Maureen Forrester interview & performances (14 October 1996)

live a rare treat for which we are prepared to give thanks maureen forrester is with us tonight one of the world's foremost contraltos and a distinguished canadian so what is a contralto hello woman i mean a low woman have you always been a control tool yes my mother was a confounded tooth and you were born maureen forrester will be with us tonight and she will also be singing live stay with us well welcome to our program i hope you've had a happy thanksgiving with friends and family we are certainly looking forward to our thanksgiving evening here tonight we have with us maureen forrester one of the world's leading contraltos a great and distinguished canadian and a woman who's got so darn much energy at 66. at 66. you're still here all around the country you still are we have a real treat for you tonight is kind of the icing on your pumpkin pie maureen will be singing for us three songs live right here and she will be accompanied by david work he is a pianist and composer very talented man his own right i'm sure name known to many of you thank you for being with us david let's get right into this young lady at 66 you actually wanted to play basketball not sing at all yes i did i wanted i was a good center forward i've got long legs and you know i can jump eyes out so what it just wasn't on in that at that point my mother wanted me to be a singer my mother sang in church choirs yes and i'd come home and say i'm going to be the center forward i'm so excited for this game she said oh you can't do that and say why not just because i promised the women's christians and the temperance and you need singers at their annual meeting and they'll be all so disappointed you can't let them down i mean she had me do but i sup maybe i wouldn't have been a singer if she hadn't done that isn't that amazing yeah do you still love basketball do you go to the raptors do you go no i love i watch games in there but i'm all you know i'm on tour so much that you'll not get a chance to follow one team or the other now your mother said that you actually hummed to yourself in the cradle probably inside of her i don't know she's because she's saying i probably sang a duet she sang to you all the time do you remember i mean do you actually have a recollection of that no but she she sang in church choirs as my two elder sisters and my brother but they all you know it was the first the second world war came along and then my my three two sisters and brother were off doing more work and being in the army and whatever and i was left at home to sing yeah but i'm i'm eternally grateful to her because i love to sing but i don't care what i say i sing everything you know i don't i'm not an opera singer i'm not a leader in the shower i'm assuming you do come to me my melancholy baby or something like that are you really though i mean do you walk around the house singing yeah my children often used to say to me when they were young mom knock it off but what i was really doing was pulling out doors or something i have to sing a week from now i wanted to refresh my memory to bring it back into the conscious you know how many songs do you suppose are in your brain somewhere um i don't know it could be it could easily be a thousand that you would know lyrics yeah well you know you bring certain things to the fore yes and that's the secret of of having a good memory don't try to keep it all right there because you get flustered right so file it away and you yeah and you change your programs so i certain programs i know what they are but if or not i ask a david what am i saying and he tells you and he tells me but you have described this before that actually when you get up to perform it's almost like a spiritual experience for you something overtakes well it's something i don't want it to sound not quite that way but i want to share something that i think is either funny or beautiful or wonderful that they might never have heard before and white might walk out of the theater humming to themselves yeah and say i got to get the music for that i love that piece so you've never had a nervousness that sense of getting up on stage and thinking oh my god i'm going to open my mouth and nothing will come out only once only once it wasn't exactly nervous somebody must have opened the door you know how that takes your thoughts away and i was singing a song that was started that was french and i wish that the morning would tell me the name i said during the night and i said well jesus my god i don't know what i want and did you say that i said yeah i said but i said it in french because it's on the french network now you have actually told students that if they do forget a line that's what you do just take it stick any word in i mean or compose start composing don't sort of go because then people start getting nervous i'm looking down and thinking did i pay to hear this is going to be what is it going to be so just give the weather report right sure and enjoy yourself now there was one point a teacher who actually told you to stop singing for a while in order to even out your voice what does that mean well because it was the i had the first teacher i had was a lovely 80 year old man and uh he sort of knew how to bring the voice out but didn't teach me how to make nuances and how it's things different weights and different colors and so there was a point where i went to this new teacher bernadiyema who's going back to holland and he's a wonderful man but i studied for about two years with him and he was the one that introduced me to