The German radio station Deutschlandfunk has posted a 55 minute program interviewing the opera soprano Catherine Gayer, and playing excerpts from her fantastic 60+ year career, highlighting her work with contemporary music.

Listen to it here.

Oh, Catherine Gayer just happens to be my mother.

From the Deutschlandfunk Kultur webpage:

That she has perfect pitch makes it easy for her to sing the latest and most modern music. Arriving in Berlin 1960 from Los Angeles, Catherine Gayer sang the female lead in the World Premiere of Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza” in 1961. Unforgettable are her concert programs with Aribert Reimann.

The program is in German. I’ll summarize it in English here:

The Soprano Catherine Gayer

“It Becomes a Part of Me, because I Sang It.”

interviewed by Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer

00:00 – 02:07 Introduction and excerpt from Stravinsky’s “Les Noces”, who was 87 and present at this performance.

02:08 – 03:09 Mom reminisces about rehearsing in Stravinsky’s home in the Hollywood Hills when she was a young singer in the 1950s.

03:10 – 04:05 About working with Leonard Stein and Arnold Schoenberg in LA. Mom sang much Schoenberg (incl. “Erwartung” and “Pierrot Lunaire”) in her career.

04:06 – 06:18 Performance of an early Schoenberg song.

06:19 – 07:52 About Mom’s association and friendship with Leonard Stein, who published Schoenberg’s Brettl songs (and other works) after Schoenberg’s death.

07:53 – 09:16 Schoenberg’s “Nachtwandler”, performed 1973 at the Edinburgh Festival

09:17 – 10:03 Leonard Stein had been Schoenberg’s student; later he was Mom’s professor at UCLA, and upon discovering she had perfect pitch, introduced her to the music of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg

10:04 – 11:05 Excerpt from Albern Berg’s Opera “Lulu” (recorded 1962)

11:06 – 13:12 Mom speaks about how Berg’s music is romantic as well as modern; and how she sang 4 Berg songs for Shostakovich when he visited LA.

13:13 – 14:16 An early Berg song (1907)

14:17 – 15:52 The same poem set by Berg in 1927 (12 tone technique).

15:53 – 17:08 An early Webern song, one of the first in 12 tone.

17:09 – 19:44 How Mom, barely arrived in Europe in 1960, through Leonard Stein’s recommendation got cast in Luigi Nono’s opera “Intolleranza”, which he was still completing. And how fascist demonstrators tried to interrupt the world premiere in Venice with noisemakers and stink bombs and general agitation. There were concerns for Mom’s safety, but Luigi Nono claims Mom declared “I will kill them with my voice!” Mom herself has no memory of having said that.

19:45 – 21:28 – Excerpt from “Intolleranza”

21:29 – 22:22 Mom joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1961 and sang there for 41 years. She was not a specialist but a universalist, singing among others Purcell, Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Strauss, Debussy, and again and again world premieres of new works; she sang in 10 languages.

22:23 – 23:59 Excerpt of a Zymanowski song.

24:00 – 26:25 Mom’s Finnish mother Tynni Walo was her vocal coach throughout her youth and gave her the proper foundation and technique as a singer. Mom’s first solo performance, in a Finnish church, was at the age of 3. In college, her vocal coach at LA city college, which then had the best opera training program in the States, was Hugo Strelitzer, who had fled Nazi Germany. Mom’s studies at LA city college and UCLA included voice, acting, dance, music theory, composing, conducting, as well as psychology plus American and German literature.

26:26 – 28:06 Excerpt from Debussy’s “Le Martyre de saint Sébastien”

28:07 – 30:43 In Berlin she married Abraham Ashkenasi, had two sons, sang at the Deutsche Oper and guested all over the world, especially in Europe. The next excerpt, recorded in Warsaw, is of Tadeusz Baird’s Erotyki.

30:44 – 33:17 Excerpt from Alberto Ginestera’s Cantata para América mágica – Ode to Dawn

33:18 – 36:09 Mom enjoyed singing the role of Hilde Mack in Henze’s “Elegy for Young Lovers”. Mom was pregnant with my older brother David during rehearsals. He helpfully arrived 2 weeks early, giving her extra time to be ready for the premiere. At 25, Mom played a 60 year old who for 40 years waits for her groom, who never returned from mountain climbing the day after their wedding night.

36:10 – 38:52 Mom many times played Marie in one of those important operas of the 20th century, Zimmermann’s “Die Soldaten”. She remembers Zimmermann as very nice and very intelligent. The excerpt is from Mom’s third Soldaten production, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1983. (I saw this wild and brilliant production many times myself.)

38:53 – 41:28 Composer and pianist Aribert Reimann worked together with Mom for decades, including composing the opera “Melusine” for her. He also composed “Lines” for her and “6 Songs of Sylvia Plath”, the first of which, “Words”, is excerpted.

41:29 – 43:49 Mom also performed often in East Germany, including Eisler’s Hollywood Elegies, whose caustic text by Brecht Mom quotes before the excerpt is played. “Brecht hated Hollywood” Mom affirms.

43:50 – 46:01 Excerpt from Isang Jun’s “Teile Dich Nacht”

46:02 – 49:10 Segue to an excerpt of the Kaddish set by Ravel

49:11 – 51:46 Mom also sang musicals and operettas, incl. by Lehar, Weill and Gershwin, and she taught voice at the Musical school in Essen. What is her advice to new singers? Be curious, get your solid vocal foundation and technique, but be curious stylistically, keep learning new things. Understand the text and meaning of what you are singing, to add the color and drama to the performance of the music.

51:47 – 54:50 – Mom also performed as an actress in several productions, and in this final excerpt sings Gershwin with the Swing Quartet Berlin 1989 in the Komischen Oper.

” ‘It becomes a part of me because I sang it’ – Catherine Gayer and the Music of the 20th century”.