John Callaway Interviews; #106; Leontyne Price

TOOOOOOO~~ Miss Price, you once said, what I am as a woman is what I hear in the actual sound of my voice. What are you hearing these days?

I hear a woman, a real woman. I hear warmth. I hear great beauty. I hear, don't you love the modesty of this? I hear the luxury and the enjoyment of my blackness. I hear the excitement of being an American. I hear all my childhood. I hear, I'm a complete person when I hear, I can hear what I am as a human being. A warm, caring human being, because my voice is a soaring, warm sound and the essential qualities of it. I think it's to complete me. Yes, I'd spout to be like my voice, actually. John Kellyway interviews, Leantine Price.

Most of us would aspire to be like the voice of Leantine Price. It's been called the voice of the century. It's reached into the upper balconies of all the great opera houses of the world. La Scala, the Met, Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, San Francisco, Chicago. But at first was heard publicly here in St. Paul's Methodist Church, Laurel Mississippi, where Leantine Price grew up. What do you hear in your childhood? There's still the warmth on the love of my mother and father and the community on general of Laurel Mississippi, which nurtured me, which gave me, helped to give me my values, which sustained me today. I'm sure that that particular, to quote my dear friend Alex Hayley's title, everlasting title, my roots, are the things that sustained me even today. My church, my pristine religious belief, which is untouchable, I don't get into all sorts of esoteric discussions about, I just believe that the gift came from the man upstairs, and I have a duty to perfect it to use it for positive things.

I take on, I don't want to come on like a brown John of Arc, or black John of Arc. But I do, having been earlier in the career, A, shall we say, singles out for a certain responsibility, which is maybe, I'd like to, all right, let's call me, a combination, party and barrier breaker. I never had I been so exhilarated in all my life as to realize that it was the most important thing that ever happened to me. I still consider it the most fortunate, fortunate responsibility, because as never a time that I do not perform, that I do not believe that I have something very positive to say, not just for myself, or not for the luxury of listening to my own sound, but that it really makes a significant meaning in a lot of things. In certain struggles, in certain statements, I think that this is very important, even now, for me to feel that as an American, in foreign areas, in areas of, whether they say music is the international language, I really think that's true.

Because I have statements to say about my country, I have statements to say about my people, I have statements to say about our, our, our, in general. Do you mean your work makes my work? My work in your very presence makes this statement, as opposed to say my work. I would say my work, yes. That is what shouldn't want to express what you have to say the best you can. I think singing is the best way for me. That was not always understood, but that problem even has been taken care of, because I think that I have convinced everyone, and that is really a very important thing. Now you mentioned your belief, some people speak of God's plan, theologian speak of God in history. Yeah.

Do you think there was a plan? Do you think that you have a responsibility to accept almost a godly assignment? I really don't, I don't really care how old-fashioned a home spun this sounds, this is that is yes, I do. You can feel it, can't you? Yes, I have a friend, a quote from Jesse Jackson who says, Purpose gets me out of the house, and I think he's right, Purpose gets me out of the house, because I feel, I mean it's not just an empty experience for me. Singing is not only the greatest joy in my life, I know that it is fulfilling, I feel feeling for more than just myself, unless letters and bright young eyes and experiences that I have. Experiences that I have had, when I perform, I don't think of a dishonest, and to date I believe that, I believe that I have an important mission which I would like to continue as long as I possibly can. When did you start to know that?

I don't remember when I did not. But you went off to college thinking you were going to be a music teacher as opposed to say an opera star. I still, pardon, I still don't, I knew I wanted to do something expressive, very expressive in music. It just turned out that opera was one of the dimensions that made me perhaps more bravura. Of course you did end up being a teacher, I mean that's what this is. I probably will end up being a teacher. I mean your life is a teaching, isn't it? I think so, in a sense. Well, that may sound immodest, but why not? No, I think you have to be factual about it. There's a teaching. The experiences may very much be provocative and adventurous to younger people. Yes, at least I've been told by them that it is. Would you recall what it is you think you got from your mother as opposed to what you got from your father? Yes.

Mama was a very strong and still is because it's evident. Sometimes I think I'm becoming slowly, my mother, which is really a superb experience. I could do, I couldn't do better than that. Very strong, dramatic, beautiful, wonderful lady. Mama was, you know, the last of that type, really, fantastic lady. They're feminine also at the same time. She always gets me into the theatre, out of the dressing room, to the wings, to the center stage. It's my papa who keeps me there for the entire evening. His pacing as all, I think, this wonderful, strong, but gentle, but very definite quality that I think a lot of black men in the South have. It's extraordinary.

