Delores Ziegler Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

American mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler has been heralded as "the mezzo we have been waiting for" by Martin Bernheimer in the Los Angeles Times. Her career takes her to every major theater in the world and into collaboration with the great directors and conductors of our time. Many of these extraordinary performances have been recorded and released as audio recordings and on video and film.

With a repertoire that extends from bel canto to verismo, Ziegler has appeared in the world's greatest opera houses. At the Vienna Staatsoper, she made a debut as the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, returned for Idamante in a new production of Idomeneo, for Dorabella in a new Cosi fan tutte, and for Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. At Teatro alla Scala she has opened the season as Idamante in a new production of Idomeneo, as well as having appeared as Dorabella, Romeo in I Capuleti e I Montecchi and Meg Page in a new production of Falstaff. She opened the prestigious Salzburg Festival as Sextus in a new staging of La Clemenza di Tito. At the Glyndebourne Festival she was heard as Dorabella and at the Bastille in Paris she sang Cherubino and Idamante.

Highlights of her many appearances in Germany include the Composer in a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos in Munich, Marguerite in a new staging of La Damnation de Faust in Hamburg, and Salieri's Falstaff in a new production by Cologne. Other European appearances have included the Florence May Festival, where she sang Idamante, Octavian and Dulcinée in Massenet's Don Quixotte, Athens Festival for her first Gluck's Orfeo, and Dresden for a rarity, Bertoni's Orfeo [shown below].

See my interviews with Cecilia Gasdia, and Bruce Ford

An acclaimed interpreter of bel canto mezzo roles, she has the honor of being the first singer in operatic history to sing Romeo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Bolshoi in Moscow, at the San Francisco Opera, and in Japan. In another milestone, Ziegler is the most recorded Dorabella in operatic history, first on two audio recordings, one with Bernard Haitink on EMI and another on Teldec with Nikolaus Harnoncourt. She can also be seen as Dorabella in a videodisc of the La Scala production with Riccardo Muti and in a film of Così which has been televised throughout Europe, this the last project of director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. [All four of those are shown in the box below.]

In South America she has performed Adalgisa in Norma at the Teatro Colon in Argentina and in Rio de Janeiro. In the United States, this Georgia native has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera as Octavian, Dorabella, Cherubino, and as Siebel. Her initial appearances at the Lyric Opera of Chicago were as Dorabella in Così fan tutte.

On January 6, 1986, Ziegler was featured in the initial "Pavarotti, Plus! - Live from Lincoln Center" PBS Television Special. Ziegler had the honor of making her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist in the Rossini Stabat Mater with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra, this in Maestro Muti's last performance in America as music director of that prestigious orchestra. She has also appeared with orchestras throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. With London's BBC Symphony she sang Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder; with Santa Cecilia in Rome the St. John Passion and at Aix-en-Provence and in Venice, the Rossini Stabat Mater. She is a gifted Lieder singer and has appeared in that capacity in such cities as Paris, Florence, Vienna, Cologne and Bonn. In 1992 she made her New York City recital debut in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall Series.

Ziegler has a discography of twenty-one recordings that includes the Mozart Requiem, Mozart's Great Mass and the Mahler Symphony No. 8 on Telarc with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony; Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra on EMI; the Bach B-minor Mass with Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Teldec; both the Boccherini and the Pergolesi Stabat Maters on Frequenz conducted by Claudio Schimone; and the Mozart Coronation Mass on Deutsche Grammophon with James Levine and the Berlin Philharmonic.

In addition to the two Così sets, Ziegler's complete opera recordings include two of La Clemenza di Tito – one as Sesto conducted by Riccardo Muti on EMI and one as Annio with Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Teldec; the title role in Bertoni's L'Orfeo with Claudio Scimone on Frequenz; Margarad in Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys with Armin Jordan on Erato Disque; Fatima in Weber's Oberon with James Conlon on EMI; and Meg Page in Falstaff with Riccardo Muti on Sony Classical. Ziegler recently recorded Sara in Roberto Devereux and Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena for the Nightingale label with Edita Gruberova, both conducted by Elio Boncompagni. Her most recent CD is Ned Rorem's song cycle The Evidence of Things Not Seen; she took part in the 1997 world premiere of this work in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. [Many of her recordings are shown on this webpage.]

