On a sunny California afternoon, a visit with Marilyn Horne, the legendary mezzo-soprano, to talk over things past, present, and future
Editor’s Note: The below is an expanded version of a piece published in the current issue of National Review.
Long ago, Marilyn Horne’s father told her, “Remember, Peanut: The only thing that separates you from the rest of humanity is a little piece of gristle in your throat.” He did not want his daughter to get high and mighty. She quoted him in her 1983 autobiography. She has quoted him frequently.
“Peanut,” as her father called her, went on to be one of the greatest singers who ever lived: in art songs, opera, American standards, folk songs — the works. Or almost the works.
“I’m game for anything,” I heard her say one night, during encore time at one of her recitals. “I do everything but rap. It may be rhythm. It may be rhyme. But it ain’t music.” With that, she sang a popular song, a song well outside the classical repertory — but one that she made sound rather classical all the same: “Bridge over Troubled Water,” by Paul Simon.
Together, sitting in her living room, on a bright summer afternoon, we sing some of it. She does most of the singing, thank heaven. A couple of times, she corrects my words, nicely.
She remembers reams of music, and the words to go with them. “It’s still working, the brain,” she says. “At my age, an awful lot of my friends are in la-la land.”
Forget her brain, back to her gristle. I ask, “Was it Van Johnson who used to say, ‘How’s your gristle?’” (Van Johnson was a movie star.) “Yes,” she answers. “He said other things, too.” At this, we both laugh, though I can only imagine what he said.
“How’s your gristle, by the way?” When I ask this, Horne’s eyes get bright. “It’s still there,” she says. “And I’m happy about that, because I had it my whole life. I don’t remember a moment in my life when I wasn’t singing. Apparently, I started at like one year old.”
Recently, she recorded a message for a friend of hers — Robert Sherman, the veteran broadcaster and writer in New York, who is turning 90. She sang her message, actually: “Happy Birthday to You.” “How’d it go?” I ask. “Fine,” she says. “I bet,” I say. “Any key,” she says.
I have come to her home in Santa Barbara, Calif., high on a hill, with sweeping views of the city, and the ocean beyond. Outside the door is a mat marked “H.” When you enter, you see pictures of Horne with two presidents: Bush (41) and Clinton. On this afternoon, she and I talk over many things: past, present, and future.
She has an extensive history here in California. Her family moved to the state from the East when she was eleven. They settled in Long Beach, in Greater L.A. Marilyn joined the Roger Wagner Chorale when she was twelve. She would do a lot of studio work, before she embarked on her classical career — work in the movies. For instance, she dubbed Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones (1954).
Marilyn attended USC, where she was taught by Lotte Lehmann, among others. Marilyn participated in many master classes with the great German soprano. The first song Marilyn sang for her, as a freshman, age 17, was “Die junge Nonne” (Schubert).
The budding singer also studied with Lehmann at the Music Academy of the West, in Montecito, just south of Santa Barbara. Starting in the ’90s, toward the end of her performing career, Horne herself presided over the vocal program at the academy.
Wanting to know more about Lehmann, I ask, “Did she enjoying teaching?” Horne reflects on this for a moment. Then she says, “You know, my sense of it is that she enjoyed being in front of an audience. And out of it came the teaching.” Lehmann was a real performer, and why not? In any event, “I learned a helluva lot from her,” says Horne.
Another of her teachers in Los Angeles was Fritz Zweig, a conductor. “Any relation to the writer?” I ask. (Stefan Zweig was an illustrious novelist, playwright, journalist, etc. He collaborated with Richard Strauss on operas.) “Cousin,” says Horne. And “he was a great teacher,” and a “great musician.”
Our discussion of her L.A. years ping-pongs between the classical and the popular. She worked with Stravinsky. (He lived on North Wetherly Drive, just above the Sunset Strip.) She also sang with Judy Garland, at a party at Rock Hudson’s.
A dear old friend is the actress Marsha Hunt — who today is 104.
As a youngster doing studio work, Marilyn attended school, right on site, as the law required. Among her classmates were Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Powell. Mention of Powell leads to mention of Fred Astaire — with whom Jane danced.
“Was he a good singer?” I ask Horne. “He was Irving Berlin’s favorite singer,” she answers. “His favorite singer of his own songs.” That’s an impressive commendation. On May 11, 1988, Berlin turned 100. And Carnegie Hall staged a concert, televised, for him. Horne sang probably the biggest song of all: “God Bless America.”
Yes, she is a California girl, to a large degree. But she is still a Bradford girl, inside, she says. Bradford?
Marilyn Horne was born in Bradford, Pa., in 1934. Bradford is a small town in sort of the northwest part of the state on the border with New York. Visiting with Horne, I happen to be sitting in a chair from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford — Horne got it when she gave the commencement address in 2011. Her archives are there. The Marilyn Horne Museum and Exhibit Center is in Marilyn Horne Hall.
But her music — her sheet music, with all its notations and so forth — is in the New York Public Library.
