This interview was originally recorded on November 19th, 2013.
The Oral History Project is supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.

Susan Graham, mezzo soprano 

Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham has appeared on the world’s foremost opera stages, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra national de Paris, Santa Fe Opera, and Bayerische Staatsoper. Celebrated for her mastery of a wide-ranging repertoire and her deep affinity for French music, she is a recipient of the French government’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. In the 2024–2025 season, she stars in A Little Night Music at Lincoln Center, joins the Boston and National Symphony Orchestras for gala appearances, and performs La fille du régiment in Paris and Munich. She also returns to Carnegie Hall in A Standing Witness, a work written for her by Richard Danielpour. Recent seasons have included her acclaimed performance as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher in the Met’s premiere of Dead Man Walking, as well as appearances with Dallas Symphony, LA Opera, and Detroit Opera. A champion of contemporary works and a frequent soloist with major orchestras, Graham’s discography includes La Belle Époque, Un frisson français, and Virgins, Vixens & Viragos.

Transcript

Marc A. Scorca: Welcome to the National Opera Center. My name is Marc Scorca. I am president of OPERA America, and am delighted to welcome you all here to our conversation with Susan Graham.

She has been called America's Favorite Soprano. Her recital repertoire is so broad that 14 composers are represented on her most recent CD. In 2001, she won the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. In 2004, she was Vocalist of the Year for Musical America. In 2004 too, she won a Grammy award. In 2005, the Opera News Award, and certainly the pinnacle of her career to date is being our conversationalist this evening, here at the National Opera Center. So please welcome the great Susan Graham.

Susan, as you know, just knocked the socks off of everyone at the Tucker Gala on Sunday. She did a gala last night for WQXR. She's here tonight, and I said, "Are you in New York?" She said, "I'm in New York for a month, and I'm not doing anything, except this is my third event in a row". So, Susan is just one of the truly generous spirits in our business.

Susan Graham: Thank you.

Marc A. Scorca: I always like to start off with the same question. Who brought you to your first opera?

Susan Graham: My high school voice teacher, in Midland, Texas and I had never seen an opera live before. In fact, in my house, opera was the thing you changed the channel from on the television. But it was Così fan tutte and it was at my high school auditorium, but it was the touring leg of the Houston Grand Opera, so it was Texas Opera Theater. And they came through my town and it was Così fan tutte and Sunny Joy Langton was singing Despina. And I remember seeing her, and I was already a student of piano and I played a lot of Mozart and I thought, "It's Mozart, it's acting, it's comedy, and she gets to drink hot chocolate". I wanna do that. Now, I still haven't sung Despina, but, you know, it could happen.

Marc A. Scorca: So, had you identified in high school, at that point, that you had a vocal talent, or are you still just a pianist and hadn't yet discovered your voice?

Susan Graham: I think that was probably my senior year. So, I think I had just sung Maria in The Sound of Music.

Marc A. Scorca: In the high school musical?

Susan Graham: Oh yes, in the high school musical. And so the drama-theatrical bug had started to nibble on me a little bit because, as I said, I'd been a pianist for a long time, and I'd always done vocal competitions as well, though, because, you know, in Texas there's a competition for everything. And if you can do anything halfway well, somebody's gonna throw you in a contest for it. Yeah, I did Beethoven piano sonata competitions and voice competitions. And down the road, they had a Chili Cook-off and a Rattlesnake Roundup. I didn't do either one of those. Yet.

Marc A. Scorca: But you still played. You accompanied yourself last night, so you still keep up your piano?

Susan Graham: I do. It's a funny story. When I was in college, I had a lot of boyfriends who were baritones, and so I'm really good at playing (mimes piano playing) the baritone rep. I used to play for their voice lessons, and I even played a couple of junior recitals. I was pretty into the whole piano thing, as well as being a voice major. But last year, I did this French duet tour with Renée Fleming. And it was a whole concert of French duets, with little solo groups here and there. And as encores, we were each gonna sing some solos, and then we had a couple of duet encores too. So the pianist was Brad (Bradley) Moore. So one day, we took a break from rehearsal before the first concert, and I was gonna do La Vie en Rose as an encore with Brad playing. And they went out to get coffee, and I stayed back to practice some stuff, and they came back and I was playing it and singing it. And Renée walked in the room and she said, "What?" And I said, "Dude, you've known me for 25 years; you know I can play the piano". And she said, "Well, I know you play the piano, but I didn't know you played like (emphasis) that." She said, "You've gotta do that, you've gotta do that". I said, "Well, what do you mean?" She says, "In the concert, you've gotta play for yourself". I said, "Oh no, I can't do that. I haven't played in front of people in 30 years". But she talked me into it, and by the end of the tour, that was my favorite moment.