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

See my interviews with Paolo Montarsolo, Carol Vaness, Dawn Upshaw, Leopold Hager, John Aler, Dale Duesing, and Thomas Hampson

In November of 1993, Delores Ziegler was singing her ‘signature’ role of Dorabella at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Also in the cast were Carol Vaness and Emily Magee as Fiordiligi, Gianna Rolandi as Despina, Keith Lewis as Ferrando, Jeffrey Black as Guglielmo, and Claudio Desderi as Don Alfonso. Andrew Davis conducted the Peter Hall production. Between performances, Ms. Ziegler was kind enough to sit down with me for an interview. Portions were aired on WNIB, Classical 97, and now [2024] the entire conversation has been transcribed and shown on this webpage.

Bruce Duffie: Is there a secret to singing Mozart?
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Delores Ziegler: To love it and give it your 110%, and to study the style, of course. The style of Mozart is so much, but to love the music is everything.

BD:   Is there anything in the studying of Mozart that can carry over into other operas written later, or even earlier?

Ziegler: [Thinks a moment] The studying of Mozart would surely carry over because Mozart is such a pure classical style, and the training for that is so disciplined that you can carry that over into some of the later music. Romantic music is very emotional. You sing it with your emotions, with your gut, so to speak, and that’s very dangerous for a singer. Therefore, if you have that disciplined classical training, you can carry it over into that type of music without losing your technique and not singing just on your emotion.

BD:   Then where is the balance between the technique and the heart? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Arleen Augér, Jerry Hadley, and Tom Krause.]

Ziegler: That is something everyone has to find for themselves. Every single person has to find that balance, and it is a very personal balance. Some people have more heart, and some people have more technique. It’s a very delicate balance, but every person has to find it for themselves.

BD:   Does it change from opera to opera?

Ziegler: Yes, absolutely! I can’t speak for every singer, but for me it certainly does. There are roles that are closer to your heart, and also closer to your own personal psychological make-up which make them much more emotional than technical.

BD:   Is there any role that you sing that’s a little too close to the real you?

Ziegler: Ah! It’s very interesting! At the moment, it’s not a role that I sing, but it’s a role that I am very close to because I’m always on stage, and that is the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. It’s such a beautiful text from Hofmannsthal, so it’s very hard sometimes to stay in my character as Octavian, the young seventeen-year-old, when you’re listening to the Marschallin speak of something that is so close to my heart, just having turned forty. [Both laugh]

BD:   Do you like playing a boy?

Ziegler: I do! It presents an enormous challenge, and I love that acting challenge. It’s a different mind-set. I enjoy all those young boys — Cherubino, Octavian, Composer, Sesto. Sesto has a different type of tragic quality than a female role would give you. It’s very challenging and very rewarding I find.

BD:   Does playing a boy so often in your career make you a little more sympathetic towards the male of the species?

Ziegler: Ha! [Laughs] I was always sympathetic towards the male of the species. They’ve always been my heroes. I don’t think I ever was not sympathetic to the male. Growing up, males were always the heroes, and I always wanted to be the hero. Maybe I always wanted to be a little bit male, so it’s a funny thing that I end up playing pants-roles. I finally get to be the hero, and that’s wonderful.

BD:   Does that help you communicate the right way to the females in the audience?

Ziegler: Maybe. I hope so. It’s that wonderful mixture of male and female that we all have in each one of us. Maybe it does because it shows that certain male strength with a female gentleness. That’s an interesting question.

BD:   Maybe after your singing career is over you should go into sociology.

Ziegler: It would be very interesting. That’s always been a very interesting aspect of life, the differences and similarities of the two sexes, and also how each one of us has both parts that are fighting sometimes and enjoying each other at other times.
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BD: After you’ve been playing a boy, or a young man, do you find a little more interest in becoming a woman on stage yet again?

Ziegler: Yes, that too. It’s funny... I was just speaking with a colleague of mine about that. You reach a point in your life where I love playing young roles, but sometimes I want to be an adult. Sometimes I’d like to play the grown-up women roles, because I feel like now I also have an ability to communicate that much more than I did at, say, twenty-eight, or thirty-two, or thirty-five. I would like to do more of those roles, yes.

