horne was on the recording, Claudine Carlson sang the performances at Orchestra Hall.




© 1989 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on October 10, 1989.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB later that evening, and again in 1991 and 1996.  This transcription was made in 2025, 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.