Barbara Hendricks
'I can look out my window some mornings and be incredibly moved just by the beauty.'
Keep looking for the light
Barbara Hendricks is an opera diva in the quiet unpretentious sense of the term. Although she has performed with almost all the world’s great conductors and orchestras and is a best-selling recording artist, she remains a wonderfully down-to-earth person. Born and educated in America, she is a Swedish citizen and lives near Montreux on the Lake of Geneva. Off stage she is not only an ambassador of music but also a good will ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and actively promotes the cause of refugees and of preventive diplomacy.
The interview was conducted by Theo Koll of Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (zdf), Germany’s national public broadcaster.
The pictures were taken by Andri Pol.
TK: Barbara Hendricks, relationships are long lasting when based, entre autres, on sound analysis. You live in Switzerland and yet you are a Swedish citizen born in America. Is Switzerland a relationship of convenience or a love affair without legal obligation?
BH: My relationship to Switzerland is one of gratitude. This has been home to my family for more than twenty years, and I feel truly grateful to have been able to have offered my children an environment of beauty and calm as a backdrop for their most important years, their childhood. We had been living in Paris for ten years but after the birth of my second child I found that the big city, even a beautiful and vibrant one such as Paris, was not where I wanted to raise my children. I wanted them to live in the countryside, to know that milk comes from cows and not from cartons, to live with the seasons and to have respect for others and nature. This we were able to do here.
TK: You have travelled the entire world. What are Switzerland’s main qualities for you?
BH: Well, the obvious qualities are the beauty, the overwhelming beauty of the place where we have the privilege to live, the quiet, and a true sense of respect and discretion. Even though I am internationally known my neighbours have allowed me to live normally, and at the same time showed me their appreciation for my work. I feel rather protected here, there’s a sense of security and belonging in a small community. To give you an example, a friend of a friend was coming to see us, and he had lost the paper on which he had written our address and phone number. So he asked the taxi driver at the train station if he knew where I lived. The taxi driver said ‘yes’ and brought him to our house, but it was the taxi driver who knocked at the door to make sure that I was expecting that person. It made me feel very, very good that the taxi driver was protecting me by not just dropping off his passenger at my front door. I didn’t know the taxi driver, he wasn’t a friend, he wasn’t a neighbour, and at the same time I thought that his reaction was very neighbourly, really what a good neighbour would do.
TK: Any disadvantages of living in a small village like this?
'I am very much moved by the plight of refugee women, their dignity and courage have inspired me to continue to struggle on their behalf.'
BH: Well, for me there are not any disadvantages. Because I travel so much, my life away from home is so full of different activities and people, from heads of state to refugee children, and the audiences all over the world that I meet and with whom I share my music. I have tried to participate in my community by supporting the building of our wonderful new concert hall, the Auditorium Stravinsky, and of course I have often sung here in both the jazz and the classical music festivals. For many years, at my own initiative, I gave a yearly Christmas concert at the local hospital for patients and staff only, and in Lausanne on the children’s ward. I did however regret that non-Swiss residents have had no say in the political life, it is only very recently that we have been able to vote in some local elections. When one does not have the right to vote, it is difficult to engender an interest in the political debate. I have had no need for any other social life than that with my family. When I come home from my tours the only thing that I want to do is to be with them. I can barely recommend to you a good restaurant; we rarely go out because I enjoy cooking at home. Preparing a meal for my family and friends is one of the best ways of expressing my love for them. I cherish being at home, and my life at home really revolves around my rehearsals, my human rights activities and most importantly my family. My concert schedule has always had to accommodate my children’s school schedules and family holidays.
TK: So you feel quite well integrated, don’t you?
BH: Well, I do, because artists and musicians are always so easily integrated wherever they go. I am a citizen of the world, and music is my passport. But it is through my children, I think, that I have found my place here in Switzerland. Many of the parents of their friends became my friends. One of the main reasons for coming here – besides that I was thinking about my children’s education and the quality of the environment in which I wanted them to grow up – was to have a haven of quiet, calm and beauty to which I could return after being away on tour. I have been able to nourish and replenish my energy reserves in the simple comforts of my family life.
TK: As far as your children’s education is concerned, it probably wasn’t a disadvantage having three languages spoken in one country?
BH: It was indeed a great advantage since there are always three languages being spoken simultaneously in our home. French, the language that I spoke to my children once they started school, Swedish, the only language that they speak to their father, and English, that I speak to my husband. Now we mix the languages, and I speak in both Swedish and English to my husband and English and French to my children. At school they studied German and Spanish.