It's this strong, you know, but not, it's tempered with this going on kind of thing. And lasting, you know, sort of like a, I wouldn't say a steer rod, but it's like a focus that's going somewhere. You see that, you know, that what you have, if you didn't say it clearly enough, that this quality as you're giving your children, it will be said for you later, which has been, I think, in the case of the Price family, a fairly evident. My baby brother's a brigadier general in the United States, oh, I'm just recently tired. And I think, time by time, I tend to do fairly well myself. So it's true, they have left something here. It's a combination of both qualities, I think, which is really what parent who it should be, I think, if you're going to grow up. And did you get also a sense that it seems to me that one of the other great lessons of your life is that as a life, I'm not just talking about this year or the year 1949, but as a life you've had a sense of timing and a sense of knowing how to expend what to expend. And did you get that sense of when you were growing up from your parents, is that the kind of thing you almost inhale from them?

Yes, I think what you're getting to now, since the values and also how to use the best, what you have the best that you can. Also, my parents also like very much. The term now is called winners, which is sort of dwindles it down to a little bit too publiant, but they imbued in us as strongly as they could to be the very best at what you're going to do. Try as hard as possible, never to settle for mediocrity on any form, in your daily living, in your endeavors in life, and as being a human being as well. Be the very, very best that you can be. It's the only way to survive. And you grew up with music, did you not? And they make an investment to really get you a piano and get you involved. That time when I was growing up with that much of a warmth in a childhood I didn't consider myself poor, because we were not in the things that really mattered. But because, speaking financially, there were never any ends that ever met, I mean, because there were always sacrifices for my brother and I to go to school, etc.

Your father worked in a sawmill, your mother was a midwife. And how did you get your first piano? Well, they saved up and bought it. You know, my toy piano was the very first one, the second one, I'm sure that they probably, I know, did without something they needed in order for me to have it, along with piano lessons and the same for my brother. Did you think when you started that you would be a pianist? Yes, it's a matter of fact, I don't play too badly at time, by the time of even now. Not necessarily a pianist, but I was always going to be involved in some sphere of musical expression, I wasn't sure which way. And you went to the Central State College at Wilberford, Chicago.

That is correct. And did anything happen there that propelled you on forward? Did you meet somebody that was important to you there? Yes, I did. The President, President Charles H. Wesley, whom I see very often now when I go to Washington and always invite him to my concerts. And Mrs. Terry, Anna M. Terry, who was head of the music department at that time, whom I also see when I go to Boston to sing, were instrumental in trying to, say we say, focus my talent because I thought I had an outstanding talent. They had me auditioned for Todd Duncan when he was visiting the campus and also giving recitals in the earlier days. Who suggested that I apply for a scholarship to Juilliard when I graduated in case I wanted to branch out into solo performing? The Juilliard School in New York awarded her that scholarship and Elizabeth Chisholm, a wealthy, laurel woman who had known Ms. Price since her childhood, offered to pay expenses. The move to New York brought public attention.

In 1952, Ayra Gershwin cast her as Best in Porgy and Best, opposite baritone William Warfield, whom she married and later divorced. In 1955, when America as a whole was just beginning to feel self-conscious about segregation, NBC's nationally televised opera theater made news when it cast Lee and Teen Price in the title role of Tosco. Some writer said about you that by the time you got to Juilliard that you really didn't know that much about opera, that you got the opera bug at Juilliard, is that accurate? That is true, that is the truth. I didn't know anything about opera except what I heard vaguely, very vaguely, on the broadcasts in the radio.

I think the first one of those was Tristan O'Dizolde with the Trouble, I think, and Mel Cure. A years ago, my total indoctrination came as a standee, I think, in one week. First, I stood at the city center to hear, I think it was Francis Yand in Toronto, and then my dear friend, who is really my beloved friend, Lubavating Insolomy, and I knew then that I was hopeless, you see? And so I thought, well, this is it. But prior to that, at nine years old, I already had the very sharp case of the artistic maladies, shall we say, or addiction, given to me by my idol, Maryann Anderson, because she gave a concert at the Civic Auditorium in Jackson, which in 1930, what was it called? It was something like that that was really, I was a singular experience, and my mother took me by bus to go to hear this experience, and I decided I wanted to walk like that, I wanted to be, look like that, and if possible, to sound like that.

