BWW Interviews: 'Girl Singer' Stephanie Blythe, the Met's Bearded Lady and the Songbird of the South

Stephanie Blythe--who's at the Met these days singing Baba the Turk in Stravinsky's THE RAKE'S PROGRESS--"abhors labels." That's why, despite a cavernous voice that has become even deeper with age and could easily be termed mezzo or contralto, she tells me to call her "a girl singer."

She explains, "The fach system"--the German system that puts operatic voices in categories--"is very helpful for people who are casting and, of course, for singers when we choose repertoire. For me, I sing what's comfortable for me to sing; as my career has gone along, things have come and gone and will continue to do so, I'm sure."

For the record, Blythe is a famous Mistress Quickly in Verdi's FALSTAFF and Fricka in Wagner's Ring Cycle, among many others, and is about to take on Delilah in Saint-Saens' SAMSON ET DELILAH. "As I get older, my voice is getting lower--which I didn't think was possible because it was pretty low to begin with--but that means a change where I feel comfortable."

"The role I'm singing at the time"

So what role does this 'girl singer,' feel most comfortable in right now? "It's the role I'm singing at the time," she avers--and that means Baba the Turk in the Stravinsky masterwork. How does the singer see this very unusual character--the bearded lady who marries Tom Rakewell, the central figure of the opera? "She's a performer, who lives for the audience, for the adulation. She's someone who has gone beyond being a freak as the bearded lady," says Blythe.

"She's a headliner, and what's interesting about her at this moment in her life is that she's deigning to do something she considers to be self indulgent--being with Tom Rakewell. She says 'my self-indulgent intermezzo ends' when their relationship ends. You'd think being a performer would be the extravagant part of her life, but what she considers self indulgent is the thought that she could be loved."

While Baba is not a huge part, it is a juicy one. She has an unusual entrance, with a very imperious introduction...but you don't see her. "I've spoken to Maestro [James] Levine, who's conducting these performances, and other conductors and directors, about the difficulty of introducing a character when an audience only hears her," Blythe explains. "The audience needs to see the actual mouth moving, the eyes connecting, to 'see' that character. But here, in RAKE, the action inside a car and all you do is hear a voice and see a hand. It's very difficult but, by the same token, it makes it more of a fantastical entrance."

Baba just talks talks talks

According to Blythe, you don't see the development of the relationship between Baba and Tom, but you don't have to--because it's easy to infer what happened. The next time you see her after her entrance, Baba is just jabbering on. All she does is "talk talk talk." "Tom didn't marry her for any other reason than fame, though she probably married him because she thought he loved her. Hearing her, you understand what Tom has had to live with, and we don't have to work to understand what happened in that relationship because we are brought into the middle of it," Blythe continues.

"It's brilliant writing because, as an audience member, you can tell immediately that this conversation started weeks ago--she hasn't stopped talking, hasn't drawn breath. All of a sudden, Tom loses it and basically tells her to shut up. And she's not used to people talking to her like that."

"They give her a fantastic exit"

Despite the brevity of the role, Baba has her own journey--through her relationship with Anne Trulove, Tom's "true love," who isn't well treated by the rake of the opera's title. "I think Baba takes life as it comes and she's able to help Anne with her experience. She goes from being a performer to being a mother figure for Anne--then back to being a performer again. That humanity we see eclipses by the time she leaves."

"The beautiful thing that Auden and Stravinsky have done with her is when the music becomes sympathetic and more magisterial, when she's talking to Anne--there are fewer words in the line. The patter has disappeared, and now it's not rushed, it's not frantic; she's taking a breath and she knows who she is and what she's going to do. I think that it's wonderful that they've put a real button on the character and they give her a fantastic exit."

Very full and makes an impact

Blythe likes the role for a number of reasons. "It's very full and makes an impact--and it's very fun to sing on top of that. I also really like doing an ensemble piece like this. When you're with truly talented people who are devoted to the piece it just makes it work. For me, this piece was all about discovering Paul Appleby [Tom]--and finally getting to work with Gerry Finley [Nick Shadow, the devil character], who I've really admired for many years. So this is a lot of fun to have this opportunity.

"This work is also a challenge, getting all the words in--I love Auden [the librettist with Chester Kallman], who I think is brilliant. I love his poetry and I think his libretto is eminently simple, which is great, but Baba has lots to say." Another reason Blythe likes the opera: It's in English.

