Golda Schultz Talks about Overcoming Obstacles

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES - MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 2021 VOL. 31, NO. 6

Golda Schultz Talks about Overcoming Obstacles

SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

South African soprano Golda Schultz returns to the Aspen Music Festival and School stage this Friday with the Aspen Chamber Symphony under the baton of Benjamin Manis. An AMFS student in 2010 with a leading role in John Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles, Schultz made her professional AMFS debut in 2018.

Schultz has since gone on to an international career and been recognized by The New York Times for her “radiant-voiced and tenderly innocent Sophie” in Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera. The New Criterion wrote she possesses, beyond good voice and technique, “an inner light, a spirit: an obvious love of music, love of the audience, and love of life.”

Soprano and AMFS alumna Golda Schultz sings Barber and Stravinsky on August 6.

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says, “She’s just a radiant person in manner and the sound of her voice is very reminiscent of Renée Fleming. It is the same voice type and personality type, just so communicative, so open. So much love comes from her when she’s on stage.”

Of her past experiences in Aspen, Schultz says, “Being in Aspen is always so joyful. When I came back in 2018 as a performer, I was taken back to all my happy memories here as a student. I loved being asked to work on rep that, until then, I didn’t know about. It was such a special musical discovery, which, when coupled with the beauty of the place, made it even more so.”

Friday’s concert features “a program full of modern wonder,” says Schultz. She begins with Anne Trulove’s aria from Stravinsky’s neo-classical nod to traditional opera, The Rake’s Progress, which Schultz describes as “an evocative aria full of brilliant imagery and thrilling musical moments.”

After the Aspen Chamber Symphony performs Clarice Assad’s orchestral work Sin Fronteras, Schultz returns with Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op. 24—a dreamy summer evening walk where the great questions of life are pondered. “I have been an avid listener of both [the Stravinsky and Barber] pieces for many years; now being able to perform them in front of an audience fills me with a deep sense of gratitude,” Schultz explains.

Capping off the program with its themes of childhood and imagination is Ravel’s exquisitely orchestrated Mother Goose Suite, a depiction of several fairy tales which he originally wrote for piano for four hands, for the children of the composer’s friends.

Despite her sensational career thus far, performing hasn’t always come easily for Schultz. While a student at Rhodes University in South Africa, she suffered from “fainting goat syndrome”—a severe stage fright that causes her to faint after performing. Schultz says she eventually overcame her fear, “with a lot of help from the supportive music department. There was a dean on the music faculty who saw beyond my fear and challenged me to grapple with it. He told me that my talent was bigger than my fear and I just had to find a way to do it, although the fear would try to get in the way.”

After weeks of continued performances in front of her classmates and faculty, Schultz learned her obstacles were “all tied to getting over the mental blocks that prevent us from our true gifts as interpreters.” She continues, “I am forever grateful to the faculty and students who stood by me and showed me that fear can never truly win. None of us are alone. That’s the thought that gets me out of bed wanting to tell stories through music. I want to prove that no one is alone.”

On that front, Schultz speaks to the question of diversity in classical music and whether it’s fair to say the situation is improving. “It is beguiling to think that things are improving, because that would give us the sense that we could take our foot off the pedal of change,” Schultz says. “But we can never think we have done enough. I hope things are changing, and I see young musicians doing more than I ever imagined possible. Speaking out and calling for action and then acting themselves as agents of change.”

After such a long time without live music for many people, Schultz says of her upcoming performance, “I think we are all longing to feel connected again without a computer standing between us and an experience.” She adds, “I look forward to seeing faces in the seats again and being able to make eye contact. What people can mainly expect is an evening of joy and gratitude. A celebration of hope that has kept us all going through some very dark times.”

The 2010 AMFS production of John Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles featured Golda Schultz as Rosina, a role sung by Renée Fleming in the opera’s 1991 premiere at The Met.

FESTIVALFOCUS

YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE