From the Church Gospel Choir to the Grand Prize at the Metropolitan

High !" #$%&'($ )*+,-..- /$,(#$( achieves the international stardom some critics predict for her, her first major role and how she came by it will likely become part of opera lore. Johnson was just 28 and finishing up a stint with a small opera company in her hometown of Houston when she NotesFrom the church got a call: the soprano in the title role gospel choir to the in an impending Opera Philadelphia Grand Prize at the production of Giacomo Puccini’s Metropolitan Opera Manon Lescaut needed emergency Council surgery. Was Johnson available to take her place? Johnson ran out to buy the DVD and a score of Puccini’s By Susan Seligson breakthrough opera, one she’d never Photographs by Cydney Scott seen or even listened to in its entirety. Opening night, April 20, 2012, was three weeks away. “I was in the right place at the right time,” says Johnson (CFA’07), who sang Manon when she was nearing the end of a four-year residency at !! BOSTONIA Fall 2013 Michelle Johnson, in rehearsal for La Bohème, Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts this summer’s PORTopera (AVA), which grooms a select few to production. Johnson sing on the world’s great opera stages. played Mimi, whom she describes as “swept up “I loved the music; it fit. I would wake by a very chaotic love.” up, coach, then go to rehearsals, every day, around the clock.” A famously de- manding role usually sung by older, seasoned performers, Manon was written for a lirico-spinto soprano— a versatile voice that can swell from sweetly limpid phrases to dramatic climaxes without strain. The opera world, known for its finicky critics, was watching Johnson closely. She blew them away. Johnson “soars,” declared www.theoperacritic .com. Her singing has “a magnetic immedi acy,” crooned the Philadelphia Inquir er, which went on to pronounce her voice “a dulcet dream.” Since Manon, Johnson, now 30, has sung the title role in Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at the 2012 Glimmerglass Fall 2013 BOSTONIA !" “Opera is traditional,” says Johnson, “but you can change it. You can modernize it, but you have to claim the role for yourself.” Festival in Cooperstown, Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, baritone Brian Major Skype,” says Johnson, who N.Y., and won the coveted observing that Johnson (CFA’10), and their York- sometimes goes months role of Mimi in a PORTopera possessed “the vocal goods shire terrier, Jasper, who without seeing her husband, Company, of Portland, as well as star power.” often joins Johnson on the but thrives on their shared Maine, production of The Met competition road. The pair met when passions and ability “to help La Bohème in July 2013. “was like a debut into the Major, who grew up in New each other in a way that we Johnson first drew opera,” says Johnson. “It Jersey, was beginning a don’t step on each other’s national attention when was time to say, ‘Hello world, master’s program at the toes.” Before either goes on she landed the Grand Prize I’m a new soprano on the College of Fine Arts and stage, the other always calls, at the 2011 Metropolitan scene. I’m Michelle.’” If Johnson was at the Opera and they intone a prayer: Opera Council Auditions Johnson had any doubts Institute. They married in “Lord, please don’t let ei- in New York, one of her about the accolade’s impact, May 2012 in a music-flooded ther of us fall on our faces.” many first prize or finalist they disappeared when her ceremony in Houston. On a soggy day in distinctions in a string of Facebook page suddenly These days, their per- May, Johnson was at the national and international filled with requests for formance schedules (Major’s AVA, which occupies a competitions since 2006. appearances. most recent role was in a historic brownstone near Writing about the Met com- When she’s not in cos- June Concert Operetta pro- Rittenhouse Square, waiting petition in the New York tume, with an updo and a duction of the light opera to work on Bohème arias Times, chief classical music dramatic décolletage, the The Gypsy Princess in with master vocal coach critic Anthony Tommasini earthy, playful Johnson Philadelphia) often leave David Lofton, her mentor at (CFA’82) lauded Johnson’s could be mistaken for a the couple with a ships- the academy, at the piano. rendition of “Io son l’umile teenager. She lives in South passing-in-the-night ex- For hours that afternoon ancella” from Francesco Philly with her husband, istence. “Thank God for they parsed phrases from !" BOSTONIA Fall 2013 two arias, their exchanges I don’t necessarily need age eight, but it was the it in 1967. Opera is very punctuated by easy laughter. to be the queen of opera, film version of The Sound traditional, but you can It takes a family, if not a but I would like to have a off Music that “lit the fire.” change it. You can mod- village, to groom an opera solid living doing what I Even though she loved ernize it. You have to claim star, and Johnson likes to love to do. This is what musical theater, Johnson the role for yourself. You refer to her “opera father”— I’m made for.” was focused more on acting. can change word inflection, Lofton—and her “opera Performances in a string you can change attitude. mom”—BU voice coach MUSICALLY OMNIVOROUS of high school plays have But the music is what it is.” Penelope Bitzas, a CFA It’s not all opera, all the served her well on the op- At the close of the first associate professor of music. time for Johnson, who is era stage, she says, but “to performance of La Bohème, “She’s hyperfocused, and musically omnivorous and this day I always have to Johnson is exhausted but really coming into her own listens to everything from remember to put my sing- exuberant as an assistant as an artist,” says Bitzas, jazz to R&B to hip-hop. But ing cap on a little bit before gently rubs the layers of whom Johnson trusts never she is captivated by what my acting cap. Sometimes I stage makeup from her face. to humor her. She and she calls “old-sound voices,” have to rein in my emotions, She admits to a fleeting case Johnson go back to before like those of legendary op- because if I’m showing too of nerves in the opening act, Johnson came to era divas Maria much emotion it won’t work but it went undetected by the Opera Institute, WEB EXTRA Callas and with the singing.” the audience at Portland’s to her summer as a Watch a video Leontyne Price, Beyond the chance to Merrill Auditorium, who Tanglewood Vocal of Michelle to whom she is sing classical opera’s most at the opera’s tragic con- Arts Fellow. Bitzas Johnson in often compared. achingly beautiful arias, clu sion rose to their feet says she knew rehearsal with “I respect sing- the La Bohème role is par- in a resounding and sus- the PORTopera almost instantly Company ers with long ticularly near and dear to tained ovation. that “this girl is the at bu.edu/ careers,” she says. Johnson at this point in her Johnson’s was a soulful, real deal.” She also bostonia. “And yes, we all life and career. “We’re all complicated Mimi, whom saw that Johnson have ups and artists,” like the libretto’s she describes as being had the drive to excel in a downs. We’re human.” young Bohemians of Paris’ “swept up by a very chaotic business that has defeated When she attends operas, Latin Quarter in the 1840s, love.” In its review the so many, a business “that’s Johnson is able, to the as- she says. “The characters are Portland Press Herald hit or miss.” Some students tonishment of some of her so relatable. I understand lauded Johnson’s “superb” “only want to hear the good fellow singers, to be far what it’s like to do a job just voice and “nuanced emo- news,” she says. But Johnson more forgiving than she is because you need to keep tion,” describing her “O embraces criticism with an with herself. “I don’t go your lights on. That’s the soave fanciulla” duet attitude of “I’ve got to fix to performances to judge; artist life—you love life, with Rodolfo (tenor Jeff this; let’s go,” Bitzas adds. I go to be entertained,” she but you also love the art. Gwaltney) as “rapturous.” “She’s warm and delightful, says. “And you know, it That’s where your passion is. You would think that but she’s also a tough cookie doesn’t have to be perfect. Mimi’s entire role is just full first performances get who really knows who she is Because perfection can of gorgeous, lush singing, easier, Johnson says, but and what she wants. I don’t sound boring to me.” but at the same time there’s they don’t. “The pressure want to jinx her—but she Johnson came to Boston an innocence to her, and the is there to maintain your could be the next big star.” University after earning a voice has to be really flexible success....I want to work, but Johnson knows it, too; bachelor’s degree from the at times.” I also want to take my time her early success has been New Eng land Conservatory, For singers performing and condition myself for both exhilarating and ter- where she initially felt out such a frequently staged the long haul.

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