Marc A. Scorca: Oh how wonderful. Now, I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but I'm curious in your role preparation, if you're taking on a new role, do you sit down at the piano and work through the score?

Susan Graham: Absolutely. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I've saved on coaches over the years? Not that I don't still employ coaches, because they're very valuable, but the preparation, the preliminary part: oh, yeah. I sit down and play through the whole score before I even open my mouth.

Marc A. Scorca: And begin just getting the musical vocabulary, the musical language of that opera into you.

Susan Graham: And as a result, I'm one of those people for whom the music goes in very quickly, and the words take forever. That's the hard part.

Marc A. Scorca: I was gonna ask you about that. So, when you're learning a new role, the music, the melodies, that's in you first. And then the words come in.

Susan Graham: Yes. And I was always that kid in music history class when they played Drop the Needle. I could hum the whole symphony, but I couldn't name it.

Marc A. Scorca: As I said in the introduction, we focus in these conversations, some about career development, as young artists will watch this interview. And here you were: born in New Mexico, but brought up in Texas. You went to college in Texas. And then you came to New York to MSM (Manhattan School of Music). That was quite a dramatic change. Had you been to New York before? Was that your first time?

Susan Graham: I had. No, a couple of my friends from Texas Tech had moved up here, and I came up here on spring break to visit - as soon as I knew anyone who lived in New York, 'cause I like to say that I had had every singing job there was to have in Lubbock, Texas twice. So, New York was calling me. And I remember when I was 21, I went home from my junior year in college, and I said to my parents, "I think I'm gonna go to New York next year". And they went, (laughs), "Yeah. No. You're not going to New York". I was 21. I was far too young. You would've found me right now wandering in upper Manhattan going, "Where's my apartment?", if I had come here at that early age. So they were very wise. And I stayed in Texas, and I got a master's degree at Texas Tech as well. So I was 25 before I moved up here.

Marc A. Scorca: And the Master's in Music as well; in Voice.

Susan Graham: Oh yeah. I've got a thousand of them.

Marc A. Scorca: Well, the honorary doctorates are still to come.

Susan Graham: Well, I got a master's when I came up here to Manhattan School of Music too, 'cause I thought (and I think I wasn't wrong for my personal case) I was not ready to go anywhere where I didn't have a niche to fit into. You know, I was 25, I was from Texas. I had been to New York a couple times, but I was nowhere near ready to hit the audition scene. So, at 25 I enrolled in Manhattan School of Music as an artist diploma candidate. And then after the first year, my advisor said to me, "Well, you know, I'm looking at your papers and you actually have enough credits/minors, you could just take one more class and you'd have another master's". I said, "Okay, sure". And that meant that I had to be in a couple more performances and give a recital. And I thought, what's wrong with that?

Marc A. Scorca: When I read your biography and we hear about your Met debut in 1991, and that's only a few years after you went to MSM; London in 1994. I'm curious about those years at MSM and just beyond, did you do summer young artist programs?

Susan Graham: Oh, yes.

Marc A. Scorca: Where.

Susan Graham: Well, let me backtrack a minute. I went to Manhattan School of Music, not only to have a reason to come to New York, but also to win the favor of John Crosby, who was the founder of The Santa Fe Opera, and at that time was still running The Santa Fe Opera. Because where I come from, Santa Fe Opera was the thing you want to go do. It was the biggest thing in my vicinity, and some of my friends had been Santa Fe Opera Apprentices, and I thought, "That's what I wanna do". But my teachers in Texas would never put me up for it, because, at that time, they didn't think I was ready - and I probably wasn't. I was a budding mezzo, you know. By the way, at the risk of offending my soprano friends, I have not been called 'America's Favorite Soprano', as you said at the beginning. I was back there going, "Renée's gonna kill me". No, 'America's favorite mezzo'. ("Joyce is gonna kill me"). But that's an old title. So, you know, there are many favorite mezzos in our midst.

Marc A. Scorca: Well, not in this room, for sure.

Susan Graham: Anyway, I digress. So, I went to Manhattan School of Music, so that John Crosby would see me and love me and ask me to be an apprentice.

Marc A. Scorca: Was he president of MSM at the time?

Susan Graham: Yeah. So, I came up here and I did everything I could in the first year, and then I auditioned for The Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program, and I was rejected. And I went, "Ooh, that plan didn't work". I lived in Texas and went to New York to come back to New Mexico. Anyway, the second year, I thought, "I'm gonna get it this time". And I did everything at Manhattan School of Music, and actually, I was the lead in the opera at Manhattan School of Music, and I auditioned again for The Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program, and I didn't get in. And I thought "Something's terribly wrong here". Since then, I've been back hundreds of times doing leading roles...

Marc A. Scorca: There is a life lesson here.

