One of the great singers bids farewell to her New York opera "family" on April 22nd, as American mezzo—soprano Frederica von Stade marks her professional retirement. To mark the occasion, she is performing one last concert at Carnegie Hall in a recital with pianist Martin Katz, singing music that ranges from Ravel and Massenet, Copland to Bernstein, and Bolcom to Sondheim, as well as and recent songs by Ned Rorem, Jake Heggie, and Lee Hoiby. (Joining in as well are baritone Richard Stilwell, bass-baritone Samuel Ramey, and cellist Emil Miland.)
Von Stade—or “Flicka,” as she’s universally known––received a contract from Rudolf Bing, the powerful then–general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, when she first tried out at the house at the 1969 Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. Since her Met debut the following year, she has made more than 70 recordings, garnering six Grammy nominations along the way. Von Stade has sung with every first-rank American opera company, and new productions were created for her at La Scala, Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Paris Opera; her concert performances also form a who’s who list of the world’s greatest orchestras. Among her most well–known roles are the delightful Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Rosina in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and von Stade possesses a deep command of the French repertoire as well.
As much as she’s been hailed as a wonderful performer, this officer in France’s famed Ordre des arts et des letters has always maintained a refreshingly down–to–earth quality that set her apart from the prima–donna culture of art houses and their stars. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, Flicka found her way into opera rather by chance. Her original aspiration was to sing on Broadway; she started attending a part’time program at New York’s Mannes College of Music simply to learn to read music.
Ever interested in new music and in working with living composers, von Stade encouraged Richard Danielpour to write a piece in tribute to the mezzo’s father, Charles von Stade, who was killed in the closing days of World War II, two months before she was born; the text of this work for mezzo, baritone, and orchestra called Elegies was drawn from letters her father wrote to his Stateside wife.
One of her finest parterships has been with the composer Jake Heggie, whom she first met while he was working in the PR department of the San Francisco Opera. Since their initial friendship was established and he wrote some folk song arrangements for her, Heggie has gone on to write some of the most memorable songs and roles for her, including the role of the condemned man’s mother in his plangent opera Dead Man Walking.
Two days before the Carnegie Hall recital, von Stade will be honored at the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s annual luncheon; friends onstage and off will have a great opportunity to wish Flicka as she prepares to write the next chapter of her storied life.
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
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