Joyce DiDonato

Joyce DiDonato0:00

This is the BBC.

Presenter0:03

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:14

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:37

My castaway this week is the opera singer Joyce Didonato, revered as a mezzo soprano of exquisite capabilities. The variation in colours she brings to her performances regularly leaves audiences and critics alike spellbound in awe and admiration. She opens her mouth and makes it all sound

Presenter0:55

Well, utterly effortless. It hasn't been. At nineteen a teacher told her she was singing on youth and muscle, and that her career would be over before it had even begun. At one point in her early thirties, she trudged round a dozen European opera houses in two weeks, and was rejected by every single one.

Presenter1:15

They make em tough in Kansas. The years of dedication, discipline, and hard graft meant that when her moment to play the great roles finally came, she was ready. And then some. At Covent Garden a few years back, she broke her leg on stage and finished the night's performance on crutches, completing the remainder of the run from a wheelchair. She says, On a good night, I have the extraordinary privilege of breathing life into masterpieces, and that is a joy. What remains tough is the roller coaster thing, hurtling from the high of having audiences screaming for you to the low of sleeping alone in some horrible hotel where you're overwhelmed by a feeling of unworthiness. And therein lies the rub, Joyce to Donato. How do you manage that? Because that is much of your life.

Joyce DiDonato1:55

Choice to Denasa.

Joyce DiDonato1:59

I it is much of my life. It's interesting that the world of opera is full of extremities. So big tragedy, big love, big conflict, big high notes. And because for some reason I've chosen this career that has that roller coaster, that plunges you into the depths and then whips you up to these heights. And it takes a while to figure out how to navigate that. In order to succeed on the stage, I have to be very present in every single millisecond that I'm singing.

Joyce DiDonato2:31

So, if I'm worried about the note that just didn't go very well behind me, or the scary one that's approaching.

Joyce DiDonato2:37

I lose my sense of being now, being here, and producing the sound well. If I can just stay present now.

Joyce DiDonato2:46

Somehow I I seem to stay in a relatively middle road.

Presenter2:51

You once said that the voice is just a wild beast that you sort of just hold on to. It sounds like you must constantly be sort of trying to rein in and get under control this professional life you have.

Presenter3:04

Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato3:04

Well, there is an element of that, and I see that when I look at my calendar, and that that can overwhelm me.

Joyce DiDonato3:12

But the truth is, this business feeds me a lot. I can be really exhausted at the start of a show and I hear an overture starting, and that music absolutely gives me energy, lifts me up, and energizes me in a way that I feel like I can climb, you know, climb Mount Everest that night. Let's go, let's go. I feel run over by a truck the next morning. But being immersed in such a staggeringly beautiful art form, that is what constantly gives me energy. That and knowing the effect that it has on people that listen to it. Yeah.

Presenter3:47

Let's go to the music, Joyce Didonato. Tell me about your first piece today. Why have you chosen it?

Joyce DiDonato3:52

Ah, well, you know, at the end of the day, I like music to help me feel good.

Joyce DiDonato3:58

And I don't have a single Latino or Mediterranean cell in my body. I'm of Irish descent and I'm as white as they come, but something in my coration is very Latino or something. Latin music has always really resonated with me and it feeds me in a way that hopefully I do on stage for other people. So this is a tango, an Argentinian tango. One of the reasons I love this is sung by one of my dear friends and colleagues, Jose Manuel Tapata. And he brings this really, wow, unfiltered and raw exuberance to the way he sings. And I feel that immediately when I listen to it.

Speaker 14:35

El mundo fuise da na morqueria jalosa, en el qui niento sai, yen do mil tamien, que siempre bido choro pani ave lohieta fau, undento hiyamargao, valoretiduble, pero que le siglo bente sunde piliege de maldan solende jaloi ki el loge de vimo rebolca se humerenge ye mimolodo todo manosia.

Joyce DiDonato4:39

Hey

Presenter5:06

Jose Manuel Zapata with Cambalace from Tango Mano o Mano. For that little bit inside of you that is Latino, will forever be Latino. But of course, as you say, there's not a bit of you that is Latino. The stages that you occupy at Joyce Didonato, the Met or La Scala and so on, a long way from Tippin's Restaurant and Pie Pantry in Prairie Village, Kansas. That was where you worked as a teenage waitress. Let's ponder for a moment on the subject, the vexed question I imagine, of perfection. In performance that is transcendental, that sends the audience to that special place, you can't surely think about perfection. Something else has got to happen. Perfection can end up locking in a performance, can it?

Joyce DiDonato5:47

Oh, a hundred percent can become your biggest enemy as an artist. If my only goal is perfection, I'll be admired as a singer. Say, Oh, that voice, it's incredible. Look at what she does. But to make somebody travel to a place, that is when we have to let go. And that is that's mental work. It's psychological work. It has nothing to do with vocality. It has nothing to do with the technique of a singer. It has to happen.

Joyce DiDonato6:15

mentally and then

Joyce DiDonato6:17

You have to give yourself permission to just jump off the cliff.

Presenter6:20

And does it come, I mean, often, you know, people will remark on your performances about the fact that you are a really good actress. Does that come in?

Joyce DiDonato6:28

Into it too? Oh, no question. You know, young people write me. They're twenty, twenty-one years old.

