Deborah Polaski – interview by Mirian Gordan-Stewart
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Deborah Polaski and Miriam Gordon-Stewart Deborah Polaski, “one of the most prolific of sopranos post in WWI era” as introduced by Australian soprano, Miriam Gordon-Stewart (appearing for Opera Australia in La bohème - Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House, The Magic Flute - State Theatre, Arts Centre, Victoria), in a relaxed but stimulating and informative conversation at the Goethe Institut on Sunday, 7 August 2005. Ms Polaski took a small detour to Woollahra on her way to North Queensland for a well-earned holiday. Veteran of 20 Ring performances at Bayreuth, 100 Elektras and many more briefly adverted to during the afternoon.
Ms Polaski, brought up in the US mid west remembered that her first opera experience was listening to a Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Carmen and her first vocal venture into operatic music was singing with her sister for her music teacher, the duet from Norma. Otherwise there was much singing in her family, but no classical music. After completing a masters in music, Ms Polaski took up a scholarship to an “operatic finishing school” in Graz, Austria. This lead to her first contract at a small town north of Cologne in the coalmining area (where Marilyn Horne also began her career – one good omen, no doubt!) singing Senta and Amelia in Ballo in Maschera; then to Karlsruhe where she became a kind of singing dogsbody, singing anything and everything, but did sing the Third Norn.
In response to one of many questions from the audience, Ms Polaski suggested the particular qualities for a Wagnerian voice she looks for when singers come to her for advice include: the size of the voice, its clarity, its ability to “cut” through the orchestra, but is also has to have colour and an ability to create a mood to pull audience into the experience, to help the interpretation and understanding of the work. At this point, Ms Polaski revealed that, for her, one of the most exciting things as a singer is to ride the orchestral sound.
Ms Polaski also confessed that her initial encounter with Wagner at university was boring because of the circumstances of the course (too late in the afternoon and a less than exciting professor). It was not until she became culturally involved with the German language that she discovered that it opened up whole world of imagination and meaning. She also observed that one needs to sing for oneself so that one can then keep the audience interested by bringing new understanding to the part.
In Ulm, came Ms Polaski's first Siegfried Brünnhilde; then to Augsburg where she experienced a period of exploration of many roles that pushed her in a number of directions. Then came her first Elektra in 1985-96 in Darmstadt at age of 35 – one memorable criticism from this time was that her voice was “too pretty” for the role!
Then came Mannheim where the right hand casting person for Wolfgang Wagner invited her to audition for Bayreuth. At the audition in Berlin at the Philharmonie (it was winter and there is no heating in the Festspielhaus [one could add that there is very little cooling during the hot summers either!]), Ms Polaski recalls singing a part of Elektra on the very sound principle that she should sing something she was familiar with to settle her nerves; she then went on to sing extracts for Brünnhilde from Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung. At this point the audience watched an extract from Siegfried from the recent DVD release with Ms Polaski on BBC/Opus Arte OA 0912 D and applauded very appreciatively - Das Rheingold: BBC/Opus Arte OA 0910 D, Die Walküre: BBC/Opus Arte OA 0911 & Götterdämmerung: BBC/ Opus Arte OA 0913 D.
Ms Polaski then talked about the two quite different Rings she performed in during her nine “absolutely wonderful” years in Bayreuth; firstly Harry Kupfer's “olympically athletic” interpretation, then Alfred Kirchner's more static one. They created totally different dynamics with different approaches to theatre. Ms Polaski admitted to enjoying being physical on stage as a way of helping the public understand the work.
In response to another question from the audience, Ms Polaski used gestures to try and suggest the differences in the conducting styles of the conductors with whom she had sung in the Ring, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine and Simone Young (in Vienna) and noted that Ms Young seemed to be a combination of the other two; she demands, she gives and [obviously very important to Ms Polaski], she trusts.
[At this point, the audience enjoyed another extract from Ms Polaski's Barcelona recording of the Ring, this time from Die Walküre – Act III to just after Sieglinde's Oh, höchste Wunder.]
In response to another question from the audience, Ms Polaski pondered the possibility of handing over her “shoes” to another soprano, and, while thinking that there was no one she could think of who could fill her shoes at this time, she did nominate Linda Watson as a worthy contender.
In a bitter-sweet moment, Ms Polaski acknowledged Ms Gordon's reference to the title of Kammersinger bestowed on her by Austria for her performances at the Wienerstaatsoper, frequently bestowed in recognition of a person's contribution to a house, but sometimes just for the number of performances. This award made up to some extent for being passed over for an award of this title in Berlin, her home city, “for political reasons”.
While the question above about handing on her shoes might have suggested that Ms Polaski was considering retirement, that idea was quickly squashed as she listed some of her engagements for the next few years: Jenufa, some Tristans (!), another Ring, Wozzeck, performances with the Hamburg Opera under Simone Young in January 2006, Die Walküre in Japan with the Metropolitan Opera, Les Troyens in Paris.
As a final comment, Ms Polaski admitted to one of her most personally thrilling moments on stage: an out-of- body experience at the end of the Immolation scene in Kirchner's Bayreuth Ring when she became aware of “observing myself performing – scary, very strange but also wonderful. [Whether or not it was the performance I was lucky enough to experience, I can assure Ms Polaski that performances like hers can sometimes do the same thing to her audience members when performers of her stature and passion commit themselves so whole-heartedly to communicating their love and insight to us and transporting us beyond ourselves.]
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26-Sep-2005
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