December 8, 2022 • 36 mins
Called “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation,” she is currently getting raves in the role of Virginia Woolf in the Metropolitan Opera’s world premiere of The Hours. Hear how she went from an unknown who was told she had no talent to singing on the world’s most important stages—and the life lessons she learned along the way.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Always for me, music connected me to um something divine.
You know. I don't always know how to describe it,
but that's the word. I keep coming back to, something
much bigger than myself and something that feels elevated from
you know, the cement Jungles that we traveling. That was
(00:26):
opera star Joyce de Donado. The New York Times is
called this mezzo soprano perhaps the most potent female singer
of her generation, and her dedication to making a deep
human connection through music is evident in her latest role
as Virginia Wolf in the Metropolitan Opera's world premiere of
(00:49):
The Hours. Joyce's performance has been acclaimed as outstanding, confident, fresh, subtle,
and sonorous. I'm Alan ververe In. This is Seneca's on
women to hear. We're bringing you one hundred of the
world's most inspiring and history making women. You need to hear.
(01:14):
Joyce de Donado has three Grammy Awards to her name,
as well as many other honors. She has sung on
stages from the met to Carnegie Hall, from Barcelona to Berlin.
Not bad for a girl from prairie village, Kansas who
was told starting out that she didn't have much talent,
(01:36):
And here's some great news for her fans. Even if
you can't get to New York City to hear joy sing,
you can see her this coming Saturday, December tenth, when
The Hours will be broadcast live in theaters. Go to
the Met's website met Opera dot org for the details. Now,
(01:59):
let's and then learn why Joyce de Donado is one
of Seneca's One Women to Hear. I'm speaking today to
award winning global opera star Joyce de Donado. Welcome, Joyce.
It's a thrill to have you with us. Thank you.
I'm very honored to be here. Now. I know you're
(02:20):
appearing in the world premiere of The Hours in New
York City and you're singing the part of Virginia Wolf. Now,
how terrific is that? Can you tell us a little
bit about what that means to you? Where do I start?
How much time do we have? As much as you need?
Superb um it is. There are so many different elements
(02:43):
about this experience that are incredibly rich. One is the
very baseline of doing a world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.
It's they haven't given very many world premiers, and they're
very illustrious history, and so it's a very honorous situation.
It's not only a world premiere of a new opera,
(03:05):
but it's also building on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel
on an Academy Award winning film. There's a lot of
history to this, and you mix into the fact that
I'm playing such a Titanic woman of a role very complex,
had a huge impact on the arts, on feminism on
(03:28):
the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf. That alone is another immense
element to this. But what I'm finding perhaps the most
powerful part of this is the timing of it. I
think this is a story that resonated quite strongly, you know,
in the late nineties when the novel was written, and
(03:50):
then early two thousand when the film came out. But
we've just spent two and a half years in isolation.
We've spent the last two and a half years where
so many of our loved ones were The issues of
mental health really can screaming to the surface. We've had
(04:10):
a pandemic with a new virus, you know, and certainly
the theme of AIDS is very present in the hours,
and so the timing of re encountering this story I
think is very powerful and it's coming through the power
of music. The words in the novel were very strong,
(04:34):
the what's the word? The impact of the film was
also very strong with these great actresses, and there's there
was a kind of distance that pulled you into that story.
But the difference with the operas that we have the
music to just fill in the emotional impact of these
immense stories of these ladies. So that's a there's a
(04:54):
lot on my mind with it. So it's hard to
pinpoint exactly with your question, but it's a it feels
like a great honor, and it feels like there's a
lot of responsibility to do this story justice at this
moment in time. Well, you said that so well, and
I can understand why it feels like a great honor.
I think the other interesting aspect of the Hours is
(05:17):
that you're appearing with Renee Fleming and Kelly O'Hara, two
other iconic singers, needless to say, and I wonder what
happens when you get three divas together and what is
your working relationship like with the other two. It's been
extraordinary and and I have to say, the way this
(05:40):
piece has emerged is it feels like a huge ensemble piece.
So I know that we're the ones on the poster
and in the advertisements, and of course it's the story
of these three women, but we have eighteen characters in total,
and we have a huge chorus that essentially like a
Greek chorus treatment of it, and in many ways they're
(06:02):
the inner voices of these three women. And we've added
a dance ensemble as well that that becomes the link
between these three stories. And it was set up from
day one that this was really going to be a
community effort to bring this to life. So that's important
(06:23):
to understand the umbrella. But to go into the heart
of your question, I mean, I think it was paramount
that that you have equal and you have three women
that bring different strengths to these stories, but also bring
(06:44):
an incredible gravitas to each one of the roles that
they're singing, because they are three equal stories that merge
into want the end. And so I think it was
really quite brilliant of Peter Gelp and the met to
really cast this in a daring kind of way, but
in a way that you're bringing not just actresses or singers,
(07:07):
but artists into these roles. And what I have very
happily found throughout my career is that the people that
rise to the very top of the industry are usually
the hardest workers and the ones that leave a lot
of space to learn and grow through their humility and
(07:27):
their generosity as performers. And that's what I have found
with the three of us in this room is we
want everybody to be extraordinary so that the impact of
the story is not just about a diva performance. It's
about what we really bring to life into the heart
(07:48):
of the listener. It's been a total pleasure to summarize,
you know, it's just an inspiration to hear you talk
about it in those terms. You know, was thinking about
what you said. It's not just three stories, it's three artists,
and I might add amazing artists. So what a what
(08:09):
a powerful production? How did all of this start? Let's
talk about Joyce a little bit. You grew up in
Prairie Village, Kansas, and you are now on the stage
of the Metropolitan Opera, and I wonder, and I'm sure
our listeners are so interested in knowing as well, what
(08:29):
was your childhood like? Did you spend your young years
just singing all the time, or you know what brought
you to these great roles and the one that we're
you've just described so brilliantly and vividly. I had a
in many ways an idyllic childhood and in many ways
a really challenging childhood. It was a very musical family,
(08:55):
very musical and all kinds of genres that definitely classical
music by um the heart of it, but older sisters
that listened to Broadway music and my older brother listening
to his hard rock and roll a C. D. C Um.