Susan Graham: Yes. I have forgiven them. I think maybe that's why they keep inviting me back to make up for those two years that I didn't get in as an apprentice. No. I always tell the apprentices that every summer in Santa Fe. I always say, "So, you're ahead of the game where I was at when I was your age". Anyway, I also auditioned for Wolf Trap and Merola. Anyway, I ended up going to Merola, after I graduated from Manhattan School of Music, and that was a life-changer for me. It was the perfect place for me and I got a lot of instruction and I got to participate in some operas, and it was really a big catalyst for me. Back then they had the competition, sort of talent show at the end of the summer, and I won the Grand Finale Prize at Merola, which - sort of - was shocking. I remember standing on that stage and they read off fourth place and third place and second place and first place. And I said, "Well, all the best people have already won prizes, who's gonna win the top prize?" And then they called out my name and I couldn't believe it. And so that was sort of a little light went off for me, in that moment, thinking, "This might actually work; perhaps this career thing will work out". Then I came back to New York after that, the first time in 21 years that I hadn't started school in September. 21 years. I should have been a lawyer or a doctor.

Marc A. Scorca: You came back here not having any work. You'd finished Merola.

Susan Graham: That's right. I came back here. I sang with the New York Choral Artists, you know, those pickup choruses that sing behind the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall and all that stuff. I was one of those people. I had every church and synagogue job that you could have. I think I still have the smell of incense in my hair from being in balconies and going out to synagogues in Flushing and all. We went all over the place. That's what young singers did, and maybe still do. But the the spring before Merola, when I was doing Chérubin at Manhattan School of Music, I got the attention of some Columbia Artist Management, and they talked to me and they said, "Go out to Merola, hone your skills, and we'll talk in the fall". And while I was in Merola, Betsy (Elizabeth) Crittenden sent me a message and said, "You know, Speight Jenkins is looking for a Cherubino. Why don't you take a plane up to Seattle this weekend and audition for Cherubino?" And I said, "Oh my gosh". And all of my friends in Merola hated me because they saw that pink slip in my little mailbox from CAMI (Columbia Artists Management Incorporated). And they said "A manager called her". So they were giving me grief about that. But anyway, I flew up to Seattle and I auditioned for Cherubino, and I didn't get Cherubino, but he said, "Susan, that Cherubino is good, but do you happen to have the Stéphano aria from Romeo and Juliet?" And I said, "Yeah, I've got that one". So I sang that, and he gave me the job of Stéphano. So, that was my first contracted job, and it was with the Seattle Opera.

Marc A. Scorca: How wonderful.

Susan Graham: And then I got management when I came back to New York, so then they started sending me out on, you know, five auditions a week.

Marc A. Scorca: And it was a year before the contract started happening, and you were busy as a soloist?

Susan Graham: I was not. I was busy as an auditionist. And a member of very elite church quartets.

Marc A. Scorca: That moment between conservatory and career is a really tough time.

Susan Graham: Yeah, it is.

Marc A. Scorca: How did you keep your spirits up with that? You just sort of were the 'unsinkable Molly Brown?'

Susan Graham: There's not much to be depressed about when you're 27 years old and single and living in New York City, you know, it was fun. There was a lot of fun to be had in New York City, and I was from Texas, and like I said, I'd been in school for 21 years, so yeah, I didn't have much homework to do anymore. I wasn't a crazy party person. I've never been quite out of control in that manner, but I had a lot of friends and we just sort of enjoyed being here.

Marc A. Scorca: Then began your entire first career phase as a pants role specialist. So Stéphano, Cherubino and so many others.

Susan Graham: Well, that first year also when I was auditioning, was also when I won The Met Council Awards. So, that was another little boost. I was doing a lot of competitions that year. So, auditions, local singing gigs, all the competitions which sort of helped pay the rent in those years. So, everything was certainly bubbling up during that year. So, I wasn't just going out to Area and all those ancient discos that exist no more.

Marc A. Scorca: But of course, the input that you were getting was really positive and you were getting a lot of positive indication that this was gonna happen.

Susan Graham: Yeah. This was in '87, '88. And so if I got any jobs from those auditions, they were booking for '89, '90, so everything was sort of happening (for) a couple years hence.

Marc A. Scorca: Your repertoire is really vast. From Monteverdi to John Harbison or Dominick Argento, by way of French repertoire, pants roles, Mozart...is there a strategy? Is it you sing what is interesting to you? Do you sing different things to complement one another within a year, for your own vocal health or artistic health?

Susan Graham: Well, it varies. In the arc of a career, those decisions are answered with different criteria. In the beginning, you say 'yes' to what is offered.

Marc A. Scorca: The strategy is 'yes'.

