Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / Flicka: ‘Keep on Trekking’

Transcript

Flicka: ‘Keep on Trekking’ · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome to Q&A.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jay Nordlinger and our guest today is a return guest,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: the great mezzo-soprano, the great singer, Frederica von Stade.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's true, you know.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is now a documentary about her, Flicka.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is the name by which Ms. von Stade has been known universally for years.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And let me give you a performance note.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka will be appearing in Fairfield,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Iowa on September 26th in a program called Our Children and Music.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Frederica Van Stade.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: What a pleasure to see you.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Jay.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fine.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: What's the best song about Iowa?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking Meredith Wilson from The Music Man.
• 0:49
  That's right.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's close.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: You ought to give I Away a try.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: How does it feel to be the subject of a documentary?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a certain amount of embarrassment,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: but basically pure joy because of the crew that put it together,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Brian Stauffenbill and Nicole Boland,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: who were the producers, and my dear friend, dear beloved friend, Dee Dee Wellesley.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And other friends who helped underwrite it.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful to them because it was just a wonderful experience being with them
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: and, you know, going through my life.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was treated royally, spoiled incredibly.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it also gave me a chance to look back.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a wonderful, wonderful trip down memory lane for me.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm So grateful that I was asked to do it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: So grateful.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Flick, what does this program title mean, Our Children and Music?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we put together a program.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've been working on the Frauenleben und Leben of Schumann again.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: that's really a woman's life and one of the prominent figures,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: the children and children.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the best thing that ever happened to me in my life are my two girls.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we decided to kind of give that
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit of a center stage.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I also feel that I have two teenage granddaughters and I feel that life is
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: so complicated for them and so difficult.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And to say nothing of all the children suffering all around the world and Parts of
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: the world that I know very little about except through the news,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: but they're the victims of our senior muddling of, you know, world peace.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, plus the Center for Transcendental Meditation is in Fairfield, Iowa.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And my dear friend, Jim Meredith, who is, we are the solo artists, he is the pianist.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Introduced me to Transcendental Meditation,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: which I practice daily, and it saves my life in many ways.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe in it with my whole heart.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they've now started introducing it to young children,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: really young children, and it's been very successful.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So this concert will benefit the children's school.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about you this morning and it occurs to me you are really a singer
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: without specialty.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: You may be known for French songs and French opera roles and for Mozart,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: but you have sung pretty much everything and excelled in everything in
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: the Italian language, in German, French, English.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking Russian or Czech?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have you done those?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've done Czech.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've not done one song in Russian, which I regret.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've done Yiddish.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I did, I had the good fortune to perform with Seiji Ozawa in Czechoslovakia.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, it was the magic, magic time of my life to be there.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I did a recital there as well.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything you have not sung?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are there songs you have not sung or a role you did not do that you wish you had
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: or would like to do?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a song whose title is When I Have Sung My Songs.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of course you do.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have you sung
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: your song?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good title.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I feel maybe a little bit arrogant saying it,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: but I sort of feel that My life has been so blessed by opportunity that I'm grateful
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: for every song I did sing,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: every aria, every performance, so that I couldn't want for more.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: It would be indecent in my mind.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very happy with what I've done.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: I get a chance to do it again sometimes.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I love it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love it dearly.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a wonderful little program here in,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: I live in Arlington,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Virginia now,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: and there's a young gal who's Korean who started a little concert series
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: in her house.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's about 35 or 40 people,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: and she does all kinds of things,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: not just song repertoire,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: new works,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: and it's only sort of people who know about it who go to it, and it's fabulous.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been to several of her concerts and Heard all kinds of,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: she did a Chopin special the other day that was all Chopin.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And she's very innovative and works very hard and has this wonderful kind
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: of concert room in her house.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's made it a concert room.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, it's just somewhat, it's back to the old household set.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Back to the parlors.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, that's where music began.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: With these troubling times and all the horror,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: let me say horror,
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: that's happened to Kennedy Center and is happening around the world.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: We got to keep on trekking to bring music into people's lives because it's a pathway
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: to human connection, you know.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: In so many ways.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka, I love your phrase, keep on trekking.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost an improvement on keep on trucking.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tuck it into my repertoire.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: We must keep on trekking.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: as sort of orchestras strike and,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know, the numbers are down for attendance and opera.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, man.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have to put,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: and Jay,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've had the great joy of working with a lot of young singers this year in St.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Louis, in New Zealand of all places with Kerry.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I absolutely love it in different conservatories.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there are these out of this world voices.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm so glad none of these kids were around when I was beginning