The whole aura, dignity, and the regality of her, I was totally smitten. Did that help you some way not say to yourself, well, I'm black, and blacks don't go anywhere in the opera in this country, and certainly in the 30s and 40s, they didn't, if you looked at the stage of the Met, that example of that model helped you just go ahead and not think about the race question in a negative sense. I don't ever think, even if there is a race question, it has ever been the person who's involved, it's never been the black artist problem, it has been other people's problem, which makes it a total bore. That's when I knew progress was being made, because instead of being emotional about it, now you just get bored, because it's ridiculous.

I mean, it really is so simplistic, it's ridiculous. I still think that in regards to the lack of black operatic heroes in opera, there is a wealth of black male talent around, but it's so simplistic. As I say, it's fairly ridiculous. It's not our problem, it is everyone else's problem, and that's why I will stand firm as long as I can, because I have the freedom now to say that it's ridiculous. As the token black, I was very emotional about it, and I still do. My God, I must not fail, because this has to speak a very strong way for those after me. The most fantastic thing about being an American, which I say totally chauvinistically, is all we have to do is to get something done once. That's the difficulty in our culture, which is the youngest, most vibrant, and obviously the most sustaining one.

And it's our salvation, just to get something done important once, and it becomes a part of our culture. And I am so glad that I had a part in sort of a soup song of making this a reality. Because at, on February 10th, I'm very honest, I will be 54 years old. I have never felt more vibrant. I have never enjoyed singing so much. I have never wanted to sing, and do what I have always done so much more than I do right now, because I can look just slightly over my shoulder, and see what has been done, and still be able to roll up my sleeve, and go to that, and continue it. And that is American, it's best. And no one can defeat us as long as that keeps rolling.

American, at its best, is born out of growth. That's what I mean. And in a part of that, it must be ever-constant, though. I just think, when you know that, as a family, as a part of American family, it's your duty to never let that ball stop. You must do everything you can to keep it rolling. Because I always say that at the end of the rainbow, it's worth it. That's why everyone wants to come and be a part of our culture, and I can't blame them in the least. It's the best there is. Did you always know that you could hear your voice and know yourself? Was that something that takes a little maturing to know? Oh, I think the voice, the reasons there are so many difficulties about being a singer, the voice is the most personal instrument. Instrumentalists, you know, are pianists, can depend a great deal. If the instrument is very fine mechanically, it is wonderfully tuned.

Then they can add their individuality to it. But ours is all in one package. We carry the whole thing around with us from day to day, which is affected. I think the vocal apparatus is always affected by the emotional, the motions of the person involved, the good or bad days of the person. It's very provocative. Shall we say, burden and glory? Burden and glory. Yes, I would say. I think Union Psychology holds that if you have a great gift, it is a burden and a glory. If you don't use it, it can turn back on you and poison you. Do I speak to you at all? Do you have to use it? Oh, I think the reason I'm here with you today is that I'm probably using it longer than most people thought I would. Oh, yes, I think so. It's like the talent story of the talent. If you have a great gift, the omnipotent could have tapped someone else on the shoulder and given it to them.

And if he made you the lucky person, and I really do think that to be in any form, a creative art form, an artist of any ilk, you are automatically one of the most fortunate human beings in the world, with this comes the burden and the glory, which I am beginning to try to understand how to express this to young aspiring performers. This is not really the burden. It's a combination of burden and glory, but the sheer joy of making music will keep you ever so, shall we say, young youthful, challenging, excited. The discipline of performing is something that is very good for building a type of, shall we say, editor responsibility in later in life for handling many, many problems that are not involved in being an artist. I think the burden is to be able, certainly, to be uncompromising in your seriousness about the challenge of being the best artist that you can possibly be, and it does carry with it many, many, many sacrifices that can be rather overwhelming at times.

Do you want young performers, because I want you to speak to young performers here also, do you want them to know in advance what those burdens are and what those pains are and the suffering? No, I think that I would not like to accent that so much as I would like to accent the positive qualities, because that will balance out the fact that the burden is the least of the things to worry about. Because you'll be able to handle, there can be personal, shall we say, the situation with each individual artist will be different. So you wouldn't be comfortable saying, Lord. I can't tell them what mine were, because I mean, I think that's not the case.