Susan Graham: The strategy is, "Okay, when would you like me?" It's funny, when I was younger, as a young lyric mezzo, I got offered a lot of pants parts, obviously. I got offered a lot of Rossini, and it was assumed that as a young lyric mezzo, you sing Rossini. And I could do it; I didn't love it though. And it was for me, too many notes, but my voice has always had that flexibility. I could do it. And I sang one Rosina, and it was in Edmonton, Canada. And it was so cold. I think my shivering is what made my coloratura (acts freezing cold and shivering/stuttering on the breath to illustrate coloratura). It was freezing, I remember that. But I thought this was at a time when Cecilia Bartoli was coming on the scene and blowing everybody's socks off. Jennifer Larmore, Susanne Mentzer. I mean, all these girls who were doing Rossini and loving it. And I thought, "Please be my guest; you can have it". And I really took the course of Massenet Charlotte, Chérubin; Octavian into Strauss, Composer. You know, I like white notes; those are a lot of black notes in Rossini.

Marc A. Scorca: Clemenza has a lot of black notes too.

Susan Graham: It does, but it also has a lot of heft and a lot of drama. 'Parto' is not the whole role.

Marc A. Scorca: So the shape of your repertoire in fact, decided by your personal preferences artistically.

Susan Graham: Always. I've never said yes to a role I didn't love.

Marc A. Scorca: Didn't come to love or didn't love at the outset.

Susan Graham: I've never said yes to a role I didn't like. By the end of it, I've always grown to love it.

Marc A. Scorca: American works, because you really have your stamp on some very important American opera roles. And I assume that there is a different kind of satisfaction in singing work of a living composer, work that tells an American story, work in English. Do they figure prominently because of a connection you feel to those works?

Susan Graham: Well, that's a really good question, because there are some pieces that I have (American contemporary, new pieces, world premieres) said no thank you to, because I couldn't connect with what was coming to me. Getting bits of the music...I wanted to, but I just knew it wasn't me. And so I have passed on a few of those kinds of projects, which, for ambition reasons, maybe I should have said yes to. But if my heart, (I) lead with the heart in those issues, and if I don't connect with it on a musical and sort of emotional and soulful level, I figure I can't bring my best to it.

Marc A. Scorca: Creating a role - not having recordings to listen to, or not having any comparisons to singers from the golden age. Is it very different to know that you are putting your imprint on this role for the first time?

Susan Graham: Yeah, there's an awful lot of freedom in that. And plus with a living composer...you can't imagine what Jake Heggie and I went through with Dead Man Walking. I mean, it's a groundbreaking piece, and it was a life-changer for all of us. And it was Jake's first opera, and that still is astonishing to me. And he'd written a lot of songs for me and a lot of other people with voices similar to mine. But we had to have a discussion about the tessitura of a mezzo-soprano. "We need to bring it back down just a little bit; I need to find my larynx up there above my eyebrows". So, it was a learning experience for both of us, because he knows that I have high notes, but I didn't wanna live up there all the time. You have to, (motions downwards) and then we can jump back up again. But little things like that, which you can speak to the composer. Now, if I were around when Mozart was writing Idomeneo, I would've asked him to do that a couple of times in Idamante's opening aria, because that's what we call a frog strangler. But you learn technical ways around it.

Marc A. Scorca: Comedy...

Susan Graham: I hate comedy!

Marc A. Scorca: As we saw in Grand Duchess this summer in Santa Fe, which was just hilarious. It must come naturally to you because you are just naturally a funny person, but is there a special skill set in doing comedy that you don't get to practice very often in the opera repertoire?

Susan Graham: Gosh, I used to get in trouble because my Dorabella was basically a hybrid of Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball. Sometimes that works in a production and sometimes it doesn't. I think it's a matter of timing, and it's a matter of how much liberty you can take, and how to turn a phrase and how to wink at the audience and how to let them in on the joke. It's a desire to want to entertain. And a desire to want to connect.

Marc A. Scorca: Are rehearsals different with comedy, because of the timing issue and the inflection issue?

Susan Graham: Yes - the initial rehearsals. And then as you go on and you repeat it 700 times, it is so not funny anymore. And then we get in front of an audience and suddenly it's all funny again. So it goes like that (mimes a downward curve followed by an upward one). You know, the arc of funny, and Grand Duchess was a perfect example of that because things that we stopped thinking were funny in rehearsals, we would just gloss right over and then we'd get it in front of an audience and the show would stop with people laughing. And we thought, "Oh, right. We have to take a beat for that". And that's why invited dress rehearsals are so important, 'cause you get that audience reaction, especially in things that have dialogue and rely on the timing that we have to bring to it, rather than the timing that the composer brings to the music.

Marc A. Scorca: And this year, Rodgers and Hammerstein, a piece of musical theater. Does that feel different, or does it feel like it's just part of what you do?

