Nope, it’s not what you might be thinking. Most of you know that I have sworn off those accursed swear words, but I didn’t think Bronchitis and Sinusitis would have been a great part of my title.

At any rate, last weekend, I had the pleasure of making my debut as Madama Butterfly with the Imperial Symphony Orchestra. It was indeed a great experience! I sang really well and learned a lot. I learned a lot about what I can truly achieve and I learned that in the face of a sickness that laid me low, I could sing my heart out from the downbeat forward.

I had worked for months preparing for this role, doing my usual preparations…writing out all of my scenes (with pen and paper, which help my memory tremendously), translating that text word for word, writing a ‘working’ translation in my own words so that I truly get the meanings in my brain, speaking through the text for weeks before I sing one note, learning the music and fixing every problem I possibly can for myself before taking lessons and coachings, then going to my voice teacher, Mary Henderson Stucky in Cincinnati, and finally working with my coaching team here in NYC Thomas Bagwell and Tyson Deaton. I was saddened that on this particular role-learning journey I could not work with one of my favorite coaches, Neal Goren, but I know that he would have been proud of what I had done with the role.

Because Madama Butterfly is a young Japanese Geisha, I felt like I needed to also get movement coaching. I had seen Madama Butterfly a zillion times…well not a zillion times, truly…but many, many times and I loved how stylized the movement was in most of singing actors I’d seen. It’s one thing to see the movements but it’s another to ‘do’ them. So I contacted my friend, Larry Edelson, for recommendations and he led me to a fantastic young director, Keturah Stickann, who had just directed the show in Santa Barbara. What a great investment!!! She was so knowledgeable and we moved it! My hubby videotaped the session and I watched it over and over.

After months of prep, I was ready to bring Madama Butterfly to life, put her on her feet and sing my heart out.

I’m a living testament to the fact the preparation is everything! If I had not prepared this role in the manner in which I just wrote about, I would never have been able to pull off performing under such dire circumstances.

After about 5 days of rehearsals in Florida, I began to feel really ill. I got the chills one night at rehearsal and was totally wiped out. I went back to the hotel and went straight to bed after taking some over the counter meds. Ny-quil was my chosen remedy. I had already been taking emeren-C with acai in addition to some herbal crud begone tablets, but alas the crud won!  I coughed that entire night!

I went to rehearsal the next day and really tried to be a ‘hero’ and not let on that I was not feeling well but the coughing kinda gave me away. By the end of the night, I started getting clammy, I was coughing, sneezing and felt like I’d been run over by a truck.

Greg Sale, our awesome producer, and his wife, Christina Sale, who sang Suzuki down to the ground, arranged for me to go see their doctor and alas, I found out that I had bronchitis and sinusitis. My vocal chords were not so happy with me either and I had a bit of laryngitis as well. My goodness!!! There were 4 days until the opening night and I prayed that I would be well enough to rock the house.

I did everything in my power to stay focused and get well. I spoke with the director, Michael Gieleta, and the conductor, Jim Caraher (two of the most giving and wonderful people ever) and we all decided that I would not attend the second piano dress rehearsal. We had two orchestra dress rehearsals coming up and we thought we’d be fine.

Harrumph…so I awakened the morning of the first orchestra dress and my chords would NOT go together. No sound. Just squeaks like a little mouse. I was almost in tears. Truly. But I pulled it together, called the stage manager, Deborah Jo Barrett (a true gem) and the director, Michael, and eeked out a couple of sentences. I decided that I would go to the rehearsal but I would not sing or mark. Yes, my dear friends, I mouthed my entire first orchestra dress! There were photos taken on that night, which was the first night with makeup and costumes and I honestly look like I am singing! I mouthed those words and put every bit of emotion I could muster into my role.

I did speak some of my lines in the Third Act so that Maestro would know where I was…it’s a lot of sustained stuff for the orchestra and they move when I go to certain portions of the text. My colleagues were so supportive!!! They all were glad to see me and said they thought I was doing the right thing.

