The story is told of the diva who, shipwrecked, fell into the clutches of cannibals. Before they put her in the pot, she cried, “You can’t do this to me, I’m an opera singer!”
“Prove it,” the cannibals said, “and we’ll let you go. Sing something.”
“What!” replied the diva. “Without my make-up? Without my gown? Without my agent? Without my fee?”
Convinced, the cannibals released her.
But they never met Kathleen Battle. Legions of concertgoers and record- buyers adore her, but the 48-year-old soprano from Portsmouth, Ohio, is loathed in the music world. There was the time in Boston when she called the symphony to complain that the chef at the Ritz-Carlton had put peas in her pasta. There was the time when, riding in a limousine in Switzerland, she called her New York managers to insist they get the limo driver to turn the heat up. There was the time when she threw the clothes of the soprano Carol Vaness out of the Metropolitan Opera’s Dressing Room No. 1, believing herself entitled to it. Battle was summarily fired from the Met in 1994 for being a . . . well, “prima donna” is the politest term. Abuse-weary employees at one recording company suggested she do a new recording of spirituals — Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Been — and referred to her album with Wynton Marsalis as Music for Trumpet and Bitch.
It’s one thing to excuse temperament in a genius, but Battle is not earning any indulgence by her singing. She has always been an uneven performer, but a recent Washington recital found her in serious trouble. She began with a pair of Handel arias, and everything about them was abysmal. Her breaths, always high and shallow, were more so; her ornamentation was sloppy; her enunciation was lazy; her intonation was wretched. Mannerisms that used to be merely cloying have become caricature: She slides into notes like a lounge singer and she gesticulates histrionically, as though attempting to make up with her arms for what she is failing to do with her voice. She cracked repeatedly in the middle range, and she talked the low notes more than she sang them. Her high notes — the money notes for a light coloratura like Battle — were throat-driven, unsupported.
Battle was out of her depth on Hugo Wolf’s profound “Kennst du das Land,” and she couldn’t even flirt her way through two of his coquettish songs. Richard Strauss’s soaring “Heimliche Aufforderung” called for more voice than Battle could muster, and she spoiled many pieces, including Strauss’s “Die Nacht,” with absurd interpretive liberties.
There were glimpses, though, of a better Battle. She is an effective singer of songs in Spanish, and did a few of them stylishly. In the spirituals and the encores, she found those silvery high notes, and concluded with a creditable account of Mozart’s “Alleluia.”
Battle has always been a “pretty-voiced singer” — among the cruelest epithets in music — and that voice is now perilously weak. Battle, who should have at least another decade of first-rate singing in front of her, is in tatters. Her fans will forgive her anything, naturally. But there is restoration to do, and a woman of her notorious vanity ought to summon the self-respect to get it done.
Jack Kemp, that merry philosopher of America, proclaimed in last fall’s vce- presidential debate that “if you’re born in this country to be a mezzo- soprano . . . nothing should be in your way.” Nothing has been in Marilyn Horne’s way since she was born to be a mezzo in Bradford, Penn., 63 years ago. But today she faces the irksome impositions of age, to which she is engaged in a slow surrender.
If any singer seemed likely to go on forever, it was “Jackie,” as Horne is known in the faux-chummy opera world. She was always secure in her technique, reliable in her musical judgments. Her intonation was unerring, her breathing mythic. With Horne, “mezzo-soprano” was not “half a soprano,” but a vocal base camp from which to make pleasing excursions. She could range from deepest contralto to the snow-capped peaks of the register. She had an eerie ” chest voice” that thrilled some critics and led others to charge her with singing like a truck driver. Either way, that was part of her appeal: It was as though a man built like a lineman had been graced with the agility of a gymnast. She could sing music that had lain fallow, not because it was unworthy but because so few singers could execute it. Her combination of power and coloratura — along with a keen musical intelligence — did much to restore Rossini to respectability and to bring Handel to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time ever.
Along the way, she picked up a measure of general fame. At 20, she was the dubbed voice of Dorothy Dandridge in the movie version of Carmen Jones, Oscar Hammerstein’s reworking of Bizet’s Carmen. She chatted with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, hammed it up on TV’s The Odd Couple, and functioned as a kind of national Mezzo Laureate, lending cultural weight to PBS fundraisers, Fourth of July celebrations, and presidential inaugurations. In 1981, Opera News editor Robert Jacobson was able to declare her ” probably the greatest singer in the world.”
A Washington recital shortly before Christmas showed her in steep decline. Even five years ago, she was sounding more or less like herself, but the shadows have lengthened. The Washington outing was unnerving-beginning with the program. She used to start with a couple of Baroque arias, traverse the serious song repertory, and finish with a display of coloratura calculated to bring people to their feet. But now she offers a program with virtually no technical demands, and even that she can barely carry off.
The first half of her recital consisted of relatively gentle songs, located in mid-range; she did not sing them well. Her sound was muted and her intonation was uncertain. When she sang correctly, she sang blandly — which was once unthinkable for Horne. The second half was akin to a pop concert. She sang “lullabies from around the world” and a group of Leonard Bernstein songs — and sang them ably, but it was strange to witness a fabled technician, who has burned up every important stage in both hemispheres, resort to “Mighty Lak’ a Rose.”
There are two schools of thought on when a singer should retire. Some think you should stop when you are no longer your best self; others contend that you should continue as long as you can spark memories of your best self and keep a little pride. So Horne is now confronted with a decision. In her autobiography, she writes of her longtime accompanist: “I have a deal with Marty Katz. He’s promised to let me know when I’m no longer singing the way he and I know I want to sing. If I go on too long, blame Marty.”
He is not to blame yet. But a tearful discussion between him and his meal ticket should not be long delayed.
Associate Editor Jay Nordlinger last wrote on the composer John Corigliano (Dec. 2).
