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Reri Grist

During a long and illustrious performing career, American soprano Reri Grist lit up stages from San Francisco to Salzburg. She was an exacting artist whose childhood dance studies and early Broadway theater experiences made her an all-around singing actress. Her unique interpretations of such roles as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Blondchen in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Rosina in The Barber of Seville and Oscar in A Masked Ball earned raves in the world's most prestigious opera houses.

Her life began not far from some of the stages on which she would eventually appear. "I was born in New York City on February 29 (the same day that Rossini was born), 1932. I grew up in the East River Housing Projects on the East River Drive in what today is called Spanish Harlem. It was a wonderful time living in this predominantly Italian, Puerto Rican, Polish and African-American neighborhood. This particular housing project was at the time an experiment, people came from all over. It was a very mixed community and we all lived together peaceably and comfortably.

"My parents were from the West Indies and they had a strong work ethic. We were told as children that we just had to be better than the best, that we had to give more than 100%. My mother had fantasies of my brothers and me somehow being involved in theater so she named us after movie stars. I was named after a character in a film called Tabu, which I finally saw eight or nine years ago when my husband discovered it on television in Berlin. I think my mother expected me to look and be like this character, who was very shy, but pretty and young and alive. I'm grateful for having had this name. It is unique and I've not heard it again. I've tried to find out the meaning of the name but have not been able to do so. I don't even really know how to pronounce it."

Did you want to become a performer? "I never thought about it. My parents guided me into it and I enjoyed it. The most important thing for my family was education. But they sensed this talent I had so they encouraged it and I took dancing and singing lessons as a child in the neighborhood and then I went to a little dance school in the Broadway area. I studied tap first, then ballet and jazz. This was, I believe, carrying out a dream my mother had, although she was not a typical theater mother dragging me all around to auditions and so forth - not at all. I went to the High School of Music and Art on 137th Street and Convent Avenue. Looking back, it was a long trip from First Avenue over to the west side and so far uptown, but it never bothered me. After that I went to Queens College which was also a long trip, perhaps one-and-a-half hours' travel time since I had to take two trains and a bus. I remember sometimes standing along East River Drive early in the morning thumbing my way to get a ride.

"But as for preparing to sing opera, I think that I seriously started when I was sixteen and just by chance. I used to accompany a friend to her voice lessons and after a while the teacher asked me to sing for her. Being fresh and unafraid, I got up and sang and she gave me a spontaneous lesson. Well, my friend was out of the picture after that. I was fascinated with the structure of my voice and being able to control and manipulate something I couldn't touch or see. My teacher's name was Claire Gelda. I think I was working in Macy's Department Store at the time, but I ran out of money and couldn't afford to pay her anymore, so I stopped. One year to the date after I stopped she called my family and asked if she could continue working with me. She said that I could pay her whenever I was able to. She thought there was something worth developing and we worked well together. Not every teacher suits every person who wants to sing - and vice-a-versa. And I went back.

"But I never dreamed of having a career. I never said, 'I've got to have it. I've got to make it.' It just happened. Of course I had a supportive teacher who guided me, who never told me that Zerbinetta's aria [from Ariadne auf Naxos], for instance, was difficult. For me it was never difficult. I don't mean to sound arrogant. Other things were difficult which may have been easy for other singers."

Reri Grist as the Queen of Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel, London, 1962.

Do you recall what your voice was like when you were in your teens? "I don't think my voice was generally much different at that age than it is now. Of course, my voice developed and matured as the body did. My range broadened, the voice gained in strength and depth, but it remained a high soprano. Not long ago when we moved from one city to another I was trying to throw out some of my possessions and I discovered a program of a recital I did at the age of thirteen in Town Hall Concert Hall. On the program were German and Italian songs as well as 'Quando m'en vo' [from La Bohème], which I also sang on the televised Arthur Godfrey Show when I was still in my teens. (Unfortunately, I sometimes have to be reminded of the facts in order for a light to go on in my head!)

"As you mature as a person, the voice matures. I probably could have gone on to sing more roles in the lyric category. I had been asked to sing Pamina [in The Magic Flute] by someone whose judgment I respected. But I didn't think I could devote my time to learning that role at that time. I have always tried to the best of my ability to be fully a mother, wife and a singer, and I couldn't just push everything to the side to concentrate on extending my voice into more lyric repertoire. When, years later, I sang Massenet's Manon, it proved to me that I should have gone more into the lyric roles. But...it didn't happen."