Well I had to go, didn’t I? If I had missed that rehearsal, I would have had only one day in costume before the show! I needed those two orchestra dresses not just for the musical aspect of the show but also to negotiate the slippery bridge in Act One….chiiiile that thing just about killed me during the first piano dress! I needed to work with that long robe in Act One so that I didn’t trip on it and bite the dust, I needed to figure out how to time my first attempt at ‘suicide’ just right so that I could run down the stairs and pick up my ‘baby’ before Tu, Tu, piccolo Iddio…etc.

I survived that night and felt pretty confident going into the second orchestra rehearsal, which was the next night. I rested the entirety of the next day and slowly warmed my voice up with humming and some tricks I learned from a great ENT, Wendy LeBorgne…sliding ‘buzzes’, drinking very cold water to shock the chords, no caffeine cuz it swells the chords, and I also warmed my body up with some stretches and jumping jacks to get the blood pumping. I was ‘ret’ to sing that orchestra dress. I did sing but opted out of the big high notes. Unbelievably, my soft high notes did not skip at all. Though I had some Mimi-esque moments, I was happy and felt like I would be fine for Saturday since I would have the whole of Friday to rest.

OPENING NIGHT!!!!! I was still coughing but felt strong. Strong in my soul, strong in my technique, strong in my preparation and strong in MY Madama Butterfly! I was not nervous in the least bit and felt like I would not just ‘get through’ this performance but that I would sing my heart out not matter what. I’d worked too hard to give less than all of me. 100%, baby. No matter what I was ready.

That night was like a wonderful dream that I will remember forever! My lovely friends Djordje Nesic and his husband Torrey Grobes flew from NYC to come see the show and my friends Mark Jones and Sandra McNiff, who had just come from a cruise to Jamaica that very morning, drove from Fort Lauderdale to see me perform.

My makeup was smashing (sprayed to perfection by Luandra), my costumes fit superbly due to the hard work of Camille who built my second costume in two days, my colleagues were on point and I left Adrienne offstage and emerged as Madama Butterfly!!!

Let’s be real…yes, things would have been a lot smoother and easier had I not been sick but I SAAAAAAAANG that role. As I write this, I get chills thinking of that glorious duet between me and Pinkerton…my boo, Stephen Mark Brown! So exhilarating.

I don’t recommend ‘singing sick’ to anyone…heck I would rather not have been in that position myself but I had 4 days before the show to allow those antibiotics…the shot (in a place that shall not be named) and the sweet, sweet Z-Pack to work…and I do not regret one moment of that performance on opening night.

I thank all of my friends, family, my lovely agent, Scott Levine, my teacher, coaches,  and my hubby, Henry O’Neill who have been there for me throughout my entire experience with this role. A dream role and one I hope to sing again…preferably not when I’m filled to the brim with B.S.

Have a great day, All!

Photography by Tom Mack-Lakeland, Florida

The road to this debut has not always been an easy one. I was not exposed to opera until I was in high school. The first opera I saw was a video of Don Giovanni with Kathleen Battle singing the role of Zerlina. I loved how Ms. Battle sang so effortlessly and for the longest time I was under the incorrect assumption there was only one type of soprano voice…that of Ms. Battle.

I didn’t know anything about classical music at all at the time and surely didn’t know there were different categories of soprano voices. Terms like soubrette, coloratura, lyric, dramatic soprano…let alone a spinto were unheard of to me. And thinking of combining these voice types even further to delineate the soprano voice category to include light lyric coloratura, full lyric, lyric spinto, dramatic spinto would have made my head spin back then.

My first art song, Vergin tutto amor, is still, to this day one of my favorites of the 24 Italian Songs & Arias.  I remember trying to imitate what I heard on the recordings of Ms. Battle. Indeed, my first opera aria that I learned was Zerlina’s Vedrai carino and I studied Ms. Battle’s singing and truly attempted to imitate it. But alas, unbeknownst to me, I was not the voice type of Ms. Battle at all. It took me quite a while to find my true voice and even more time to reconcile myself to what voice type I was blessed to possess.

