Deborah Voigt’s father used to say she could sing before she could talk. As a child, Voigt, who has conquered the world’s great stages as the dramatic soprano lead in operas by Strauss, Wagner, and Puccini, loved to sing, especially the Broadway musicals that were forbidden in her strict Southern Baptist home. In the opening sentence of her new memoir, Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva (Harper, 2015), she writes that her future was sealed at 14, when she heard God speak to her with the declaration, “You are here to sing.” From this flows the story of the soaring highs and suicidal lows of a diva whose most far-reaching claim to fame, in spite of her fierce talent, was being fired for being “too fat” to fit into a (size 12) little black dress for a production of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos at London’s Royal Opera House in 2004.
Tonight, the glamorous, now svelte Voigt will be at the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Ballroom to sign copies of her book and speak and answer questions about her passions and her career, her addiction to food and later to alcohol, her much publicized gastric bypass surgery after the Royal Opera House incident, and her life in a firmament populated by, as she puts it, “presidents, princes, Pavorottis, and Placidos.” Presented by the College of Fine Arts School of Music and the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center (HGARC), Voigt gave a master class last night at the Tsai Performance Center featuring CFA music and Opera Institute students. Her talk tonight is part of the HGARC Friends Speaker Series.
When she was fired for obesity, it made headlines around the world and unleashed a chorus of sympathy and protest. “At first I’d say, ‘I’ll never go over 180 pounds,’ then it was 200 pounds,” she told People magazine in January 2015. “It just went up and up and up.” In the opera world, it has always been acceptable, even expected, for both men and women to be large. But even before being fired, Voigt’s growing obesity didn’t go unnoticed. “It was hard being Tosca at 300 pounds,” admits Voigt, now 55. “They’re singing about her being so beautiful, and I’m feeling, I am not and I will never be.”
The Gotlieb’s Deborah Voigt collection, some of which is currently on view at Mugar Memorial Library, consists primarily of printed material, memorabilia, professional material, a few photographs, and some correspondence. The material dates from 1987 to 2007 and is arranged in chronological order. The archive also includes a scrapbook containing programs, fliers, photos, and other items from her early career, 1979 to 1986, along with news clippings chronicling her performances around the world.
Voigt, whose memorabilia and papers are part of the Gotlieb Center’s archive, will discuss and sign copies of her new memoir, Call Me Debbie.
Voigt’s current one-woman show, Voigt Lessons, developed in collaboration with Tony Award–winning playwright Terrence McNally and directed by Richard Jay-Alexander, with music direction by Kevin Stites, weaves 18 songs and arias into a lyrical narrative of the story of her life and career. Voigt Lessons premiered in July at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y., and has been performed in Boston, New York City, and Provincetown. Next month she will make her Gilbert and Sullivan debut in a semi-staged production of The Pirates of Penzance at New York’s City Center. During the 2014-15 season she was classical radio station WQXR FM’s inaugural Susan W. Rose Artist-in-Residence, cohosting the opening-night broadcast of Carnegie Hall Live and the series The Sopranos with Debbie Voigt. She has also hosted the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series of movie theater transmissions from Lincoln Center.
Voigt, who also performs and records Broadway standards, says she is hopeful that the aging audience for classical as well as contemporary opera will broaden. “When someone says they don’t like opera, my first question is, have you seen one? Often, the answer is no,” she says. Many people, the young in particular, might complain that opera “is in a foreign language, I won’t understand, and it’s too expensive. I point out that every theater in the world now has titles, the English translation provided during the performance, so they will understand.” She notes too that most theaters now provide student rush tickets and a variety of choices in pricing, but adds that it’s important “to choose the right opera to get your teeth into. Beginners shouldn’t jump in to the Rhein River of Wagner’s Ring cycle on their first outing.”
Throughout her career, the soprano has given definitive performances of iconic roles in German opera, from Richard Strauss’ Ariadne, Salome, and Kaiserin (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and Chrysothemis (Elektra) to Wagner’s Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), and Isolde (Tristan und Isolde). She is also noted for starring roles in Strauss’ Egyptian Helen, Der Rosenkavalier, and Friedenstag, Wagner’s Lohengrin, and Berlioz’s Les Troyens, and her portrayals of such popular Italian roles as Tosca, Aida, Amelia (Un ballo in maschera), Leonora (La forza del destino), La Gioconda (La Gioconda), and Minnie (La fanciulla del West).
Voigt’s recording of Strauss’ Egyptian Helen was a Billboard best seller and was named one of the best of the year by Opera News. Deutsche Grammophon released a live recording of her headlining role debut in the 2003 Vienna State Opera’s Tristan und Isolde, as well as a Blu-ray DVD set of her starring role as Brünnhilde in Robert Lepage’s visionary Ring cycle at the Met, for which she shared a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording of 2013. She had previously shared a Grammy in the same category for a recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1996.
After all her trials in the fiercely demanding, unrelentingly competitive opera world, Voigt is embracing a different kind of career, one that suits her faith as well as her talent. “My name is Debbie,” she writes at the conclusion of the book, written with Natasha Stoynoff. “I sing for God and I sing for others. And now, more than ever, I sing for myself, too—and that makes me happy.”
The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Friends Speaker Series event An Evening with Deborah Voigt is today, Tuesday, September 29, at 5:30 p.m., at the Metcalf Ballroom, George Sherman Union, 775 Commonwealth Ave. Admission is $25 for the general public and free to members of the Friends of HGARC and to students with a BU ID. Voigt will greet the public and sign copies of her book, which will be available for purchase, following the talk. For reservations and more information, call 617-353-3697.