Remembering Tatiana.

Since childhood the voice of Tatiana Troyanos spoke - and speaks to me still in a way few other singers have. It's difficult to believe over 30 years have passed since her untimely death in 1993 which also saw the death of two other great artists -  Arleen Auger and Lucia Popp, each left an enormous loss in the world of opera, but each also left us a legacy that remains immense, a legacy ensuring they are still celebrated, still talked about, and most importantly . . . still listened to. 

Troyanos had a difficult childhood which appeared to have plagued her with the insecurities that remaind lifelong, yet somehow she would overcome and conquer them with something resembling superhuman power.  Home life was tough and unstable in the tenements (where West Side Story took place and where Lincoln Center now sits).  At 7 or 8 Tatiana was placed in The Brooklyn Home for Children, which she would later describe as a “bleak but marvelous” place.  It was there she began piano studies with Louis Petrini, then principal bassoonist for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, who early on recognized the girl's gifts.

As a teenager Tatiana was moved to the Girls Service League, a home for disturbed girls on E. 19th Street. This whole chapter of her life sounds like one of those Dickensian horror stories of misplaced children slipping through the cracks . . . or worse. She would describe her experience as “[being there] I got disturbed. I felt there must be something wrong with me, too.” She had always found comfort in music and while at the Girls Service League she became obsessed with singing.

“I was attracted to the voice of Maria Callas and played her records all the time in my room. It was hypnotic . . . I always felt drawn, extremely drawn to music, and it has held me together. It spoke to my soul and spirit, the communication I had with it. I felt I was another person when involved with music. I didn’t know who I was . . . so I found identification in music, but there was difficulty in identification – my intensity comes from this. I figured if I worked hard and followed advice, it would work. It did, and it does.”

Eventually, Louis Petrini was able to arrange for a piano scholarship to the Brooklyn Music School, where she worked herself into a frenzy. “I put all my energies into music, which was healthy and positive. We also put on plays and I acted, danced and worked with costumes . . . took everything seriously, even ballet. I always won the prize for trying the hardest.”

It's neither surprise nor secret that Troyanos suffered from horrible stage fright, I remember reading from her cast mates in various operas that Tatiana was usually an emotional wreck behind the curtain,. Backstage one could hear her expressing incredible self doubt and unworthiness, and more than once the singer had to be physically pushed out onto the stage. And then magic would happen.  A magic that, for me, few others equalled.

I've always praised her Didon in the Met's Les Troyens, but noticed how in her first scene and aria she sounded nervous, and appeared somehow comfortable. Then something happened she became pure Wow!"

 In Tannhäuser her Venus for me - has no equal in more recent stagings, and Troyanos makes the Goddess of Love as alluring physically as she is vocally.

Posthumously I recall articles speaking about her possibly suffering from some sort of clinical depression, a disease more widespread than most people imagine, and true or not, it's understandable to go there when analyzing the woman and the artist. Whatever she suffered, makes her achievements and accomplishments all the more impressive to me and I'm ever grateful for all she did in making the world a little nicer place to hang out in. 

Musically, dramatically, there seemed to be nothing Tatiana Troyanos couldn't sing. The gamut of a great repertoire from Monteverdi, Purcell, and Handel, through Mozart, Rossini, Verdi and Berlioz. Let's not forget thrilling work in Verdi, Wagner, Strauss . . . and Philip Glass . . . even Penderecki. 

I frequently recall one of the greatest performances I've (yet) witnessed: Handel's Giulio Cesare with Troyanos in the title role (she'd previously sung, and recorded Cleopatra), supported by an excellent festival cast including the young June Anderson, along with Maureen Forrester, Susanne Marsee, Dominic Costa, Paul Eswood, and Mariana Busching, led by Stephen Simon The response after every aria was thunderous and by the end, was pure bedlam. 

The Washington Post wrote:

The imposing demeanor of the celebrated mezzo was always suitably Caesar-like . . . that left one unprepared -- perhaps by design -- for the most breathtaking moment of the performance . . . in the last act, when Caesar returns after all have assumed he was drowned in the sea by Ptolemy's men, he announces that he will free Cleopatra and Cornelia or die."Quel torrente, che cada dal monte" is one of the most intimidatingly difficult display pieces ever conceived. . . . [Troyanos] launched headlong into an incredible cascade of runs, ornaments, embellishments and adornments that left the listeners almost more breathless than she. The aria was superbly articulated and always right on the beat. Where, and why, has Troyanos been hiding this coloratura technique all these years? At the end, there was no question that she herself realized what she had done -- as she grinned broadly while the audience interrupted the opera with a tumultuous standing ovation.

Yes, we did. 

It was years after her death that I first heard about the final day of this amazing lady, and that story frequently haunts me and gets me right there. 

The afternoon of her death, Tatiana, got dressed, put on make-up, then rolled along with her I.V. pole into Lenox Hill Hospital's cancer ward waiting room, and there, for about half an hour, sang an impromptu a capella recital. After cheering her fellow patients and their visitors, Tatiana returned to her room and shortly therafter passed away. The tale always gives me chills.  What an amazing, beautiful gift Tatiana Troyanos was to this world, literally to her final moment in it . . . right up until the last, bringing joy, beauty and comfort to all those around her. Even in death she made something special, and selfless.

Thank you, Tatiana. are still so very loved . . . and missed.