BD: Is this what opera is — communication? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interview with Sylvia McNair.]

Ziegler: Absolutely, on all different levels. It is a definite communication in the best sense of the word, and it’s one of the ways of communicating that I know best.

* * * * *

BD:   Being a mezzo, certain roles are thrust upon you. Do you ever wish that you could do roles that are written for sopranos, not for the voice but because of the character?

Ziegler: Oh, absolutely! Of course, they are the ones everyone wants to get their teeth into, such as Tosca. I would also love to do Elektra. What a wild role that is. Then there is Salome, and I would love to do Tatyana in Eugene Onegin. There are lots of them, because the soprano roles sometimes are so beautifully faceted, whereas many times the mezzo roles are not. You have to facet them yourself, so to speak. They’re not as well detailed, and sometimes you have to find the details yourself.

BD:   You have to really flesh them out?

Ziegler: Yes, flesh them out, exactly.

BD:   [With mock horror] You mean composers were not sympathetic to mezzos???

Ziegler: Many of them were not. Puccini didn’t write too many. A really good example is The Damnation of Faust of Berlioz. That’s a very disjunct opera anyway, but Marguerite is barely there as a character. There’s no character development, so you have to understand where she’s come from and where she’s going to give any type of depth to that character in that opera.

BD:   Of course, it’s not really a stage work. It’s more of a concert work.

Ziegler: I’ve done it only staged, actually. There was a big production of it in Hamburg, and I’ve done a production in Bonn. I’ve never done it as a concert, strangely enough. Another role you really have to flesh out is Cenerentola of Rossini. That can be so one-colored if you allow it to be, because she’s always the one saying, “Oh yes, I forgive you!” It’s always such a little nice-girl role that it can be very one-color if you’re not careful.

BD:   Have you sung The Italian Girl in Algiers?

Ziegler: No, that one’s really a bit too low for me. She would be an interesting character, but it doesn’t quite suit my voice. I am really much more of a high mezzo, a second-soprano, if you will [as noted in both recordings of the B Minor Mass shown below.]

BD:   So that suits you much more in Mozart, where he really wrote for two sopranos.

Ziegler: Exactly. That’s why my voice fits Mozart so well, because I am indeed a second-soprano. We get ourselves so into pigeon-holing voices, and you can’t do that because each voice has such an individual quality, ability, range, color, everything. You can’t just say you have to sing these roles because they’re the fach.

See my interview with William Stone

BD: Do you adjust your style or your technique for the size of the house?

Ziegler: No, absolutely not! I can’t. Other singers may be able to, but I cannot, and do what I do, and be the type of artist that I am. No, if they can’t hear me, then I’m in the wrong house, or I need a conductor who is more sympathetic to my type of voice. I can only sing with the voice that I have. I’ve learned over the years that you can certainly force, but your voice doesn’t necessarily get any bigger. [Both laugh]
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BD:   Without naming names, are there some conductors you’d like to scream at to say, “Hey, hold it down!”?

Ziegler: Oh yes, absolutely! Some of them ... it’s hard sometimes because you have such big beautiful orchestral crescendos, and beautiful colors, and if you have an orchestral conductor, many times it’s very hard for him to sit down there in front of the orchestra, and understand the balance that has to go on. It can be very difficult for a conductor to understand that.

BD:   Do you then try not to accept contracts with those people?

Ziegler: Yes, I try more and more to be careful about who the conductor is, especially if it’s a role that I know has a very thick orchestra. I want to make music. I don’t just want to sing loud. I like to sing loudly, too, but... [Both laugh]

BD:   I assume there are some conductors who are in love with the voice?

Ziegler: Yes, absolutely! If you’d like for me to name names, there are many of them.

BD:   No, if you name some, then you’d leave out others. But it’s good to know that they are out there.

Ziegler: Yes, there are those who come from a singer’s background, so to speak, who were maybe coaches, or who might have come from an orchestral background, but love the voice and love singers.

* * * * *

BD:   You sing all over the world. Does the public react to the same role differently in different cities?

Ziegler: Yes, absolutely.

BD:   How so?