You can't say, don't expect not to have a marriage in babies, because maybe they can do it all. Indeed, indeed. It wasn't necessarily my, shall we say, method. But it could be handled by certain people. That comes with your own individual personal strength that you bring to everything. But I'd like to accent, ever so strongly, the fact that the rewards are so overwhelming that, first you can be alone, but never lonely. That's what really a wonderful vibrant career can do for you, alone, but never lonely. You can be, you can learn to enjoy your own company, which gets to be almost, you know, as long as you learn a new piece of music or you're somewhere involved in creating, you're never alone, you're never lonely. It's a struggle. You can love yourself, not in our statistic way, but in our artistic way. You can love yourself as a vessel of, shall we say, the development of and the expression of a very special type of beauty.

Think of it. I think that the artistry is the only thing, especially in today's hectic and most confusing world. We still speak about Leonardo da Vinci, do we not? We still speak of Amadeus Mozart, as if he were here yesterday, not to mention. You said Bivere, the Buccini. You are never dead. You are never forgotten. It's a contribution that is ever, ever present. It has no century. It has no era. It has no time. It just has a very poignant and everlasting significance. You didn't mention in the rewards. You didn't use the word money. Apparently that doesn't mean that much to you. No, I guess I do like my present standard of living. I did not always have it, so I tend to understand in everything except my singing. I have the same friends that I began with, because I always have been just a tiny bit.

I wouldn't say pessimistic, but just a little careful, because after a while, the seriousness of what you're about is what you really have to go on with, have to sustain yourself with. The outer trappings never really appeal to me very much. I can be both images, depending on my mood, but the basic ones, I think, are the ones that are important. I would like to think that they still are to me, yes. When we think of your career, if we want to look at it historically and be accurate about it, and you think of all the various influences you've had, but who after you got to Juilliard or after you got out, who really helped discover you? Is it Virgil Thompson? Who gets the credit?

Oh, I give everyone credit. Sometimes the journalists do not report all of the things that I give, but I'm very, very precise at whom I give credit to. It's almost a monologue sometimes. For bridging the gap between a near fight, that means someone who is not a professional into the land of professionalism. It has to be divided. I would say beloved Virgil Thompson is responsible. The Frederick Corns is Juilliard for putting me into fallstaff in the big area, as Juilliard is responsible. My beloved teacher, Florence Page Campbell, and also Blair's Davis and Robert Breen, who happened to be there and gave me my first equity contract in Borgian Bess immediately afterwards, which started the whole football game going really. William Warfield. Is William Warfield, whom you married, important to you musically?

Not at all, except that he's one of the greatest artists in the world. You're saying with him for how long? Borgian Bess. I think it was two seasons, which is about as long as I think you should sing with anyone, I guess. You mentioned Florence Page Campbell. Is it true that she said to you, sing off the interest and not the principal of your powers? No, no, no. It's slightly different. Try in your vocal approach to sing on your interest, not your capital. I think there's a secret to the vocal longevity. It's a secret of life too, isn't it? Indeed it is. That's what I meant about pacing. Yes, indeed. How do you pace yourself? How do you prepare for an opera role? Talk to us about... Talk to the young viewer now and what you do. You're trying to get me to give my master class here, Mr. Calaway. Yes, ma'am.

All right. I would say to a young artist, there are at least ten to twelve dimensions from the time that you pick up the score until you go out of the wings in costume to sing to the general public. Are you prepared for all those dimensions? It is not learned the score and flexing your muscles and thank you can run out there. What are some of those dimensions? They are a very intricate research program. To first, in collaboration with the music, the notes I mean, to find out the era, the epic, the social ambiance, the movement, the political situations, all of these things in depth about the character and the opera that you're doing at that time. Go to museums, find out the stats, the elegance or non-elegance, or the mode of dress of presence of the character.

And that is the score you really do. You really do. There's nothing to do with singing this technique. I'm speaking of what? It's combined with it in singing the study, the notes, all of this before you come out of the wings. And then don't be too cocky because there's added at that last dimension the vibrations between the public and you. Be so prepared that everything is in every pore of your body, not to mention in your subconscious mind. And usually, if all that has been done, this will work for you because what you are doing as an artist is what you are as a person. Because I say again, and it flows, never do anything that doesn't flow because it's like pushing a horse who doesn't, maybe making the spurs to tie or something.

