Susan Graham sings Barber

This is KBACH’s First Take and I'm Michael Keelan. I'm talking with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham about the new recording of Samuel Barber's opera, Vanessa. That's with the National Symphony and she sings the part of the Baroness. Moreover, the Santa Fe Opera is producing Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin this summer and she'll be singing the part of Madame Larina. Thanks for talking about these two parts today on first take.

Well, it's such a pleasure.

The two parts actually have some things in common, being mothers of daughters within an aristocratic setting, and they're both characters who impart wisdom with varying degrees of tact. And they both have extensive backstories. So, I wanted to ask you, without there being a right answer, is the backstory of a character important to you?

Oh, sure, you know. That's that's some of the fun the fun of creating a character and, you know, sometimes you're just making it up because there's nothing to really support it. But, you know, I like to think I'm a I'm a great student of human behavior anyway. So, when it comes to a character, I like to I like to take them apart and see what makes them tick. I like to do that with people too. Real people, living people, as well as fictional ones.

Menotti was the librettist of Vanessa, the opera, and he specifically said about the Baroness that she's the one who's really strong, she represents the affirmation of life and order, and she speaks only to those who accept life for what it is. Do you find her to be a sympathetic character and do you try to sympathize with your characters or is acting them quite enough?

Sometimes it's a pitfall that that we fall into as actors and singing actors that we we try to like our characters. We try to find something redeeming about them even if sometimes they're not the most pleasant personalities. But in the case of the Baroness, I think that she I think she really does have good intentions and I think that she has very particular standards about how a life should be lived. And I think that she's been deeply disappointed by her daughter Vanessa, but she sees a chance for redemption in Erika, her granddaughter. And, you know, I played the part of Erika in the very very beginning of my career at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in a really landmark production of Vanessa. And playing Erika was was such a a thrill because she was a, you know, she's a young girl. I was a lot younger back then. And I really sort of connected with her in a way. And the the woman who played the Baroness, the part that I'm singing now, was Elaine Bonazzi, who was the most fantastic singing actress, and she just brought such authority and sort of, you know, older woman wisdom to the role. And I was actually kind of scared of her, on stage and off. But she was she was fantastic fantastic artist. I cannot try to imitate her, but having lived, you know, almost 40 years since then, you know, I have I I've had my own life journey to help define who the Baroness might be.

Right, and those two parts, Erika and the Baroness, were both sung by Rosalind Elias, who created the role of Erika. So, you're following in her footsteps, and moreover, those characters interact with one another in the opera. So, what feels different in those scenes singing the other part from a musical or dramatic standpoint?

Well, when we were doing the concerts and recording, this the this recent recording that you're talking about, the the incredible J'Nai Bridges was Erika. And we not only that, but we also shared a dressing room. So, we spent hours talking about the part, and talking about who Erika is, and the relationship between Erika and the grandmother. And because I adore J'Nai so much, we had a very natural, you know, familial rapport between each other and and I think that that really does come across on the recording, and certainly in our live performances.

This is an opera where the ages of the characters and the passing of time are really central to the plot. Do you think that the standpoint from which Barber and Menotti addressed those themes was that of middle-aged people specifically, which is what they were at the time, or do you have any observations about how how those questions are dealt with in the opera?

Oh, it is certainly it is certainly a survey of aging. I mean, because look at the look at the character of the old doctor. You know, he's the he's the grand philosopher of the group, and, you know, sung so beautifully by Thomas Hampson on our recording. But the the old doctor and the Baroness are the sort of pillars of wisdom who impart, you know, direction to all of these foolish, foolish young people. And I think I think that probably, you know, Sam Barber and and Gian Carlo, I think they probably had a little bit of that in mind.

That's not the only opera with that theme that you've sung. Der Rosenkavalier deals with that also.

A lot of them do as a matter of fact. Passing of time is a recurring theme.

Barber wrote at the time that he was working on Vanessa that "The distance between one note and another in the human voice is enormous, thousands of light-years, just between E and F. Most composers today do not know this." What do you think he was talking about?

He could have been talking about emotional color, the the range of expression from note to note is is what I would assume he's talking about because, obviously, from a from a scientific frequency standpoint, they're not that far apart. But certainly, you know, there are composers who really believed, Mozart among them, that every every key has its own color and mood. D major is different from G major and E major, you know, that each one has its own range of storytelling within a a chosen key. And, you know, maybe that's what he was talking about. Certainly Barber's writing is is full of melodic expression and lyrical expression. You know, I was singing Erika, I think I was preparing Erika, the same year that I won the Met competition, 1988, how about that? And I sang Erika's famous mezzo-soprano anthem, "Must the winter come so soon," on as my Met competition piece, and I won with that aria. And so it's always been such a special special piece to me. And I remember I remember performing it in the context of the opera and the performances in Saint Louis, that I was I was kneeling on the stage and I was supposedly looking out the window into a snowy landscape and and singing about the coming of of winter and the, you know, it just it has a cold starkness to it. And I'll never forget it. That music really sticks with you.

Very poetical image. And that also is a good transition into talking about Eugene Onegin, which is going to be in Santa Fe this summer. You mentioned the significance of the place in which you were singing the Barber a moment ago, and New Mexico is your home state, where you're singing this summer. You've sung there for a very long time at Santa Fe Opera. Does your history with the place make itself felt when singing there? And maybe you've already answered that a bit.

Oh, 100%. I mean, Santa Fe is, I've always said, Santa Fe is my heart home. You know, I was born in New Mexico, I was born in Roswell, and lived there until I was like 12 years old, and then moved just across the state line to West Texas, so, which is, you know, not so dissimilar. But my dream was always to sing at the Santa Fe Opera. And, ironically, and I tell this to the new class of apprentices every year, I auditioned twice for the the esteemed apprentice program at the Santa Fe Opera, and I was rejected twice! So, I always tell them, "You're ahead of where I was when I was your age." But I did I was, luckily, invited back a couple of years later to start doing principal roles, and I think I've done something like 13 or 14 operas there over the years. It's my happy place, Santa Fe. And I bought a house there in the early 2000s, so, you know, it feels like home. I have my little favorite haunts that I've, you know, been developing over the last 40 years, you know. I mean, I I have my favorite restaurants and I love I love the Plaza. I mean, I I love any place that I can see a sunset because the sunsets are just magical. The city has changed a lot since I first started going there, but it's still it's still, for me, just like another world, and I love it.

The new recording is Barber's Vanessa with my guest Susan Graham, who also sings Madame Larina in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin this summer at Santa Fe Opera. Thanks very much for talking with us on First Take today.

Susan It's a pleasure, Michael. Thank you for having me.