In the ego-driven arena of opera, “indisposed” is the main euphemism used when a singer is replaced, whatever the real reason.
Hope Briggs
So it was a rare moment of candor when, after Wednesday’s final dress rehearsal and three days ahead of tonight’s opening performance, the San Francisco Opera said that the soprano Hope Briggs would be replaced in “Don Giovanni” because she was “not ultimately suited” to the role of Donna Anna.
Usually such last-minute changes are papered over with claims of illness or family problems. In this case Ms. Briggs’s manager, Anthony George, said on Thursday that he had asked that the announcement say that she had been released.
“We just felt, why go the other route?” Mr. George said. “People are going to question it anyway — ‘Oh yeah, sure she’s sick, sure she has family problems.’ ” Mr. George had acknowledged earlier that he did not expect the announcement to draw much attention.
The last-minute firing of Ms. Briggs, an African-American from Jersey City who has had a career singing in smaller American and German houses, has left a bitter taste for her and created an awkward — and racially tinged — situation for the San Francisco Opera. The run was scheduled to include a gala performance for African-American opera supporters in Ms. Briggs’s honor, which was canceled.
But Ms. Briggs said that race was “not an issue as far as I was concerned.”
“My issue is that I was never told my singing was not up to standard,” she said.
David Gockley, the company’s general director, said he was concerned that her firing would be perceived as racially based; he had already received a “number of phone calls” along those lines, he added.
“Our business doesn’t work that way,” he said in a telephone interview. “It has been nobly color-blind over recent decades, and I certainly haven’t worked that way, and my record bears that out.”
Ms. Briggs had been cast by the house’s previous general director, Pamela Rosenberg, and its music director, Donald Runnicles. Mr. Gockley said that he and other members of the staff felt from early on in rehearsals that Ms. Briggs was having difficulty with the role.
“She is really a lovely artist,” he said. “Donna Anna is not among the roles that she is most comfortable in, due to the specific demands of Donna Anna — very exposed, high singing.
“My guess is that there are roles that she would fare better in than this one,” he added.
“We gave her, and I gave her, every chance to do this role in an artistically acceptable way, even keeping faith through the final dress rehearsal,” Mr. Gockley continued. “We wanted her desperately to succeed.”
The efforts, he explained, included extra coaching. “Afterwards I said to myself: ‘If this is what I have to do, this is what I’m paid to do. This is not good enough.’ ” He called the decision “wrenchingly difficult.”
Ms. Briggs was replaced by Elza van den Heever, a member of the company’s young artist program who had sung the role in a production at the Lincoln Theater, a performing arts center in the Napa Valley, and was an unofficial understudy for Ms. Briggs, Mr. Gockley said.
Ms. Briggs disputed Mr. Gockley’s version. She said she never, over nearly a month of rehearsal, had an inkling that the house was dissatisfied with her performance. “I always received positive and supportive feedback the whole way through,” she said. “This is the final dress rehearsal, and never once did anyone say, ‘Hope, need you to fix this.’ ” She added, “Wouldn’t you issue a warning?” She said that the coaching was offered to her, not imposed.
Mr. Gockley said that Ms. Briggs was indeed put on notice but suggested that a misunderstanding might have come from the tendency of coaches to avoid brutal frankness, which can undermine a singer. “They tend to accentuate the positive and try to move people in the right direction, very gracefully,” he said.
Ms. Briggs, who is based in San Francisco, made her debut at the San Francisco Opera in 2004 as the Dutchess of Parma in Busoni’s “Doktor Faust,” a role she also sang in Stuttgart. She has sung the First Lady in “The Magic Flute” at Opera Frankfurt and Opera San Jose, the Countess in “Marriage of Figaro” at Opera Company of Brooklyn and the title role of “Suor Angelica” at Pacific Repertory Opera. She sang “Aida” last fall with Sacramento Opera.
She has sung Donna Anna twice before, learning it for a small New York City concert performance in 2003 and performing it with Opera Frankfurt last fall.
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