"Singing in my own language is the thing I like more than anything else right now--one of the reasons I love doing this piece. I like that wonderful, immediate response from the audience when they're hearing their own language. I know we have Met Titles, but not having to count on that filter is exciting." Would she limit the number of operatic performances she does (versus recital work) to perform in English? "No. It just means that when I'm singing in English I'm having a slightly better time."

A fairly solemn promise

"However," she continues, "I made a fairly solemn promise to myself that I would mostly stick to things in English for my recitals, because I don't want my audiences to have to look at notes, translations in a program, so they don't really hear you and experience the songs because they're counting lines. Even audience members with the best of intentions do it, unless they really know the piece. I remedied that in my recital programs by doing recitations of the poetry before I sing it--not just for songs in other languages but those in English as well."

Anyone who has ever seen a classical recital knows that this is a very unusual thing to do. How did Blythe decide to take this approach? "Many years ago, I was doing a piece by my friend Alan Louis Smith, which was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. It is called 'Covered Wagon Woman,' a cycle covering the journey of a woman who traveled across the country with her husband in a covered wagon, taken from her journal. We did this at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, because Tully Hall was being renovated.

"I decided at the last minute that I didn't want to give the text to the audience. And I came out and told them, 'Look we're in a space that's very intimate and I'm going to work very hard so you don't have to worry about understanding it. But you've never heard this piece and I've never sung it for anyone, it's brand new, so why don't we go on this journey together and experience as it is.'" The result, the singer recalls, "People really enjoyed it. I ended up getting an audience full of eyes and heads and it was intoxicating because the audience was actively experiencing the recital and work, which was remarkable. So they next time I did a song recital I had a real yen to continue to do this."

Not everybody sings but everybody speaks

"That performance happened to be at Carnegie Hall, with my American Song recital. It started out with 12 songs from poems by Emily Dickinson, set by James Legg." Blythe explains, "Now I knew that these Emily Dickinson poems were not easy and I really want the audience to hear these pieces because this was a New York debut. We had done them in various venues before we got to New York and had started to do these recitations, which I shared with my pianist, Warren Jones; we read these 12 poems aloud to the audience before we performed them. And it was remarkable." She posits, "I think when an audience comes to hear a recital and the first thing they hear is the spoken voice, it immediately lets them latch on to that performer--because not everybody sings but everybody speaks. And when they hear that, it kind of sets the tone.

"It's the difference between an active and a passive audience--and an active audience is one that will return. They want that experience." What about the use of titles in the opera house? "I came to the Met before there were titles"--she has sung there, every year, for the last 20 years--"and then I did Berta in BARBER OF SEVILLE after they put in the titles. It was incredible. People were laughing; they got the jokes. They weren't just reading a synopsis and gleaning from the music about how they were supposed to react. In such a gigantic venue I think it's okay. But when you're talking about using titles in a song recital, it gives me a little agita."

A great love of American singing artists

Another of her concert programs--which has been seen on PBS and is still available by streaming from "Live from Lincoln Center"--is "Stephanie Blythe Meets Kate Smith," which might seem an odd coupling of performer and material, but is completely natural when you see it. How did she come about choosing Smith--perhaps known best today for her television appearances in the '50s singing the Irving Berlin standard, "God Bless America" (which Smith introduced on film in the '40s)--as the centerpiece of a concert series?

"I chose her because I have a great love of American singing artists, regardless of what they sing. I particularly love American singers of the '30s, '40s, '50s"--Smith's heyday--"and that's also the period of some of my favorite music. I became interested in Kate Smith"--frequently called "The Songbird of the South" or "The First Lady of Radio"--"around the time I was 16, started listening to her and realized I knew her---that my grandfather listened to her in the house and I was sure that's where I first heard her. I love the repertoire she sang, I love that Kate Smith was an unlikely star because, one, she was a big girl, and, two, she didn't come from any kind of musical background--her family didn't support her interest, at the onset.