Susan Graham: Ask me in July.

Marc A. Scorca: Have you sat down at the piano to play through it at all?

Susan Graham: Not the whole thing, no. I've had my hands full. Did you mention that to the audience? Do they know what we're talking about?

Marc A. Scorca: I just said Rodgers and Hammerstein, they don't know the role.

Susan Graham: Do you wanna know a secret? A secret that's live webcast over the entire country? Well, don't tell anybody, but in June at the Châtelet, I'm doing Anna in The King and I, so that's really very exciting. And it's quite a departure.

Marc A. Scorca: And doing it in English, in Paris.

Susan Graham: That's right. 'Cause the Châtelet has started doing a lot of revivals of great American musicals. Also, they've just finished a run of Sondheim, I think, or maybe they're still in the Sondheim.

Marc A. Scorca: I think they're still in it that cycle as well.

Susan Graham: So, Rodgers and Hammerstein is gonna be great fun. And it's the same director and choreographer that I worked with last summer for Grand Duchess. Lee Blakeley is the director, and Peggy Hickey is the choreographer.

Marc A. Scorca: It's kind of funny that you're doing it in Paris because of your real affinity for the French musical literature. What is it about the French literature that appeals to you? Or what is it about your voice that makes it so perfect for that literature?

Susan Graham: I don't know. I think that a lot of the French composers, particularly in that sort of romantic era, were writing for a kind of - what they call the Falcon soprano, which is a mezzo that sort of sits here (gesturing high). It's not really a mezzo, but it's a soprano with a little more meat to it, but doesn't go super high. And that sort of has always described the weight of my voice. There's also a lyricism to it and a sort of cut that's required for some of that music, particularly in Berlioz. The Berlioz heroines are really good examples of that kind of Falcon soprano, because it's dramatic, at the same time, it's very lyric. Didon in Les Troyens is a perfect example. But the French music in general, I've just always been captivated. Even before I started singing, when I was playing French piano music - just the harmonies. And I was in love with the unexpected surprises of Debussy at the piano. And then when I started studying singing, Debussy songs were some of my first favorites...Fauré. They seemed so romantic and so elegant to say for a little girl living in Midland, Texas. The sound and the feel of the French language sort of elevated me somehow and turned on my fantasy, imagination of very elegant faraway places. And those elegant faraway places always seemed to have an Eiffel Tower on the horizon. So, I think it was meant to be somehow.

Marc A. Scorca: Had you studied French, because you sing it so Idiomatically, in high school?

Susan Graham: No, I studied Latin.

Marc A. Scorca: And I love those Latin songs you do.

Susan Graham: I know. Thanks. Big cornerstone of my repertoire. It came in handy in all those church jobs, though.

Marc A. Scorca: Absolutely. How do you handle language? Because you do sing in different languages and sing so well in them. Have you spent time studying French and studying Italian?

Susan Graham: Well, yes, in a word; of course. I learned German in college, at Texas Tech. And I do have to tell you that in my German class at Texas Tech, there were fellow students who spoke with very interesting Texas accents. French I learned while working in France, really. I studied French when I was preparing all the things I performed, like the French opera role that I did at Manhattan School of Music. They had a great French diction coach there. And then I started singing French operas at The Met. Even the tiny roles that I was doing, I was coached by the magnificent Denise Massé, who's the French coach at The Met. And she's been with me on every French recording I've done; every new piece of French music I've done. I've had great coaches. Nico Castel coached me on my first Nuits d'Été, when I was younger. And so, I've had really great coaches who have opened up a world of language to me that has to do with so much more than just how you pronounce the vowels. That's the tip of the iceberg, and the rest of it is the language and the inflection and the many, many meanings of the text as well as the inflection and everything - and cultural, how it fits in and musically, how it fits in. It's fascinating to me. And French really, I think the colors are so rich. Now Italian, I studied in college, but I don't sing that much Italian music, you know? Handel, Monteverdi and Mozart. I did Meg Page in Verdi's Falstaff, that's about the extent of my Verdi repertoire. Oh, no, no, no. I did Tebaldo in Don Carlo.

Marc A. Scorca: Okay.

Susan Graham: (sings) "Il re". That was my aria. He's the page boy,

Marc A. Scorca: And beautifully enunciated and inflected right there. And Susan said she would not be singing tonight, so we got some free singing. Let's talk about the song literature, because not many opera singers inhabit the recital stage as comfortably as you do.

Susan Graham: I'm glad it looks comfortable.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you find that as an artist, the song recital just adds to your repertoire both musically and artistically?

