Deborah Joy Voigt (born August 4, 1960) is an American dramatic soprano who has sung roles in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss.
Deborah Joy Voigt[1] was born into a religious Southern Baptist family in 1960 and raised in Wheeling, Illinois, just outside Chicago.
It was traumatic for Voigt, then in her teens, to adjust to Southern California, "land of endless sunshine and impossibly perfect bodies.
Named an Adler Fellow, she apprenticed at San Francisco Opera's Merola Program for two years, studying seven major roles.
Later she often refers to her operatic career jokingly as Ariadne Inc.[12][13] When Voigt made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on October 17, 1991, in the lead role of Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, critic Allan Kozinn wrote that she had come with a big reputation.
He also commented on how well she conveyed Amelia's feeling of urgency and despair in the second act soliloquy, sung with a warm and golden tone.
Critic Bernard Holland noted that her "Ozean, du Ungeheuer", a long sequence from Weber's Oberon, brightened the mood and elevated the gala.
[16][17] Two months later Holland, reviewing her substitution for Aprile Millo at the Met, said that her attractive singing in the opening sequence as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore "reached out and settled comfortably in every corner of this big hall", but said she did not fully immerse herself in the passion of the heroine.
[5] In 2004, Voigt was removed from the role of Ariadne at the Royal Opera House when she could not fit into one of the costumes, a "little black dress.
[19][20][21][22] It was pointed out that many notable sopranos, such as the Italian Luisa Tetrazzini, American Jessye Norman and English Jane Eaglen, had been "large-boned, zaftig, even enormous", and Voigt had merely "followed in their heavy footsteps.
There is the old expression that "in opera, great voices often come in large packages"[2] and the well-worn saying "It ain't over till the fat lady sings".
[23] Voigt was headlined in the British tabloid press as "The show ain't over till the fat lady slims.
The opening trio, "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado, drew waves of laughter from the audience, as did excerpts from La bohème, The Merry Widow (sung in Spanish), and Die Walküre.
[32] Voigt sang Strauss at the Aspen Music Festival's 60th anniversary concert on August 6, 2009, with David Zinman conducting.
She sang Chrysothemis in Richard Strauss's Elektra in December 2009, and Senta in The Flying Dutchman in April 2010, an "iconic Wagnerian role...for the first time on the Met stage.
[36] In May 2009, Voigt starred in the rarely heard 1776 opera Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck, in concert at Lincoln Center's Rose Theatre.
[37] She performed with the Collegiate Chorale and American tenor Vinson Cole, as King Admète, and the New York City Opera Orchestra.
[38] Time Out wrote that Voigt "already proved her affinity for similar material a few years back when she sang Cassandre in Berlioz's Les Troyens at the Met.
"[39] The France-Amérique noted that Voigt and the chorus received French diction training for the performance from Thomas Grubb, a teacher at the Juilliard School.
"[41] In December 2010, Voigt returned to the Met as Minnie in the 100th anniversary production of the world premiere of Puccini's La fanciulla del West.
She reprised this rôle at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in January 2011 and at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège in February 2013.
Voigt's last performance at the Metropolitan Opera was as Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck on March 22, 2014 In 2015, HarperCollins published her autobiography, Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva[47][48] co-written with former People Magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff.
She is on the live recording of the Vienna State Opera's production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for Deutsche Grammophon (2003).
[3] In April 2001, The Metropolitan Opera intended to broadcast a taping of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos in which Voigt sang the title role, but it was put off until 2003 for co-star Natalie Dessay.
Finally, she sang Ariadne in a 2001 recording released by Deutsche Grammophon in which Dessay, Anne Sofie von Otter and Ben Heppner co-starred, and Giuseppe Sinopoli conducted.