Always that little give and take. And then you can fairly be certain that things might work out. I would like also the young artist not to be so totally involved in the instantaneous vibrations of today in that and apply it to a being an artist. It doesn't work. It's one of the only few old-fashioned techniques that are needed to be the best you can be. I don't understand what you mean by warning about instantaneous vibrations. But we live in a highly, a super technological age now. For instance, if youngsters are being taught, some of them can't function very well because things that the thought process is done for them now. You understand what I mean?

Computers, TV, whatever, all that stuff. I'm trying to tell them that it doesn't work with art. Roaring art, your elbows is in art. It's still the only way to get it. Really all tightened up. Perseverance, discipline, and hard, hard work. And in many senses, I sense very, very much of the priorities. Do you have a fervor about being the best artist you can? Because if you do, you must have a totally non-compromising attitude about it. You must be able, if that is a social event, and you have an important additional, you have an important performance the next night to say no. Even if you really like to participate because your energy, if you really are serious, should go the night before and not the night afterwards and not the night before. Suppose something happens in the middle of the performance. I always am a little bit strict with myself. I would hate to know that the public is there. I am there to give them an emotional experience, an experience of beauty, to share my purpose in life actually with them.

And I have, as my little nephew say, goofed by wasting this energy in the middle of something that could really be a beautiful experience. I am responsible because it is not as good as it could be because my energy went for something else. That doesn't mean you cannot have an exciting and centrelating life. But you know what to put first, you see. But you know this price is, I listen to you discuss this. It sounds magnificently and horribly and wonderfully demanding. It sounds very close if not precisely as a religious commitment would be. And I have a quote here from you in 1968 that says, I will never be, I will never be a complete woman. I have professional success instead of a personal life really. And I'm wondering if you don't have to look that student, that youngster that's watching in the eye and say, hey look, you might look out.

But by and large, if you want marriage, kids looking at the leaves on a fall day, probably not. No, I'm not going to tell them that. I still believe as firmly as I do an individuality, I couldn't. I think it's a personal application to it. That's what it was for me and for several others that are very serious. Did you know it would be that way when you got married? No, I did not. I expected, you know, I wouldn't say the vine covered college, but my priorities are what I am doing now. And I made my decision and I will do it again. It may not be the same for another youngster. Sometimes I think I wonder if you can be a certain kind of, honestly, if you're too happy, you know what I mean? That must be, if something must be a little provocative or quite capable, sometimes.

That's my personal opinion, but I wouldn't say that they, you know, I don't want to give them. So I would like to always accent on the fun, you know, the real ball of being a performer, because it is an unmitigated ball. When it's going, there's nothing like it. And that's why it is, in my personal case, it would be impossible now, which is why I'm not involved with an interest in being a mayor. I'm married to the purpose that I'm talking. I'm married to the sheer joy of perfecting even more this gift and delivering it, which, you know, putting it where it should be. But one human being really delivered that for me. This extraordinary vibration that comes from 4,000 people, 10,000 people, 20,000 people. It's impossible. It's almost destructive to ask one human being to do that for you.

That's why I say the burden in the car. It's impossible. And I'm quite happy because I wouldn't dream of doing that to another individual. The triumphs in Leontine Price's career are innumerable. In 1961, for example, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in Verde's Il Travitore and received a 42-minute ovation, a record for the house. In the minds of many operas, she practically owns the role of Iida. And there are those who argue that her interpretation of Chocosan in Puccini's Madame Butterfly is the only one which truly captures the tragic vulnerability of that character. So if there have been no thorns in this bed of roses, only a couple that turns out, both in the 1960s, when the new star was receiving more invitations to sing, then there were dates on her calendar. In the fall of 1961, when she opened the Met's season in the title role of Puccini's Fonsuladel West, or Girl of the Golden West, her voice gave out on her midway through the Second Act. Then in 1966, she was again opening the Met.

