How did the first Bayreuth Kundry come about?
Leonie Rysanek, I was told later, had asked in 1982 that she be given an alternating colleague for Kundry. The dates were too tight for her. Wolfgang Wagner was apparently convinced at the time that Rysanek should only be given a young colleague at her side. A different model, so to speak. Perhaps with the secondary thought that the newcomer could not become a direct threat to the established singer in this way.
What kind of company was Bayreuth in the early 1980s?
A family business. That was the beauty of it. So nice, in fact, that people were happy to fill up their cars for three months and move to Bayreuth with half the household. By the way: to the countryside! Most of the singers did not live in the city at that time. The rooms were rented and paid for by the singers themselves. By the way, the horrendous rents in Bayreuth didn't start until the year Plácido Domingo sang on the hill for the first time (laughs). They obviously thought that we were earning an insane amount of money in Bayreuth ...
Was that not the case?
Not at all! But there was something for us singers that I would call "detour rentability". If you sang in Bayreuth, this possibly increased the interest of other promoters. I had no family at that time. But for colleagues who, let's say, traveled from America for three to five performances with all their children - which did happen - it was probably hardly financially profitable for them. There was little left over. I hear that they are now working on this problem. But until recently, the fee agreements in Bayreuth were below any norm.
What was so family-like about the Bayreuth Festival?
Well, where else do all the sopranos sit together and really get along?! In Bayreuth, no one had to put on airs. There was no star stuff. Bayreuth was the star. And Wagner himself. It was really a workshop theater. Everyone involved was engaged for several years, the ensemble stayed together. This gave them the freedom not only to freshen up after the premiere, but to really continue working. Siggi [the tenor Siegfried Jerusalem] and I sang "Tristan und Isolde" together for six years back then. That makes a difference! We grew from that.
How did you spend free days and the evenings?
During the day, we went swimming at the Goldbergsee. In the evenings, you sat in the "Weihenstephan" and played sheep's head - if you knew how. I still haven't learned how to play it. Many people also played chess. Very nice years!
Wolfgang Wagner was just over 60 at the time - not an old man. But a patriarch!?
Clearly! And yet very popular. He remained humorous, sat at our table in the canteen, was a source of anecdotes. Wolfgang Wagner, there's no question about it, was the best director I ever met. We all liked him, because he was noticeably on the singers' side. He had an open ear. You could come to him if you were missing something.
You have been singing Kundry for more than three decades. How has the character changed for you?
I'm trying to figure that out, too. It's difficult for me to describe exactly. I experience the role too much from the inside. It's important to be awake to everything that's resonating at the moment. In doing so, you might think a bit too much about instinct, because in reality it's about technique and analytical consideration. I sang my first Kundry when I was 26. Freshness was very important then. Today when I stand there, I feel I have to put all the depth of interpretation into every detail. In the past it was all about sentences, today it's even about individual words. What's interesting to me is how much Kundry develops - from the animalistic to the human. And that in going through this development, she no longer has to sing at all in the third act.
The year 1993 meant a big step for you: you sang your first Isolde, directed by Heiner Müller. How did that work? Müller was not a director!
No, he wasn't. But he was an artist whom I respect as such. His "Tristan" was more like an Erich Wonder "Tristan" in my eyes. The performance lived from the stage sets. We didn't try very much with the director. In the second year he was ill, if I remember correctly. In the third year, the rehearsals were preceded by the filming. So Siggi and I took matters into our own hands. That was a disadvantage, I will not hide it. I could have used guidance and dialogue. I definitely had an argument with Heiner Müller once and told him what I thought: "That you don't know much about music was clear to us, but that you don't know the text either disappoints me." I think Müller had also somewhat underestimated all that.
Your last performance in Bayreuth in 2000 as Sieglinde was followed by a break. What exactly happened back then?
Oh, that's a long story. In 1998, Wolfgang Wagner had asked me if I could additionally take on Ortrud in the second year after the premiere of the new "Lohengrin", in addition to my engagement as Sieglinde in the "Walküre". Two or three times the performances would have been on consecutive days, so I said, "Gladly, but all seven "Lohengrin" performances are too much. Couldn't I get a colleague to help me?" I would have liked to have it the way it had been done with Domingo and with Rysanek. Wolfgang Wagner did not want to get involved in that. That was a first big disappointment.
But that wasn't the whole conflict, was it?
No, because then Salzburg approached me with the question of whether I could sing "Tristan" there under Lorin Maazel in the same year. The performances were arranged by mutual agreement so that I could make it work. This engagement, however, was not welcomed in Bayreuth. For 2001, they were no longer willing to schedule rehearsals in such a way as to avoid collisions, this time with commitments in Munich. But the decisive factor was the prelude, which I have told you about. And after that? I was no longer invited.
Was that the final straw between you and Wolfgang Wagner?
No, several years later I congratulated him on a birthday, and he wrote back very nicely. Somehow we liked each other. We are both Franconians. I think he was no longer quite master of the business in Bayreuth in the years when things went wrong. I kept a good feeling towards him.
