Kate Lindsey is one of the finest singers in the world, an exemplar in opera and song. She performed at the Salzburg Festival last month (in both opera and song) and I spoke with her before an audience of the Salzburg Festival Society. That conversation has been turned into a podcast, one of my Q&As, here.
She is a brainy, appealing person — a breath of fresh air. You’ll love her.
Kate is an American, though she has been based in Britain for some time. She grew up in Richmond, Va. I’ll quote her, in paraphrase (though close paraphrase):
I’m the youngest of three children. My father was a pastor, so I grew up going to church and singing in choir. I started taking piano when I was young, mainly because my sister was playing piano. She was very gifted, and I didn’t feel that I was. But I loved music, and that was pretty evident from the get-go. Not only did I love music, I also loved performance. So I would get really obsessed with watching performers, live performers, especially on TV, things like that. Musicals. I grew up on all the classic musicals, with my mom. The Sound of Music, of course — all the Rodgers & Hammersteins. We would go to the library and rent those VHS cassettes, and then I would go and perform the shows in my room. I was a really shy kid, so I would go into this quiet space and try to recreate a show and sort of live in that world.
In the course of our conversation, I ask her, “Can a person learn to sing in tune? Or is it a matter of, you can or you can’t?” Kate Lindsey is so polite — so well-bred — she sort of dances around the question, diplomatically. She then says this:
Even if you can’t sing in tune, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sing, because singing is a very healing sort of activity. Feeling that vibration in your body. I think you should sing. Sing as loud as you want in the shower. Sing along. It’s about the action of singing. Yes, sing a song. Sing it loud.
You perhaps know a song written by Joe Raposo, back in 1971. It was popularized by the Carpenters.
Sing, sing a song.
Sing out loud.
Sing out strong. . . .Don’t worry that it’s not
Good enough for anyone
Else to hear.
Just sing, sing a song.
(To hear those Carpenters, go here.)
Kate Lindsey and I talk a little Broadway, and I air a complaint. Broadway shows are overamplified, in my opinion — like our society at large. We live in the Age of Overamplification. In some cases, I can’t hear the music, for the amplification. Just as you may not be able to hear the words when someone is screaming at you. All you hear is the screaming.
Kate relates an interesting story:
I worked with Paulo Szot just before he went to Broadway — just before he did South Pacific, which he won a Tony for. I ran into him sometime after that. He told me something fascinating. When he was in the rehearsal room and started to sing, they were shocked. “Your voice is so big!” they said. But he didn’t feel that his voice was very big. In the opera world, he didn’t feel that his voice was big at all. But, to the Broadway people, that level of natural amplification was shocking, because they train their voices in a very different way.
In opera, Kate does a fair amount of comedy, particularly in trouser roles: The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville. She makes a fundamental point:
You have to take comedy seriously. A singer must not lose sight of that. I find it very difficult to watch someone who’s trying to ham it up and make something funny.
So true. I frequently say, “Falstaff is not ridiculous to himself. He may be ridiculous to other people. But he is never ridiculous to himself.” Indeed, he is tragic (arguably).
In the course of discussing some favorite singers, Kate names Tatiana Troyanos and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (two mezzo-sopranos of the recent past). I interject to say, “You have a type.” Both of those were deep, soulful singers.
Kate:
I want to hear the human in the sound. I want to hear fragility. I don’t want to hear perfection. I want to hear something that touches me more deeply than that.
Years ago, I interviewed Ferruccio Furlanetto, the Italian bass. You know who he listens to at home? On his stereo (or what have you)? Paul Simon. “Why?” I asked him. Furlanetto responded, in essence: “He’s real.”
I could go on, but I’ve typed enough, and it’s far better to listen to Kate Lindsey: again, here.