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: because I would never have had a job.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: They are out of this world and there's
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Where are they going to work?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I tremble for their future.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of them, a lot of them are starting their own programs.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it doesn't pay much,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's going into schools and it's creating a little neighborhood of music.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like a bomb for the soul.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: It takes you away from what's going on in life.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's I mean, when you think of all the stories during the war of.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: People that had the horrors of concentration camps, they what did they turn to music?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's vital.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's more vital than ever.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka, I was talking about your languages and also the styles that go with them.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I have this question for you.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can a person learn to be Italianate no matter where he's from?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think of that funny thing that Richard Tucker said,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: and some Italian tenor I think asked him how he did that Dolce Mani music
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: from Tosca.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Tucker said, well, first you have to be Jewish from Brooklyn.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: and he seems sort of naturally Italianate and some people just aren't,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: even great singers from elsewhere.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a luck thing or can it be learned?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think the luck is part of it because I think it's part of one's talent that you have an ear.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like my good friend Richard Stilwell
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: probably doesn't speak French as well as I do.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: But he has this fabulous ear and everybody thinks he's French when he's singing
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: or talking, even in his broken French.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is part of a gift that you have the ear for the languages or
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: that somewhere in my youth or childhood, you've had a different language.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I did.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: When I was very young, I lived first in Greece.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: But we had like a nanny, an au pair girl who was Italian.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she didn't speak English, so she spoke to us in Italian.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think Italian was in the back of my mind.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then at 18, I lived in Paris for nearly two years.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And in those days, you didn't have any internet.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I was speaking French the whole time.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I very rarely spoke English for those days.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's the good fortune of one's upbringing and one's experiences
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: that, you know, you just.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the rest of it is gift.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: But may I say that there are the most fantastic coaches.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was lucky enough to work with one of the greats, and that's Alberta Maziello at the Met.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And You know, 10 minutes of working with her and you felt like you were Italian.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there are phenomenal coaches, phenomenal.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I recommend to the young people that I work
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: with is there's this adorable little video on,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, on Instagram or one of those.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's called Little French Girl Telling a Story.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she's maybe four.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she's telling a story about the zoo.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I say,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: you listen to that every day,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: every morning,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: every night, and you will learn more about French pronunciation than anywhere.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's, oh, le giraffe, le giraffe.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Non, non, non, il m'a donné le, je l'ai vu, il est dans les arbres, il sait sa tête.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then her mother is encouraging her, non, c'est pas prêt.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, You know, children speak very, very clearly and slowly.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I love listening to children in the languages that I dabble in.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of at my level or I'm kind of at theirs.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell them to watch cartoons in the language.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have indeed.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka, I was thinking about repertoire and we had On this series,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think, well, maybe it was a print interview.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I interviewed Krista Ludwig in 2014.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell our audience, the great German mezzo-soprano.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she said she was very happy to retire.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't regret anything.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: She was ready with no regrets, except for one.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: She missed singing Hugo Wolf, she said.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned this to your friend Marilyn Horne in another interview.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I understand.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: She said,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wolf is very hard,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: she said, very hard to learn and sing and so diverse with so many emotions.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, do you have a composer like Wolf for Christa, if not Wolf himself?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have a kind of a vague question?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Flicka.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: A composer who really sings to you,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak, to whom you feel especially close and always want to keep singing.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm going to mention and I'm going to say my.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Dear, adorable friend,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Jake Heggie,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: because I adore his songs and I've written a song cycle for my daughter and I feel
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: that he.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Celebrates each voice that he writes for.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he's such a man of letters and he has this wonderful librettist Gene Shearer
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: and they, I think doing they together are just extraordinary.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very, not just close to Jake, who's a dear friend, but I'm very close to his music.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I've sung a great deal of it, many, many songs.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, two operas.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in him with all my heart.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: The person from history that I would regret singing more of
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: is Poulenc
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: because he was such a rebel and he
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: very often unfiltered just gave his all
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: to every song and I think he was raunchy And I like that.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: I just love that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Someone called him famous.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember who said it, but half rascal, half monk.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: There was bad, dirty Poulenc.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of priestly religious Poulenc.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting dichotomy.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And doing, doing, oh, what is it?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Dialogue of the Carmelites, you know, was, I always felt like it was his atonement.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a masterpiece.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously he wrote many, many songs, but isn't there something great about Fleur Promise?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of perfect in almost a Bachian Baroque way.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a perfect proportions.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Flickett, talk with me for a couple of minutes about recordings, if you will.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think that...