Ziegler: For instance, since we mentioned Der Rosenkavalier, in Austria that is the very staple of their repertoire. It is something that they can identify with because it’s their tradition and their culture...

BD:   ...and their slang!

Ziegler: And their slang, exactly! [Much laughter] It certainly has a different feel. You know they understand it in a different way, and they react a bit differently to it. In many places in the United States, that opera can get a bit long for the audiences while not understanding the text, or what it’s all about.

BD:   Is it better now with the supertitles?

Ziegler: Absolutely, but there again I’m rather ambivalent. I’m not sure exactly where I stand on that, because I understand the need for them. I understand it personally because my family is not from opera nor from classical music. I introduced my younger brother to opera, and the first one he ever saw was Norma. Imagine that! But it had the supertitles, and he loved it.

BD:   Were you singing Adalgisa?

Ziegler: I was singing Adalgisa, yes, but he loved it. So how can you say supertitles are wrong when you can have people who wouldn’t otherwise come to this form of art be drawn to it, and get something out of it. It’s a wonderful thing.

BD:   Do you feel that opera is for everyone?

Ziegler: Absolutely! I feel it’s for everybody. Very often, in Europe when I have a free ticket for the opera, if there’s no one coming that I know, or no family to give it to, I’ll give the ticket to the taxi driver. I have heard him say he’s always wanted to go to an opera. Music is for everybody, and I love all types of music myself. I adore jazz and pop music. I saw Sting not too long ago in California. I love music that’s alive and communicates to people today, and opera can do that. People just don’t believe it.

BD:   How can we get the audience that goes to Sting into Lyric Opera Chicago?

Ziegler: There’s the problem. You have to show them somehow, and convince them it’s not a dead art form. A wonderful production is a great way of showing that it’s not dead. Being in another language is a barrier, but it’s not a barrier that can’t be overcome. Maybe using supertitles is a wonderful way of doing it. Admittedly, some of these librettos and stories are ridiculous, but some of them are just incredibly rich and wonderful. Così Fan Tutte is a very confusing but rich opera on many different levels. You can get angry with it, you can laugh with it, or you can cry with it. I don’t think it’s just a period piece at all.

BD:   Who should wind up with who at the end?

Ziegler: Nobody should wind up with anyone. It’s four very young people who need to go out and think a little bit about their lives and where they’re going.
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BD:   It’s a two-act opera, so what happens to them in the ‘third act’?

Ziegler: They go out and try and grow up. We’re not all perfect, but this is where we are, and this is what we do. My first production was done mostly on a very small revolving stage that was an island in the middle of the sea. At the end, we stepped off of this island, sang the little finale, and then turned around to get back on the island. Then the island disappeared, so we’re all out there kind of floating in this in the middle of the ocean.

BD:   That’s an interesting dénouement!

Ziegler: That’s the way this one should end, very ambiguous. There are no answers right at that moment for those people.

BD:   Should somebody write an opera showing those characters twenty years later?

Ziegler: [Laughs] No, the audience should just think about it for themselves. It’s much better left the way it is.

BD:   Should it make an impact on the lives of the audience?

Ziegler: [Thinks a moment] An impact? I don’t know. Maybe that’s too strong of a word. I don’t want to get too philosophical here, but each person should think about it. They should take it away from the theater with them. In that way, it should make an impact. Parts might really disturb them, or make them angry, and there should be parts that were very funny and humorous. They can see the cynical side and the human side. In that way it should make an impact.

BD:   In this work, or in any opera that you do, where’s the balance between the art and the entertainment?

Ziegler: That’s a hard one because you entertain, but you can’t think about entertaining. You have to think about being completely honest and true and sincere in what you’re doing. That will communicate and entertain when it’s time to entertain, and not when there’s something serious to say. You want the audience to enjoy it, but you don’t want to spoon-feed them, or give them only sweets. You have to let them take what they can from it, because every person takes something different on a different level.

BD:   I assume that even in the same city, every audience is going to be completely different.