And I was a child of the eighties, so I
was very much in the pop culture of of Madonna
(09:18):
and Michael Jackson, and I lived for that, and I
had the blessing of of having an extraordinary choral experience
was when I was in high school, and so I
was very clear at eighteen, very clear that I was
going to become a high school music teacher, trying to
be the cool one and saving kids lives because it
(09:40):
was that's what it felt like it did for me.
I um, you know, I was the sixth of seven
kids Irish Catholic family, and by the time I was
in high school, you know, my parents were tired, my
parents were tired, and I was. I think me and
my little brother were sort of bles defend for ourselves,
(10:01):
and you know, we had a lot of financial difficulties,
and there was a lot of pressure for me to
help my parents, to sort of parent them. Actually, when
I was a teenager and the high school musical and
the choral experiences were the place where I just got
(10:22):
to be me and I got to really dream and
um fulfill things just for my sake. And I wanted
to give that experience to other kids. And so I
went to Wichita State to be a music teacher. And
you know, I was paying my own way through college,
(10:42):
and so I could get some extra scholarship money if
I joined the opera chorus. And I thought, that's an
extra two a year a semester, which is now is
sort of unheard of, but I needed that back then.
And uh, and I got into the opera and I
just my world exploded. Not from having watched it. I
(11:04):
didn't watch an opera and think I have to do that.
Mind came from the inside because I started to study
this music and sing it and it was such a
culmination of everything I wanted to be. I had to
address musicality, singing, the theatrics of becoming and losing myself
(11:27):
in another character, the human psychology, the human existence, which
is what Opera deals with, the huge emotions, and always,
for me, music connected me to something divine. You know,
I don't always know how to describe it, but that's
(11:48):
the word. I keep coming back to, something much bigger
than myself and something that feels elevated from you know,
the cement jungles that we travel in, and I just
I decided to go for it. And my journey was
a very slow burn. I was not a bona fide
(12:10):
star from the beginning, by any stretch of the imagination.
I didn't really start coming into my own until my
early thirties. But I kept working, and I kept with
a certain amount of determination because I felt there was
something inside that I was destined to express. Well, you
said it didn't come quickly, and it was a lot
(12:31):
of work that you engaged in to get where you are.
But you've been called perhaps the most potent female singer
of your generation, with a voice that is twenty four
carrot gold. Now that's high high praise. What did it
take to get that voice? You talked about it not
coming quickly, obviously, and how do you maintain it? You know,
(12:55):
it's so interesting to hear people of your extraordinary caliber
are such extraordinary performers in music. How do you project
your personality through your singing, because just listening to you,
you have a very powerful personality. M M. Yeah. Well,
and maybe that's why I chose opera, because opera is
(13:17):
sort of larger than life, you know. I, um, well,
the first part of your question. I've always looked at
myself as things that came very easily to me were
musicianship and theatricality. I was at home the first moment
I stepped onto the stage. Um. I think my first
(13:39):
play was Harvey. In high school, I played Vita Louise Simmons,
and uh my, there was one moment I had to
cry on stage. And my older brother continues to take
credit for that because he used to torture me and
I learned how to fake cry to get him off
of me because he was trying to do, I don't know,
tickle me or something, and uh that sounds more nefarious
(14:01):
than it was. But I did learn how to fake cry,
and he claims credit for that, but the actual vocality
is something I had to work on UM and I
continue to work on it actually because what I need
from my instrument, from my voice, is I need it
(14:23):
to be absolutely at my back and call for what
I want to express emotionally and musically in theatricality theatrically,
and so that's that takes a lot of technical work,
very much like athletes that are trying to hone their
golf swing or tennis stars that are, you know, working
(14:45):
on the tiny refinements to their serve to get that
one extra mile per hour UM. And that's the kind
of work I continue to do vocally. But I that
really has been my end, the sort of engine behind
what I do, because I've seen firsthand how transformative a
(15:07):
huge musical experiences for the human spirit. Maybe it's somebody
who is discovering their voice for the first time, it's
somebody who's listening to it and they're feeling things that
the world doesn't normally allow them to feel in the
course of their day. And I know that it's a
(15:29):
force that can be extremely potent and extremely healing and
extremely transformative. And so that's why I continue to work,
and that's why I choose my projects or create my
projects today so that they invite people to go deeper
then normal things in a modern society require of people.
(15:54):
And I think it's it's genuinely where people want to
go if they feel safe. They want to take that
trip inside if they feel safe. And that's what music
and the kind of music that you are engaged and
can do to the human spirit lifted up in ways
that it can sore. And you talk about that so deeply,
(16:17):
you know. I heard you talk about how this didn't
come easily and how you have to work to keep
your voice in good form. And I know you've also
encountered many stumbling blocks in your career. At one time,
you were told you didn't have much talent, which I
find extremely hard to believe having listened to you and
(16:40):
knowing of your extraordinary abilities. You couldn't get management until
you were twenty nine. So how did you keep going?
