Free The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer by Renee Fleming Page A

a clear-eyed assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. I had to create a technique that was reliable regardless of how I was feeling. Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year—and those are days you won’t be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.
     
    At the start of my second year at Juilliard, I had to make a choice: I could stay where I was, continuing my work with Beverley and singing the lead in Gounod’s Mireille the following year, or I could accept a Fulbright grant for study in Frankfurt, Germany. I have always been a big believer in auditioning. I knew enough to realize that most of the things I applied for would never come through, so I always thought it was best to just go ahead and throw my hat in the ring for everything feasible and then decide what to do if I won. This was just part of how I worked: if there was a grant, a competition, a scholarship, I gave it a try. For me, it was all part of the Shoulds. I should do this. I should try for that. “Should” was my steady diet my whole life. The Fulbright application was part of the Should diet.
    John Maloy, my teacher from Eastman, was on the Fulbright panel that year, and he strongly encouraged me to accept the fellowship. Beverley was equally adamant that I should stay and continue my studies with her, arguing in an almost maternal way that my voice and I weren’t ready for the wide world. Fulbrights are extremely difficult for singers to get. Although I would rather have gone to France or Italy, Germany took the largest number of vocalists. In Germany I would also have the chance to study with Arleen Augér, whom I had liked so much when I met her in Aspen and who had fortuitously agreed to accept me as a student.
    In order to help me make a decision, I started polling people, which is another lifelong habit of mine. Getting others involved in my decisions is a little like having them worry about me just before a performance. Jan DeGaetani told me I’d be a fool not to go, that it was a great opportunity. “I so regret never having learned a foreign language,” she said. I talked over the matter with my parents, my friends, and my boyfriend. I tallied up everyone’s opinions, and then I made my own decision. In the end, even if every single person had told me to stay, I still would have gone. Ironically I am actually quite strong in my own judgments, for as much as I crave to hear everyone’s advice about what I should do, I always know to listen to my inner voice where my career is concerned. This intuition, along with resilience, has been a fundamental anchor of my professional life.
    I kissed everyone good-bye and got on the plane confident that I’d made the right choice, but the minute we took off I was mortified. What had I done? Was I out of my mind? I was shy, I hated being alone, I didn’t speak German. It’s a good thing that they don’t turn planes around, because at that moment I was convinced that what I really needed to do was to move home and get a job as a secretary.
    When I arrived in Frankfurt, the first thing I did was to go and find Arleen. She had already warned me in Aspen, “It’s fine that you’re coming, but I really won’t have much time to work with you. My career is taking off right now.” She had just sung at Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s wedding, and she was suddenly becoming a big star in the United States. She nevertheless promised, “I’ll be here maybe six times this year, and then we’ll work.” Because I was happy for any attention I could get, I told her that arrangement would be fine with me.
    In our lessons, she compared the voice to floors in a hotel, with each tone occupying its own floor. It was my job to find the optimum space and place and position for each tone. She knew what she was talking about. Technically speaking, Arleen sang better than anyone else I’ve ever heard. She made 150 recordings in her