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're one of the most recorded singers of our time.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you two stories.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Beverly Sills told me she once called up Renata Tebaldi, said, how are you doing, Renata?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's your life like?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Tebaldi said, I listen to my recordings and cry in a bad way, a negative way, a sad way.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lientine Price,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: by contrast,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: told me that she,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: this is like her,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: She listens to her recordings with great pleasure and appreciation.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder, can you listen to your recordings?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Almost never.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I figured.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Only in playback in the sessions.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because you hear flaws?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And more than anything, I hear that my lack of intention didn't come through.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what I was trying to say with my voice just didn't sound that way.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in one or two, it did.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: mostly I was thinking, no, I mean this, and this has got to come through.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is, you know, and I thought, no, it just doesn't sound.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I can't make it go through.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think you're the only one who knows.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there must be some consolation in that.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the pianist, Alista de la Rocha, she could never listen to a note of her recordings.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she said it's because she wouldn't play it that same way again.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Was her thinking.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I have the sweetest story.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just sang at Ravinia with Susie Graham.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: We did a little concert together.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: We had a ball.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: With my friend, Kevin Murphy, the pianist.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: With divine Kevin Murphy.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: He is divine.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And for some article, someone called me about it.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, what is your happiest memory of Ravinia?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, OK,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: let me tell you,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to stand backstage with Alicia de la Rocha and Isaac Stern.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we were listening to the debut of Lang Lang.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it was,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: and we were standing there and,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: chatting in when the audience applauded and it was just my,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: she is the most adorable, sensational human being.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And, and Isaac,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: and it just happens,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was wanting to hear Lang Lang's debut and we were just standing there in
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: the wings.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka, in my mind, before you came along,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: that is before you entered your prime and were a really big deal,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: there was a great triumvirate of mezzos,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: for me personally and in the world, Horn, Ludwig and Baker.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Janet Baker.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: could you give us just a word or a few words about each of them,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: maybe starting with Janet Baker?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I...
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Was smitten the minute I heard Janet.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I heard her first at Carnegie Hall in a recital.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I got a ticket.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very close up.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my friend who was with me said, Flicka, your jaw is way down on your chest.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to stop doing that.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could not believe what I was hearing and seeing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that is That is the greatest singing I've heard in my life.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got to be at Glyndebourne with her when she did Il Ritorno do Lice.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to every single rehearsal that I could and I went to every single performance.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And every night I was kind of in a musical heaven of what I think music can do to you.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's Janet.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's Janet for me.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And she's the dearest human you ever want to know with the best sense of humor.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Icing on the cake.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Icing on the cake.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know Krista very well,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: but every time I saw her, I just palpitated with admiration and respect.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: She's such an incredibly fine artist and brought so much to her music in every possible way.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Flicka, before we get to Marilyn, can I tell you something funny about Krista and Marilyn?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Marilyn Horne gave one of the most interesting answers I ever got in an interview.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I said something like, what made Krista great?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought she'd say something like, well, um,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Her use of the German language,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: her understanding of the culture, her experiences in the war and all that hardship.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought she would say something kind of deep.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know what Horn said?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: She said, great voice.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, oh, I'd sort of forgotten that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd sort of forgotten that.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great voice, she said.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a damn good answer, Jackie.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Jackie nails it every single time.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: She does.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, who doesn't love Jackie?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I loved her from the moment I met her.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I worked a lot with Henry.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Henry was one of my- Let me tell our audience, beg your pardon.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Henry Lewis, to whom Marilyn Horne was married.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Henry Lewis, a conductor.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I worked with him a great deal and I learned so much from him.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I adored Jackie.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: We did a concert series at Carnegie Hall and I was sitting next to Jackie.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what opera we were doing.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she said under her breath, keep your face in the light.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was fidgeting and looking down at my hands or something.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's been my motto ever since.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what, keep your face in the light.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, I mean,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: she's so funny and she's so dear and that sense of humor and that
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: That incredible voice and what she does with her voice,
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: no one has ever done ever and ever since.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to sing for her 90th birthday in California.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a group of us singing at the residence where she lives.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the first words I heard from Jackie were, the piano's out of tune.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's Jackie.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you can believe it was if she said it was.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And she's so caring and her mind is,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, no one, no one in my opinion speaks better to the public
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: than Jackie.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: She's wonderfully articulate.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: If she had never sung a note, she's a wonderful talker.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful, wonderful.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love everything about Jackie.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you a story about Marilyn Horne, Jackie Horne and Pitch.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Schulte would say to her, you're flat, dear, you're flat, dear.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Horn said to me, I think George heard Sharp.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would tend to agree.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, listen, my money's on Horn.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder whether there have been colleagues over the years,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: over the decades,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: who've really knocked your socks off as excellent singers and or musicians and
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Who are a little undersung, no pun intended, a little underrated or unknown.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've had so many famous colleagues.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it would have been better if I'd given you this question yesterday
