Deborah Voigt's 'Obsessions'

By Robert Siegel

Published April 29, 2004 at 12:00 AM EDT

Soprano Deborah Voigt is considered by many opera writers to be the finest interpreter of Richard Strauss' opera Ariadne auf Naxos singing today. Voigt made her Carnegie Hall debut on April 7, one day after releasing Obsessions, her first solo recording of Wagner and Strauss arias.

The release of Obsessions coincided with an odd event that briefly transported Voigt from the arts page to the front page: She was dropped from Ariadne by London's Royal Opera because she was deemed too big to wear a little black cocktail dress in the contemporary production.

Voigt tells NPR's Robert Siegel about her new CD, the publicity surrounding the Covent Garden affair and her plans for the future.

Robert Siegel

Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.

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