TK: Let’s look at the characteristics of Switzerland. The Discovery of Slowness is the title of a recent pub lication [by Sten Nadolny about exploring the Arctic] – slowness is also one of the cliché references to the Swiss. First of all, is this true, and if so, do you see it rather as an advantage or a disadvantage?
BH: It is true. As I am someone who’s really moving around at a fast pace I certainly see slowness as an advantage – particularly if that slowness is a means of seeking perfection, when it is about doing things well and thoroughly. As we know from the fable of La Fontaine slowness can sometimes be much more efficient than speed. It is very often in haste that important details are overlooked. Slowness can be a disadvantage when it prevents you from being innovative, when it means that you just keep going without being open and fl exible. I believe that every task demands its own natural time frame to be done well. When I study a score for the fi rst time I must accept that the fi rst performances, no matter how well I have prepared, cannot be ripe. It is an ever-evolving process. I have to spend much more time, have more rehearsals and many more performances until it is ripe. There is always room for improvement. If you want to make a good stew that needs to cook slowly at a low temperature for hours, and you opt to put it in a microwave oven for twenty minutes, it will most likely look like a good stew but the taste will not be the same as the real thing. I appreciate the demands of time and I realise how important it is to take the time that’s necessary to do something well. And that is certainly one of the qualities that I found when I came to Switzerland.
TK: That was when you moved to Switzerland. The world has changed since then, and the pace has accelerated dramatically. And probably in Switzerland, too?
BH: Indeed. I think that now everybody is a little bit more pressed, pushed to do things quickly. You find, in the shops, in the banks that there are fewer people working, so everybody’s a little bit more stressed. It used to be that trends in fashion, music, films, etc that came from outside arrived in Switzerland many years later. Now, the time gap has narrowed with the internet, 24-hour newscasts and instant communication. But for my children I’m very happy that they grew up in a very slow Switzerland and were able to have a longer childhood before they got this immediate access to everything that is available today.
TK: Would you say that Switzerland is an open society?
BH: Well, I live in what’s known as the Riviera, a very international part of the Suisse Romande [French-speaking part of Switzerland]. Most of my children’s friends are of mixed nationality. If they have a Swiss parent, the other parent is often from another country – Sweden, Norway, Finland, USA, Brazil, Italy and others. Since so many international organisations such as the UN and, of course, the UNHCR are based in Geneva, it adds to the diversity of our communities here. But you also have the other side, those who feel, today probably more than ever, threatened by events occurring in the outside world that affect their lives and over which they feel that they have no control. We all feel this sometimes in some way, no matter where we live or how international we are.
TK: For years you have been working as an ambassador for the UNHCR. How come? Did the fact that it’s based around the corner facilitate your engagement?
BH: In 1986 the UNHCR asked me to become a goodwill ambassador, and since then I have been committed to the cause of refugees, which has as its foundation the defence and promotion of human rights for all, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am very much moved by the plight of refugee women, who together with children account for 80 per cent of all refugees and displaced persons in the world. Their dignity and courage have inspired me to continue to struggle on their behalf. They cannot give up so I must not either. My communication with the agency is definitely facilitated by having the main office in Geneva instead of in another part of the world or even in another European city.
TK: You seem to be moving with your ambassadorial work in a more political direction, having talked about the necessity of preven tive diplomacy. What exactly are you asking for?
‘I see the slowness as an advantage – when it is about doing things well. I’m not at all for doing things too quickly because everything has its own natural time.’
BH: The problems of refugees and conflicts in the world are political problems that must have political solutions. These solutions demand political will from the leaders of this world. Unfortunately, the political will of the international community over the past few years has been short-sighted. Politicians seem only to think as far ahead as their next election. And since most politicians are elected for four or five years, it takes an extraordinary person to exhibit the courage of a long-term vision that he or she has for the world. We come back to the concept of slowness; development and change take time. Out of the fear of not being re-elected politicians often do not dare to admit that it takes time and money to achieve long-term solutions. And because of that, the political will necessary to prevent great humanitarian tragedies such as in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and now in Darfur in Sudan has been sorely lacking. Today, people are still being forced to go into exile to save their lives. My task as an ambassador is to take the refugees’ story to the public and hope that world public opinion will insist on more political will from their elected officials to find human and durable solutions. Everyone so easily blames the UN for not resolving enough conflicts and not ending inequality and suffering, but the UN cannot act without authority from the Security Council and particularly its five permanent member countries with their vetoes. They really hold the rest of the world hostage to their own national interests. I believe that the right of veto should be abolished but, of course, as it is up to them to take that step, it will never happen. So as citizens we must find other ways to work for peace and reconciliation. In the end we, the citizens of its member states, are the United Nations, and we must assume the responsibility for its weaknesses and its failures.
