Singer tells of personal struggles
NEW YORK — Soprano Deborah Voigt keeps a picture of herself performing alongside tenor Placido Domingo at New York’s Metropolitan Opera — both as a treasured memory of a great triumph and as a stark reminder of her emotional troubles. They were playing twins, Sieglinde and Siegmund, in Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, but Voigt seems nearly twice Domingo’s size.
At age 54, Voigt has gained enough perspective to write about her battles with obesity and binge-eating, as well as other destructive behaviour that included alcoholism and troubled relationships with men.
Her autobiography, Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva, published by Harper-Collins, is a startlingly frank look at the life of one of her generation’s most prominent operatic stars.
Voigt talked about her book in a recent interview at the Met: Q You write about the Royal Opera House in London buying you out of your contract for Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos because the production called for you to wear a “little black dress,” and then how you used the money to pay for gastric bypass surgery. How much did you weigh at your heaviest and how much have you lost?
A I started gaining weight at the end of high school, when I was attached to the man who would become my husband, and I just got bigger and bigger and bigger. At my worst, I was up to (about 330 pounds). Right now I weigh more than most people would guess, (about 190 pounds). But I’m very dense (laughs), and of course I’ve got a lot of metal in me now (from one hip and two knee replacements).
Q After you lost weight, you describe losing yourself in a series of unhealthy sexual relationships. What prompted that?
A It was just another thing, another avoidance. Yes, I’ll go in, and I’ll work my ass off onstage, and then when I’m gone I can’t sit with myself. I still have to work at it. I don’t know why. … I had never experienced what it was like to be a woman who was attractive to men. And for the first time in my life I was getting looks, and thought, ‘Wow, what’s THAT like?’
Q You make it clear that a lot of your insecurity and poor self-image stemmed from your parents’ troubled relationship. Have they read the book?
A They’re reading it right now. Writing honestly about my childhood was a very difficult decision. But how do you talk about where you came from if you don’t talk about where you came from? I have a phenomenal relationship with my parents now. … Now, that being said, I know that some of it is going to hurt them. Some of it is going to shock them. I don’t think they know about some of my behaviour.