And this time, she was also opening the New Lincoln Center in New York in a new production of a new opera, Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, a whole musical world was watching. And though Ms. Price's voice was in great form that night, many critics called the production a disaster. Did you have to learn how to say no? Did people start to use you in the sense of offering you roles that maybe really weren't right for you, but they needed a star? Did you have any growing to do in that sense or suffering to do in that sense? I don't want to be melodramatic. Suffering is a personal thing, so when you get through it, maybe you could use that connotation at a tan. I was, I think, by virtue of being there, the person, the artist with that opportunity, saying no was an impossibility in many things, and a few things I did do that I had no business doing, but I was the only one there.

So you get your teeth and you try to get through it, because it's your responsibility. And then once my goodness, the best thing you can do is to learn from your mistakes. The thing that has happened to me in the few years is that I simply won't make those mistakes again. I will never be overused because I have things I want to do with my life. You're in charge of it now, aren't you? Thank you so much, and that is the true minority. That is an individuality, is in essence the true minority, and I insist on being an individual. Well, I used to... The only way to survive is the only way to relate to important matters. And that's where it is now, and I'm afraid it probably disturbs some people, but again, that's another dimension. It is not my problem, it is there.

When I use the word suffering, I'm thinking, and I don't mean to be melodramatic about it either, but one can't look at a career or a life, and all of this growth without saying, hey, there's some bumpy, bumpy parts of this road here, and then what you learned from it. I read accounts of the 1966 Lincoln Center med opening, Anthony and Cleopatra, and I'm thinking, I don't know how anybody could get through that, and I assume that it may be painful, but could you share with us what it was to prepare for that for a year, to do it, and then to survive it? I mean, I'd like a bit of history from you if I could. That's a heck of a chapter of your life. It's an interesting chapter. It was probably, artistically, from a physical and vocal point of view, and emotional, the greatest responsibility of my life. And also, collectively, it was the greatest honor. It was one of the singular honors of my life.

I accepted it in that spirit, and that is what got me through it, because I think I'm the only person who truly survived, in the sense of being true to the event itself, in the fact that it's just got to go. It's a double whammy, and for the view of who does not, here we have a world premiere, and the opening of Lincoln Center med. This is our American temple show, artistic temple, and I am, as I said, I was not only an American, but also a black American, and I had to accept this with the dignity and with the false of the responsibility behind it, and to be perfectly immodest, I did. Now, some people who really did not survive. There was a great confusion at that time. It was not necessary. It was a traumatic experience in many ways. But one that, if I had to repeat that, would do again for the majesty of the occasion.

What were the dimensions of the trauma? Well... You had a high level of expectation. Now I'm just eating from my book, Mr. Catawaii, fine. Just a little, just a little advance peak. I would say that there were too many things going on with not enough organization, and I have just, I think, the world has just lost one of the great musical painters of the world, Samuel Barber. I think the beauty of his music and the magnificence of the score was neglected. As has been experienced by the opera being redone and rethought with a labor of love and with great success by Maestro Jean-Colomanati. I think that the seriousness of what the whole occasion was about didn't have all the proper organization and the dimensions of clarity about it that it could have.

Moving to a new house, and doing a new opera, and organizing so many things, there were almost too many things going on at once. Is it true that Le Beretta was written in 15 days? I know nothing about that. That was reported in Time magazine. I have no idea. And that it was handed to Barber, and if you want any more words, Shakespeare had some. I'm sorry, I don't know anything about that. I know nothing about it. I just think it was too much at once. It could have been, maybe even more time, I think, for something as grandiose as that opening, that's what I thought. And actually, I think it went surprisingly well considering the limited time that it was involved to prepare all of these intricate things, a new type of stage. Can you imagine what the difficulty must have been from a mechanical point of view for all of the people who have this expertise to move from one audience to another and expect to go smoothly overnight.

It was almost asking too much, and I still think it was extraordinarily well done in comparison to what could have happened there. Here you are at night, 3,800 people, all the heads of the great operas, companies of the world are there, and it's all focused on you. Was that a turning point in your life? Yes, I grew up pretty fast in that experience, yes. How did it change your life? Well, it certainly taught me to be on a real, real tight spot, and cope is best I could. I think in the vernacular of the young people say to be cool with chaos around it, it's the only way I can describe it. And to be faithful to that was important, and in my case I was determined that Bob's magnificent music would not go to waste, and that did survive.

