Deborah Voigt

Deborah Joy Voigt (born August 4, 1960) is an American dramatic soprano who has sung roles in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Biography and career

Early life and education Deborah Joy Voigt was born into a religious Southern Baptist family in 1960 and raised in Wheeling, Illinois, just outside Chicago. At age five, she joined the choir at a Baptist church Those early experiences in church inspired her interest in music. Upon graduation in 1978, she won a vocal scholarship funded by the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, so that she could enroll in the voice program at California State University, Fullerton, where she met the voice teacher Jane Paul Hummel, under whom she trained for about eight years. Voigt was the finalist of the Met National Council Auditions for Young Singers in 1985.

1990s to mid-2000s Voigt slowly established her career, Ariadne first brought her to public notice and international success and remains one of her greatest achievements. Later she often refers to her operatic career jokingly as Ariadne Inc.

When Voigt made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on October 17, 1991, in the lead role of Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, critic Allan Kozinn wrote that she had come with a big reputation. He noted that "Voigt's deep, mezzolike darkness brought impressive range of color to Amelia's music". He also commented on how well she conveyed Amelia's feeling of urgency and despair in the second act soliloquy, sung with a warm and golden tone. Kozinn criticized her acting for not matching her singing, but emphasized that she lost no clarity or smoothness in her big voice. In March 1992, Voigt returned to the Met to sing as Chrysothemis in Strauss's Elektra.

In the same month, she won the coveted Richard Tucker Award from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. The prize was to participate in the annual gala of the foundation held on November 22, 1992, at Avery Fisher Hall. Critic Bernard Holland noted that her "Ozean, du Ungeheuer", a long sequence from Weber's Oberon, brightened the mood and elevated the gala. He complimented her performance as "the Tucker gala's most satisfying". Two months later Holland, reviewing her substitution for Aprile Millo at the Met, said that her attractive singing in the opening sequence as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore "reached out and settled comfortably in every corner of this big hall", but said she did not fully immerse herself in the passion of the heroine.

In May 2003, Voigt sang and recorded (for DG) the role of Isolde at the Vienna State Opera. Since then she has regularly appeared at the Met and other major opera houses, such as the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Opéra Bastille. The casting director, Peter Mario Katona, wanted her to wear it instead of the typical period costume used in such operas, letting out the dress with tailoring, or replacing it with another costume. It was pointed out that many notable sopranos, such as the Italian Luisa Tetrazzini, American Jessye Norman and English Jane Eaglen, had been "large-boned, zaftig, even enormous", and Voigt had merely "followed in their heavy footsteps." Voigt was headlined in the British tabloid press as "The show ain't over till the fat lady slims." There was also an outcry because, it seemed at the time that high culture performing arts, such as opera, should not emulate low culture Hollywood images of thin female stars. She performed a similar concert from "the American songbook" in January 2008 at Lincoln Center. This included tributes to Broadway sopranos Barbara Cook and Julie Andrews. She returned at the next performance of Tristan und Isolde and finished the run to acclaim by most reviewers, including The New York Times, though some critics, including The New York Sun, panned her performance.

On September 28, 2008, Voigt joined American soprano Patricia Racette and American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham in singing a comedic tribute to Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo. The three

2009 to 2010 In May 2009, Voigt began mentoring a younger soprano, Christina Borgioli, in a new program that she has set up. Borgioli has "been selected as the first participant in the Deborah Voigt/Vero Beach Opera Foundation's Protegee Mentoring Program." This will involve both voice and acting training, and a shadowing experience.

Voigt sang Strauss at the Aspen Music Festival's 60th anniversary concert on August 6, 2009, with David Zinman conducting. Her next formal opera engagement was in the title role of Tosca in September and October 2009at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. Christina Borgioli, her mentee, accompanied Voigt in this production. The New York Times wrote that she "brought steely power and lyrical elegance to her first Met Senta".