That's a good question, you know. I um, I'm not
sure how much of it was me and how much
of it was a stubborn this and a frustration. That
(17:03):
comment came to me when I was twenty six years
old and I was on a At that point, I
was starting to be on a track um a young
artist track in the opera world, which means it's it's
like the top apprenticeship before you land the big lawyer
job or something. It's it it's you're not quite over
(17:25):
the hump, but you're nearly there, and you're on a
track to get there. And of course it devastated me
when that comment came in, But as I look back
on it now, I know why it was made and
it wasn't necessarily in error. It wasn't very kindly stated,
but it was true because I I wasn't yet at
(17:48):
a place where I had released a lot of my
walls and a lot of my um the barriers I
had constructed to protect myself. I mean, I'll tell you,
there is very few things in life that are as
frightening as opening up your voice without a microphone and
(18:09):
singing masterpieces in front of people live. You know. I
we sing Mozart and Strauss and and shoe Berts and
Rossini and handle and it's like a painter saying, here,
paint this Rembrandt live in front of us. If they're
masterpieces that require great care and attention and reverence, but
(18:34):
at the same time we have to make them feel
as if they're being created on the spot with our voice,
with all its limitations, with all its glory, with all
its instabilities, with all its strength, everything, And we know
this when we speak. If you're asked to get up
(18:55):
and speak in front of a crowd, your voice betrays
every insecurity you have, every fear, every shape, every quiver,
every dryness, every emotion. If you start to become emotional,
your voice quivers. It is such a naked state of existence.
And so then you you are bringing these masterpieces to
(19:18):
life with your voice, and people are there to listen.
And it is an extreme state of vulnerability, and at
the same time it requires complete and total abandoned and
strength because you've got to project over seventy piece orchestra
into it four thousand seat house. So it's this incredible
(19:42):
battle between vulnerability and strength, between embracing where you are
on that day, whether you rested well or had a
good meal, or you might be a little under the
weather um and just putting yourself out there. And that
is a long process to learn as a human being.
(20:05):
I knew my music, I was technically proficient, but there
was this personal barrier that was inhibiting my total expression.
To come through, and that's why people were listening. Yeah
the voice is fine, Yeah, her languages are good. She's fine,
but there's not much talent. So I understand where that
(20:27):
comment came from. And I continued to work vocally, but
I really believe that the real work was at a
deeply personal level for me and continues to be. Senecas
one hundred women to hear will be back after this
(20:47):
short break. You know, Joyce, that was so fascinating and
as I've been listening to you, you have this ability
to fully understand what your work can do for someone
(21:10):
sitting there in the audience, what it does to the
human soul, if you will. And I know you gave
this extraordinary commencement speech at Juilliard where some of that
came out, I think, and one of the messages that
you had for the graduates was something very moving. You
are here to serve humanity. What does that mean for
(21:35):
a classical singer? Why did you say that? And how
do you understand that? So? I said it for two reasons, um.
The first is that I know that the road in
classical music, in any arts, really, but certainly in classical music,
is quite tumultuous. It's incredibly demanding and difficult and all
(21:59):
kinds of challenges and trying to get your music out
in front of the public. It's even compounded now after
you know COVID, it's even more treacherous in a way.
But I wanted. I think one of the big issues
I see in particular with singers and the singers that
I don't tend to respond to emotionally, are the ones
(22:21):
who make it all about themselves and are really trying
to ultimately, I think, and I understand this. I'm sure
I went through this myself. They're looking for love. They're
looking for the audience to tell them that they are
good or even extraordinary, and that they are loved. And
so they come onto the stage and their mindset is
(22:45):
all about them and how they sound and how they look,
and they're looking to the audience. They're doing these things
to garner huge reception from the audience to say tell
me I'm great. And I understand it. It's attempting, understandable thing,
especially when you're younger. That's not my kind of performer,
(23:07):
and I don't think you have a right to do that.
I consider the stage is really a sacred place where again,
you're dealing with masterpieces, and you're dealing with the extremity
of the human condition, and especially in we need a
(23:28):
space where we can explore that safely and where we
can encourage people to aspire to what classical music can inspire,
which is beauty, truth, participating in something that is bigger
than yourself, that requires other people to get out of
(23:51):
your ego driven self. And what I found in my
own journey is the more I concentrated on what I
intended to give to the public, the easier it became
for me, because it wasn't so dependent on whether I
was liked or not, or whether I was good or not.
But if I made them feel something, or even intended
(24:15):
to make them feel something, whether it was a great
show or not, I felt good about what I did.
And so I wanted to encourage that class and the
other artists that go back and revisit that speech to say, actually,
it's a good thing for you to get out of
your own way and out of yourself and not make
(24:35):
it about you. When you get onto the stage, every
moment before that has to be about you. You have
to be narcissistic in the way you prepare your voice,
and the way you study and the way you take
care of your body. It takes a lot of personal attention,
but all for the fact that when that curtain comes up,
you are in service of the message of the beauty
(24:57):
of the music and at this same time, so I
wanted to give them a gift. But the second part
of that is that I just really feel like it's
what the world needs. What the world needs now is
I mean, it's it's a little cheesy, but I really
believe it. You know, there are very few places left
(25:21):
where people are invited in to feel something as a community,
because an opera is still a community, communal experience of
two thousand people, four thousand people, and there is power
when people sit side by side from all different backgrounds,
(25:42):
all different categories, and they agree to pretend for a
couple of hours and be carried away, usually around a
story about love or loss, and they collectively sort of
hold each other's hands through that. I want more of
that in the world, and so that that is what
I was trying to charge those students with as well.