You have such great confidence. Has there ever been a moment, have you ever had a crisis in your life? I have great confidence. And great humility, but has there ever been a moment in which you said, I don't know, I don't know about me. Have you ever had a great crisis? Now you've described the 1966 Met Lincoln Center opening, but any other great crisis of your life? For example. Did your voice ever leave you? Oh, you mean Vantula, oh, I think my voice... Well, it certainly was to the audience in pain. What's my deal? Without a doubt. Always keeping the consumer in mind, right?

I can answer that at the moment, it was, oh, I thought that was the end of the world. What happened that night? I was just overtired. That's what I mean about the rat race. I was everywhere for everybody, and I couldn't say no to different things. It was not the role, contrary to opinion, because knowing me, and from where my stock, I did the role again in Dallas on the same horse, and folded it up and buried it. No one has bothered to mention that, because I don't like to leave anything unless I conquer it, or even start it if I don't conquer it. And at that particular time, I just was overworked. I've known a lot of artists who were overworked, who never had that much attention paid to it. As a matter of fact, let's just leave it at that particular time. It was the crisis in my life, yes.

You had any worst crisis? Sometimes, I mean, I don't think it could be a crisis in the world worse than, you know, sort of being without your notes. But even then, to show you how to cope with chaos all around, I certainly didn't walk off stage. I talked to the rest of the way so the public still... And that was a learning experience for you also, you have written, I think. Tell me about it. Absolutely, wow! And I thought, you know, well, okay, you can't have it, you know. One thing of, you know, extraordinary thing about success is the reason why I'm a little... I'm not remote for it, but I never take it for granted. The only way I indulge in the luxury of success is, as I say, to do what I want to do, to do as I please. And they're not... As I say, that's the true minority. And I'd rather enjoy that, because I really paid for the privilege of doing that. I think that probably to date would be the other things that come to, you know, can be taken care of.

But that today would probably be the main crisis. So, well, we just leave it that way. I saw another quote from you in 1961, which expressed the hope that you'd have another good ten years. And you've messed that up terribly. I mean, you've gone another 20 years, and you look like you're just going forever. What is your sense of timing about yourself? This is good. Thank you very much. Yes, this is indeed. What is it that you want to do? What's your plan for yourself now with respect to, say, recitals versus orchestral appearances versus opera? Well, in that dimension, I'll just go on until the man upstairs taps me on the show and says, don't come out of the wings anymore. In my personal life, I mean, I'm going into this to me. The thing that's very interesting, if you don't mind, my asking you, Mr. C, is that a lot of people have an extraordinary preoccupation, just because I probably don't lie about my birthday.

They will come after a very, I dare say, at the risk of being involved. It's a success for concert and say, you know, for the last one or two years, everyone but me has a fixation, I think, about what I'm going to do, and I've just finished doing it. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, but you know what's... You know why, Brad? It is so exciting, it's so exciting. What? And I have to fix you a lot of single out for this. Well, but it's something that I've... It's something that I ask all the people that I interview who are past the age of 25, and that is that at the age of 63... Look, look, Graham Greene, look at the writing, Graham Greene is doing it. Yes, but why should anyone question it? Look at the rest of me. But you know, look at the number of people who could. I just saw an extraordinary experience. But being in Nielsen was 66 or whatever it is. You know, it was doing her thing. I mean, leave me alone, maybe that's what I'm doing. But since your life is instructive, you're living it. Oh, apparently.

But it's very provocative for me that it's... It's really singularly important that people know right, and they want to know what I'm going to do. But you know the assumption in this country is... Well, I'll let... You're going to retire on social security. We have all of these assumptions which say, if you're not 35 and cute, honey, you're not with it. And I just... I want people who aren't 35 to speak out against it. That's why I ask about it. I know what you're asking about it. And I'm sort of explaining something on general myself. As I said, I tend to be a very private person. And I always... I don't announce anything until my act is together. And it's in the process of being together. Believe me, everyone will know. How do you spend a day? You talked about the larger lessons. But how do you spend a day preparing? What kind of solitude do you need? What about diet? What about sleep? How do you handle those aspects of your life? Oh, have you heard I sleep late?

It's the kind of way. There also is one of my luxuries of success. I haven't worked very, very hard earlier. That is one of my luxuries. And it goes under the... When I'm not working time by time. I was spending a day and do exactly as I please. I have a charming little garden. I may work in it. Which doesn't go down to well. I have activity going around into which most people think I should participate and I don't agree. But then, again, I say that's their problem, not mine. This is what I want to do with my instrument. What about food? Food, I do very well. I think because I am out of pressure, which does tend to make people less vibrant, less, you know, spicy, is quasi-passing my life now. I think I am much more mobile. I think I'm healthy. I am into yoga, which is very stimulating.