She tells me a story about a beloved elementary-school teacher in Bradford: Lorina Peterson. Miss Peterson loved music. During the war, she drove with a friend to Buffalo, about two hours north, to hear Jascha Heifetz in concert. There was a ban on pleasure driving. So this trip was illicit.
In or near Buffalo, they were pulled over by a policeman. They told him they were going to hear Heifetz. Far from arresting or ticketing them, he jumped onto the running board and guided them to the concert.
“There was an appreciator of culture,” I say. Horne says, “There were more of them in those days.” This is a sober remark, not just a wistful or passing one.
Very few have done as much to further the art of song as Marilyn Horne has. She sang recitals, with a variety of songs, all over the world. As she neared the end of this touring, she realized she was missing two U.S. states. That is, she had sung in 48 of them. She made sure to add the final two: Mississippi and Wyoming. And once she retired from the stage, she led a foundation — the Marilyn Horne Foundation, devoted to the perpetuation of the song recital.
She enjoyed performing in Paris. And Parisians enjoyed her. In the opera, of course, but we are talking about songs, about recitals, at the moment. Other audiences may not have much use for the French repertoire, Horne says: Debussy, Fauré, Duparc, Ravel, and the rest. But Parisians, and other Frenchmen, have a lot of use for it. And so does Marilyn Horne.
As we talk, I bring up Christa Ludwig, Horne’s great colleague from Germany (and a personal friend of hers). In an interview some years ago, Ludwig told me that she was happy to give up singing — happy to retire. Except that she would miss singing Hugo Wolf. She could have gone on and on, singing Wolf.
Horne sang a lot of Wolf, too. Lehmann stressed Wolf, and Horne learned from Lehmann. “Wonderful music,” she says. “Very vocal.” Then, narrowing her eyes, she says, “Hard.”
In 1988, Horne made an album — one of her last — featuring songs by Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, and William Bolcom. “The American Three B’s,” she says. Excellent album. “I think it probably sold about two copies,” she remembers. I observe, “That happens” — to which she replies, “It happens a lot if you sing songs!”
She is worried — very worried — about the future of song, despite all her efforts.
Mention of Bernstein leads me to ask whether she has seen the new West Side Story — the movie directed by Steven Spielberg. She has. And hated it. I loved it (as did her daughter, Angela). This is one of my few disagreements with Marilyn Horne.
Incidentally, Bernstein recorded his musical in 1984, with classical singers — and it’s Horne who sings “Somewhere” on this album. Jessye Norman was scheduled to sing it, but she had to withdraw, and Bernstein asked Horne to come in and do it. She was preparing to fly off to Berlin, but she said yes. She did it, in two takes, and flew off. It was New Year’s Eve.
She recorded a great deal of music, Marilyn Horne. Virtually her entire career is documented, for all time. “Aren’t you glad you lived and worked in the age of recordings?” I ask. What I have in mind is: Maria Malibran, the legendary Spaniard, was born in 1808; her sister, Pauline Viardot, another legend, was born in 1821. We will never hear them, except in our imaginations. Interestingly, when I put my question to Horne — “Aren’t you glad . . .?” — she is thinking of something else. These days, relatively few musicians get to record. The recording industry is transformed, and not necessarily for the better. A leading singer can’t just decide, “I think I’ll put out an album of Wolf songs.” Who would buy, especially with albums past available on YouTube? Marilyn Horne worked right in the breadbasket — right in the sweet spot — of recordings: the second half of the 20th century.
And, yes, she is glad.
In one of our conversations, maybe ten years ago, I asked her, “Is there any composer you’re feeling especially close to these days?” Yes, she said: Brahms. “I like listening to him, and singing him, and teaching him. He makes you feel good.” There is a consoling quality about Brahms — a warmth. He is your friend, and he is on your side.
Today, in Santa Barbara, I remind Horne of this. And I say, “Is there anyone you’re feeling especially close to now?” She answers, “It’s interesting you should bring up this subject, because I was reflecting on it the other day. I was thinking how much Mahler is saying — what he is saying in his songs, his symphonies. I really did a lot of Mahler and felt very close to Mahler.”
Plus, “I met Alma Mahler, when she lived in Los Angeles.” (Alma was the great composer’s wife, who, in her L.A. years, was married to the writer Franz Werfel.)
Of opera, Horne sang practically every type, and she has a special relationship with Rossini. He was good for her, she was good for him. “I did nine Rossini operas,” she says. “He had a great sense of humor.” So does Horne. “In another life, I was probably a stand-up comedian.”
Rossini is famous for comedies, to be sure — The Barber of Seville, for one; The Italian Girl in Algiers, for another. “But I also did several of his serious operas,” says Horne, “and they are spectacularly composed.” Rossini does not have the place of honor he ought to have, she continues. For example, people freely cut his operas — abbreviate them, chop them up — where they would not dare touch others.
I suggest, “You’re talking about a matter of respect.” Yes, she agrees. She goes on to say, “I hope to God I helped bring a little bit to him” — respect, that is.