Ms. Grist's acting talents landed her small roles on Broadway, where she appeared with some of that avenue's biggest stars. "Between the school years and my opera debut, I performed in Broadway shows. One of the earliest I did was a small role in an adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard starring Helen Hayes. It took place in the south so the servants were all black people. I stood on the stage and said my one or two little lines. I'll never forget the voice of Helen Hayes; it still rings in my ears. She was a tiny woman who was able to fill a hall with a voice of such a range and depth. I was fascinated by this, as I was by the voice of Paul Robeson when, as a little girl, my mother took me to see him perform. We sat upstairs in the last row of the balcony and his voice made the floor vibrate! I just had to get down on my knees on the wooden floor to feel the vibration. That was overwhelming. I was always caught by the voice.

"I heard him when I was young and I didn't know anything about him or his politics. I was interested only in his voice; that's what captured me. I remember him in [Shakespeare's] Othello with Uta Hagen and José Ferrer. The way this man spoke was so even throughout and the voice was well placed and well supported, seemingly without him having to think about it. It had a richness and warmth. Now, as an experienced singer, I can say that I recall a sound that came from the entire body. He had a brilliance along with this depth and roundness. And there was a quality - maybe I'm projecting myself into this - of deep sadness in his speaking as well as in his singing voice, which touched you immediately, unlike other great basses such as [Feodor] Chaliapin or [Franz] Crass. As a kid, I wasn't aware of all that, but I do know there was something about the sound of that instrument which spoke to me as no other had at that point. I remember hearing him perform a concert of the 'Songs of the Free Man.' I've carried the memory of that concert all these years."

"I was in the first show, I believe, that Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee did here in New York City, Jeb. It didn't have a long run. I played the little sister of Ozzie, as I recall. And there were a few other Broadway shows [including Shinbone Alley with Eartha Kitt] and then came West Side Story. That was quite an experience and I shall write about it in my book! I think I was with the show for a year-and-a-half. From there I went to Europe and wandered around a bit, camping with some good friends. I also did some auditions here and there and most of the time I was offered a contract. But I didn't want a two- or three-year binding contract. I wanted to do a few performances and go on my merry way. And that's what I did. After a period of time, though, it was time for me to get back to the U.S. to sing with the New York Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein, which was a result of my persistently asking him while in West Side Story to listen to me sing music other than 'Somewhere.' He finally agreed and then engaged me to sing the soprano part in the Mahler Fourth Symphony."

Like Oklahoma before it and A Chorus Line after, West Side Story redefined American musical theater. Admirers of Ms. Grist are often surprised to learn that she was in the original cast. "I was one of the Sharks and did a little bit of dancing and played the part of Consuelo. I was comfortable with the rest of the performers - after all, I came from that area in which this work took place, so I knew what was happening. There was a discussion about whether I should sing 'Somewhere' because, I think, it was Jerome Robbins who did not want a professional voice and I don't think he wanted to keep me in the show. I think Mr. B liked my sound and was trying to find a way to keep me in the cast. He wanted a certain cultivated quality for this song and during the performances on the road before coming to New York City, we tried all sorts of different places from which I sang - I was way up on the top floor, in the wings, under the orchestra pit, in the orchestra pit, on stage."

Bernstein was very supportive of African-American singers, providing early opportunities to such singers as Betty Allen and Adele Addison, as well. "When he employed me for the Mahler Fourth I think it was because I had the sound he wanted. To this degree, yes, he did support me in helping me establish myself and I do not minimize that. But I question if Mr. B really said, 'This is a black woman. I'm going to do something for her.' It was never discussed; there was never any indication of that kind of thing. He treated me as he treated everyone else - very affectionately and warmly - and we got along fine. When we did Der Rosenkavalier together at the Staatoper in Vienna, that was quite unique for three reasons. Firstly, it was my first Rosenkavalier in that house. Secondly, I was very pregnant and Bernstein was wonderful in supporting me in my singing - I think I was in my seventh month of pregnancy. And thirdly, Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed during one of the orchestral rehearsals and we shared that shock and sadness crying together in my dressing room. And there was a question among the powers-that-be in Vienna whether I should be singing 'their' Sophie. I have a feeling - I have no proof - but I have a feeling that Bernstein said, 'She's singing!' I still think the person I knew would not have succumbed to any pressure if there was any thought - and please say 'if' - not to allow me to do the role. That is the degree to which I'm aware of Bernstein's influence on my career."