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: so you should think about it, so you could have thought about it.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: But can you think of someone maybe a little underappreciated who is just great?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I go back to Richard, who had a great career.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Stillwell.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Stillwell, but he should have had a much bigger career.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Good answer.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: He is one of the most beautiful.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was never wrong.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: He never failed to give satisfaction.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he never, he never, he was never mediocre.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: He was always right on.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was right on.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he, he, his beautiful character always came through everything he did.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he, I just don't think he had the personal belief in himself.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not that, or, or, I mean,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: he had Matthew Epstein behind him who is,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know, he shoved Richard and I down everybody's throats.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: He was the greatest manager probably that I certainly has ever known.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: But Richard, he's kind of shy, Richard, you know, and he's very, very humble.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that might have been the reason because I think he was truly one of
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: the greatest artists I've ever heard, you know.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Back to Krista Ludwig in this 2014 interview I did with her,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: and I asked her something like, who's good today?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who are the outstanding singers of today?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, mind you, this was 12 years ago, so they're older now.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: She gave me,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: as I recall,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: and I checked my piece about this,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: she gave me two names immediately and then a third.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: She gave me the name of Anya Harteros,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: a Greek-German soprano,
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Joyce DiDonato,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: the American mezzo, And then she added Piotr Beksawa, the Polish tenor.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are there, no,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you for a complete list because that's too embarrassing
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: because you omit someone and you feel like, you know, it was right.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: But just a couple of names or a few names of singers who are,
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, in their 20s, 30s, 40s today, whom you think a lot of.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the world of Sasha Cook.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think Sasha Cook is one of the great artists of all time and with an absolutely.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I can't say enough about it,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: superlative voice and superlative technique and superlative humanity,
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and I would add I would add Susie Graham to the list for sure.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Susie Graham is is.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: More senior now.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: What a voice.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: What a character.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: What a divine human being.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, our Joyce.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Joyce, it's not just her voice.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's her intelligence and her spirit and her creativity.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: What she's created with that voice is extraordinary.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I saw I drove.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Miles to Princeton from Virginia to see her piece on Emily Dickinson.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I adored the music Kevin puts.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I adored it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I adored the performance.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's Joyce.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: She just never stops creating, creating, creating.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she's so good at everything.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I really just adore her.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And again, An absolutely superlative human being.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I love Piotr.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's extraordinary, an extraordinary human being as well.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have to tell you, I don't... Oh, Queen Kelsey.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Queen Kelsey is out of this world.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And a rare singer from Hawaii.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: A native Hawaiian.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: He did...
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: I go to much more opera now that I live here because I have
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: a dear friend named Steve Kitchen, who his wife doesn't love, love the opera.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm her substitute.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I go to so much at Wolf Trap and Washington Concert Opera and the opera.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And let's hope that lasts Flicka.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that's another issue.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've seen I've seen more opera in Quinn's.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what he's saying now.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, that's old age.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: But he just knocked my socks off.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's a damn good Rigoletto, among other things.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, out of this world.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Frederico von Stade, here toward the end, I have about three more for you.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And two are about the business,
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: those boring questions about the business,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: but they're important,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: even if they're a little boring, meaning that they've been gone over so many times.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I've talked to lots of singers in recent years,
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: and so many have told me A few of them on the record,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: most of them in private,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: these screwy productions that are unfaithful to the operas are killing our business
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: or at least doing us great harm because the audiences are so upset
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: and they don't want to come because of the stage productions,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: which are often at odds with story music and so on.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a burning issue.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not just,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: fuddy-duddies and squares and people that want to see something new or prudes,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: but,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know, worldly people who say, what the heck?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if you can sympathize with this point of view.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: I do, to a certain extent.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in the new operas, I'm all for them.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a different thing altogether.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: For the old operas redone like in a subway or something, I'm not for them.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done one,
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know, like,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: 40 years ago in Paris,
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: they did a production of Chena Rensola that was,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: she arrived in an elevator and it just,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: part of the excitement of the opera is the tradition and the tradition calls
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: for extraordinary costumes and a glimpse into the life that they knew.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, finances have
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Made that incredibly difficult.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was telling someone the other day that I had a costume doing flora in La Traviata
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: that was a Karinska costume.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the front panel of my gown had what looked like a Boucher painting.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was a, you know, it was someone with a mandolin and a lady listening.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was extraordinary, extraordinary.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you didn't get to take it home?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't get to get old.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that was part of it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then,
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: all the sets were,
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know, what I think of the set of Hansel and Gretel at the Met.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was enchanting.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of it loses that enchantment.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I do feel that a lot of it is fiscal.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I really do.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: That it's just, they,
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't make sets like that anymore.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can't afford them.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can't afford costumes like that.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, if it's innovative with some taste.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we were talking about Traviata, and I saw a film of that, Traviata.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think it debuted at Salzburg or something.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was quite wonderful.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Willi Decker.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful production.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there are some...