TK: Switzerland is at the heart of Europe, and yet this heart is beating outside the European Union.
BH: Well, I hope that’s going to change. Switzerland is indeed at the heart of Europe and has an important role to play. As a member, it would be able to have more influence on decisions than it has as an outsider. We are all living on this magnificent planet together, confronted with very complex and difficult problems – conflicts, poverty, international health problems, the environment, organised crime and corruption. No country is immune to these problems, nor can any one country solve them alone. I believe that by working together we can make the world a better place for future generations. This earth is like a boat on which we will sail together or sink together; we must make a choice. If we have ideals and values about how we want to live, we must defend them. But I think that we can no longer expect to be able to do so in isolation.
TK: Before you became a singer you were a university-trained natural scientist. Is the sense of Swiss orderliness somehow appealing to that natural scientist’s part of your mind?
BH: Well, I am a very ordered and disciplined person by nature but I don’t mind a little artistic disorder. Having studied science and mathematics helps me order my brain for learning and analysis in music and life. There are so many different programmes that I sing. Sometimes within a two-week-period I will sing four different programmes all from memory – a liederabend, an orchestral concert, a jazz or chamber music concert and even an opera. To organise all the different words in sometimes as many as five or six different languages, the different musical styles in my head, I fall back on the discipline of mathematics, which has given me a method for learning and memorisation. When I had to learn the role of Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Russian, I found mathematical tools to help me to memorise the words.
TK: You have jazz literally brought to your doorstep here in Montreux, and you participate, as you mentioned, in the Festival. Which means, you as a singer are offering a great and unusual variety of opera, jazz, spirituals. What moves you most?
BH: You mean in music, or in life?
TK: Both, if you like…
BH: There are many things that move me in nature and in situations with people. They are very simple, such as the beauty of a sunrise that I see when I look out my window in the morning or the rainbows that I saw on the way from the airport recently – there were two rainbows, magnificent. I have been moved by seeing a father with his children out for a walk, the love and tenderness displayed in an almost awkward way. The laughter of children moves me and, of course, true art.
TK: And music-wise?
BH: So many different kinds of music touch me – fado, jazz, or a Bob Dylan song. The first time I heard Schubert’s Quintet I started to weep. Maybe I felt the expression of life’s sorrows and joys. I cannot say why, but this is one of the many pieces of music that have this effect on me. In the end of the third movement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, just before I get up to sing, there is a phrase that the orchestra plays, a change of harmony that affects me so deeply that I have to control my tears so that I can stand and sing the fourth movement.
TK: If you had to sum up in a few words, a few adjectives, the character of Switzerland, what would it be for you?
BH: In a few words? Beauty, peace, chocolate (laughs), security, and I would say fun and family.
TK: And, finally, if you had to sum up your personal attitude to life in general?
BH: A long time ago I read a story about a Zen master whose student asked, ‘How long do I have to sit in the dark?’ And the Zen master answered, ‘ Until you are able to see the light in the dark.’ This was an enlightening phrase for me because in the difficult moments of my life, when I have thought that I did not know what to do, I have forced myself to dare to open my eyes and to look for the light. I have always been able to see a way to a solution. As long as you are alive there is always hope. I keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark the tunnel seems.
The interview was conducted in English.
Barbara Hendricks was born 20 November 1948 in Stephens, Arkansas, USA. After studying mathematics and chemistry in Nebraska and music in New York City, she made her American and European opera debuts in 1974 at the San Francisco Opera and at the Glyndebourne Festival in England. She went on to appear at all major opera houses throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Covent Garden in London and La Scala in Milan. Barbara Hendricks has been acclaimed as one of the leading recitalists of her generation and is a best-selling recording artist. Since 1987, she has been working with UNHCR as a goodwill ambassador, visiting refugee camps around the world. She has received numerous awards and honorary doctorates for her artistic achievements and humanitarian work. She has lived in Switzerland since 1985 and is a Swedish citizen.