Alceste In May 2009, Voigt starred in the rarely heard 1776 opera Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck, in concert at Lincoln Center's Rose Theatre. She performed with the Collegiate Chorale and American tenor Vinson Cole, as King Admète, and the New York City Opera Orchestra." Time Out wrote that Voigt "already proved her affinity for similar material a few years back when she sang Cassandre in Berlioz's Les Troyens at the Met." The France-Amérique noted that Voigt and the chorus received French diction training for the performance from Thomas Grubb, a teacher at the Juilliard School.

Unfortunately, Voigt caught the flu when she was to perform, yet went on with the show; the photograph caption for the New York Times review was, "Deborah Voigt, even with the flu, led a Collegiate Chorale concert performance on Tuesday." The reviewer wrote, "she did some impressive work, singing with power, gleaming sound and sensitive phrasing, though she clearly struggled. Often her voice sounded congested and her top range tight...her voice nearly gave out, and she had to drop down an octave to get through a phrase."

In the summer of 2011, she sang the lead of Annie Oakley in the Irving Berlin musical Annie Get Your Gun at the Glimmerglass Festival. For that festival, Terrence McNally, Francesca Zambello, and Voigt collaborated to produce the stage show Voigt Lessons. Voigt revived the show in 2015 at the Art House in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

2013 to 2015 In September 2013, Voigt dropped out of a production of Tristan und Isolde and removed Isolde from her repertoire due to having found "the long, punishing role beyond her current vocal capacities". Her stage performances have dwindled since. Voigt's last performance at the Metropolitan Opera was as Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck on March 22, 2014

In 2015, HarperCollins published her autobiography, Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva co-written with former People Magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff.

Personal life , Voigt had been living in New York for about five years. She said she relied on him As she was getting more famous, she traveled around the world with him, but her crowded schedule and the accompanying stress eventually led to their divorce.

Awards Voigt has received various awards since her debut as a singer.

In March 1992, she won the Richard Tucker Award, the top award presented by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, including a $30,000 cash award.

Voigt has been nominated for a Grammy Award several times and shared the 1996 "Best Opera Recording" award for the recording of Berlioz's Les Troyens directed by Charles Dutoit with Montreal Symphony Orchestra. She was also co-nominated in 2002 for "Best Choral Performance" on a Columbia Records recording. In 2013, she shared the "Best Opera Recording" award for the Metropolitan Opera's recording of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Voigt garnered Musical America'''s Vocalist of the Year in 2003, and an Opera News award for distinguished achievement in 2007.

She was inducted into the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District Hall of Fame in 1997.

Recordings Voigt has made a number of recordings, including two solo compact discs. She is on the live recording of the Vienna State Opera's 2003 production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for Deutsche Grammophon. In a 2001 interview with Associated Press, she said she had been unlucky with recording because of unexpected cancellations and postponements. The opportunities to cooperate with high-profile musicians could have made her a major prima donna more quickly.

Selected discography Berlioz. Les Troyens, conducted by Charles Dutoit with Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Decca, 1993 Rossini, The Rossini Bicentennial Birthday Gala, conducted by Roger Norrington with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, EMI Records 0777-7-54643-2-0, 1994 Beethoven: Fidelio, conducted by Colin Davis with Bavarian State Opera Chorus & Radio Symphony, BMG, 1996 Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder, Teldec, 1996 Beethoven: Cantates, Koch International Classics, 1997 Mahler: Symphony No. 8, Telarc, 1997 Robert Shaw: Absolute Heaven, Telarc, 1997 Richard Strauss: Elektra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1997 The American Opera Singer, BMG/RCA Victor, 1997 Operatically Incorrect!, BMG/RCA Victor, 1997 Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, Sony/Columbia, 1997 Richard Strauss: Friedenstag, Deutsche Grammophon, 1999 Zemlinsky: Sämtliche Chorwerke, EMI Classics, 1999 Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos, UNI/Deutsche Grammophon, 2000 Wagner: Love Duets, EMI Classics, 2000 Zemlinsky: Cymbeline Suite, EMI Classics, 2001 Obsessions, EMI Classics, 2004 James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala, Deutsche Grammophon DVD B0004602-09, 2005 All My Heart, EMI Classics, 2005 Let The Season In'', Mormon Tabernacle Choir, 2014