(26:03):
Beautiful and we all want to see more of that
in the world. Needless to say, you know, the statement
about you are here to serve humanity also reflects how
you proceed in your own life, not just as the
professional artists that you are, but I know you teach music,
you do prison outreach. You're involved with something called the
(26:27):
Lullaby Project. Can you tell us about that and what
inspired it? Oh, this is a fantastic project. UM. That
was UM that I encountered through Carnegie Hall and their
Wild Institute of Music. They do such tremendous work going
into the community and it's sort of I love it
(26:49):
because it turns that question of how do you get
to Carnegie Hall practice practice practice? It turns that question
into how can Carnegie Hall get to you and not
just the people that can afford opening night gala tickets,
but to the people of the community here and beyond.
And this is one of many programs that they have
(27:11):
built up that I just am deeply inspired by. It
was the idea of looking at different challenges in society
and say, Okay, how can Carnegie Hall serve or help
and and to ameliorate this situation through music. And they
were looking at the issue of teenage moms single teenage moms,
(27:35):
and there was science around the issue that single teen
moms have a much more challenging problem to connect and
bond with their children for all the imaginable reasons. Financial,
they're being shunned by society, stressed, they're also very young,
(27:56):
and they came up with this idea of helping these
single moms write a lullaby for their child. And so
they bring in a teaching assistant UM who will talk
with the mom, get the mom to start sharing her
feelings about her child, which turns in quite quickly to lyrics,
(28:19):
and then they work all in the space of a
couple hours. UM. By the time you leave that session,
you have a song, and they get the song recorded,
sometimes with the mother herself and sometimes with the performing artist,
and this becomes their lullaby to their child. It's deeply personal.
(28:41):
It immediately bonds the mother and the child, and you
have the inherent tranquility, comforting world of a lullaby that
is centuries old, um. But it becomes deeply personal and
it's been an incredible gift in life to have participated
(29:02):
in it. Along the way you see women there is
steam skyrockets. There. Esteem as a mother, but also as
a human being in the world skyrockets. That child has
a more deeper connection to the mother. And it sounds
(29:22):
like a very sort of superficial and endeavor, and it's
quite the opposite. It is literally transformative and it's incredible.
And this now, this project has been blueprinted and it
is across the world. Now I've done some work with
a refugee camp in Greece through El Systema Greece, and
(29:45):
they gave a concert a year ago, working with the
mothers in this refugee camp writing lullabies in all different
languages for their children. And they in this refugee camp
in Scar Scaramada's refugee camp Athens, they gave a concert.
The mothers gave a concert of their lowabye songs. So
(30:07):
this is why I'm a believer. Oh my god, anybody
should be a believer after listening to that, and this
project should be taken to scale all over the world.
It sounds just extraordinary, really profound. It is, and I'll
tell you it's the best investment any organization could make.
(30:29):
It's clear because that's the fundamental mother to child. It's
the foundation for everything. It ain't rocket science. And as
you explained, what it does for the mother's self esteem
and her her mother ring and so much more. You know,
as happens far too often in this process, we're really
(30:52):
out of time. But I want to ask you one
more question, because you're clearly such a deep person, uh,
and we can hear in this conversation how you see
the work that you do. There's so much turmoil in
our world today, there's so much upset and people are
(31:13):
struggling to have hope. Really, what gives you hope? What
makes you optimistic? You know, there are a lot of
places I turned to for hope. At the start of
the lockdown two and a half years ago, it was
springtime and I went home and I was able to
(31:37):
actually be home for the first time where I was
watching first time in my adult life twenty some years now.
I was watching the flowers pop out of the ground
that I had planted, and I thought, you know, these
flowers are just doing what they do. They don't know
about a pandemic. They don't know about insurrections, they don't
(32:01):
know about division, they don't know about economic disparity. They're
just doing what they do. And I found that to
be an incredible source of hope about the natural world,
that these turmoils human turmoils rise and fall, rise and fall,
and they cycle around both as a society and in
(32:23):
your own life, and yet that natural world just keeps going.
I find hope in children and working with them and
seeing their incredible creative force that is so present when
they're young, until society just sanitizes it out of them
in many cases, thankfully not all cases. But that gives
(32:47):
me incredible hope. But I think the reason I have
hope is I've decided to have it. I've made a
decision not to become cynical, because I think cynicism is
a death knell and I don't want that. I used
to live with rose colored glasses all the time and
(33:08):
sort of, you know, put on blinders, and I don't
do that anymore. I'm aware of what's happening in a
more profound way than I used to be. But I
still every day I decide to be hopeful. And the
minute that decision is made, I can see hope around
me in the flower, in the child, in the smile
from a stranger, in the conversation with the taxi driver
(33:32):
where the ice melts. But I think for me, the
critical point is that decision I refuse to become cynical.
I won't allow that of myself. What an extraordinary way
to end an extraordinary conversation. Thank you so much, Joyce
de Donado, for who you are and for the magic
(33:55):
and miracle of your music. Thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank you. It's really my honor.
Thank you. What a profound and moving conversation. Joyce de
Donado's words will stay with me for a long time.
Here are three things I took from that conversation. First,
(34:18):
Joyce shows the power of persistence. She admits that she
didn't really come into her own as a singer until
her early thirties, but she was determined to master her
art because, she says, I felt there was something inside
that I was destined to express. Second, as she reminds us,
(34:41):
we are all put on this earth to serve, and
we each have to find our own unique way to
do that. As an opera singer, Joyce saw she could
help others by working with the Lullaby Project, for which
single mothers create and record songs for the of children. Finally,
(35:03):
let's emulate Joyce's decision to choose to be hopeful. Cynicism,
she says, is a death knell, but we can't live
with blinders on either. Instead, we can be aware of
what's happening around us every day and then take the
path of optimism and action. Joyce de Donado appears in
(35:27):
The Hours at the Met through December. If you can't
make it to New York City, catch the live broadcast
of The Hours in Theaters on December ten. Get more
information at met Opera dot org, and tune in next
time to care about our next featured woman and discover
(35:50):
why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear. Seneca's one
hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca
Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from
founding partner P and G. Have a great day, m HM.