Where was your official debut? "My first staged operatic performance was in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I had won the Blanche Thebom Award and part of the prize was an engagement in Santa Fe. I met wonderfully talented people there: Bliss Hebert, Loren Driscoll. Bliss was particularly helpful to me as a stage director because he knew how to work with a young person. He had a great knowledge of music and the voice. For a kid coming from Spanish Harlem in New York City who had been working full-time at various jobs and completing a full college schedule, Santa Fe was a joy!

Reri Grist in the title role of Massenet's Manon, San Francisco, 1981. Photo courtesy of SFO.

"My European opera debut was in Cologne, Germany, as the Queen of the Night [in The Magic Flute] and that was a very funny performance. I had to go on with no rehearsal. I had never seen the stage and didn't know who my partners were. I was told by the director for the evening where to move. I had to start from the elevator below the stage and it came up slowly during the introduction to the first aria of the Queen. Well, the elevator got stuck so that my neck was on the level of the stage floor and I couldn't see the conductor and I know he couldn't see me. But the show went on and I sang the aria. The audience was laughing; the Three Ladies were on side of the stage dissolving into uncontrollable laughter. When the aria went up to the high 'F' toward the end, the elevator shot up into the air. The audience collapsed in laughter, of course, but I sang on with a straight face. And that was my opera debut. They engaged me for other roles and that was the beginning in Europe.

"Weeks later, I came back to the U.S. and while here I went with my friend Martina Arroyo to an audition for Herbert Graf, who was then the new director for the Zürich Opera. When she had finished singing, she opened the door and waved me in. I was not prepared or dressed for an audition at all, but I went in and sang a part of Zerbinetta's aria. And he invited me to come to Zürich. He was taking seventeen Americans, I believe, for his first season at the opera house. I recalled Zürich from having travelled through it as a tourist. I liked being around that lake and I thought it was a beautiful city, so I agreed to go. That was in August, 1960. It was a wonderful time and that was really when my career as an opera singer began.

"Herbert Graf was a very kind man, a very knowledgeable person and a very capable stage director. I sang in several operas and was successful there. Graf encouraged me to audition for other opera houses, but I didn't want to go around auditioning. I was lucky because people heard me in Zürich and invited me to come to perform elsewhere: Glyndeborne and Vienna (where I sang for twenty-three years). Kurt Herbert Adler heard me there and offered me a contract with the San Francisco Opera. Graf, unlike most general managers of an opera house, told me I should accept it and that he would arrange it with Zürich. Most directors of an opera company would have said no at that point in my career, but he released me. I would say Herbert Graf, Günther Rennert and Kurt Herbert Adler influenced my career the most, as well as Rudolf Bing and Karl Böhm. One of the persons who was also new in Zürich and with whom I worked very well together at the time was Lotfi Mansouri. I'll never forget a beautiful L'Elisir d'Amore we developed in Zürich and later performed in San Francisco."

Often, Ms. Grist was the first black singer to assume these roles in the opera houses in which she appeared. Did that have an effect on her? "I have to say I wasn't really aware of this until a few years ago. In my mind, I became the character I had to perform. What mattered to me most was the music and the character and the desire to develop my concept and my capabilities within the context of the director's vision and to the best of my abilities. I don't recall having thought, 'Oh, I'm a black woman, therefore I can't perform Blondchen [in The Abduction from the Seraglio]' or that I had to prove that I could play and sing the role. I just sang it. I sang Sophie and it didn't matter to me if they had a problem. It mattered to me that I was pregnant because I didn't want to harm my baby in any way and I didn't want to look seven months pregnant in the part.

"One of the times I became very aware of being more than just a performer was my debut at the old Met in The Barber of Seville. Two of my colleagues were most unkind to me onstage and my other colleague, George Shirley, also an African-American, a man with whom I had not sung prior to this date, never said in words that he was going to help me on stage or that because we were both black he would give me special attention. But George showed me a kind of support and understanding that meant we were together as African-Americans and that we were going to come through. Yes, that was a time I felt that, and I remain very grateful to Mr. Shirley. I also remember a moment in San Francisco in Un Ballo in Maschera [A Masked Ball] with the great, great Leontyne Price. Leontyne was a great stage friend and a wonderful colleague. I still choke up at the sounds this woman was capable of making. And I had the privilege to stand on the stage with her as she sang."