She unquestionably did. She did so with, among others, Joan Sutherland and Montserrat Caballé, two of her great soprano partners. (Have I mentioned that Marilyn Horne is a mezzo-soprano? She began her career as a soprano, however.) Sutherland and Caballé were very different, both as singers and as women. “In a way, Joan was more reliable,” says Horne, “certainly when it came to cancellations and things like that, but she was also more reliable as a partner onstage. Don’t ask me why.” We are in the realm of intangibles.
On the subject of cancellations, there is an old joke, about an announcement from Caballé’s agency: “Madame Caballé is available for only a limited number of cancellations this season.”
Joking aside, Horne has, of course, enormous respect for Caballé, as for Sutherland. An old friend of Horne’s in the music business always said that the Horne voice and the Caballé voice were a better fit together. When Horne tells me this, I say, “Yes. I can see that. Hear that. But you were an exceptionally good colleague, and could harmonize with anybody.”
“You know why?” says Horne. “I sang duets with my sister my whole life.” Her sister Gloria. “We started when I was seven and she was nine, and we didn’t stop until she got married, so I really knew how to sing with someone — how to sing and listen at the same time.”
In a discussion of opera roles, Horne tells me that the most difficult one she ever assumed was “Fidès in Prophète” — in other words, the role of Fidès, mother of Jean de Leyde (John of Leiden), in Le prophète, by Giacomo Meyerbeer, an opera that premiered in 1849. It was a role written for Viardot, who urged the composer to greater difficulty, the better to showcase her talents.
“I wish Meyerbeer would come back,” I say. Horne replies, “He’d be surprised.” (I meant: I wish his operas would be revived!)
About the opera world today, Horne is feeling gloomy, as are many of us. Most new operas, she says, she “can’t stand.” And productions? The presentations of stage directors? “I don’t want to see most of the productions. I really don’t. They ruin the music for me. I know I’m probably very small-minded about it, and I’m old, so I get to be that way. But I am just not interested in seeing all that trash on the stage.”
I myself am quite concerned about the intrusion of “identity politics” — a refusal to stage Madama Butterfly or Turandot, for example, on grounds that these operas are “insensitive,” culturally and otherwise. “I hate all of that,” says Horne. “I hate that.” And “God knows what it’s going to be like 50 years from now.”
“Maybe it will be better,” I hazard. “I’m hoping there will be a backlash.” Horne answers, “You’re dreaming, dear. No way. No way.”
She has seen countless students in her life, especially since the end of her singing career: She has out-Lehmanned Lehmann. I want to know: What is a common error among singers today? “They don’t know how to breathe,” Horne answers. “You have to remember: A singer — a classical singer — is half artist, half athlete. You develop all those muscles.”
In her career, she saw chiropractors quite a bit, to deal with neck problems. One time, she went to a chiropractor near San Francisco, and he said, “You have a back like a 49er” — meaning a member of San Francisco’s NFL team. He knew because he treated a lot of them.
Horne was not only talented, she worked hard. “I worked damn hard,” she affirms. I recall an old line, attributed to Edison: “Genius is 10 percent inspiration, 90 percent perspiration.” Horne says that her father used to say this very thing.
Bentz Horne was a singer, a tenor. He was a soloist in church. When Marilyn was little, during the Depression, he made five dollars a Sunday. Her mother, Berneice, “could play by ear,” says Marilyn — play the piano. “She could play anything if you just hummed it to her. She was amazing.” Marilyn’s mother taught her “Beautiful Dreamer, “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” — many, many of the old, beloved American songs.
I think of the title of a familiar Dvořák song: “Songs My Mother Taught Me.”
In 1986, Horne recorded an album called “Beautiful Dreamer: The Great American Songbook.” Amid general musing, I say to her, “I wonder whether these songs are being transmitted to young people today.” She says, “I have a suspicion not.” So do I. But they are available, to be rediscovered.
By the way, Horne’s favorite folk song is “Shenandoah,” still a favorite encore of many an American singer (and perhaps some foreign ones as well, particularly when they are addressing American audiences).
Horne sang and recorded a lot of hymns, too — including with Tennessee Ernie Ford, back in the ’60s! She is especially associated with “At the River,” a rugged old hymn composed by Robert Lowry in the 1860s, arranged by Aaron Copland in the 1950s. Horne sings all these hymns superbly — with vocal excellence, obviously, but also with conviction.
“I am not particularly religious,” she says — her sister was — “but I grew up with all this music, in church.” And if she sings the hymns with conviction, “it’s because I heard them sung with conviction, and somehow the words really spoke to me and still do.” Moreover, “I can still sing my hymns, my dear.”
And she does, a little: “Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling”; “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.”
Let me tell you: When Marilyn Horne sings to you, one on one, she looks right at you, locking her face with yours. I wish everyone could experience it. It’s better than a stick in the eye, as my dad would say.
I could go on and on. Speaking of that: Marilyn had a friend who called her “a piccolo cavallino [a little horse, a pony] that just keeps going.” She is a formidable, marvelous, unique woman, Marilyn Horne.