Always for me, music connected me to um something divine.
You know. I don't always know how to describe it,
but that's the word. I keep coming back to, something
much bigger than myself and something that feels elevated from
you know, the cement Jungles that we traveling. That was
(00:26):
opera star Joyce de Donado. The New York Times is
called this mezzo soprano perhaps the most potent female singer
of her generation, and her dedication to making a deep
human connection through music is evident in her latest role
as Virginia Wolf in the Metropolitan Opera's world premiere of
(00:49):
The Hours. Joyce's performance has been acclaimed as outstanding, confident, fresh, subtle,
and sonorous. I'm Alan ververe In. This is Seneca's on
women to hear. We're bringing you one hundred of the
world's most inspiring and history making women. You need to hear.
(01:14):
Joyce de Donado has three Grammy Awards to her name,
as well as many other honors. She has sung on
stages from the met to Carnegie Hall, from Barcelona to Berlin.
Not bad for a girl from prairie village, Kansas who
was told starting out that she didn't have much talent,
(01:36):
And here's some great news for her fans. Even if
you can't get to New York City to hear joy sing,
you can see her this coming Saturday, December tenth, when
The Hours will be broadcast live in theaters. Go to
the Met's website met Opera dot org for the details. Now,
(01:59):
let's and then learn why Joyce de Donado is one
of Seneca's One Women to Hear. I'm speaking today to
award winning global opera star Joyce de Donado. Welcome, Joyce.
It's a thrill to have you with us. Thank you.
I'm very honored to be here. Now. I know you're
(02:20):
appearing in the world premiere of The Hours in New
York City and you're singing the part of Virginia Wolf. Now,
how terrific is that? Can you tell us a little
bit about what that means to you? Where do I start?
How much time do we have? As much as you need?
Superb um it is. There are so many different elements
(02:43):
about this experience that are incredibly rich. One is the
very baseline of doing a world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.
It's they haven't given very many world premiers, and they're
very illustrious history, and so it's a very honorous situation.
It's not only a world premiere of a new opera,
(03:05):
but it's also building on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel
on an Academy Award winning film. There's a lot of
history to this, and you mix into the fact that
I'm playing such a Titanic woman of a role very complex,
had a huge impact on the arts, on feminism on
(03:28):
the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf. That alone is another immense
element to this. But what I'm finding perhaps the most
powerful part of this is the timing of it. I
think this is a story that resonated quite strongly, you know,
in the late nineties when the novel was written, and
(03:50):
then early two thousand when the film came out. But
we've just spent two and a half years in isolation.
We've spent the last two and a half years where
so many of our loved ones were The issues of
mental health really can screaming to the surface. We've had
(04:10):
a pandemic with a new virus, you know, and certainly
the theme of AIDS is very present in the hours,
and so the timing of re encountering this story I
think is very powerful and it's coming through the power
of music. The words in the novel were very strong,
(04:34):
the what's the word? The impact of the film was
also very strong with these great actresses, and there's there
was a kind of distance that pulled you into that story.
But the difference with the operas that we have the
music to just fill in the emotional impact of these
immense stories of these ladies. So that's a there's a
(04:54):
lot on my mind with it. So it's hard to
pinpoint exactly with your question, but it's a it feels
like a great honor, and it feels like there's a
lot of responsibility to do this story justice at this
moment in time. Well, you said that so well, and
I can understand why it feels like a great honor.
I think the other interesting aspect of the Hours is
(05:17):
that you're appearing with Renee Fleming and Kelly O'Hara, two
other iconic singers, needless to say, and I wonder what
happens when you get three divas together and what is
your working relationship like with the other two. It's been
extraordinary and and I have to say, the way this
(05:40):
piece has emerged is it feels like a huge ensemble piece.
So I know that we're the ones on the poster
and in the advertisements, and of course it's the story
of these three women, but we have eighteen characters in total,
and we have a huge chorus that essentially like a
Greek chorus treatment of it, and in many ways they're
(06:02):
the inner voices of these three women. And we've added
a dance ensemble as well that that becomes the link
between these three stories. And it was set up from
day one that this was really going to be a
community effort to bring this to life. So that's important
(06:23):
to understand the umbrella. But to go into the heart
of your question, I mean, I think it was paramount
that that you have equal and you have three women
that bring different strengths to these stories, but also bring
(06:44):
an incredible gravitas to each one of the roles that
they're singing, because they are three equal stories that merge
into want the end. And so I think it was
really quite brilliant of Peter Gelp and the met to
really cast this in a daring kind of way, but
in a way that you're bringing not just actresses or singers,
(07:07):
but artists into these roles. And what I have very
happily found throughout my career is that the people that
rise to the very top of the industry are usually
the hardest workers and the ones that leave a lot
of space to learn and grow through their humility and
(07:27):
their generosity as performers. And that's what I have found
with the three of us in this room is we
want everybody to be extraordinary so that the impact of
the story is not just about a diva performance. It's
about what we really bring to life into the heart
(07:48):
of the listener. It's been a total pleasure to summarize,
you know, it's just an inspiration to hear you talk
about it in those terms. You know, was thinking about
what you said. It's not just three stories, it's three artists,
and I might add amazing artists. So what a what
(08:09):
a powerful production? How did all of this start? Let's
talk about Joyce a little bit. You grew up in
Prairie Village, Kansas, and you are now on the stage
of the Metropolitan Opera, and I wonder, and I'm sure
our listeners are so interested in knowing as well, what
(08:29):
was your childhood like? Did you spend your young years
just singing all the time, or you know what brought
you to these great roles and the one that we're
you've just described so brilliantly and vividly. I had a
in many ways an idyllic childhood and in many ways
a really challenging childhood. It was a very musical family,
(08:55):
very musical and all kinds of genres that definitely classical
music by um the heart of it, but older sisters
that listened to Broadway music and my older brother listening
to his hard rock and roll a C. D. C Um.
And I was a child of the eighties, so I
was very much in the pop culture of of Madonna
(09:18):
and Michael Jackson, and I lived for that, and I
had the blessing of of having an extraordinary choral experience
was when I was in high school, and so I
was very clear at eighteen, very clear that I was
going to become a high school music teacher, trying to
be the cool one and saving kids lives because it
(09:40):
was that's what it felt like it did for me.
I um, you know, I was the sixth of seven
kids Irish Catholic family, and by the time I was
in high school, you know, my parents were tired, my
parents were tired, and I was. I think me and
my little brother were sort of bles defend for ourselves,
(10:01):
and you know, we had a lot of financial difficulties,
and there was a lot of pressure for me to
help my parents, to sort of parent them. Actually, when
I was a teenager and the high school musical and
the choral experiences were the place where I just got
(10:22):
to be me and I got to really dream and
um fulfill things just for my sake. And I wanted
to give that experience to other kids. And so I
went to Wichita State to be a music teacher. And
you know, I was paying my own way through college,
(10:42):
and so I could get some extra scholarship money if
I joined the opera chorus. And I thought, that's an
extra two a year a semester, which is now is
sort of unheard of, but I needed that back then.
And uh, and I got into the opera and I
just my world exploded. Not from having watched it. I
(11:04):
didn't watch an opera and think I have to do that.
Mind came from the inside because I started to study
this music and sing it and it was such a
culmination of everything I wanted to be. I had to
address musicality, singing, the theatrics of becoming and losing myself
(11:27):
in another character, the human psychology, the human existence, which
is what Opera deals with, the huge emotions, and always,
for me, music connected me to something divine. You know,
I don't always know how to describe it, but that's
(11:48):
the word. I keep coming back to, something much bigger
than myself and something that feels elevated from you know,
the cement jungles that we travel in, and I just
I decided to go for it. And my journey was
a very slow burn. I was not a bona fide
(12:10):
star from the beginning, by any stretch of the imagination.
I didn't really start coming into my own until my
early thirties. But I kept working, and I kept with
a certain amount of determination because I felt there was
something inside that I was destined to express. Well, you
said it didn't come quickly, and it was a lot
(12:31):
of work that you engaged in to get where you are.
But you've been called perhaps the most potent female singer
of your generation, with a voice that is twenty four
carrot gold. Now that's high high praise. What did it
take to get that voice? You talked about it not
coming quickly, obviously, and how do you maintain it? You know,
(12:55):
it's so interesting to hear people of your extraordinary caliber
are such extraordinary performers in music. How do you project
your personality through your singing, because just listening to you,
you have a very powerful personality. M M. Yeah. Well,
and maybe that's why I chose opera, because opera is
(13:17):
sort of larger than life, you know. I, um, well,
the first part of your question. I've always looked at
myself as things that came very easily to me were
musicianship and theatricality. I was at home the first moment
I stepped onto the stage. Um. I think my first
(13:39):
play was Harvey. In high school, I played Vita Louise Simmons,
and uh my, there was one moment I had to
cry on stage. And my older brother continues to take
credit for that because he used to torture me and
I learned how to fake cry to get him off
of me because he was trying to do, I don't know,
tickle me or something, and uh that sounds more nefarious
(14:01):
than it was. But I did learn how to fake cry,
and he claims credit for that, but the actual vocality
is something I had to work on UM and I
continue to work on it actually because what I need
from my instrument, from my voice, is I need it
(14:23):
to be absolutely at my back and call for what
I want to express emotionally and musically in theatricality theatrically,
and so that's that takes a lot of technical work,
very much like athletes that are trying to hone their
golf swing or tennis stars that are, you know, working
(14:45):
on the tiny refinements to their serve to get that
one extra mile per hour UM. And that's the kind
of work I continue to do vocally. But I that
really has been my end, the sort of engine behind
what I do, because I've seen firsthand how transformative a
(15:07):
huge musical experiences for the human spirit. Maybe it's somebody
who is discovering their voice for the first time, it's
somebody who's listening to it and they're feeling things that
the world doesn't normally allow them to feel in the
course of their day. And I know that it's a
(15:29):
force that can be extremely potent and extremely healing and
extremely transformative. And so that's why I continue to work,
and that's why I choose my projects or create my
projects today so that they invite people to go deeper
then normal things in a modern society require of people.
(15:54):
And I think it's it's genuinely where people want to
go if they feel safe. They want to take that
trip inside if they feel safe. And that's what music
and the kind of music that you are engaged and
can do to the human spirit lifted up in ways
that it can sore. And you talk about that so deeply,
(16:17):
you know. I heard you talk about how this didn't
come easily and how you have to work to keep
your voice in good form. And I know you've also
encountered many stumbling blocks in your career. At one time,
you were told you didn't have much talent, which I
find extremely hard to believe having listened to you and
(16:40):
knowing of your extraordinary abilities. You couldn't get management until
you were twenty nine. So how did you keep going?
