The only thing wrong, the only thing regrettable, about this podcast is that it’s out of proportion. What I mean is, Flicka, the legend, the giant, is in a little box and I’m in a bigger box. That’s the way the technology worked out. If I could reverse the boxes—believe me, I would.
“Flicka” is Frederica von Stade, the great mezzo-soprano, and she is the subject of a new documentary: Flicka: A Love Letter. How does she feel about this?
Well, there’s a certain amount of embarrassment, but basically pure joy. It was a wonderful experience. I was treated royally and spoiled incredibly, and it gave me a chance to look back. It was a wonderful, wonderful trip down Memory Lane, and I’m so grateful.
(I have paraphrased—tightened—but only slightly.)
Flicka is an octogenarian, but she is also, if I may, an eternal babe. She is always involved in projects of a charitable nature. On September 26, she will be giving a benefit concert in Fairfield, Iowa.
In our Q&A—not our first and I hope not our last—we cover a range of issues. We talk a fair amount about repertoire: songs and operas.
I say to her,
Flicka, it occurs to me that you are a singer without specialty. You may be known for French songs and French opera roles, and for Mozart, but you have sung pretty much everything under the sun, song-wise and opera-wise. You have done Italian, French, German, English. Any Russian or Czech? Have you done those?
Czech, yes, she answers, but Russian, no. Also: she has sung in Yiddish.
Are there songs she would have liked to sing, but didn’t, or opera roles she would have liked to have, but didn’t? Any “omissions,” any “lacunae,” as Bill Buckley would say?
No.
I feel maybe a little bit arrogant saying so, but I feel that my life has been blessed by opportunity, and I’m grateful for every song I sang and every aria I sang. Every performance I did. I couldn’t want for more, I just couldn’t. It would be indecent, in my mind.
She works with many young singers, at conservatories as far away as New Zealand (where her friend Kiri Te Kanawa, the soprano, lives). “I’m so glad that none of these kids were around when I was beginning,” says Flicka, “because I would never have had a job. They are out of this world.” But “I tremble for their future.”
Why? Because there ain’t jobs. They are getting scarcer and scarcer, as the opera world and the recital world shrink and shrink. Some young singers are starting their own programs, their own series. There is a return to house concerts—music in the parlor.
No matter what, “we have to keep on trekking,” says Flicka. I love this variation on “keep on trucking.” I hope always to remember “keep on trekking,” and to do it.
Are there composers she feels especially close to? Composers who really speak to her? Yes, and one is a living composer, and, not only that, a friend of hers: Jake Heggie. Flicka also names Poulenc, famously (and accurately) described as “half rascal, half monk.”
Frederica von Stade is one of the most recorded artists of our time. She has over a hundred of them—over a hundred recordings. Does she ever listen to them? No, she says (as I thought she would). She does not like to listen to her recordings. She’s apt to feel that her intention—her musical, emotional, or theatrical purpose—does not come through.
It should be a consolation, I tell her, that she’s the only one who knows …
Before Flicka rose to prominence, there was a triumvirate of great mezzo-sopranos (in my mind): Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, and Marilyn Horne. Could she say something about each of them? She does indeed.
She has sung with many famous singers—as famous as she. Can she give me the name of a singer, a colleague, who is underrated? Who should be a bigger deal than he or she is? Yes: Richard Stillwell, the American baritone.
How about younger singers—singers now in their primes? Who stands out? Von Stade cites, among others, Sasha Cooke and Quinn Kelsey. The former is a mezzo-soprano from Texas and the latter is a baritone from Hawaii (yes, Hawaii, our 50th state).
I can second those nominations if a second is needed, which it isn’t.
At the end of our podcast, I give Flicka a little quiz: When did she first appear in Carnegie Hall? She whiffs the question (as I figured she would). (This woman is not self-absorbed.) The answer: February 1973, with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
In the new documentary, Jake Heggie says, “When Flicka walks into a room, it’s like your best friend just walked into the room—although you may be meeting her for the first time.”
True, so true. Enjoy your friend Flicka.
