Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 2 - Audra McDonald/Gala

13 | Lyric Opera of Chicago A six-time Tony Award-winner for her roles on Broadway, and a bona fide television star, Audra McDonald is equally celebrated for orchestral concerts, which she has performed to huge international acclaim. McDonald spoke with Lyric’s former dramaturg about her voice, her artistry, and the importance of a live audience. What are you most looking forward to in this concert? I love Chicago! I’ve never performed at Lyric, but I look forward to getting to know the audience. You’ll be appearing with Lyric’s orchestra; do you remember your first time performing with such a large group? I was doing Anything Goes at my high school, playing Reno Sweeney [the show’s leading role], and we had the high-school orchestra. It feels something like flying when I perform with an orchestra. You’re being supported by the most incredible updraft in the world, and you continue to soar higher and higher. How did you get started performing orchestra concerts? The first person who reached out to me for concert work was Michael Tilson Thomas, who said, “I’d like you to come sing with the San Francisco Symphony.” It was 1997 or 1998. You have sometimes been called a lyric soprano. Is that what you consider yourself? I think so. My longtime voice teacher, Arthur Levy, says, “Your voice strikes me as a soprano with a bottom extension.” How conscious are you of technique when you’re singing? I don’t think I’m ever not considering technique! One way I look at it is that a dancer always does a “barre” to warm up, whether you’re doing tap, jazz, modern, or ballet— you still have that foundation of technique. I’m most interested, and my vocal coach is most interested, that the entire instrument is warmed up and operational. When I was doing Billie Holiday [in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill ], he’d warm me up all the way to a high C, to make sure I had that, and then all the way down. So my voice was in optimum shape to do what I needed to do with it. You’ve always had amazingly clear and meaningful projection of text. Is that something you have particularly worked on? I idolize Judy Garland and Lena Horne, and what they did with a text. I had the great fortune to do several concerts with Barbara Cook. After admiring her and knowing her work from afar, I was seeing her work up close! As I was auditioning for certain roles, or preparing for concerts, I had coaches, mentors, and friends who helped me put the music together, or let me perform it for them, before I performed it in public. They were able to help me get as close as possible to the specificity of the text, and the meaning and the emotion coming from the text. When I was at Juilliard and living more in the classical world, my focus on the text was a problem I would run into. I remember being given Despina’s aria “In uomini, in soldati” from Così fan tutte. There’s that one part, when she’s singing, “sperare fedeltà” [“to hope for fidelity”]. She laughs, because it’s a hilarious thought: “Please! Soldiers and men will be faithful? Come on!” I knew she was a lusty, smart, earthy maid, so I busted out with this really hearty, loud laugh that seemed right for the character. I remember being absolutely admonished and hushed by my coach: “No, no, no, that’s not good for the voice!” They gave me an example of what the laugh should be [she imitates a girlish, typical light-soprano laugh]. I said, “Why would it be that? That’s refined. She’s talking about whether men will cheat on you—that isn’t a refined moment.” Back then, people might have said, “Audra is never going to make it!” I was always going to sacrifice the sound for the intention. How do you choose your repertoire for the concerts? It’s a gut feeling with any song. I know within two seconds that I want to sing it. It’s very instinctual for me, always. There’s something in me that responds in a primal way to the song. It’s usually a marriage of text and what the music is doing. The two come together in a way that’s meaningful to me, deep down in my soul. Ask Andy Einhorn, my music director all these years, who will be conducting this concert. The program will be chosen and put together very carefully, just as someone cooking an entire meal would want the dishes served at the right time—you don’t want to serve your dessert before your entrée! When Andy and I put a program together, we