A galvanizing figure in American culture

"The story of her life is thrilling--being discovered as a child, her success in the movies, on the radio and television. I can tell you that there's not a single place where I've done that show--and I've done it about 25 times around the country--where someone hasn't come up to me and said 'I knew her' 'I met her as a child' 'she was so wonderful,' 'she was such a lovely person,' and such," Blythe recalls. "I find her a fascinating figure; I've read everything I can and she's well represented on things like YouTube, and I can tell you she was not only very well respected by her colleagues but a galvanizing figure when American culture needed it, during the Depression and World War II.

"Kate Smith was a very distinctive cultural icon for her time and I talk"--because the "Stephanie Blythe Meets Kate Smith" program isn't really a recital but a cabaret act--"a lot about her history. I arranged all the tunes with my pianist, Craig Terry, who is brilliant with this music, using the songs she sang to tell the story of her life. So most of the music on the show is '30s, '40s. The latest number is 'This Is All I Ask' which is from 1963, which she sang in Carnegie Hall.

Sing-along with Stephanie

Blythe finishes her Kate Smith act with "God Bless America"--for which she invites the audience to sing along. "I'm a fan of Mitch Miller"--the highly popular recording and TV star of the '60s on "Sing Along with Mitch"--"I like active audiences, audiences that feel they're a part of what they're seeing." Blythe has turned this interest into another program called "Sing America," which is entirely sing-along. "I believe we have a popular culture in this country right now that looks at performers in an unhealthy way--because it looks at the person and not what they are creating. I think the best way to connect with the audience is through the music," she maintains.

"In doing my Kate Smith show, I've looked out at the audience and they're chomping at the bit to sing--they just can't wait." Working in her backyard a few years ago, and thinking about recital programs, she decided that the next best way to connect with the audience would be sing-along concert, which she decided would be a lot of fun. "It's remarkable what happens--the audience can barely wait to sing," says Blythe, "they are humming, mouthing away with the words. This is a generational thing: the songs I do for sing-alongs are things like 'Moonlight Bay' and 'I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover.' But the truth is the songs tap into the consciousness of our culture because they have been used over and over--in advertisements, in shows. Many of them were used in the Merry Melodies cartoons--they're the Bugs Bunny songs. So they're in there somewhere for audiences--they just don't know where they heard them."

Give us BABY DOE

Bringing her love of singing in the vernacular back to the opera world, I asked whether there an English language opera that she wishes the Met would do. Without missing a beat, she says THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE, by composer Douglas Moore and librettist John Latouche, which had its greatest popularity at New York City Opera, with Beverly Sills in the title role. "It could be cast so easily, five or six different ways. I've wanted to sing Augusta Tabor"--the wife of Horace, who falls in love with Baby Doe--"since I was in college.

"I spent an ungodly amount of time in the listening room at college, weeping because Sills was just so great, as was Frances Bible as Augusta." She maintains, "It is a quintessential American piece, a big work and it would be well served in a house this size. But to be perfectly honest, there is so much great new work being written today; we are in a fantastic place right now, with so many wonderful artists composing new operas and songs in this country. I recently did Ricky Ian Gordon's new work, TWENTY-SEVEN, playing Gertrude Stein. It's a fantastic opera, telling a beautiful story about two amazing women and it was a remarkable experience for me."

"More hot pies" in San Francisco

Blythe also has another couple of performances ahead in English, though not strictly operas (there's that 'label' thing again). "I'm going to be doing Mrs. Lovett in Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD at the San Francisco Opera in September--it's an amazing show with an stunning text, as everyone knows. I'm really looking forward to it, because I've wanted to sing that piece and do that character for a long time.

"I also have another CAROUSEL on my calendar, as Nettie, which I did with the New York Philharmonic two years ago. It was such a wonderful ensemble piece for me--getting to sing with the chorus and working with a stellar cast from Broadway and opera: Jason Danieley, who is such a gigantic talent; Kelli O'Hara, who is an angel--a total joy and so in the moment; and Jessie Mueller [the recent Tony winner for BEAUTIFUL], who was 'it' for me--such a revelation because she can do it all. And, of course, Nathan Gunn--he and I won the National Council Auditions in 1994--though we didn't get to sing together this time."

"You started off this conversation talking about 'labels'," Blythe reminded me. "Well, I like entertaining people more than anything else. If I entertain them as an opera singer, that's great. If I do it as a recitalist or cabaret act, I want people to enjoy themselves, to think, to connect something that's real and want to have that experience again and again."

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