Susan Graham: Absolutely. It's not the easiest thing in the world to stand up in front of a bunch of people with nothing but a piano behind you and have to captivate them for two hours into a bunch of little tiny mini-worlds. And there are a lot of words. Oh my, there are a lot of words. And no prompt box, funnily enough. But it has so enriched the way that my brain processes music. And I was a real objector to it for a long time, and I kept saying, "Oh, no, no, I can't". And about 1995 or 96, my managers convinced me that, "No, you can't just do opera", especially with a lyric voice like mine, which is not one that raises the roof off the building. And I do love the intimacy of that kind of gourmet singing, I like to call it and storytelling. And I like to communicate. So, kicking and screaming, I got into the recital sort of genre. Plus it's something that's gonna be with me when I am not singing so much opera anymore. The concert platform is a place that has grown to be very dear in my heart. I have gotten much more comfortable on the concert stage, the recital stage. In fact, in the beginning, I remember, when I started doing recitals, Dawn Upshaw was sort of breaking ground, because she would come out and she would speak to the audience, and she would tell stories about what she was doing, and about the music. I was so blown away by that. And my manager said, "Oh, you have to come out, you have to talk. Do like Dawn does, come out and talk". I said, (tremulous quiet voice) "I can't talk to the audience. I can barely stand up there and sing in front of (them). I can't talk to the audience". And now, of course, if any of you have been to my recitals, you can't shut me up. They're like, "Stop talking; would you sing already?"

Marc A. Scorca: How do you select a program for a recital?

Susan Graham: Well, that's very interesting. I have a genius collaborative partner called Malcolm Martineau. He has a brain that's an encyclopedia, and he knows the most obscure repertoire. We'll talk about a theme. For instance, the last recital program I did, the working title was Good Girls and Bad Girls. And we started with The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation. Doesn't get much good girl-er than that. And then we went on to do a group of Mignon songs, you know - Ophelia, sort of victimized characters. They were good girls; they didn't willingly do bad things. Then the second half we started with Lady Macbeth. Not the operatic Lady Macbeth, but a scena that was written by Joseph Horowitz. And then we went into some Poulenc, Fiançailles pour Rire, kind of a little racier women. And then finished up with a group of cabaret songs that were kind of racier yet. So, we start with a germ of an idea, sort of a theme. And then Malcolm throws out ideas at me, and we go through them. And if I have a song like the Mignon songs - there were a few of them that I wanted to see if we could program in. And we just sort of worked together. It's mostly him, though, I will say without reservation. It is mostly Malcolm.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you work with a stage director friend who might help you think about how much you move on stage in recital, or what you do? That's all just you?

Susan Graham: That's just me. I mean, I've been on the stage once or twice. So, I am getting pretty comfortable telling my stories and I sort of know when I want to come forward and reach out to the audience a little more and when to bring them in.

Marc A. Scorca: How do you decide what to wear?

Susan Graham: Oh my gosh, that's always a (debate). For that tour, I couldn't believe that I got down to about two weeks before the tour started, and I thought, "Gosh, what am I gonna wear on this concert tour?" Because you're doing eight cities. And I am not one who wants to bring a different gown for every concert, sorry. You get the gown in Milwaukee, you get the gown in St. Paul. It's all the same and everywhere in between. So I went thematic and I had two gowns for the concert. And the first one was white, and the second one was black - virginal and not. And the second one was one shoulder and black. And you know, you can work the gown. I'm shameless. I have a lot of fun with it. I think it's part of the whole deal.

Marc A. Scorca: Because you are left alone. I mean, when you go and do an opera, they give you the costume, they tell you where to move, and they give it all to you. And here you have to make those decisions.

Susan Graham: I'll tell you, much more difficult than deciding on that one, was doing a duet recital with another singer. And Renée and I went back and forth, back and forth. "What are you gonna wear?" "I don't know. I think I should wear silver". "Well, I wanted to wear silver". "Okay well, you wear gold? I'll wear silver". "No, you wear red". "Okay". It went crazy. But we had to get two gowns. And of course, when you're singing with Renée, you've gotta bring six gowns, 'cause you never know (if) she's gonna change three times during the concert. I gotta keep up. Actually, we just had two gowns per concert. We each changed at intermission. Not like we traded...

Marc A. Scorca: Which is kind of a funny thought...

Susan Graham: That would've been funny.

Marc A. Scorca: I wanted to ask you about your artistic relationship with Renée, because for a lot of years now, you've done operas together. What is it like to have a performing partner like that?

