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Frederica the Mother

Olivia Stapp on April 27, 2009
Speaking to the famed mezzo-soprano “Flicka” — the endearing sobriquet for Frederica von Stade — I’m immediately infused with the warmth of her intrinsic humanity. She belies the usual caricature of the solipsistic prima donna: the only one for whom the entire world exists. While pursuing a brilliant career, traveling the world to star engagements and recording sessions, she nonetheless finds time to take care of sick friends, sponsor music classes for the underprivileged, sing for innumerable benefits, and be a loving friend, a loyal wife, and a devoted mother. Although she wears the mantle of her celebrity weightlessly, she uses her fame as a force when it can help the needy and less fortunate.

How does she do it? In Flicka’s words: “The career is important and often intoxicating, but nothing is as valuable as family and friends. Life is never in balance, so give up trying to keep it in balance, and accept the chaos. Family first.” Still, it’s striking to realize that the same woman who just took the bus (her car’s in the shop), to visit a gravely ill colleague in the hospital, might be flying out the following day for an appearance at Kennedy Center before the president of the United States. Behind this nonstop compassion is a woman of unbounded energy, grace, diligence, and discipline. No thank-you is left unsaid, no 16th note ignored; everything is given its due value: the maxi-multitasker living in every dimension of her multidimensional world.

Her long-standing collaboration with Jake Heggie, the composer and his music, has brought with it a deeper exploration of her own motherhood. In his opera Dead Man Walking, the mother loses control of the child, watches him suffer, and, as every mother would do, questions her own responsibility: “What decision did she make that could have been different?” What could she have done that might have led to a different outcome? The same question lay at the heart of the recent Heggie production Three Decembers, and the exploration of it has been a focal point for Flicka the woman. This is every parent’s dilemma: a question with no final answer.

Appropriately, then, her forthcoming concert will be a performance, with Kristin Clayton, of four duets by Jake that articulate diverse moments — some funny, some tragic — between a mother and a daughter. One is about a hilarious recurring face of the mother that seems to appear in the daughter’s own mirror; another is about the heartsickness arising from the gradual exclusion of recognition from the mother’s Alzheimer-stricken mind. These duets will be part of a closing-night gala featuring songs, duets, and ensembles by the young composer.