Felicity Lott

"Felicity Lott was the best part of my doctoral training!" That is what I overheard Bonnie Altman, my former research assistant, now colleague and friend, say to a gathering at her graduation. I laughed but knew it was no joke. Her experiences with Felicity exposed her to a world she had never known—the world of opera and one of its most elegant and expressive singers.

It all began one bright Sunday in April 1998. I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe reworking my draft of an article on the Marschallin for the Strauss bicentennial issue of The Opera Quarterly, while waiting for friends to join me for Felicity's Alice Tully Hall recital. I wondered how she would describe the character she has performed so much in Europe it has become her own. Scenes from the Vienna State Opera video, songs from her Strauss albums, and her portrayals of four Strauss heroines crowded my mind, reminding me of what a wonderful Straussian she is. After the concert I went backstage to ask her if she would like to contribute her ideas about the Marschallin to the article. She took my scratched-up manuscript with her on the plane back to England and the next morning e-mailed that she was interested. Until I bought a new computer with Internet capacity, Bonnie received her communications. She, my research team of clinical psychology doctoral students, and a good share of the analytic community, all but a few of them new to opera and the art of song, became Felicity Lott fans as events unfolded over the next several years.

They were Strauss years, and Felicity contributed significantly to the festivities. Before that she sang the Countess in eight performances of the Met's star-studded Nozze di Figaro. It was Bonnie's first opera and she was astounded, loving every moment but nothing more than hearing her e-mail correspondent singing so beautifully. "Backstage, was like being in the presence of royalty," Bonnie said. "Felicity looked even more stunning in her street clothes, and I was amazed that she was so humble, so nice, so nervous—and so open about it."

Before long, in collaboration with a psychoanalytic institute, Bonnie and I were arranging a program that would include my paper on Strauss and his wife along with segments of the Glyndebourne Intermezzo in which Felicity sings Christine, the name Strauss gave to his wife in this domestic opera that depicts two incidents in their marriage. Charmed by Felicity's portrayal, this audience, predominantly psychoanalysts, was primed to analyze Christine; that is, until Felicity told them how bombarded Christine feels by her husband's relentless provocations that pose as forbearance, even magnanimity. I never knew whether she persuaded the audience that Christine's outbursts were justified, but everyone was impressed by the depth of her identification with her character; it was something that would never have occurred to us, and it took the panel in an entirely different and refreshing direction.

Felicity further delighted the audience by singing five songs Strauss had written for his wife. Whatever she said to people during intermission and at the end, everyone made a point of telling me how warm and lovely she was; five years later, people are still telling me so. In the end, there were ninety-six requests for the transcript of the day's proceedings and for the Intermezzo video, which unfortunately is impossible to find in this country.

Surrounding this event, Felicity was singing four performances of Arabella's staircase aria, "Das war sehr gut, Mandryka," and of Madeleine's final scene from Capriccio with André Previn and the New York Philharmonic. Nothing could have thrilled me more; if the Marschallin is not my favorite operatic character, Arabella is, and Madeleine the most enigmatic. Their climactic scenes are some of opera's most inspired, and Felicity knows how to deliver them.

Backstage on opening night Michael Kennedy, Bryan Gilliam, Christian Strauss (the composer's grandson), and other members of the Strauss family were waiting to take Felicity to dinner. Christian told her that he wished his...