Yet, Ms. Grist is not a woman who seems to have passed a lot of time being angry. "No, I'm not angry. I was able to deliver the goods at the time that it was requested and needed. I did something that many were not able to do in the roles that I sang: sing beautifully and move. I could take over the stage in way they had not seen - 'they' meaning Europe. I'm not blind; I have seen past videos of myself. I don't know another Zerbinetta who did on the stage what I did with that role and still sang it as well as I did. I saw Zerbinetta as someone who could move on stage. The commedia del arte players had to get out and entertain the person who employed them and for me that meant moving, dancing around the stage. For my first guest performance in Vienna I didn't have a rehearsal; I hadn't seen my partners before the performance and they didn't know me. When we came to the quintet, I was jumping all over these guys. Well, they hadn't had that before with the role and it was a surprise. And I was attractive and could sing the part very well. To be able to combine all of that and take over the stage and still give them what they expected was unique.

"Also, at that time, the world (of opera) was opening up to African-Americans. There were really no others - meaning there were no African-Deutsch (Germans) or African-French singing as there are today. The world was becoming more tolerant and here came these people from the U.S. who could sing. Remember, we came in not too many years after the war (World War II) - I came along in the '60s. Also, more Americans were better trained than many western Europeans at that time because many of the best European voice teachers had come to the U.S. in the '30s and '40s and received positions in the universities and conservatories. When I came to Europe, Caucasian-Americans were in major positions as singers in many of the major opera houses, so in many ways I was just another American coming to Europe. Now that's a little different today. I think Europe is less tolerant of foreigners today and it's not as easy to get jobs in the opera houses in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. There are fewer positions today because there is less money available for the arts and there are many more young Europeans who are well trained and very good singers.

"Young people today are very angry. But the world today is a very unpleasant place. Wherever you turn your head, there's so my injustice around you all of the time. Television and the Internet show it to us. You can't hide it now. And, although there are many more African-Americans employed today across the spectrum of so-called classical music around the world, black males still haven't gotten their due in opera. If someone sings technically and stylistically well, can act, looks good, in other words meets the requirements, and still is not engaged, then I and he are angry!"

You didn't have a huge voice. Was that of any concern to you in certain opera houses? "There was never an issue of being heard here in San Francisco. The size of the house and the feel of it were right for me, as were Salzburg's Kleines Festspeilhaus and the Vienna State Opera which is bigger, but which also felt right because the acoustics were good. The new Met is a cavern; to look out at it from the stage was amazing. But I never was concerned about being heard or about forcing my voice. It was a matter of focusing the voice so that it would carry. At the new Met, I had to do what I could do with my instrument and if I was not heard over the orchestra then they had to take the sound down or I shouldn't be doing the role. When I was asked to do The Marriage of Figaro, I refused because I felt this opera with the enlarged orchestra didn't belong in that house - the stage was too big.

"One of my complaints with singers today is that so many of them try to manipulate their voices to make a big sound - to make a 'full,' loud sound - and that has partially to do with houses like the Met. When you look out from the stage over the orchestra pit, even if the orchestra is playing pianissimo, some still feel they have to force the voice to fill the house. I never felt that at the Met or anywhere else. I had what I had and that was it. But young singers are very conscious of this now - to be able to 'fill' the Met. The acoustics of that house are perhaps not appropriate for an opera such as The Marriage of Figaro, which was written for an entirely different space. I have seen productions there that are very good, but I tend a little more to my old-fashioned thinking of Salzburg or Prague for Mozart."

When you look back over your career, what stands out? "Well, I've been on the stage for a long time and not all in opera. Certainly one of the high points in my life was West Side Story because of the experience of working with Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and that company. I saw this in the later stages of its creation and I was a part of that and I'll never forget it. We were out on the road before coming to New York and things were changed all the time. There was the first presentation before an invited audience that consisted of friends of the creators, selected persons from the media, actors, dancers and singers. When we ended, the curtain came down and there was total silence. We didn't know what was going on. Then slowly this roar came up of applause and approval. I have never experienced that since and that was a high point. It was an absolute breakthrough in musical theater. There had not been that level of dramatic realism with music in American theater before.

"Another was perhaps my debut in Salzburg in 1964 as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, staged by Günther Rennert. Nobody knew me and I didn't know them. The cast included Christa Ludwig, Paul Schöffler, Sena Jurinac and Jess Thomas; Karl Böhm conducted. The way it was staged, at the end of the aria on the high 'D,' in a pirouette-like movement, I had to turn around so that I ended with my back to the audience. There came a roar and stamping of feet that I had never had before from an audience. They would not stop and I didn't know what to do. I don't like taking bows and I don't like to see others take bows in the course of a performance. But the applause went on and on and I was disarmed and at a loss - one of the few times that has happened to me on stage. Rennert was on the side saying 'turn around and take a bow.' I think after a while I must have taken a bow but I don't remember that. That was very special.