That's a good question, you know. I um, I'm not
sure how much of it was me and how much
of it was a stubborn this and a frustration. That
(17:03):
comment came to me when I was twenty six years
old and I was on a At that point, I
was starting to be on a track um a young
artist track in the opera world, which means it's it's
like the top apprenticeship before you land the big lawyer
job or something. It's it it's you're not quite over
(17:25):
the hump, but you're nearly there, and you're on a
track to get there. And of course it devastated me
when that comment came in, But as I look back
on it now, I know why it was made and
it wasn't necessarily in error. It wasn't very kindly stated,
but it was true because I I wasn't yet at
(17:48):
a place where I had released a lot of my
walls and a lot of my um the barriers I
had constructed to protect myself. I mean, I'll tell you,
there is very few things in life that are as
frightening as opening up your voice without a microphone and
(18:09):
singing masterpieces in front of people live. You know. I
we sing Mozart and Strauss and and shoe Berts and
Rossini and handle and it's like a painter saying, here,
paint this Rembrandt live in front of us. If they're
masterpieces that require great care and attention and reverence, but
(18:34):
at the same time we have to make them feel
as if they're being created on the spot with our voice,
with all its limitations, with all its glory, with all
its instabilities, with all its strength, everything, And we know
this when we speak. If you're asked to get up
(18:55):
and speak in front of a crowd, your voice betrays
every insecurity you have, every fear, every shape, every quiver,
every dryness, every emotion. If you start to become emotional,
your voice quivers. It is such a naked state of existence.
And so then you you are bringing these masterpieces to
(19:18):
life with your voice, and people are there to listen.
And it is an extreme state of vulnerability, and at
the same time it requires complete and total abandoned and
strength because you've got to project over seventy piece orchestra
into it four thousand seat house. So it's this incredible
(19:42):
battle between vulnerability and strength, between embracing where you are
on that day, whether you rested well or had a
good meal, or you might be a little under the
weather um and just putting yourself out there. And that
is a long process to learn as a human being.
(20:05):
I knew my music, I was technically proficient, but there
was this personal barrier that was inhibiting my total expression.
To come through, and that's why people were listening. Yeah
the voice is fine, Yeah, her languages are good. She's fine,
but there's not much talent. So I understand where that
(20:27):
comment came from. And I continued to work vocally, but
I really believe that the real work was at a
deeply personal level for me and continues to be. Senecas
one hundred women to hear will be back after this
(20:47):
short break. You know, Joyce, that was so fascinating and
as I've been listening to you, you have this ability
to fully understand what your work can do for someone
(21:10):
sitting there in the audience, what it does to the
human soul, if you will. And I know you gave
this extraordinary commencement speech at Juilliard where some of that
came out, I think, and one of the messages that
you had for the graduates was something very moving. You
are here to serve humanity. What does that mean for
(21:35):
a classical singer? Why did you say that? And how
do you understand that? So? I said it for two reasons, um.
The first is that I know that the road in
classical music, in any arts, really, but certainly in classical music,
is quite tumultuous. It's incredibly demanding and difficult and all
(21:59):
kinds of challenges and trying to get your music out
in front of the public. It's even compounded now after
you know COVID, it's even more treacherous in a way.
But I wanted. I think one of the big issues
I see in particular with singers and the singers that
I don't tend to respond to emotionally, are the ones
(22:21):
who make it all about themselves and are really trying
to ultimately, I think, and I understand this. I'm sure
I went through this myself. They're looking for love. They're
looking for the audience to tell them that they are
good or even extraordinary, and that they are loved. And
so they come onto the stage and their mindset is
(22:45):
all about them and how they sound and how they look,
and they're looking to the audience. They're doing these things
to garner huge reception from the audience to say tell
me I'm great. And I understand it. It's attempting, understandable thing,
especially when you're younger. That's not my kind of performer,
(23:07):
and I don't think you have a right to do that.
I consider the stage is really a sacred place where again,
you're dealing with masterpieces, and you're dealing with the extremity
of the human condition, and especially in we need a
(23:28):
space where we can explore that safely and where we
can encourage people to aspire to what classical music can inspire,
which is beauty, truth, participating in something that is bigger
than yourself, that requires other people to get out of
(23:51):
your ego driven self. And what I found in my
own journey is the more I concentrated on what I
intended to give to the public, the easier it became
for me, because it wasn't so dependent on whether I
was liked or not, or whether I was good or not.
But if I made them feel something, or even intended
(24:15):
to make them feel something, whether it was a great
show or not, I felt good about what I did.
And so I wanted to encourage that class and the
other artists that go back and revisit that speech to say, actually,
it's a good thing for you to get out of
your own way and out of yourself and not make
(24:35):
it about you. When you get onto the stage, every
moment before that has to be about you. You have
to be narcissistic in the way you prepare your voice,
and the way you study and the way you take
care of your body. It takes a lot of personal attention,
but all for the fact that when that curtain comes up,
you are in service of the message of the beauty
(24:57):
of the music and at this same time, so I
wanted to give them a gift. But the second part
of that is that I just really feel like it's
what the world needs. What the world needs now is
I mean, it's it's a little cheesy, but I really
believe it. You know, there are very few places left
(25:21):
where people are invited in to feel something as a community,
because an opera is still a community, communal experience of
two thousand people, four thousand people, and there is power
when people sit side by side from all different backgrounds,
(25:42):
all different categories, and they agree to pretend for a
couple of hours and be carried away, usually around a
story about love or loss, and they collectively sort of
hold each other's hands through that. I want more of
that in the world, and so that that is what
I was trying to charge those students with as well.
(26:03):
Beautiful and we all want to see more of that
in the world. Needless to say, you know, the statement
about you are here to serve humanity also reflects how
you proceed in your own life, not just as the
professional artists that you are, but I know you teach music,
you do prison outreach. You're involved with something called the
(26:27):
Lullaby Project. Can you tell us about that and what
inspired it? Oh, this is a fantastic project. UM. That
was UM that I encountered through Carnegie Hall and their
Wild Institute of Music. They do such tremendous work going
into the community and it's sort of I love it
(26:49):
because it turns that question of how do you get
to Carnegie Hall practice practice practice? It turns that question
into how can Carnegie Hall get to you and not
just the people that can afford opening night gala tickets,
but to the people of the community here and beyond.