different colors different sounds different different approaches to things now can you be more interested for those of us who cannot even sing the national anthem just because we can't carry a tune what do you mean colors in music well you can sing a dark purple color you know it's the weight of the voice what you interject and in the same range you can sing a very light wispy very light song it's yellow pink yeah shimmering you know do you imagine that in your own mind's eyes you say i do yeah i do i think in color yeah i am so looking forward here now to listening to you sing and david perform a creole lullaby yes all right and this is something that you learned as a child did you only learn it when you no i learned it quite a bit later in life it was just it's a very pretty song that it's a lullaby yeah and i like it so i i sing it quite often all right we'll have you carefully go over to the microphone so we don't lose you here over the water david are you ready you're you've tinkled the ivory this way or that way either way okay careful on this step great maureen forrester singing and i will try it one more time for maureen forrester's voice we give thanks we're going to take a little break and be back with more in just a moment maureen forrest is our guest tonight and you've just heard her sing moments ago with the talents of david work along with her as well accompanying her with that lullaby it is the strength of the music you can actually feel it as you sit in a studio how down deep do you go to find that well you literally start from where you what you're sitting on you know and then you because you need to use your diaphragm to help support the sound so that you must keep your shoulders and your lung space relaxed so you've got to be able to you've got lots of breath so that little muscle will push up that little extra bit of breath so many times when you're singing up or you're all decked out on these elaborate costumes and and i don't know how anybody could breathe let alone sing oh there are lots of try ons of the costumes they can't they never could be too tight around the diaphragm yeah because although some singers like to push against that tightness i don't like that though i like to feel free yeah i don't mind how well now if you were five foot nothing and weighed 85 pounds soaking wet would you have the strength to do that yes it's it all depends on your training yeah you might not have a big voice like ben hepner if you're that little but um it's all in all in the uh all in the training that i think the most important thing you learn how to do as a singer is how to support the sound and how to breathe how to pronounce yes chinese even you know no the lullaby you're just saying now that's in french that's in french any can you sing in any number of languages yes i sing in german and i sing in russian and i sing in hebrew and uh um oh chinese you actually memorized the words or is it i went to china and of course with the toronto symphony and they said word came back they'd love you to sing a chinese encore i said wait a minute i say eat a lot of chinese food i don't know if i can do it so i said fine mail one verse slow lullaby yeah and i'll make it attempt so they sent me a three verse reasonably fast song but you know it endears you to the public because i think at one the first first concert when we did i i made a mistake in one line and you could see people in the audience going because but you actually learn the words and you memorize oh yeah you have a special mind for that it's just concentration but i like languages i grew up in montreal so french was my second language i learned german very easily and just just check his heart you know it says all consonants now you said when you were up singing the lullaby that you actually picture yourself as a nanny a nice big stout gorgeous looking black nanny that they used to have in the south probably not anymore you know rocking this baby to sleep and it just this i just feel that way when i sing that so images are very important to me the images to yourself yeah and do you do that oh yes because if i sing clayton nestor and she's a horror woman i'm i'm really hard i can be real down out hard how much time do you spend actually getting ready for those i mean if you're doing a character role in an opera i mean do you get into that character i get into the character before the director i was going to say against you that doesn't sound right but you know i'm sure he explains what he wants he sees me doing because then he's i say let me try it for you and just see if this and he says that's very good a little bit here a little less a little there but then he just corrects what you but he said you're on the right wavelength and you have to feel that from yeah because never i've i've heard young singers come and sing for me you know and they want to have some coaching i think and i said no no no you're you're just you see you have to sing that very much lighter you're a young girl and they say yes but you see in my voice said honey you say that to a conductor he'll never hire you again you've got to learn how to adapt now speaking of the young talent you were also in one of your many incarnations head of the canada council oh yes which was i'm sure a tough job i enjoyed the whole thing but i i was happy when it was over yeah i mean there you were saying yay and nay to other talented people across this country not so much uh the chairman doesn't do that because that's done by committees and things right but you're there you're there you're always you're always going to government