Synopsis
An inspirational memoir by the world-renowned classical singer describes his extraordinary success in the world of music despite his physical limitations, the result of thalidomide poisoning in the womb, detailing a childhood marked by agonizing medical procedures, his struggles to become a musician, his views on art and disability, and more. 12,500 first printing.
Extrait
If You Can Make It There
"Brrroeek," drones the jackhammer. "Brrroeek, brrroeek." When it rests you can hear the radiator grumbling and the baseline murmurof traffic rising up from Columbus Circle to the fifth floor of the Mayflower Hotel. Somewhere police sirens are shrieking. New York is a loud city, even at one o'clock in the morning. Again, "BRRROEEK." Next door a clonk, and now someone's curses. Or did that come from the construction workers below,
the ones who've been racking my nerves for the past three hours? I hope they get paid a nighttime bonus for this nastiness.
I slide off the much-too-soft mattress and turn on the television. Through the news floats John Glenn, eighty years old and still dreaming of space-zap-"the mysterious prostitute murderer of Newark. Seventeen victims since 1994"-zap-a fat man in a green apron pours "rich molasses-based sauce" over a gigantic rack of pork ribs. "Spicy but not spicy enough," according to the fat guy, who then holds up "the best garlic paste in the world"-zap-on the History Channel General Patton chases Rommel's Africa Corps through the Libyan desert. Once again, serves those old Nazis right. In Libya grenades explode, soundlessly now because the jackhammer is at it again, right below my window. "Brrroeek, brrrrrroeek, brrroeek." Shattered, I switch off the box and pace the room.
This is just super. Tomorrow, November 13, 1998, Gustav Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) is on the program at Avery Fisher Hall. It is my long-desired debut with the New York Philharmonic. The baritone parts are high and not entirely simple. I need a clear head and a lot of sleep, but so much for that. All I can do now is seek out a soothing tonic. I call my brother, Michael, who is three rooms down with girlfriend, Renate, and who most definitely cannot sleep either. Thank God, those two are always up for a late beer, and for any other nonsense I propose.
In the hallway outside their door I can already hear Renate. "Sleepless, helpless, sleepless," she sings as her red mane peeks around the door.
I counter with Don Giovanni: " . . . night and day it's toil and sweat for a master hard to please."
"To Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the German Union Federation, which guarantees the working class its rest," Micha grumbles, cracking open three bottles of beer. The New York construction workers, unimpressed, continue to flatten the earthly realm with their diabolical tools. At the window, we silently drink our beer and gaze out over Central Park, which yawns like a gigantic black hole against the illuminated concrete blocks of midtown Manhattan.
I, too, have to yawn. "What time is it?"
"Just past three," Renate says sympathetically. Micha fetches more beer. He holds the bottle up to the pallid moon and proclaims: "Du bist die Ruh, / der Friede mild, / die Sehnsucht du, / und was sie stillt." ("You are rest / and gentle peace; / you are longing / and what stills it.")
"RŸckert," I say.
"Hit," nods Renate.
"Prost," Micha says, stone faced. One beat later we have to laugh. There is nothing like a solid humanist education. We are a good team.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaay." The next morning the jackhammer is still ranting when "Mr. Quasthoff takes his voice for a spin," as the chambermaid calls it, with a charming smile, when she drops off the footstool that allows me to conduct my ablutions. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaay." It might not be lovely to hear, but it does loosen the vocal cords. Despite the trying night I passed, I am content: the voice is in place.
After a leisurely shower I put the footstool in front of the sink, climb up, and grimace at what I see in the mirror.
"Crippled arms and legs, no laughing matter." That's how a tabloid paper once put it, but I see the situation differently. Here is a four-foot three-inch concert singer without knee joints, arms, or upper thighs, with only four fingers on the right hand and three on the left. He has a receding hairline, a blond pig head, and a few too many pounds around his hips, and he is in a superb mood. All he needs now is a shave.
Half an hour later we sit down for breakfast at the Carnegie Deli, corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street. It's part of New York legend--because it appears in at least two Woody Allen movies, because it serves the best kosher pastrami sandwich in the city, and because of the linen napkins the manager hands out to his regulars, like Kinky Friedman and his buddy Ratso, while the other customers make do with paper (according to Kinky, who includes this detail at least once in each of his crime novels).
