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Deborah Voigt takes center stage at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, New York this month, capping a season that showcased a startling range of roles and achievements, including her first-ever Brünnhilde performances in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Die Walküre. She begins with her role debut as Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin's ever-popular musical, Annie Get Your Gun, which opens on July 16 and continues for 14 performances through August 21. She will also star in the world premiere of Voigt Lessons, a one-woman show written for her by renowned playwright Terrence McNally (opening July 29, with two additional performances August 7 and 14). Francesca Zambello, the Glimmerglass Festival's new artistic and general director, directs both productions; during Zambello's inaugural season Voigt will also serve as the festival's first Artist-in-Residence, a position that features Voigt in the roles of teacher, mentor, and coach for several young artists.
Based on the real-life romance of Oakley and Frank Butler - the latter played by Rod Gilfry in the new production - Annie Get Your Gun contains some of Berlin's best-known tunes: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," "I Got Lost in His Arms," "There's No Business Like Show Business." The musical will be performed at Glimmerglass with full orchestra and unamplified voices. Comparing the experience of preparing for a musical to that of preparing for an opera, Voigt observes: I'd forgotten from my early days doing productions of musicals in school that there's a whole other language and way of being on stage than being in opera. With musical theater, we finish a song with a big exclamation point at the end of a sentence, but with Walküre it's one big journey with exclamation points all over the place!
While at Glimmerglass, Voigt is enjoying herself in beautiful upstate New York, posting Twitter and Facebook photos of cows crossing roads and hazy, flower-lined ponds glittering in the summer sun. She's also grateful for some other perks: "The dancing boys in Annie make it look like I can dance when I really can't - that's great! And I'm really excited about the young artists here; the ones in Annie are a talented bunch with great personalities."Voigt Lessons has been in development since Voigt's creative working sessions with Terrence McNally and Francesca Zambello last summer at the famed MacDowell Colony. McNally, perhaps best known for his Maria Callas-inspired play Master Class, uses Voigt's personal story and professional career as the basis for the script, which also features Voigt singing songs and arias that have been important to her throughout her life. "This is the first time that I'll speak directly to the audience in a performance environment about my life and my career," Voigt explains. "I've made little quips and comments during a recital, but I've never talked about myself that openly on stage. It's exciting, but because it's so personal, it's also a little daunting."
Voigt has demonstrated her knack for Broadway material and popular songs in a number of settings and venues over the past several seasons. Most recently, she performed Broadway songs with baritone Paulo Szot and the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; last fall, she gave a benefit performance for WQXR, New York's classical music station, at the famed Café Carlyle. In recent seasons she's performed recitals in Lincoln Center's "American Songbook" series. As Brian Kellow observed in Opera News, "Voigt comes to pop singing naturally. She creates each musical mood so perfectly and demonstrates such show-biz savvy that it makes me wish she had more opportunities to perform this kind of material. If this were 1970, she would probably be given her own network variety show." Deborah Voigt's performances at Glimmerglass come soon after her successes at the Met as Brünnhilde and in Schoenberg's harrowing Erwartung with the New York Philharmonic: a testament to her remarkable range. Reviewing her Brünnhilde for the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini wrote, "I have seldom heard the role sung with such rhythmic accuracy and verbal clarity. From the start, with those go-for-broke cries of ‘Hojotoho,' she sang every note honestly. She invested energy, feeling and character in every phrase." In New York Magazine, Justin Davidson noted, "Voigt gives Brünnhilde a steely joy."
The classical-music website Concertonet called Voigt's performance in Erwartung "absolutely frightening," noting that she "sang with strength, power, and an honest blatant truth. She could take the most arduous passages, crescendoing from lowest to highest notes with laughable ease. (Grisly laughable ease.) This Erwartung was neither monodrama nor short opera. It was an arousing experience in hysteria and delusions."Deborah Voigt: upcoming engagementsJuly 16 Cooperstown, NY Irving Berlin: Annie Get Your Gun (Annie; role debut) Glimmerglass Festival Additional performances: July 18m, 22, 24m, 30; August 2m, 4, 6m, 9m, 12, 15m, 18, 20m, 21mJuly 29 Cooperstown, NY Terrence McNally/Francesco Zambello: Voigt Lessons (world premiere) Glimmerglass Festival Additional performances: August 7, 14August 27 Capetown, South Africa Concert with Johan Botha Capetown OperaSeptember 3 Hanover, Germany Gala concert (details TBA)www.deborahvoigt.com