dinners and then people are saying oh they did i said we need more money you know we you realize how many people we turn down we need more money and they say oh you're always crying for your babies maureen i'd say you want to say that because you don't have a talented child yeah or you know what it's like to try to put that child into a position where they're going to grow and be make you proud of them because they'll become famous if they perform well but they need to have training but you were i mean you are here today in large measure because of a benefactor when you were very young the owner of the montreal star j.w mcconnell uh went to the church i was the soloist and he used to hear me going i'm not down there and someone said oh isn't that a pity a girl i gotta come from a simple family and lovely parents but you know i'm not allowed and she's at the stage where she needs to go to a better teacher and uh so he called me in his office locked the door you know i got a little nervous went into his dressing room took off his jacket and came out into the room with a jacket like up to here and tweed and not quite meeting in the middle you know and every and he said you know my when i grew up my family were poor my father had died in my i sold the the montreal star i delivered it in the morning it's very early because my mother needed money and i made money for her well the same man was a member of the church years and years later that i was a soloist in and he'd hear me going up the um the in the processional yeah up to the choir love and somebody told him said isn't the pity because you know she comes from very nice family but you know she's at the stage where she really should go and have a better teacher should maybe go to new york or go to europe or whatever and so he called me into his office locked the door went into his dressing room came back with this jacket that goes up there a tweed jacket he said but there wasn't a check in his hand right no no no but he said you can have as much money as you want but stop singing i said i don't stop singing he said to study so go and study but i said no i don't have to do that i really have to have a better coach and move on to a better teacher and he eventually paid for my new york debut and i've never looked back since and you've never had a canada council grant or no but you don't begrudge anybody else no no it's so necessary there's so many people who can't get to the next step because of that because you know how a lot of people feel about that that you know money is handed out to artists or writers writers and and it's kind of weird and peripheral stuff yeah but for all the people you feel that abused the organization and the money there are those who make you proud because they write a novel that it's a prize or whatever the canada council is wonderful organization and the people that they appoint to the board work very hard you know you get applications that are about three feet high and you have to read them and you have to assess them it takes you forever to do so people who do it alright but we don't see the same kind of level of philanthropy either do we of sort of rich benefactors saying there's a very talented economy and not some no not too many well there's so much talent around too you know that you're we don't always hear about people who give the money they don't want to announce it because then they'd have mothers knocking at their door saying would you help my child too i guess do any of your kids sing well all my kids can sing they're not singers but um linda linda cass riley you know he was an actress very good in california and my own son daniel is in california and they're both you've got they're both actors they're both actors and but the rest of my family can sing we all can sing but no competing with mom no they don't want to be in quote singers no maureen forrester is our guest tonight we're going to pause for a short break and have more conversation and more song right after this break through music through sound through images the joys and trials and triumphs and even the loneliness of fame is a little bit about what interpretations of life is about these are songs sung by maureen forrester written by david work and of course they perform them together and you're about to go on a tour from one end of this yeah yet another tour it is amazing now these songs that david writes for you does he just know you so well that he can do that he can sit and talk to you for 20 minutes and get things out of you you don't really think he has a song on it called a shopaholic samba is this a confession we're here the art of looking older than you are now why would you want to know how to do that or the child in me which balances it out and all the wonderful songs just wonderful songs is there really a side of uh is there a lonely side to being famous yeah there is what do you mean well because you you live alone in hotel rooms uh that's what you do you know kick off your shoes and turn on the tv and call home to see if the children are all right and because your children at home i always had a wonderful housekeeper and a nanny for the children and the husband who was there but busy but the children had a wonderful life but it's the person who is away that is the loneliness it's the lonely one yeah you're missing out all those wonderful growing up years and all the funny little things they do you hear when you go home but it's not quite the same as seeing it and you would be on the road days and days weeks and weeks at a time and sometimes on other companies i've been you