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Music Preview: Michelle DeYoung joins the PSO cast for Beethoven's Ninth
Friday, May 11, 2001 By Andrew Druckenbrod Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic
She's tall. She's in top athletic shape. And she plays to cheering crowds two hours a night.
WNBA star?
No, mezzo-soprano.
WHO: Michael Stern, conductor; Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh; Luana DeVol, soprano; Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano; Jon Fredric West, tenor; and John Relyea, bass.
WHERE: Heinz Hall, Downtown.
WHEN: Tonight and Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2:30 p.m.
TICKETS: $18-$59. 412-392-4900.
Michelle DeYoung, who stands over 6 feet and exercises six times a week, is known for singing, and singing some of the most physically and artistically demanding roles that opera and concert music have to offer, including those of Mahler and Wagner.
"It takes a lot of stamina," says the mezzo-soprano, speaking from Manhattan. "If you are weak, it is very hard to sing [those parts]. You have to have the strength for it, whatever your figure is. You can really hurt yourself. The operas are so long and the orchestras are so huge."
DeYoung feels she has built that stamina, "I am addicted to the elliptical machine; it is good for your whole body to be strong," she says. "I did 'Les Troyens,' which is four hours standing in heels, and the next day my legs really hurt." Her height is exaggerated in performances, however. "I look even taller on stage because I wear heels and have big hair," she says, laughing.
DeYoung, in town to sing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, "Choral," made her biggest impression on local audiences as the soloist for an exhilarating performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 this past fall. "Mahler has become my specialty -- my voice really suits it," says the thirtysomething singer. "So far, 75 percent of my career has been singing Mahler."
This means that most of her career has been on the concert, rather than the operatic, stage. But this is changing. "I am just now getting into the bigger repertoire, such as the Wagner operas," says De-Young. "They are definitely in my future. I have always had a big voice, but when I went to the Met, I had no training."
She's talking about her acceptance into the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artists Development Program soon after she became a Metropolitan Council winner in 1992. "They said they would take me to protect me, so that people wouldn't put me in operas ahead of my time," says DeYoung, who grew up in Colorado. "I never had the money to go to a conservatory. This was a huge blessing."
Her career blossomed quickly, and she was working full time in her first year out of the program, although her work was less operatic than is commonly the case for graduates.
"My height came into play," says DeYoung. "For certain roles, it was hard to stage around me." Carmen was one such character. But this isn't an issue for the heroic Wagner roles or for the concert stage, where she makes an extraordinary number of appearances. She studies with Trish McCaffrey, who also teaches Patricia Racette and many other top-flight singers.
Actually, of the four soloist parts in Beethoven's Ninth, the mezzo-soprano has the slimmest pickings. "The mezzo is all harmony, but the music is so exciting that it is exhilarating," says DeYoung. "It is not the most vocally satisfying, but just to be on stage with it, musically, is amazing."
As is the voice of this talented singer who is beginning to be a towering force in the classical music world.
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