Ziegler: I’m sure they are, but we can’t tell that a hundred per cent. You have feelings. You certainly get vibrations from different audiences. Some are very strong vibrations, but you can’t always know exactly what people are taking away from it. I got a beautiful letter from a woman one time. I didn’t feel that it was a particularly wonderful performance, but I gave as much as I could. Anyway, she sent this lovely letter about how much it had touched her. I know all of my colleagues have similar experiences, so you can’t always know how you’re coming over the footlights, or who you’re touching, or how audiences are responding to you. Also, different cities have different feelings.

BD:   But you are aware that they’re there?

Ziegler: Oh, absolutely! It is something that is hard to describe, but you’re certainly aware of it. It can be that an audience is very quiet and doesn’t make a sound, and you wonder if they’re even out there. But you can feel that this is a concentrated silence, where they are so with you that they wouldn’t even dare swallow too loudly. You can also feel when they’re nodding off... [Both laugh]

BD:   The only thing you can do is try to grab them?

Ziegler: Sometimes you try and do that, but sometimes there’s nothing that you can do. It’s not necessarily what you’re doing, because you have to remember that there are a lot of people in an opera. It’s not just you standing out there commanding everything. You’re part of a team, and if the team isn’t working well together, then there’s nothing that you can do personally that will bring it together and make it work well.

BD:   You just retreat into your professionalism?

Ziegler: Right. You do the best job that you can in that moment, and try not to make things worse. [Both roar laughing]

* * * * *

BD:   Do you also give solo recitals?

Ziegler: Yes. It’s terribly difficult, but very rewarding. It’s a duet. You have your pianist and yourself, but there are only the two of you, and with a lot of work and a lot of good communication, you can do some incredibly wonderful things. The problem I have found so far in my career is that some of those beautifully, most incredibly wonderful moments occur in the practice room. I don’t know why it is, because it’s such an intimate art. In a recital, it is not just for entertainment. You have to bring the people with you instead of you going out to them. You really have to bring them in, and that’s a very hard thing to do. I haven’t yet found exactly the right way of doing that to satisfy myself.

BD:   But you keep working at it?

Ziegler: Yes, because I love all the German Lieder. I haven’t done too much of the French yet, but a lot of the German.

BD:   I would assume that a song recital would have to have some English, some French, maybe some Italian, as well as German.
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Ziegler: Not all, no. You can do all-German. If you’re not careful, it can get a little heavy maybe, but it’s so varied. You can go from Schoenberg, to Lowe, to Schubert... There’s such a wide variety of German Lieder.

BD:   So, it’s not just Schubert and Schumann?

Ziegler: No, absolutely not.

BD:   You mentioned Schoenberg. Do you do some new songs and new operas also?

Ziegler: Yes, but not often. There was an orchestral work that was to be done with the Philadelphia Orchestra, composed by Luciano Berio, called Epifanie. Unfortunately, it had to be canceled, but there are some other things that he’s written. But yes, I do work on modern repertoire also.

BD:   He writes things that suit your voice?

Ziegler: Yes. His wife, Cathy Berberian, was a mezzo soprano, and he wrote quite a few things for her.

BD:   Are you a proponent of new music in general, or are there just a few pieces that you will dabble in?

Ziegler: I’m certainly not a champion of new music. I can’t say that I would drop everything else, but I do support it as much as I can. All artists have a responsibility to new composers and new music. It’s part of our art to perform new music.

BD:   What advice do you have for someone who wants to compose for your voice?

Ziegler: [Laughs] Be a singer as much as you can yourself. It has to be within the realm and capability of the singer for whom you are composing, so you have to know some of those things which are possible and not possible. Some new composers really stretch the limits. It’s okay to stretch a little bit. It’s actually very good. They said Wagner was unsingable, but you have to convince the singer that you can stretch them without breaking them.

BD:   [Again, with mock horror] You mean you don’t want to be treated like a clarinet???

Ziegler: [Laughs] No, not for any length of time, because we only have one instrument. We can’t go out and buy another voice. All we have is this one.

BD:   [Musing about scientific and medical advances] They’re doing heart transplants and liver transplants...

Ziegler: Who knows? [Thinks a moment] I want Birgit Nilsson’s voice. [Much laughter] It would be interesting for a change.

BD:   It would be a whole new repertoire for you.