Susan Graham: It's so much fun; we're sisters in this business. And so much so, that when we met to rehearse for the Tucker Gala the other day, (where we were doing the Lakmé duet) ... I just cut six inches off my hair and she just lightened hers. So now we have exactly the same hair. It has come to that. Actually, hers is a little longer than mine now, but it's lighter. We just looked at each other and we thought "Really we're becoming the same person". It's getting ridiculous. But we go back, what? 25 years? 'Cause 1988 is when we met at The Met Finals. We both won that year. We both had on hideous cobalt blue dresses and hair this big (gestures wide). And that's when we met. And the year after that, we sang in Rusalka together in Seattle. And then lots of Figaros in Chicago, and of course countless Rosenkavaliers all over the world. I remember she said famously in a New Yorker article, shortly after her divorce, "Yep, for the last two years, the only person I've kissed is Susan Graham". It was a bad time for both of us, actually.

Marc A. Scorca: I assume though, that in the rehearsal process, or even in performances, having someone who just knows your cues, who knows...

Susan Graham: We read each other's lines so much.

Marc A. Scorca: It must be really comforting and helpful.

Susan Graham: It is. And you know, the hard part is, is not cracking up.The worst part for both of us is lying in bed as the overture is going on at the beginning of Rosenkavalier and the curtain's down, and the overture tells quite a story between Octavian and the Marschallin. Go back and listen to it, and you'll see what I mean. So we're lying in the bed waiting for the curtain to go up, 'cause we know exactly what note the curtain's gonna go up on. And she's telling me what her kids did at school that day, and who she saw, "Oh, you know who I ran into...?" And we're gossiping, and the curtain goes up and we've gotta sort of be all over each other. And in those recitals, on stage, we know when the other one is gonna either make a wrong entrance, or not gonna make a right entrance. So we're kind of nudging and kind of "This is you, this is you". "Oh gosh..." Because we can read each other's physicality and everything. But I will say that the last performance of the last run of Rosenkavalier that we did together in 2010, was my last Octavian. We knew it was my last Octavian. That was my farewell to my favorite character. And the whole first act is about the Marschallin sending Octavian away. And they're saying goodbye to each other. We couldn't look at each other because she was singing "Heut oder Morgan", today or tomorrow you're gonna leave me, and I was weeping at her feet as the character, but also I knew this was the last one. And there's a moment at the end of that first act when she's going about her business and saying, "Oh, everything will be all right", and Octavian is just sort of staring out into space thinking, "She's actually sending me away. What does this mean?" And I tell you, the tears were real. We couldn't look at each other.

Marc A. Scorca: That's such an incredible story. What makes you decide to give up a role, to say goodbye to a role?

Susan Graham: Age. Flicka (Frederica von Stade) once said to me, "When you're old enough to be a grandmother, jumping out of a window is unseemly", talking about Cherubino. And I stopped singing Cherubino when I couldn't fold up underneath the chair anymore. There's a lot of me to fold up, and jumping out the window, I realized that I couldn't do it anymore without going, "Ugh", when I landed on the other side. I thought, "Stop". Actually, a role like that is physical concerns, because Octavian...When I can't do Octavian the way that I'd want to, which is running across the stage and leaping up onto the bed from midstage and swashbuckling and everything... when I can't do that anymore with the kind of energy and freedom and abandon I want to, then I don't wanna do it. I don't wanna be an old Octavian who sort of shuffles across the floor.

Marc A. Scorca: Where the servants sort of help you down...

Susan Graham: The servants are going "Here, can we help you off the bed?"

Marc A. Scorca: These days with the diminishment of the recording industry, a lot of artists, wonderful artists...don't have a whole library of recordings that they've made.

Susan Graham: Got in under the wire.

Marc A. Scorca: You have a really solid recording legacy. What's it like having that recording legacy? Do you listen to them? Do you cringe? Do you think "That wasn't bad". What is it like having that legacy?

Susan Graham: Usually the latter. I kind of go, "That wasn't bad". Well, actually, if I have occasion to hear them - I don't sit home and eat bonbons and listen to my old recordings...

Marc A. Scorca: The Norma Desmond evenings...

Susan Graham: Not yet. That could come. When I'm out on my farm, surrounded by my cats, I'll be listening... I think, "Gosh, that sounded so easy". That's what I think when I listen to some of those things. I marvel that I sounded different than I sound now. You know how as a singer you have empathy when you hear someone singing, you can sort of feel it in your throat sometimes. And when I listen to young me, I think, "Gosh, that feels so easy". And I'd have to work a lot harder to make that happen now. Now some things I remember that I was working harder at then, that come easier now. But usually it's the opposite.

Marc A. Scorca: And when you say, 'remembering how it felt at the time', I always marvel when there are interviews after a tennis match, and they ask a tennis player about the second point of the second game, and they remember, "Oh, you know, that's when I put the topspin on it..." Do you remember performances with that kind of specificity?

