Page 20 - Classical Singer Magazine November/December 2019

Dorothy Danner
Carnegie Mellon University’s 2016 production of La Calisto directed by Danner.
onstage before! Anyhow, I had a solo at the top of the show (she laughs) and it was scary. A few months after it closed, that show led to being hired for Once Upon a Mattress. I learned
discipline and courage from the leading master of Broadway George Abbott, clowning from Carol Burnett, and physicalizing and comic dance ideas from Joe Layton.
Did you have voice and acting lessons at some point?
When I was 18, I realized what you had to do to stay in this business, so I started taking voice lessons from a teacher I had toured with in Li’l Abner. Someone eventually sent me to a voice teacher named Madame Tweety [laughter]—it was a Broadway style of singing. But she did make me sing Schumann’s “Ich grolle nicht.”
I just had minimal talent as a singer. But I didn’t understand that until I started working in opera.
Then, when I got hired for Once Upon a Mattress, Jane White (who was playing Queen Aggravain and who was a brilliant actress) watched me
in rehearsal for two days and said, “You’re coming to my acting classes.” There was no choice with her! She saw some instincts in me, so she felt I should start training right away. She was a very technical teacher.
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20 Classical Singer | November/December 2019