Comparing Notes With Diva June Anderson

NEW YORK —  The latest edition of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians lists Marian Anderson, Leroy Anderson and Laurie Anderson. But if June Anderson is not yet included among such company, it is only because the dictionary is a couple of years out of date. Since its writing, the soprano from Massachusetts has become one of the most celebrated and sought after divas of her generation. She has been hailed the next Joan Sutherland so often that, well, perhaps she is.

Indeed, any Sutherland admirers who show up for Anderson’s local recital debut at Ambassador Auditorium this evening are likely to recognize a few uncanny similarities between the two sopranos.

Anderson’s spectacular vocal control has been judged Sutherlandesque, and so, too, has the gleaming quality of the voice. She loves the French and Italian bel-canto repertory that was once Sutherland’s domain. She has even been accused of the Sutherland trait of sacrificing consonants to preserve the plummy sound of open vowels. And there’s a strong physical resemblance.

But Anderson is also an opera star for the ‘90s, which hardly makes her a Sutherland clone. She cuts a particularly glamorous figure on stage; she prefers to work with strong conductors and strong-willed, adventurous directors. She is determined not to allow herself to be what a grumpy Virgil Thomson once called Sutherland: a dumb singer of dumb music.

And that means that Anderson has a problem. It turns out that it is not easy, maybe not even possible, for an opera singer to combine the best of two worlds--bringing the highest vocal standards of the past into sophisticated, modern music theater--in today’s high-priced opera.

The business of opera is business, Anderson complains, squinting in the harsh light of a conference room in the offices of her midtown Manhattan management on a cold, wet morning.

Yet, despite the grim day, the grim surroundings and a grim appraisal of the opera world, she somehow sparkles anyway. “It’s too much coffee,” she said with a laugh. She laughs a lot.

“Opera is not a one-man show,” Anderson explained, “and everything has to be at a certain level. When it isn’t--and that’s a lot of the time--I go crazy. In Europe, all kinds of opera companies will mount new productions for me, but then they think, ‘Well, we’ve got June Anderson, so we know we’re going to sell all the tickets. We don’t have to worry about anything else.’

“Then they scrimp on the other people. The result is that I can’t perform at the level I want to perform because I can’t do it by myself. Opera’s a joint effort. Maybe if I thought more of myself I’d figure I could bring everybody up, but I can’t. I get dragged down.”

As an example, Anderson mentions a Covent Garden production of “Rigoletto.”

“It was totally misconceived--no real stage direction at all, terrible sets, the conductor had never done ‘Rigoletto’ before. Everything was wrong about it. So I found myself just doing it on automatic pilot. The performance was totally devoid of any personality on my part because the whole situation was so awful.”

Nor does she flinch from acknowledging the compromises involved in her only American operatic appearances this season. One, the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Rossini’s “Semiramide,” the soprano characterizes as just-stand-and-sing.

“Great costumes, though--it’s a production about costumes.”

On the other hand, Andrei Serban’s new production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” for Chicago Lyric Opera last season was a real theater piece.

“But we were betrayed a bit by Lyric in the building of the set,” she laments. “They took shortcuts and tried to save money, and a lot of things didn’t end up working properly. But it was a valid production that shed a lot of light on the character.”

In other instances, Anderson bemoans the lack of colleagues who can sing at her level and who are willing to put in the rehearsal time necessary for a really involved performance. “Someone who will remain nameless said recently, ‘Are we here to sing or just do a staging?’ I think most people really just want to get out there and sing.”

She, of course, worries about the lack of singers on her level, period--the majority of which are at least a generation older. Anderson herself slowly worked her way up the ranks (she was a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera auditions at age 17, graduated from Yale with a French major in 1974 and made her professional debut with New York City Opera in 1978; she was last heard in Los Angeles in 1981 appearing with the NYCO). Anderson frets, too, that young singers too much in a hurry are hardly in line to become a new generation of great singers.

And then there are conductors.

“One thing I hate more than anything else is the kind of flaccid way that bel-canto music is usually treated. Because the major conductors usually don’t do it, you end up with someone who is basically beating time. They’re not bringing any kind of masculinity to the music. It’s not feminine music but very strong, and it has to be handled that way or it becomes boring.”

Once Anderson found that life at the operatic top wasn’t what she expected it to be, she says that she also realized she would have to do something about it.

“Just going ahead and fulfilling these contracts was making me miserable, and I was the most depressive person walking on the face of the earth for a couple of years. So I decided I better put my money where my mouth is. Why go on being paid for all this stuff that embarrasses me?

“And so I just canceled two years worth of opera, everything but my Met debut in 1989.”

Anderson decided instead to turn to recital and concert work to pay the bills and keep herself open for any challenging projects that might come along, even if they require months of rehearsal and offer fees a fraction of what she is accustomed to.

She may be the next Sutherland, but no longer will she participate in the mindless, careless or greedy making of opera, however much she loves and thrives on performing.