"There were all of the wonderful Günther Rennert productions of Mozart, Richard Strauss and Rossini operas. Also, I cherish being granted the National Opera Association Legacy Award of 2001 and being honored by the state of Bavaria, Germany, with the title of Bayerische Kammersängerin. And, of course, singing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, my hometown, with my family attending my performances, meant and means much to me.

"I think of all of my years here in San Francisco - the Kurt Adler years. He was very good to me and it was a joy to be able to do these operas with all of the many international singers who were around then. They were terrific colleagues and staff. The janitor of this house was a fine person and I tried to find him when I returned here, but I heard he had passed away. And I met my husband of thirty-six years here.

"Giving birth to a child during my career was a high point. As a result, I decided not to sing as much in the U.S. as I would have liked to continue doing. But my husband was European and my child was about to begin school and I couldn't see being away from my family for long periods of time or we all traveling together or putting my child off in a boarding school.

"A career is not only being on stage. To experience the fall of the Berlin Wall was amazing. At that moment, I would say I was very much aware of being an American, and an African-American, standing at the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, welcoming people from the east to the western part of Germany with sacks of oranges as others were offering different signs of welcome, and being refused by some of the people from the East because my presence at that moment was too strange, too unexpected for them. They were not expecting someone like me to be there at that moment joyously welcoming them to their newly acquired freedom and I was not expecting their reaction! That I associate with being an African-American. This kind of thing happened sometimes in Europe - not too often, but it did happen.

"The last opera I performed was Neither, by Morton Feldman to a text by Samuel Becket, in 1991 in Amsterdam. That was quite a challenge. It was a one-woman opera and quite different from anything I had ever done. It was directed by Pierre Audí and the sets were by Kouneilis. I think I was very successful in it. I may not have sung all the correct notes all of the time - and if you look at the score you'll understand why - but I think it was very good because the orchestra stood up at the last performance and applauded me. I played the character as psychotic. I've never sung a role that tired me as much; musically and physically, it took all that I had."

Is there a role you would like to have sung? "Have you heard about this already? I've talked about this before. I wish I could have sung Otello. It's a great singing part and a great acting part and it's such a great work - Verdi's and Shakespeare's. I saw two of the great actors do this part on stage, Lawrence Olivier and Paul Robeson, and was deeply moved by them. The other role I wish I could have sung was Salome. I think that is a role I could have done very well had I possessed the required vocal chords. I had the physical appearance, grace of body and the knowledge and depth to do that role. There is a film made many years ago of Eartha Kitt playing Salome. She was fabulous to look at and she had the behavior of this character down perfect- she moved like a panther. You were so caught up in this Salome - the good, the innocent and the unknown evil."

Do you ever attend performances and wish you were still on the stage? "There are productions I see when I say in desperation, 'No!!!' What the director is doing is a cop-out and an offense to the composer, the audience and the performers. I recently saw a production of The Abduction From the Seraglio that was a horror. I couldn't believe what poor Mozart had to go through and I felt so sorry for the singers. There are some pretty difficult technical challenges in this opera and I thought, 'All of that work for that?' It was abysmal. There are also times when I really know what the director wants, but it's not quite there yet and I'd love to be a part of that, no matter how obtuse or way out it is - and believe me I see some way-out stuff because in Europe. And I think, 'If I were only twenty years younger....'

"There are certain persons with whom I would like to have worked because I think it would have been a good exchange. The time of rehearsal is the best time for me. It's when one can be the most creative, when one gets to know other ideas and one is challenged in a different way than in performance. I've never been one who liked to do much of 'guesting' within existing performances. I wanted to try it my way within the concept of a new production. I like to develop something of my own and if I felt I had done a role enough, that I couldn't bring anything new of myself to it or be honest to it in the sense of it being alive, then I stopped singing it. One of my colleagues once said, 'Reri, you'll never be rich that way!' And I said, 'Well, maybe I'll be happy.'

"But I have no regrets at being 70. I feel very good. I feel very lucky that I've experienced what I have had and am very grateful, especially to all those who made it possible, particularly my parents and my voice teacher. But we can't stay forever; we've got to move on. Many mistakes will be made along the way, but nothing develops if one doesn't try."