In my sophomore year, I began to take voice lessons and from that time on I was told that my voice needed time to mature and roles like Aida, Tosca and Madame Butterfly were in my future. I kept thinking to myself, “I can’t wait to get older and for my voice to grow up”! When you are young, with an unwieldy and sometimes edgy instrument, it is sometimes difficult to see the forest for the trees. The forest that I couldn’t see was that the edge/cut/steel I had to my voice was exactly what would characterize it as spinto.  Those years and the many stages of my vocal growth (ugly duckling phases I called them) were seemingly never ending and quite frustrating.

I had a life-changing discovery in high school in the extraordinary soprano, Leontyne Price. While I still loved and love to this day the brilliance of Ms. Battle, I had found in Ms. Price a sterling example of a spinto soprano.

I remember my Godmother telling me the story of Ms. Price learning the role of Aida even though she had no existing contract to sing the role and that her diligence in learning the role had prepared her to be ready to step in for another soprano. (I later learned that soprano was Antonietta Stella and the opera company was San Francisco Opera.) That story got me intrigued and I immersed myself in the gloriousness of Ms. Leontyne Price.

I would have never thought that I could love music that wasn’t Funk, R&B, or Blues.  But Ms. Price’s voice took me to a whole entire new world of beauty. I knows it’s cliché and corny, but I fell in love with her voice.  I was surprised when I actually shed tears after hearing her sing Chi il bel sogno and O patria mia. I found that I loved those roles that my teachers and coaches said that I was ‘meant to sing’.

Soon, I began listening to other singers. Mirella Freni, Martina Arroyo, and Renata Scotto are just a few from those early years of operatic exploration. I discovered the range of vocal quality in their voices and loved each of them for different reasons. I didn’t discover Maria Callas until undergrad after which I became slightly obsessed with her ‘vocal acting’. Even the breaths that she took had emotion. I was totally hooked and immensely inspired.

After many years of listening to the above-mentioned singers and others, it was very easy to know which voices to go to when I wanted to find recordings to listen to as a part of my research of Aida. Ms. Price is the first person that one thinks of when the role of Aida is mentioned. As a part of my preparation for a role, though, I have found it very useful to listen to various recording with different singers in order to get a full range of what the possibilities are regarding interpreting a role.

Some of the recordings that I have listened to are: Mirella Freni at Houston Grand Opera; Wilhelmina Fernandez at Luxor; Maria Callas at Mexico City; Aprile Millo at the MET; Leontyne Price at Del Teatro Dell’opera Di Roma (1966—my fav); Zinka Milanov with Orchestra of Opera House of Rome; Leontyne Price with London Symphony Orchestra; and various recordings on youtube.

When listening to the music of Aida, one cannot help but be moved.

Some of the most beautiful melodies in opera fill Aida’s score, including the very beautiful Ma, tu o Re sung by Amonasro and taken up by Aida, Tu sei felice sung by Aida in the duet with Amneris, and of course the arias…Radames’ Celeste Aida, Aida’s Ritorna vincitor & O patria mia. In my opinion, the most beautiful moment is the final Tomb Scene.

I have been immersing myself in this role and am honored, excited and can’t wait to lift my voice as the Ethiopian Princess of my dreams-Aida.

I am so pleased to announce the release of This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne on DVD! I was so excited when the boxes of the actual DVDs arrived at the house. Djordje Nesic, my wonderful accompanist, and I had a great time filming the show with Milwaukee Public Television (MPTV). There are a couple of ‘sneak peeks’ of the show on the site. If you have a chance, check them out! I hope you enjoy.

In other news, I’ve just begun a two-week rehearsal period for New York City Opera’s Treemonisha, which we’ll perform at John Jay College at the end of the month. The cast is fantastic and I can’t wait to start staging tomorrow! I’ll keep yall posted on how that’s all going.

Well that’s all for now folks! Stay tuned—there’s more to come.

Peace and Love