How do you see the Festival today? In 2018 you will return to Bayreuth as Ortrud ...
For a long time, I simply wasn't interested in it anymore. I was otherwise involved and happy to finally be able to take a vacation in the summer. And yet I am happy to round off this story with Ortrud 2018. Katharina Wagner had inquired. The fact that this "Lohengrin" is conducted by Christian Thielemann is also an important reason for me. When I had sung my last Sieglinde on the hill, I secretly touched the stage floor again briefly and quietly said to myself, "I'll be back." I guess I still had a suitcase in Bayreuth after all.
Is it fundamentally important for you to put a good ending behind a story?
Absolutely. Although not everything necessarily has to be brought to a conclusion. I want to do everything only as long as I can really take responsibility for it. When I started on the Hill, my motto was, as I said: I'm not doing this for a Rhinemaiden! And now I said to myself: You're not coming back for a Mary! "Ich spinne fort ...": I will not do that!
A very important director for you was Klaus Michael Grüber, a man of drama. Why?
Because I learned so much from him. Grüber was a director who told you, "I am your observer. I can't tell you what to do, but I can read you." Many couldn't cope with him at all. It took me a while to understand him, too, which then happened with "Parsifal" in Florence and in Paris. But his attitude, "I'm the boy with the big eyes who wants to believe you!" was extraordinarily fascinating. That's when you suddenly become very conscious of what you're doing. Grüber, in other words, turned the tables. As a singer, you were given responsibility in your own hands. Technically, the distinction between doing and being was probably the most important thing for him.
Less is more!?
Yes. It's always difficult for us singers, because we can't take art breaks. The music continues. With other directors from the school of Stanislavski or Felsenstein, it's always the case that you anticipate things, that you think ahead. With Grüber it was the other way around: you do something spontaneously and try to make something out of it. By letting it be. And by keeping your mind on it. "Don't comment on the role!" was a central phrase of his. Likewise, "Watch your hands!" I stopped doing anything with my hands a long time ago, but he still said it. "You have such great hands, if you're going to do something with them, make it a big, clear, guided movement. And stick with it!" That's how Grüber was.
But your real "life director" must have been Patrice Chéreau?
Yes, he was the absolutely central figure for me - along with Daniel Barenboim. Since Chéreau died, something essential has been lost for me. I miss him in this world.
Chéreau was more than a director for you?
Much more, he was a real friend. I often called him, even when I was working on other roles. Then he was always the one who made me think deeper. "That's cliché!" was a phrase he often used to steer me away from making mistakes. The central work that connected us was "Tristan," which we did at La Scala in 2007. The role was familiar to me. But only then did it become clear to me who this woman actually is.
Who or what is Isolde?
Not a proud woman, but a woman who - from the beginning - despairs, loves, feels betrayed. She wants to commit suicide because she really sees no other way out. She is at the end of all considerations and does not act out of affect. That was the difference to all previous interpretations. Every word was analyzed during our work. The year before, we had already met for a week in Aix-en-Provence, together with Ian Storey, who was to sing Tristan. And only read text. The crucial point with Chéreau - apart from all sensitivity - was always: text. For me, the last all-embracing artist, who was incredibly versed in literature, psychology, philosophy, but also in painting. As this was actually only the case with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle before him.
What was striking and likeable about you was the very integrity of your role portfolio: you were a Wagnerian mezzo who indulged in and conquered selected excursions into other repertoire. Obviously quite consciously?
First of all: thank you very much, that's nice to hear. It was intentional. You can imagine that over the years I was offered Elektra, Tosca, Ariadne, Brünnhilde and all sorts of things. But I knew that this could be dangerous. You then get into a rut from which you can't get out again. For example: I could have sung the Walküre-Brünnhilde. But what would have been the consequences? People would have said, "Where is the Götterdämmerung- Brünnhilde?" My basis for knowing where the voice feels at home was the concert. And there in the mezzo department. I didn't want to jeopardize that. That's why I didn't change subjects, but only expanded them. I even sang Leonore in the knowledge that my vocal home is the mezzo.
So it was caution!
Yes, exactly. Because I knew that no rooster would crow after me if I sang myself to death prematurely.
Didn't you have enough great conductors around you who could have done you justice in roles like Brünnhilde?
Yes, but you know, you often hear the phrase "You could do it with me!" You must never believe that of conductors.
Which roles do you regret not having sung?
Salome was a great temptation. It was planned in Berlin with Giuseppe Sinopoli. I miss Brünnhilde, but only a little. I thought for a while that the Marschallin would be right for me. But there were no offers. And then my calendar was full again.
What aspects do you think did you add to the characters you became famous with?
To make it very brief: I added to Clytemnestra that she is not a monster, but a woman with all her dignity. A tragic figure, not a grotesque one. To Kundry I have given, I believe, more colors and thus more facets of existence. As a being with longing. And in such a way that the character really undergoes a development. And Isolde? Humanity. I tried to make living characters out of all the roles. People of timeless validity.