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a young man and I cannot remember his name,
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: but he staged a performance at the San Francisco Conservatory,
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: which was one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he was doing the Bernstein piece, Candide.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Candide is a little bit of a crazy opera anyway.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you took it literally, you'd probably spend $25 million.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was funny.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Innovative.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was just brilliant, brilliant.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen a marvelous production at Wolf Trap of Chana Renssela
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: that was adorable and it was done almost like a puppet show.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: But no, it was done like a tiny little scene.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: They brought the theater in and it was funny and it was innovative.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so as long as it respects the music and and.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: The intentions, as long as you can, I'll tell you what, here's my clue.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: As long as it tells the story.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: If it doesn't tell the story, it's a miss.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And opera, it's all about story.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Flicker from operas to recitals.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your friend Marilyn Horn sang in all 50 states.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think her last was Wyoming.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't sing in all 50, I bet you got into the 40s.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: I did sing in, you know.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: You are a troubadour.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, also, you know, there were so many wonderful recitals.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Spots in those days, you know, nothing but, and I think that's true.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not, it's the fault of, it's a general, it's not a fault.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a generational.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Flicka, let me tell you that there aren't voice recitals, many of them in New York City.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where I'm sitting right now to say nothing of Laramie, Wyoming.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, and a singer recently described the situation to me as a wasteland.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: It is a wasteland.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just fairly worried.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's the times.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's because we have, you know, you can watch movies on your iPad or your TikTok.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: We are inundated with access to great things that's more convenient than going to a recital.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing is like the live performance.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a thing.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not one thing.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm excited by things like this organization I told you about.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Not an AM.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: In that it's starting to come back to, you know, intimate groups.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that is, that's a small beginning, but it's a beginning.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Seedlings.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And there's one other thing,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: when I sang in places like Port Arthur,
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Texas, and some one place where the hotel we were staying hadn't been built yet.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, uh,
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: There were still many of a German generation or a French generation who were here
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: because it was just after the war.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they were relishing hearing their language,
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: relishing hearing Schubert, Schumann in everything.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, you know, we've outgrown that now.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Frederica van Stade, thank you so much.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And here at the end, I have a little quiz.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the subject of the quiz is like Jeopardy, the category is Frederica Van Stade.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: When did you first appear in Carnegie Hall?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: On the stage, I mean, not listening to Janet Baker or anyone else.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: When did you first sing in Carnegie Hall?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Guess if you don't know.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: February 1973, the
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: New Jersey Symphony Orchestra conducted by Henry Lewis.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: You sang a number of operatic excerpts with Marilyn Horne listed as a soprano, which she was.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Frederica von Stada, mezzo-soprano, Riri Grist, soprano.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: February 8th, 1973.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: With the Newark Boys Chorus.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Next appearance in Carnegie Hall was two years later,
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: almost to the day on February 6th,
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: 1975, Memorial Concert for the aforementioned Richard Tucker.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there was Cesare Ciepi,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Carlo Bergonzi,
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lientine Price,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Robert Merrill,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy Kirsten or Kirsten,
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Cornell McNeil,
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: that's John Vickers,
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Marilyn Horne,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Roberta Peters, Frederica Von Stada, singing the aria from the Huguenots.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have been such a lucky girl, I'll tell you.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Grace Bumbry.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third time, and now I'll stop.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: The third time was two months, three months later in May, 1975.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: You were a soloist with orchestra.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a different thing.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my dear Michael.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Singing the Ravel Scheherazade.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my gosh.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my gosh.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Michael MTT.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: He and his husband, Joshua,
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: the two of my favorite people in the whole wide world,
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and they're both in heaven right now, you know.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Frederica von Stade, does the heart good to see you and hear you?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: I listen to you often.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whether I see you or not,
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to you just the other night,
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: about two nights ago, probably because I'd been typing your name or something.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the algorithm fed me your,
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: one of your many Tanti Affetti by Rossini from Lady of the Lake, Donda del Lago.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my goodness, my goodness.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a million other things in your versatility.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Jay, thank you.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And God bless you and strength to your hands.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: God bless you too, Jay.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.