A Singer’s Life Pt13

After writing about two giant male singers of the 20th Century in Part 12, I turn today to two wonderful and iconic sopranos, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Galina Vishnevskaya. 

I have written earlier about my experience with Schwarzkopf in the 1980 Masterclasses at the Edinburgh Festival, broadcast the following year, and again in 1982. She was an amazing singer, with a long and illustrious career, specialising in Mozart and Strauss, who came in for a lot of unnecessary criticism from some quarters. Her voice was idiosyncratic and didn’t please everyone. I must say that I find all the really great singers to have had individual voice timbres which immediately identify them, but I don’t see this as a bad thing; I suppose as a singer myself with a very individual sound, I would say that, but I feel it is nonetheless true. Without being too nostalgic, I do find that many modern singers, even the best of them, sound similar to each other and display few quirks. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I’m not sure. 

Schwarzkopf was also hampered in some people’s eyes by not having spoken out more against the Nazis (the perennial question – what would you have done?) and also that she was married to Walter Legge, the famous record producer. It was hinted, not too subtly, that he favoured his wife in many recording choices, although the fact that she was one of the finest sopranos of her, or any other, generation is often overlooked. People sneer at her “Desert Island Discs” choice of all her own recordings, but I am reliably informed that she thought she was meant to choose from her own discs. She was also criticised in my masterclasses for never allowing the students to sing all their songs and arias, but again, I know for a fact that she was always conscious of the time factor and that we only had 40 minutes for every session, and she wanted to use that time to the maximum. She was always interested in helping the students to learn, and not either in showing herself off or in our showing off. She said we could sing all our music in a concert if we wanted, but this was a learning session and not a recital. As an example of a different style, I cite a masterclass I took part in at the Guildhall with the famous Welsh baritone, Geraint Evans. We had been prepared beforehand by the staff at the School and felt we were ready. What we did not know, until later, was that we had been prepared to make elementary mistakes that Evans could correct and get a laugh! I was not impressed! 

I attach an example of Schwarzkopf singing the beautiful Richard Strauss song “Morgen”. Sit back and luxuriate in the gorgeous splendour of her voice, but also in the subtleties of interpretation. I also recommend on YouTube the magnificent film she made of Der Rosenkavalier singing the Marschallin, conducted by Karajan. She is miming to her own dubbed voice for filmic purposes, but you get an idea of the depth of her interpretation of this complex woman. 

One final little observation: all the early photographs of her show the most elegant woman, a true diva of extraordinary beauty. I loved the fact that for our masterclass, she wore an ill-fitting, too short dress and looked for all the world like an ordinary Hausfrau! She also had a wide gap between her two front teeth, which were never seen in her heyday, but which added to her charm on this occasion.

I first met Galina Vishnevskaya in the late 70s at the Britten-Pears School at Snape. She and her husband, the famous cellist and conductor, Mstislav Rostropovich, had become friends with Britten and Pears during the 60s, Ben having written the War Requiem and some songs for her, and cello music for Slava, and they had purchased a house in Aldeburgh in which they spent some time after exile from the Soviet Union. The couple were without a shadow of doubt two of the most important musicians of the 20th Century. Her autobiography, written clearly by her own hand, is one of the great artistic life stories ever written, describing her ghastly experiences during the Nazi siege of Leningrad and then the overwhelmingly difficult period of life after the war in the Stalin era and afterwards as a star of the Bolshoi and hoped-for plaything of the Kremlin. Her marriage to Slava, their friendship with Shostakovich, the fallout of their support for Solzhenitsyn, and their eventual exile to the west are described in raw and searing prose which I recommend to everyone to read. My copy, with Galina’s lovely inscription to me, is a treasured book on my shelves. 

I was very keen to sing Russian music as I felt it suited my voice and when the chance came to spend two weeks at Snape with her in masterclasses, I jumped at the opportunity. The language is not easy and I had worked hard to prepare for the classes, so I turned up at Snape excited but rather terrified. We were introduced to Galina and her interpreter Dmitri Makarov, who at that time was the Russian coach at Covent Garden, and we had to tell her what we had prepared. I sat in the room, watching as she eviscerated a couple of luckless English girl students who she was convinced should never be singing Russian music in the first place. Soon it was my turn and she asked me what I had brought to sing. I mentioned one or two songs - “No, too difficult”, then another “No”, then Mussorgsky’s ‘Songs and Dances of Death’, the main work of four songs which I had been studying for months, “No, far too difficult!” Hmm, not much left.  Rimsky Korsakov’s “Prorok” (The Prophet)? “What else?”  Er, that’s it!  “Vigh you vant to sing zese deeficult songs?” There was nothing for it but to say “Look, let me have a go and sing Prorok, and see what you think?” You may assume, correctly, that the reason I am writing about Galina now is that she said “OK, not bad. Ve vork together”. Fortunately, by the end of the fortnight, I was “Beeg Brian, my friend” and I had had the most fabulous lessons of my life. The combination of Galina, yelling and waving about in Russian (she actually spoke much better English than she pretended) and Dmitri’s civilised and elegant “Madame Vishnevskaya suggests you sing it this way” was an absolute revelation, and also lots of fun. I am not sure that all the students were so happy, but I had a great time.  

Later we worked again on the Mussorgsky as well as some songs by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, and eventually appeared on the same stage together with Slava conducting in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. Many years later, I was appearing at the Beaulieu-sur-Mer Festival in the south of France, where Galina was due to appear as the head of her music school in Paris and was looking forward enormously to meeting her again. Unfortunately, at the last minute, it was announced that Galina would not be attending because she and Slava had been invited that day to dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris with President Mitterand  As excuses go, I have to say it was pretty impressive. Sadly, I never saw her again as Slava died in 2007 and she herself in 2012. However, I have the most wonderful memories of her, and I attach a clip of her singing “Where are you, little star” by Mussorgsky. I also recommend listening to some of her outstanding recordings of Russian music, of Liu in Puccini’s Turandot with Nilsson and Corelli and to the Britten War Requiem. She was a true diva in every sense but also a wonderful human being! 

Before I finish this part, I would like to draw attention to one great singer I never worked with. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was the finest singer I ever heard live. I was lucky enough to hear his Winterreise with Daniel Barenboim, his Count in The Marriage of Figaro and his baritone solo in Brahms’ German Requiem, all at the Edinburgh Festival in the 70s. He was a surprisingly shy figure, who never signed autographs after performances and for most of his career, never taught. However, after I won the Decca Kathleen Ferrier Prize in 1981, with a panel of Janet Baker, John Shirley-Quirk and Gerald Moore (impressive line-up, don’t you think?), I plucked up my courage to ask Gerald, who famously had accompanied all the greats from Chaliapin and Hotter to Fischer-Dieskau, if he might intercede for me to have a lesson with my idol. He very kindly consented, and I sat back hoping I might receive word to go to Berlin. I got a very nice letter back from Mr Fischer-Dieskau’s secretary, informing me very politely that he had received a letter from Mr Moore, but that unfortunately, Mr Fischer-Dieskau was still too busy with his schedule to give solo lessons, but that I might like to arrange to come to a masterclass that he was giving later that year. Sadly, that coincided with my trip to Venice which I described in Part 2, and I never got to work with DFD. He did start to teach privately a few years later, but I was by that time beginning to establish my own career and it never happened. Nonetheless, I cherish the wonderful performances I heard in Edinburgh and later in London, and there is a myriad of recordings to listen to.