Opera Singer — Beryldene Byer Highland
“Well, if I told you it didn’t make me nervous I would be lying. I was always nervous. I mean, you face four thousand people & you think — oh my lord. Can’t make a mistake. Can’t make a mistake! ”
My name is Beryldene Byer, it was Beryldene Highland. I was born in England, in the north of England. I used to play piano for the local opera company to rehearse. The singers weren’t always accurate, and at the piano looking at the music I knew when they made mistakes. I would say, no no! And sing it to them. Then one day the director said, “You. You know it don’t you? I said, “ Yeah, I’ve been playing it for 12 weeks.” So he said, “you sing it.”
Well that was the last time I was ever the accompanist for that orchestra. I began to sing and stopped playing the piano. I got a scholarship to go to a music school, the Royal Academy of Music in London. I went there for four years and began to sing locally with a group called the Doyle Carte Opera Company. They were performers of Gilbert and Sullivan light operas, Machado and Trial By Jury and things of that sort. I began to do other things, met my husband who was American, he was in search and rescue. He was sent to Vietnam and searched and rescued a lot of people but not himself. So, I was by myself and began to sing more and more. Sang at the MET, and New York City Opera, and went to Germany and sang in Berlin. A variety of places.
I sang many many times at the Philadelphia opera company with a man I am sure you both know, Luciano Pavarotti.
A lot of very famous singers came to Philadelphia and I lived nearby so it was very convenient for them, because I was there, knew the music, and could learn quickly.
There are some fun things though.. If you have to stand, singing next to Pavarotti alongside you… It made my head buzz until I couldn’t here anything else. Just because he was such a presence. I think it was difficult sometimes to keep my mind on what I was supposed to do, and get taken into what he was doing because he is so commanding, so powerful a personality and a voice. It was almost a thing by itself his voice, you know?You forgot it was just a man doing it. It was a wonderful experience nonetheless, we did a lot of television because of him.
If you look out and see the audience, that’s a deadly thing to do. It’s just another rehearsal. But, I can tell you that the music is so sublime, so engaging, that once you begin it takes you to another — like a zone that you are in, and you simply absorb what’s going on. It doesn’t matter who’s out in the audience because you are totally absorbed with what’s happening on stage and the nervousness has gone then, because you are not you, you are someone else and that someone else is not nervous. It is an amazing feeling. I’ve heard of other singers talk about reaching a kind of zone and I am sure it is not just singers, there must be other people who find that they are so taken with what they doing that they are drawn into it and literally become someone else and that is what it felt like to me.
I can tell you that that my parents didn’t like opera at all and I did a lot of musical like Camelot and Sound of Music as well, but, I wanted my parents to at least enjoy one. So, I sat them down and I had the recording and I told them everything that was happening in Butterfly. She does this, and that sound is about this, and he goes away. By the end of it my mother goes, “ why, that’s disgraceful!” It is a touching musical and touching opera. Most people that don’t like opera can somehow feel what is going on. My dad still wasn’t keen on it. He would rather take me to the football. My dad was one of five brothers and my dad and mother had one child, that was me. For a long time he made me do boy things. He made me play football, go to games, and taught me how to fix toilets haha.. So what else can I tell you?
