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Michelle DeYoung, by Christian Steiner.
Three more programs explore the connection between Berg and Schubert, which, honestly, we personally don't hear yet. Hopefully the juxtaposition over the next three weeks will do the trick. Or maybe the point is to show that, despite eating the same strudel with the same Danube views, they are world apart. Oh, MTT, you keep us guessing!
There's no double guessing regarding the quality of the performers who'll join the conductor, starting tonight with Michelle DeYoung. She'll be singing the Seven Early Songs. The mezzo-soprano has already won a Grammy award with the SF Symphony, and she has performed with all the big league conductors: James Levine, David Barenboim, MTT, Pierre Boulez, Colin Davis, you name it, she did it. Believe me, I feel the blessing of it every day, she says of singing with those guys. We jumped on the chance to chat with her, below.
What can you tell us about the Seven Early Songs you'll be singing with the SF Symphony?
Michelle: The interesting things is, I have done Berg songs from different times of his life, I find it interesting that's what they are called. It really says something about his style, much more melodic, they are absolutely gorgeous, they are very Straussian. Whereas I find later, it's not quite melodic, much more like Schoenberg in that way.
The lyrics seem very pastoral.
Michelle: The lyrics are very beautiful, lovely, romantic lyrics. And the music is as well. There are some songs that are more complicated musically. Some are just very simple, lovely song.
You sang Schubert here with MTT, and now you're doing Berg, as part of the Schubert and Berg Journey. Do you see the connection?
Michelle: It's hard to say. Obviously, MTT has some connection in mind, which is why he's doing it. I personally don't know what it is. I'm anxious to hear it and talk to him about it.
Their style are so very different. What they both have, in their song writing, is their use how the music fits the lyrics, and both go hand in hand. The lyrics are as important as the music is, and the music represents the lyrics. So that's one thing they both have usually in common, at least with songs.
You have a strong relationship with the Symphony, any story to tell us about performing here?
Michelle: I have one story, it's a weird one. I work there a lot, I've been very fortunate, I have a wonderful relationship with the symphony and MTT. Actually, it was my first professional concert, I did Beethoven Ninth there. I was in a middle of a tour. The SF Symphony asked me to do the Kindertotenlieder, and I could not, as I was touring Bluebeard's castle with Pierre Boulez in Europe at the same time. It ended up that, a week before the concert, September 11 happened, and I could not get to Europe, and the girl they ended up hiring to do the concerts could not get to America. So I ended up driving to San Francisco, and we ended up recording these songs a week after 9/11. In some ways it was so horrific, and in some ways it was so healing.
I think, all of us kept seeing those images of the planes going in, and it gets me emotional just talking about it. And in the last one, where it says, you'll go into your mother's arms and you rest, and we had a lot of tears, I'll say, during the rehearsal of those.
They recorded the performances along with the Mahler 3. And we ended up winning a Grammy award for that recording, which was very exciting, a lot to do with the fact that those just meant so much. It was sort of like therapy to sing those songs after that had happened. That was one of my most moving experience with the SF Symphony.
We would go back to the CD to listen to it in this light, but find the Kindertotenlieder so depressing!
Michelle: They are absolutely depressing. I think that goes without saying. I think that of all of Mahler, I'm here in NY doing the Mahler cycle with Pierre Boulez and Danny Barenboim, I'm doing four of the concerts, I'm a huge Mahler singer and love them, and I never program Kindertotenlieder. Not that I don't think they are absolutely gorgeous, but they are impossible somehow. But at that time, it was incredibly powerful, incredibly healing.
Do you play any instrument, in addition to singing?
Michelle: I actually grew up playing many instruments in band and orchestra. I was always a very good musician and fast learner. When the school choir or school band or orchestra, would need an instrument, they would ask me and I would learn it. And I would play it that year in the band or orchestra. And I also play piano, until I started to take singing very seriously after my 3rd year in college.
We feel that instrumentalists like to talk more about musicology, and that singers rather chat about emotions.
Michelle: We have lyrics. We have something besides what the music tells us. Even when I'm learning something new, it's hard for me to stop and just work on the lyrics, I'm always in love with the music itself. For a singer, it's not just the music, it has to be both. The lyrics has to be extremely important, in many people's opinion, even more important. So for us, it's not just how does the music go.
We saw you are a Pau Gasol fan. We too! He went to see you?
Michelle: Oh. My. Gosh. I was beside myself with excitement. I have his picture on my iPhone.
[ed: we chatted with Michelle when the swine flu was so scary] You travel so much, how's the swine flu affecting your plans?
Michelle: I've been really watching the news. We had the bird flu a few years back, and now it's all coming down. I take very good care of myself. I think it's popping up in enough places. I personally would go to Mexico right now, I don't know if that makes me unpopular, but there are restrictions on that, that would be just a little unwise. Yesterday, we had a very long line at passport control, and I put a scarf around my face because there were children nearby that were coughing. I did think of that. I have four concerts to sing in NYC, I can't afford to get a cough. I'm washing my hands a lot anyway, and taking a lot of airborne, and worrying about it does not do it any good. I had absolutely no consideration of canceling my trip to Vienna or here.
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Great interview, Cedric!