Voigt Deborah - Call me Debbie: true confessions of a down-to-earth diva

For Mom, Dad, Rob, and Kevin.

I love you all very much.

THANK YOU TO my wonderful, funny, loving family: Dad and Lynn, Mom and Don, Rob and Angie, Kevin and Tara, and Marianne.

And to my nieces and nephews that warm this aunts heart: Maddie, Kailee, Abby, Nicholas, Graham, Olivia, and Morgan.

And thanks to my cousins Martha, Amy, Peggy, Tony, Brian, and Toddwith whom Ive shared a lifetime of memories.

A big thank you to Jesslyn Cleary, my assistant through thick and thin and the mistress of Camp Cleary for Yorkies and Cats.

Jaime Aita, this book wouldnt have come together without you. Thank you!

My gratitude to Jane Paul, my mentor and friendand to Nancy Estes, Ruth Falcon, David Jones, Levering Rothfuss, and Brian Zeger.

To Paul Cte, my first manager, for believing in me all those years ago.

At Columbia Artists Management, many thanks to Ronald Wilford, Elizabeth Crittenden, Alec Treuhaft, Damon Bristo, Tim Fox... and to Andrea Anson, for your unconditional support and encouragement. I love you.

To Albert Imperato at 21C Media Group (Alberto!), a heartfelt thanks for your vision and boundless enthusiasm! Same goes to Sean Michael Gross and Michael Lutz.

Natasha Stoynoff, my co-writer; Ive never bared my soul to anyone as much as I have with you. Thank you for that, and for all those sleepless, marathon, eating-writing sessions.

To Jonathan Burnham at HarperCollins, Im so grateful for your endless support and patience. Many thanks to Laura Brown and Bob Levine for their valuable contribution to the book.

Thank you to Kim Witherspoon at Inkwell Management.

And to Herbert Breslin, who always loved a good scandal.

To my first opera family at the San Francisco OperaAndrew Meltzer, Christine Bullin, and Sarah Billinghurst.

Thank you to my dear friends: my buddy Jack Doulin, for our morning chats to solve the problems of the world; Victoria Gluth, for endless hours of laughter and amateur psychiatry; Julia Hanish, because I love you, Tyson, Tyce, and Lyles; and Sue Burhop Muszczynskimy secret-voiced, ice-cream caper pal forever.

John Leitchbecause you never quite get over your first love.

And finally, thank you to Peter Gelb, Jimmy Levine, Joe Volpe, and the rest of my Metropolitan Opera Family.

WHEN I WAS fourteen years old, God spoke to me.

I know it will sound unbelievable to mostand if it hadnt happened to me and someone told me the same thing, I might accuse him or her of hallucinating. But it happened, and I remember it as vividly today, forty years later, as if Hed spoken to me yesterday.

There was no burning bush, no blinding flash of lightbut it was a miracle to me nevertheless, even if it was low-key and over in a matter of seconds. Those few mystical moments when I was a teenager forever changed the course of my life.

It happened just a little past dawn on a fall morning in 1974 that began like any other in our suburban home. The rest of my familymy parents, Bob and Joy, and two younger brothers, Rob and Kevinwere asleep, and the usually noisy household was quiet and still. Id woken up early and was treasuring the silence as if it were a piece of rare and beautiful music. The light was peeking through my bedroom curtains and I snuggled under the blankets, sleepily watching the suns first rays slip across the rooms lemon walls.

Thats when I heard Him, a voice that came from everywhere, and out of nowhere. The voice was as clear as day; it was both as loud as a lion and as soft as a whisper. He said five simple words, but they were powerful enough to put me onto the path I would follow from that moment onward:

You are here to sing.

I know, writing this now, what it must sound like. But I promise you: I sat up in bed and searched the room, wide-eyed. There was no one else there, and for a second I wondered, did I just dream that? No, I was definitely awake. And there was no doubt in my mind who that voice belonged to, I just knew. It was otherworldly but so very real. I have never been able to describe the timbre, cadence, accent, or inflection of that voice, but if I heard it again Id know it like I know my own.

I held my breath, waiting to hear if there would be more... some additional message, instruction, or revelation... anything. But there wasnt. Five words was it, thats what I got. I wasnt given an earth-shaking command to lead my people out of bondage, or to plow up my Illinois cornfield, or to stand on a box in New Yorks Times Square and warn the wicked to repent because the end was nigh.

Nope, my message was simple and intensely personal, and, in a way, it was more of an affirmation than a directive.

You are here to sing.

God told me to do what I had always innately sensed I was born to do. And not just demurely, but proudlywith every ounce of passion in my soul and every fiber of my being. It was a dream of mine, even when I couldnt articulate it.

I never imagined myself becoming a world-famous dramatic soprano whod share the stages of the biggest opera houses in the world with the most celebrated vocalists of our time. I didnt yearn to meet presidents, princes, Pavarottis, and Plcidos.

As a child, I only knew I loved to sing.

Had I not heard the voice of God in my bedroom that day, my unarticulated dream may have gotten lost. Because even though Id always felt that music was my destiny, the first several years of my life I struggled to hold on to it, to not let that calling be denied.

But as I said, Gods voice that day would firmly plant my feet and my voice on the path that would lead me to fulfill it.

And that dramatic journey begins, appropriately, as all great operas do... with music, and a story that stirs the soul.

MY FATHER SAYS I was singing before I was even talking.

His mother, Grandma Voigt, owned a vinyl copy of the My Fair Lady movie soundtrack when I was a toddler. And, as family folklore has it, Id tug at Grandmas dress and beg her to play the record for me whenever we all visited her in Mount Prospect, a forty-minute drive from our home in Wheeling, Illinois.

Mom and Dad were strict Southern Baptists and, with a few exceptions, any form of non-Christian secular music was forbidden in our own ultraconservative home. But my three-year-old mind didnt comprehend censorship, and to my young ears My Fair Lady was as sweet, fun, and innocent as candy, and it made me want to run to the center of the room and sing the songs out loud.

Grandma Voigt was a heavy-set womanI take after her physicallywith a slightly dour disposition. She wasnt particularly musical and was definitely not the whimsical, gamine, Audrey Hepburn type, so how she ended up with My Fair Lady in her record collection, I cant say. But it was there, and it caught my eye. Every Sunday when wed visit her, Id run in the door and rush to Grandma in the kitchen.

Grandma... please, please. My Lady? Id manage to get out as I tugged at her apron.

Oh, Debbie. Again?

Shed wipe her hands and make her way to the long, teak stereo console in the living room, with me following close behind. After she put the record on, shed give me her apron to use as my costumewhich I accessorized with a netted pillbox hat from the front closet and one of Grandmas shiny brooches, and took my position center stage on the living room floor.