Susan Graham: Absolutely not. I gotta tell you, I don't even remember productions sometimes. I'll have to go back and try and remember. And I used to, when I was doing them, I would think, "Oh, this is great. I'll never forget this", but after 20 some odd years of doing it, something has to really trigger..."Oh my gosh, I remember, yeah, what conductor was that?" And you know, when you're doing it, it's your whole world. There's nothing outside that experience. But then lots of things come around and make it go into the misty background. It's very interesting. There are some that I can remember with great clarity, and moments that I can remember with great clarity.

Marc A. Scorca: Because they were great successful moments, or are they panic moments?

Susan Graham: Yes. Oh, yes. One of the first great joyful moments that I can remember on stage at The Met was when I was covering Cherubino for Frederica von Stade. I think it was probably her last run. And I was covering her, and two weeks prior to a particular performance in March of that year, she said to me, "Susie, I haven't told the management yet, but in two weeks I'm gonna have to skip a performance" (because her husband was having surgery). She said, "I'm gonna miss a performance, but I wanted to tell you, so you can be ready and you can call your parents and have them come up from Texas and see you". I mean, I can cry right now just thinking about it. And I said, "Okay, I'll do that". And of course, I was scared to death, 'cause as a cover, I didn't get a lot of rehearsal, and I never had been on the set. And it was James Levine conducting, and it was Tom (Thomas) Hampson and Ferruccio Furlanetto and Dawn Upshaw, and I think Patricia Schuman and all these amazing singers. And I was being thrown into it. And I remember they tossed me on the set half hour before curtain and said, "Oh, this is the window you jump in, and this is the window you jump out", basically. And it was the (Jean-Pierre) Ponnelle production, and I remember the opera starting, and I have no memory of the first act, but I do remember singing 'Voi Che Sapete' to Patricia Schuman, but staring at Jimmy. So, she was here (points to her side) and I was singing (demonstrates and sings out front) and Jimmy was looking at me and conducting and going...(blowing kisses, thumbs up etc). Then you can fly. I mean, it is so encouraging. That's one of the reasons we love Jimmy, because he makes you better than you think you are. It's amazing. It's so thrilling and encouraging. And so he knew I was petrified, and boy, he just brought me right into it. And then I had a great time, and it was a very nice ovation after that. And I got a very nice curtain call. And then I got a lot more contracts from The Met after that.

Marc A. Scorca: Oh, how wonderful. What a great memory that is. One of my favorite old Saturday intermission questions, and I remember vividly there was a panel, and they had asked Leonie Rysanek, one of my favorite singers, what role does she wish she had sung, but never sang? And she said "Isolde". And I thought, "Oh my goodness to have imagined a Leonie Rysanek Isolde". Are there dream concerts still to give? Are there roles you thought, "Oh, I really would've loved to have sung that".

Susan Graham: Well, I would've loved to have sung Tosca. However, Puccini didn't quite write it for my voice type. But I would love to...I would...Gosh, even saying it is just too terrifying, but I would love to sing Kundry. I would love to give that a go sometime. Never say never. I'm not holding my breath for it, but it's something that's on my sort of wishlist.

Marc A. Scorca: Musically? Dramatically?

Susan Graham: Yeah. I mean it's a far cry from Cherubino. But, funny story...I was singing Meg Page in Salzburg with Georg Solti conducting, and we had a very interesting conversation one time when he said, "My dear, they've asked me to conduct a film of Parsifal, and I want you to sing Kundry". And I was, I think, 34 at the time. I thought, "Yeah, Meg Page to Kundry, that's not much of a leap". And I said, "Who's gonna sing the part? I'll act it on film, but who's actually gonna sing it?" And he said, "No, I want you to sing it". And I kind of looked at him and I went, "Really?" And he said, "Yes. It's a small role, only one act". And he gave me the score and just to get him to stop talking about it, I said, "Yes, Maestro, I'll look at it". And of course, that did not happen. And I think they never made the film, but that was the first time that anybody had said that and planted the seed.

Marc A. Scorca: And I confess in asking the question, I never thought I'd hear a Wagner title come from you.

Susan Graham: Really? What did you think I would say?

Marc A. Scorca: I wasn't sure. I was open for anything, but the Wagner surprises me.

Susan Graham: You know what I wish I could do more of is Handel, because I love those big heroic Handel roles. Xerxes, for instance. I did it in Houston and San Francisco, and I'd love to bring it farther east.

Marc A. Scorca: I saw it in Houston. It was just wonderful.

Susan Graham: It's a great opera, and there's some just amazing music in it. Ariodante as well; that was a great one too. I love doing those Handel parts. Not Rossini, but Handel. It's a whole different animal.

Marc A. Scorca: It's a different kind of coloratura.

Susan Graham: It's a different kind of coloratura.

Marc A. Scorca: Well, we see here in front of us, just one of the great artists of our day, one of the great personalities, when she hosts anything. Susan Graham, thank you so much, such a pleasure to speak you.