And this is one of many programs that they have
(27:11):
built up that I just am deeply inspired by. It
was the idea of looking at different challenges in society
and say, Okay, how can Carnegie Hall serve or help
and and to ameliorate this situation through music. And they
were looking at the issue of teenage moms single teenage moms,
(27:35):
and there was science around the issue that single teen
moms have a much more challenging problem to connect and
bond with their children for all the imaginable reasons. Financial,
they're being shunned by society, stressed, they're also very young,
(27:56):
and they came up with this idea of helping these
single moms write a lullaby for their child. And so
they bring in a teaching assistant UM who will talk
with the mom, get the mom to start sharing her
feelings about her child, which turns in quite quickly to lyrics,
(28:19):
and then they work all in the space of a
couple hours. UM. By the time you leave that session,
you have a song, and they get the song recorded,
sometimes with the mother herself and sometimes with the performing artist,
and this becomes their lullaby to their child. It's deeply personal.
(28:41):
It immediately bonds the mother and the child, and you
have the inherent tranquility, comforting world of a lullaby that
is centuries old, um. But it becomes deeply personal and
it's been an incredible gift in life to have participated
(29:02):
in it. Along the way you see women there is
steam skyrockets. There. Esteem as a mother, but also as
a human being in the world skyrockets. That child has
a more deeper connection to the mother. And it sounds
(29:22):
like a very sort of superficial and endeavor, and it's
quite the opposite. It is literally transformative and it's incredible.
And this now, this project has been blueprinted and it
is across the world. Now I've done some work with
a refugee camp in Greece through El Systema Greece, and
(29:45):
they gave a concert a year ago, working with the
mothers in this refugee camp writing lullabies in all different
languages for their children. And they in this refugee camp
in Scar Scaramada's refugee camp Athens, they gave a concert.
The mothers gave a concert of their lowabye songs. So
(30:07):
this is why I'm a believer. Oh my god, anybody
should be a believer after listening to that, and this
project should be taken to scale all over the world.
It sounds just extraordinary, really profound. It is, and I'll
tell you it's the best investment any organization could make.
(30:29):
It's clear because that's the fundamental mother to child. It's
the foundation for everything. It ain't rocket science. And as
you explained, what it does for the mother's self esteem
and her her mother ring and so much more. You know,
as happens far too often in this process, we're really
(30:52):
out of time. But I want to ask you one
more question, because you're clearly such a deep person, uh,
and we can hear in this conversation how you see
the work that you do. There's so much turmoil in
our world today, there's so much upset and people are
(31:13):
struggling to have hope. Really, what gives you hope? What
makes you optimistic? You know, there are a lot of
places I turned to for hope. At the start of
the lockdown two and a half years ago, it was
springtime and I went home and I was able to
(31:37):
actually be home for the first time where I was
watching first time in my adult life twenty some years now.
I was watching the flowers pop out of the ground
that I had planted, and I thought, you know, these
flowers are just doing what they do. They don't know
about a pandemic. They don't know about insurrections, they don't
(32:01):
know about division, they don't know about economic disparity. They're
just doing what they do. And I found that to
be an incredible source of hope about the natural world,
that these turmoils human turmoils rise and fall, rise and fall,
and they cycle around both as a society and in
(32:23):
your own life, and yet that natural world just keeps going.
I find hope in children and working with them and
seeing their incredible creative force that is so present when
they're young, until society just sanitizes it out of them
in many cases, thankfully not all cases. But that gives
(32:47):
me incredible hope. But I think the reason I have
hope is I've decided to have it. I've made a
decision not to become cynical, because I think cynicism is
a death knell and I don't want that. I used
to live with rose colored glasses all the time and
(33:08):
sort of, you know, put on blinders, and I don't
do that anymore. I'm aware of what's happening in a
more profound way than I used to be. But I
still every day I decide to be hopeful. And the
minute that decision is made, I can see hope around
me in the flower, in the child, in the smile
from a stranger, in the conversation with the taxi driver
(33:32):
where the ice melts. But I think for me, the
critical point is that decision I refuse to become cynical.
I won't allow that of myself. What an extraordinary way
to end an extraordinary conversation. Thank you so much, Joyce
de Donado, for who you are and for the magic
(33:55):
and miracle of your music. Thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank you. It's really my honor.
Thank you. What a profound and moving conversation. Joyce de
Donado's words will stay with me for a long time.
Here are three things I took from that conversation. First,
(34:18):
Joyce shows the power of persistence. She admits that she
didn't really come into her own as a singer until
her early thirties, but she was determined to master her
art because, she says, I felt there was something inside
that I was destined to express. Second, as she reminds us,
(34:41):
we are all put on this earth to serve, and
we each have to find our own unique way to
do that. As an opera singer, Joyce saw she could
help others by working with the Lullaby Project, for which
single mothers create and record songs for the of children. Finally,
(35:03):
let's emulate Joyce's decision to choose to be hopeful. Cynicism,
she says, is a death knell, but we can't live
with blinders on either. Instead, we can be aware of
what's happening around us every day and then take the
path of optimism and action. Joyce de Donado appears in
(35:27):
The Hours at the Met through December. If you can't
make it to New York City, catch the live broadcast
of The Hours in Theaters on December ten. Get more
information at met Opera dot org, and tune in next
time to care about our next featured woman and discover
(35:50):
why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear. Seneca's one
hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca
Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from
founding partner P and G. Have a great day, m HM.
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