I am a routine, a personal routine of my own, that I do. I either work a play, I never combine them. What is the work, personal routine? Right now, I start a very, the word hectic is not in my life anymore, which is what disturbs everyone. The word hard work is in my vocabulary these days. I have a very well-organized, hard-working tour for the entire month of February through the last of March. And then after that, I might be interested in whether my houses are going to be coming up before my tulips or whether the ones you understand what I'm saying to you. This entails strict discipline. I will be very much into my yoga. I will be very much into keeping my voice in as best shape as possible, so that I will not do the impossible sin and cancel.

Or take that or to be disappointing at all. Knowing this psychologically, it usually works, because it's like, I don't know, a prize horse. When it's in the reins and knows it has a race to run, it does very well, because it's out to pass you a little bit later on. That's the way I've all been asked it. It's interesting that you use that metaphor, because I saw a quote that said that your father, when he saw your great success at your opening of the Met in 1961, said it's like Betenon horse and seeing that it came in in one. He was a dream king. Let's hope I can for a little longer. Was that your greatest moment? If you had to make a film of your life and you wanted the great moment, the 42-minute ovation? And by the way, that is the correct time of it.

Contrary to opinion, it was time by friends. For me, at that time in my life, the most important thing that ever happened to me, I thought I had really come to Shangri-La. I mean, it was like, you know, a real terrific production of Fantasy Island. It was just unbelievable. I didn't think there was anything else to conquer art or deliver after my Metropolitan Opera debut. And don't you think that's right? Oh, it's just a young American artist should feel that way. And I will tell them they will feel that way. I was very fortunate that there were other things. At that moment, I would never have thought there was. I wouldn't have even dreamed that I would be interested in another dimension of anything. Artistically, at all in my life. But that, I think, is why I feel so terrific. It's because I did discover that there are other things to do. You can do many things. How long did it take you to come down off of that night?

I've heard that it takes you hours of pacing around when you've really come off of performance. What about that night? Well, there are moments now when I even put on recordings of the tape of their applause. Oh, dear God. I can have flashbacks, and I never came off that. That's a unique experience in my life. It was like nothing else. I have to be totally honest. And it should be that way. As I say, that's the temple and it's pretty terrific. It should be the goal of every performer. I don't care where they are from, whether they're American or not. Did it help you to go off to Europe for several years before you made your debut? Oh, I don't think I would have. Under the way, as shall we say, the way I wanted to make it. No, I would not have. Did it help you appreciate your content?

I was prepared when I came to the Metropolitan. How many years did you, were you in Europe really, essentially, before you made your debut? Six? I would say that I had a fantastic six years. I think five or six years. I performed with artists as a near fight, which helped me to grow up artistically very fast, so that when it was time to make my debut at the Metropolitan, I had a galaxy of roles already learned and tried out with major artists and major conductors when I got to the Metropolitan. So, there was no getting rid of me, shall we say? Do you still go home to Laurel? I probably will be going home to Laurel this next weekend. I have not gone as often since my parents died. You've sung in the church when you've gone back from time to time. Is that important to you? Yes, particularly since I know that, you know, it's like the organ I put in,

and I'm going to be a little bit modest, especially in regards to Laurel. A hospital, you know, you can always have a problem at a house. I can go home now and see sort of things. I can get very ecotistical when I go to Laurel because everything is sort of pointed out and maybe a few notes might have done. It's a very lovely experience, yes. Do you have any final words of advice for the youngster who's watching this and who loves music and who wants to be involved in it? Yes, know that it will be the best of you. It's an expression of who and what you are. And I would say, come on in, the water is so fan that you won't even believe it. That you can be the best you are as an artist. It's a wonderful way of expressing yourself as a human being. And you can also relate to life in general through it.

It's a great, I wouldn't say weapon, it's a great instrument of your self-expression, indeed, and love it. Because that means you love yourself. And you can certainly find out who you are, which is most important to everybody. To obtain a transcript of John Callaway interviews, send $3 to PTV publications. Post Office Box 701, Kent, Ohio, 444240. Be sure to list the name of the interview desired. Please allow four weeks for delivery. Thank you.