know i've been in all over europe and russia and china and south america yeah so you've written your own biography i mean your autobiography but this is kind of the biography the musical biography so now there's a song that you're going to do for us which is entitled on the album mother's maids dot dot dot so what is the dot dot dot you'll have to wait and see or listen david are you gonna pass up and tell us oh no no no no we'll make you wait for it there's a word that one of the words i know is witches and then there's another one that sort of rhymes with that we're getting close all right you make your way to the microphone and let's see if we'll listen carefully to all those lyrics maureen forrester and this is from interpretations of a life marine forester singing of course the songs of david warwick who was with her at the piano [Music] if you'll indulge me for a moment now i have a serious point to make to all the opera composers throughout history fellows you have made one large mistake you never let me play the bride although i've got a lot of passion on stage it's always been denied low voiced lovers are not in fashion you never let me hold the man although i would be more than willing i always have to hold a fan or wear a habit or plan a killing why am i [Music] destined [Music] would anyone see it as a fluke if just once i was the cause of the scandal i've had men at my feet you know but composers say no no no you have to play the ante or the jolly green giant ereda well i'm getting defiant you give me a birthday oh i did not right now hurry [Laughter] pick it up pick it up just pick it up sure just keep this is great you never let me play the bride you give me a brother who's an assassin or a daughter who's just died as fancies go i'm always passing i have to walk off stage alone someone with far more past than future why not a love song on my own let me tug a heartstring and not [Music] she's a sorceress the bride may glide but i have to creep or waddle even but nevertheless i must despond it's the princess not the queen at whom they're staring places [Music] you know i'm really a terror there has been an anatomical error you never let me play the bride yet if i switch what's there to covet for even on the broadway side i'd be mama rose or that this is love it and so it really does appear [Music] that with a voice down in the cellar i'd be the one to get the gear while i had a high note gets the fella [Music] as i give the final prophecy insane or allegorical as mothers maids witches mediums nuns or ants japan's it's obvious i'm highly qualified but i never never never never get to play you don't know what you're missing [Music] that is wonderful now it's a mouthful come on come and sit up here now this is really is it true back to your uh to your spotty or is it really true that control toes i mean is this a true story yeah you can't get to do any of these well you're you're you know you're always the other woman you're never the soubrette you're never there oh you know soprano who gets all high notes david did she complain to you about this in person that's how you knew to write it oh absolutely that's great now listen on the other hand we can sing forever you see the worst we sound the better and more convincing we are as a whole that is true yeah and to your very own wedding i might add you were black yes i did so maybe people didn't think this was an appropriate thing for the bride well it was one of those weddings it wasn't a big wedding that was wonderful we're going to take a short break in that maureen forester witch and i'm not going to say that she's going to take a short break we will and we'll be back in just a moment they never let you do the good parts yeah but we said we sing longer that's the minute yeah you last forever we can do grandmothers and you said and with each child that you had you got a half note either end of the range yeah that it just kept expanding mm-hmm what happened i did too [Laughter] but what do you suppose you know was there some connection i don't know i just think maybe you become more relaxed but you're so happy to have babies you know i have four daughters and a son yeah and 11 grandchildren 11 i know isn't that wonderful and so it just kept adding and you kept i mean your voice just got richer well i suppose you know as i got older it changed colored weight too it's a little weird there's that color again yeah i talk in colors a lot now i was teasing you i was teasing you but there were some very very powerful and poignant moments in your biography that you wrote about this wedding where you really did get married in a black dress yes i did eugene to a fellow who hadn't married who wouldn't marry you for quite some day yeah that's true yeah tell us this story because you saw him across a crowded room is that true yeah i'm yeah i i was yes i went to ottawa and uh i looked across the room and i said that's an interesting looking man that's the man i'm gonna marry and was he younger or older i mean did you know a lot of us he's a lot older than i am yeah but 18 years older than me and he was a performer and uh he was a conductor of the ottawa philharmonic yeah and so did you let him in on this little secret or not right away i just worked on it but did you really know that you were i mean was this some kind of flash that you were seeing and yeah i had well i had you know i wasn't i didn't have a lot of boyfriends i was always too busy because i had church jobs in this job and teased to sing and all kinds of things but um i sort of had an idea of the type of man i would like strong