Needless to say, our napkins are paper. "It's all BS. Everybody gets paper napkins here," my brother mumbles through a mouthful of pastrami.
Renate checks her watch. "Guess it's still a little early for the boldfaced names."
"I bet you not," Micha says, pointing towards the bar with his fork. The genteel older lady who has just sashayed in may not be Kinky Friedman, but she is sporting a hat whose size and shape would make any Texan green with envy. It is purple, to match her dress. As she makes her way towards us, we see that her right hand clutches a pen and her left, a notebook. Her voice sounds
like a rusty bell:
"Oh, you are the fabulous singer! What a pleasure to see you. Please, give me an autograph." I turn violently pink, as if my face is struggling to match her outfit, and then do her the favor. How did she recognize me? She says she has seen my face on CBS, and the New York Times published a praiseful piece by the feared critic Anthony Tommasini. She has tickets for tonight.
"Naturally! We know you in this town, honey," her voice shrills through the place as she leaves our table and teeters back to hers.
Nice, I think, a little kooky, but a nice lady. I don't expect other people to recognize me, but on our way back to the Mayflower, as we cut through Central Park, I have to give another half dozen autographs. They haven't mistaken me for Danny DeVito--they really do want my signature on the shopping lists, newspapers, and ticket stubs they hastily fish out of pockets and purses. Everyone says New Yorkers are rude and tough, but it's amazing how open and friendly these people are. Not to mention crazy about music! Everyone wishes me "good luck" for the concert. I can use it.
I don't usually suffer from stage fright, and appearances in the United States are nothing new for me. I have sung in Washington and Seattle, in Chicago, Portland, and Boston; in Eugene, Oregon, I am a regular guest at the Bach Festival organized by my mentor and friend Helmuth Rilling. But this is my first appearance in New York. The fact that I am staying on the Upper West Side and in a few hours will be standing in one of the most beautiful concert halls of the world--with the New York Philharmonic--it makes my heart race after all. Or is it just the hotel elevator? My
conventionally shaped readers should know: elevators are, for people of my format, indispensable, but when they are crowded (and they usually are crowded) they are also a terrible trial (a blow below the belt, so to speak). To make matters worse, the Mayflower's tourists seem determined to buy up half of the city. I don't believe they care what they carry out of the boutiques of Madison Avenue or Bloomingdale's, Saks, or Macy's; after all, most of that stuff is available in Osaka, Lyon, and DŸsseldorf. What's important is the shopping bags themselves with their fine and, one hopes, recognizable writing, which, back home, will induce envy and indicate restless hip-hunting and international creditworthiness.
About three dozen of these hunters and gatherers are now packing themselves and their purchases into the elevator. A stampede is nothing compared to this; only by resolutely exercising my stentorian voice can I secure a spot. While the cabin slowly rises my spirits sink. The air is thick and warm. Wedged in between purses, boxes, and plastic bags, beset by protruding behinds, trouser legs, and nylon-covered ladies' thighs, before we reach even the second floor I begin to feel like a piece of cheese melting on a grilled sandwich. The five floors I have to travel feel more like fifty.
Once in my room I fall onto my bed and count "seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . out." Technical KO. I take two aspirin and try to chase away misery with the Ross Thomas dime novel Renate brought me from the Village. It starts with the sentence "It began like the end of the world will begin: with the phone ringing at three a.m." "At least it's only noon," I think, some consolation. Then the aspirin takes effect and I drift off into the realm of
dreams, a calm and pleasant place with no telephone. Thus apocalypse is kept at bay and-voilà-after two hours of deep sleep, the worst is over. I feel better. The last bit of nervousness is filed away under "creative tension," and professional routine takes its place.
Performing music is not unlike rock climbing. Before you begin you check your gear super-carefully: Does the tailcoat have to be ironed again? Is the hanky beautifully folded? Would the white turtleneck be better today, or the black one? Are the patent leather shoes shining? Where are the black socks, and where is the bloody comb? Then you review the score mentally, concentrating on the difficult ridges, gorges, and overhanging rocks. Finally, you need a strengthening refreshment. Not exactly "six eggs, sunny side up, with hot cocoa," the kind of thing Anderl Heckmair would put away before fastening his bundle and climbing across the wall of Eigernord. No, something easily digestible that won't turn your stomach into a...
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