Ziegler: It surely would be! I’d have to find a comfortable pair of shoes... [referring to Nilsson’s joke about her shoes being the most important thing for some of her long roles!] [More laughter]

BD:   Do you feel that you are part of a lineage of singers?

Ziegler: How so?

BD:   The mezzos who have gone before you, and the creators of roles, etc.?

Ziegler: Yes, certainly. We all learn from the people who go before us, and then we find out what we have inside of ourselves to give. But surely, we all come from something. We all learn from what has gone before.

BD:   Do you have some advice for the next generation of mezzos?
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Ziegler: Oh, I have lots of advice!

BD:   Give me a few tidbits.

Ziegler: Do not to rely only on your coach or your teacher, but to use your own brain. I’m afraid that today everything goes so fast. You have to learn this role and that role, and you rely on someone else to tell you everything including the style, how to pronounce the words, how to sing the notes, and what you’re feeling at the moment. Then instead of an artist you become a mimic. Herbert von Karajan said that singers are taxis because they take him where he would like to go. I don’t want to be a taxi, and I don’t think young singers should be taxis. We all learn a lot by mimicking, but there comes a point where you have to use your own brain. You have to learn the language yourself, and you have to listen to it yourself and learn the style.

BD:   But this all comes from experience, does it not?

Ziegler: It comes from experience but there are some people who never learn it. You have to be always aware that you cannot just depend on someone else to tell you how to sing or what to sing. That’s an important bit of advice.

BD:   Are you optimistic about the whole future of opera?

Ziegler: Yes! It’s not an easy road always, but surely it’s an art form, and art never dies!

BD:   Vita brevis, ars longa. [Life is short, art is long.]

Ziegler: Right!

* * * * *

BD:   You’ve made a number of recordings. Do you sing the same in the recording studio as you do in live performances?

Ziegler: Yes. With a microphone in front of you, you can be even more concerned with the wide range of dynamics. In an opera house, the range of dynamics gets smaller because you’re trying to fill a 3,500-seat house. It means you’re still using your own voice, but the range can be much greater when you’re doing a recording. I wouldn’t say I sing differently technically-speaking. It’s just that I can use different parts of my technique.

BD:   Can you be more subtle?

Ziegler: Oh, certainly you can be more subtle, and you can use little colors that would never be heard in an opera house. ‘Subtle’ is a wonderful word.

BD:   Are you pleased with the recordings that have been issued so far?

Ziegler: Not all of them, no. Some I don’t feel have captured the colors. You can’t be pleased with everything, you know! [Laughter] We try and put things together so quickly that you don’t always have time to live with a part before you record it, and I find that terrible. I’m as guilty as anyone else for accepting that way of working, but I get very angry when I hear something that’s recorded which has nothing to say. It’s just another recording just to have another recording.

BD:   Perhaps just to have another recording may be not be worthwhile, but it can be good to get something that is never done.

Ziegler: Yes, there are some things that are never done. It was fun doing Le Roi d’Ys of Lalo. That was certainly a different type of role for me. It was a great stretch, but I enjoyed that tremendously. I would like do a recital album, but it’s not in demand. Lieder is not so much in demand, and recording companies shy away from that a little bit. But we will see... I’m a great fan of Arleen Augér. She has done some wonderful things.

BD:   She was a wonderful artist.

Ziegler: She was an incredible artist. Also, Frederica von Stade. Those are two singers that I admire greatly, especially in their recital work. I would love to emulate them. They are great artists who have something to say, and who communicate beautifully in that art form.

BD:   Thank you very much for spending the time with me today. I appreciate it very much.

Ziegler: You’re welcome! Actually, it made me feel a lot better.

BD:   Good. I’m glad to be therapeutic. [Both laugh]

Ziegler: Well, you are. You have a wonderful way of asking very interesting questions.

See my interviews with Ann Murray, and Gösta Winbergh

Note: this is the version (made by Massenet) where the title character is a baritone!
See my interviews with Archie Drake, and Marie McLaughlin.
Also, a brief biography (with photo) of Francesca Zambello is with my interview of John DeMain.

See my interviews with Deborah Voigt, Ramon Vargas, and Bernadette Manca di Nissa

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See my interview with Janice Taylor

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 12, 1993. Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following year, and again in 1995 and 1996. 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.