personality and somebody who wouldn't lean on me but that i could lean on occasionally but we ended up leaning on each other so i just i looked i just said that's the man i'm going to marry and set a boat and when i went up to him and somebody said that i had said he said wait a minute what i do with my life if you know eugene hits what he's like you know you didn't cash that's just amazing now you went uh he was of he was he was jewish yeah and he had promised his mother that he would not marry outside the faith right so you became pregnant with paula and he said i can't do this but i but for his sake i can converted did you yeah yeah so in the end you were able to no well that made it all right and then we had four more children yeah yeah until until until you fell in love with a married man on an airplane that's true and he wasn't the pilot and he wasn't darn it no it's just reading your your autobiography i mean these are fascinating stories because for people who do spend their life on the road like you do uh and when you're a performer and there are literally men at your feet as the song would say it's amazing it doesn't happen more often and maybe it doesn't we don't hear about it yeah you know or it doesn't work out whatever i i'm i can't hide my emotions that's what it once everybody knows what i'm thinking or what i'm doing and was this love at first sight on the plane too well he sort of but he turned out not to be the right man yeah if anything the perfectly wrong man but your marriage ended as a result yes i left you and uh but we're if i if there are women listening who are thinking of leading their husbands you know you can get back together again but if you can't you must remain friends we're wonderful friends we have you know five children and eleven grandchildren and together if i have a family party i always invite him to come so i think that's the same way to live now is that because there isn't another man in your life that you're free to do now even if there was another man in my life and there was a having a family but i would invite him they're his children my children and his children and he enjoys you know being with the family but he's very busy teacher yeah and he teaches love his first of all his life is the violin and he's very good at it he's a wonderful teacher so what is your view from your vantage point now on romantic love i think it's wonderful if it's spontaneous and easy um i think you can fall in love for a short while and follow life with love with someone but i'm not really looking around right now i'm busy enough to keep myself busy have you sort of come to the conclusion that you are a loner i'm not a loner in the sense that i don't like to be with people i do like to be with people but there's something nice you know about making your own choices when you want to do something when you don't or whatever and i have an enormous amount of friends yeah and kids and kids and grandchildren that are all and if they've forgiven you for all your sins they don't know about them when they're old enough i'll have another little party and tell them all so they're not watching television tonight my sins are sins of joy i guess they are everything and that you were i mean i get the sense that that's how you view life i mean if there's something there and you want it then go and grab it and take it as long as it doesn't belong to somebody else yeah yeah well i guess which was a small problem with the pla man on the plane to new york right do you suppose you will just keep performing forever yeah i don't imagine myself never being able to sing i think your your range changes yeah the high notes are obviously not what they were at one time and the very low range changes but you it gets a little less but there's always music to be sung and how many days do you spend on the road now a year i don't know not as much as i used to what do you think david how many days per se in terms of days yeah i guess 60 of the of the year 60 days and when you go on this tour with interpretations of life i mean that's going to be right across the country yeah we've done this a fair amount now people really like it this oh it's great well with songs well and because they can relate to them you know they can all relate to them now most everybody remembers you as the witch and hansel gretel they've seen that on television lying on my broom and i think i'm the only person in the world that hasn't seen this can you still do the witch's cackle oh i if i do i hurt my throat do you really well we won't have you do that ah you know that's screaming yeah well you know what they're doing that did they do they turned a tourniquet they had me going upside down on a broom flying through the air and everything and through the power of television of course right laughing all the time oh didn't we tell you that actually you're going to be spinning through this kidding yeah okay we won't have you do the castle because we want you to keep your voice we're going to take a short break we're going to come back in just a moment continue our conversation with maureen forrester choices so you don't get the sexy parts you're right but we last longer you do last longer one of the things that you do these days amongst you know in addition to spending all this time on the road is that you're very involved in the aids uh community and and working with um victims patients well what drew you to that you know if you've ever gone to a place a hospice like casey house and you see all these wonderful young people you know are lying in beds a lot on the main floor they're mostly in wheelchairs and some walking around but they all know their life is coming to an end it's terrible and i would go upstairs especially at christmas time i used to do a program for them every christmas and go upstairs and it it you know as a mother it would do terrible things to me but yeah i tried to put that aside and i'd put my arm around somebody who was almost out of it you know and say did your mother ever sing something you liked you know that you really liked that maybe i know and maybe i could sing for you and they'd say oh i don't know i said well maybe this one and i'd sing sister mary or something one of the christmas things i do and they'd get the most sort of peaceful look over their face and fall asleep but i would call back the next day and say how's george doing today oh we lost georgia last night you know but then you feel that if anything you help them on the way but maybe that's it maybe because of what the music offers i mean there is a sense of serenity a sense of peace and nobody should die alone nobody should die alone and uh of course casey has is a wonderful now all the hospices that's a hospice in toronto yes but you're just about also to do a benefit in in halifax called the ribbon of dreams with a lot of other talented people well you know you just have to go you just have to um realize that they've got to find a cure for this we're losing so many talented wonderful young people and they there's no chance at the moment they can keep them alive for just a certain time and then they just go you know and it's it's such a waste of life but also i really feel that i think in the junior classes in school they start having to teach sex awareness yeah and protection what do your own kids say to you about this because i know other people who have decided that this is a calling for them and their own families are afraid when you come back in the door oh gee we don't want to touch you we don't know oh no no no no that way you don't get aids from touching somebody like that people know that in general but a lot of people don't no no no i think i think there should be more programs about that that's saying i go up to an aids person put my hand around their neck yeah and look at them right in the face you know that's not how you get aids by breath right but it is important i guess that people like you do that well i think more people should do too because it's the saddest of terminal parts of life for the people who are dying of it and you could think we can go to the moon we can do all kinds of things they should be able to soon find at least maybe not to totally cure it but to keep it at a certain place where it's not going to grow you know or increase where do you get your energy to do this i mean you work extraordinarily hard as you say you've got kids and grandkids you give your time to this you always seem to be giving back to the community well i've been very lucky in my life people have been very good to me and the man who own as i said owned the montreal star gave me the chance in life i'd never be a singer today without his help did that really help form your view of this that you've got to give you give me back what you take out of life you have to put back and and help somebody else sometimes a singer sometimes somebody would just who's unhappy that you can make laugh a little bit and your talent is just one of those things that i don't know do you find it easy to spread it around i mean you seem so easy when you get to the microphone like you really still love doing this oh i do and the minute i don't like it i'll give it up but then maybe become a trapeze artist or something you just want to do that witch scene from him gretel again without the technology especially turning upside down we're going to take a short break when we come back maureen forrester will sing with for us one more time welcome back we're going to spend some of our final moments with maureen forrester tonight allowing her to sing us out uh to the end of our program tonight now this one maureen is at the microphone over there pretty cool do it for me she was trying to give me french my heart bye sweet boys oh that's great and with her of course on the piano david work who is playing with us and you'll be singing this at the uh aids benefit in halifax i think so you'll leave as well right well we would just love to hear we'll sit back and listen go ahead [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] oh [Music] this [Music] is [Music] [Music] so [Music] my please [Music] is [Music] out of the way [Music] i foreign [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Music] so so soon [Music] maureen forrester accompanied by david work it is it's beautiful come and sit down we just have a few seconds left i knew we'd have trouble with that does that uh does it move you to tears when you sing just everybody else that listens to you now i just think of samson and delilah yeah and me delilah singing the same thing that's incredible that's a wonderful artist you had one song to take away and listen to for the rest of your life around a desert island what would it be oh that's difficult that's very difficult it would have to be a funny song i think yeah if you were alone on the desert island you'd have to be able to amuse yourself or make one up maureen forrester it's been such a pleasure thank you very much for being here oh thank you very much and david work thank you for the work tonight as well

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Length: 42min 38sec (2558 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021