Joyce DiDonato6:35

And they say, What do I have to do to be an opera singer? What do I have to do? And I see this tunnel vision and these wide eyes and they're very ambitious. And I know that they sit with headphones and listen to opera all day long. And I say, Please stop listening to opera, first of all.

Joyce DiDonato6:51

Go to Europe, go travel, go get into trouble, go live life. Because again, opera is representing.

Joyce DiDonato7:00

The huge extremity of life experience. And yes, we have to know our languages and we have to have our voice in good shape. But if we have nothing to say, if we're just going to attempt to make beautiful sound on the stage, that lasts for about thirty seconds and then I'm bored. I want to feel something. I want that stage experience to help me look inside myself more profoundly.

Presenter7:27

Let's hear some more music, then tell me about your second. What are you going to hear?

Joyce DiDonato7:30

Ah, this is this was my first real solo. And it goes back to the high school days. I had the most extraordinary high school choir director, Carl Wolff. And he's the first person that really taught me the power of ensemble and creating something of so much beauty that's impossible by yourself. And this was my first solo, my sophomore year in high school. I was probably 14 or 15. And it's called That Young a Child.

Speaker 47:59

But young a child when it got weak.

Speaker 48:10

With songs she lost

Speaker 48:20

That was so sweet of me.

Speaker 48:28

It possessed a holy menstruation.

Speaker 48:42

The night in gallery sang of song.

Speaker 48:52

Our song is full and not

Presenter9:03

Benjamin Britton's That Young Child from a Ceremony of Carols Sung There by the American Boy Choir. So, Joyce did an arto. Um that you said that was your first You Think solo piece when you were singing the choir. Your father was a choir master, was that right? A part time choir master. You were very, very close to your dad. Tell tell me about him.

Speaker 19:13

Anyway.

Joyce DiDonato9:20

Yeah. He was an architect. He worked from home, self employed. He was not a good businessman. He would give his work away for free.

Joyce DiDonato9:29

But he was a wonderful architect, and he was the volunteer church choir director at our local Catholic church. That was really.

Joyce DiDonato9:38

The biggest musical influence on me was choral music and watching my father conduct the adult choir.

Presenter9:44

Church. And what it was so a connection through music, but a connection beyond music. You would spend a lot of time with him.

Joyce DiDonato9:45

And

Joyce DiDonato9:51

Yeah, it's um oh, I miss him. We would talk philosophy and we would talk astronomy. We'd sit under the stars and ponder the universe. What I realize now, looking back on it, was his dream was to be a musician. He grew up in the World War Two time and his father said, No son of mine is going to be a pansy musician. And so that dream was squelched from the very beginning. To this day, he probably was the person that had the greatest appreciation and need for music that I've ever known.

Joyce DiDonato10:26

And it brought him great comfort and solace in a sometimes difficult life. So I think it showed me from the very beginning the power of music to actually.

Joyce DiDonato10:38

Um

Joyce DiDonato10:39

Help somebody, to heal somebody. And I remember he would come to everything that I did.

Joyce DiDonato10:45

and with every concert he would say with sort of this kind of sense of astonishment

Joyce DiDonato10:50

But you're really doing this.

Presenter10:52

Were one of seven kids? I was number six of seven. You were six of seven. So give me a little flavour of family life then.

Presenter10:59

Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato10:59

Ah, well chaotic.

Joyce DiDonato11:03

Disciplined. The Catholic faith was the foundation of our family. Sunday breakfast always together. Again, my dad being not a great businessman, finances were scarily difficult at times. So we all started working at the time we were 13 or 14, going back to Tippin's pie pantry. I started there when I was 14. We had to pay our way through college. We had to help pay for the vacation. We almost lost our house one time. And I think my father, that really actually drove him quite to a very frightening edge, which he came back from. It was a lot of responsibility. I realize now it was probably too much responsibility for a 13 or 14 year old. But on the other hand, I could handle it. And so I was able to help contribute to the family in that way.

Presenter11:55

Let's have some more music, Joyce Didonato. Tell me about your third disc of the day. What's this?

Joyce DiDonato11:59

Oh, well, okay, so this was my escape. So as as all the pressures of the family were mounting up, I would escape to my upstairs bedroom and I'd steal my sister's L P.

Joyce DiDonato12:10

of Jesus Christ Superstar, and I'd grab my hairbrush and I'd turn that volume up as loud as I could, so even hearing my mother go, Turn that music down, I couldn't hear her. And I became Mary Magdalene.

Speaker 412:22

Don't you think it's rather funny?

Speaker 412:29

I should be this position.

Speaker 412:36

Who's always been so come so cool?

Speaker 412:43

No lovers for

Speaker 412:46

Running every show It scares me so

Presenter12:56

That was I Don't Know How to Love Him, sung by the original Broadway cast from the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Jesus Christ Superstar. And it seemed to me, Joyce Didonato, you were back in the bedroom, you had the hairbrush, you were right in there. And did you even need a hairbrush? I mean, it must have been you must have been aware that you were a terrific singer at quite a young age.

Joyce DiDonato13:13

No, no, no, quite actually quite the opposite. I knew I was musical and I loved the stage and I could sing in tune, but I was never, never pointed out for having a great voice. The voice is actually the the thing that I've had to build, but that did not keep me from nailing this song in my bedroom when I was twelve.

Presenter13:29

Take my

Presenter13:31

And so you were you were at St Anne Catholic School. You were in the third grade when your teacher there described you as the perfect student. I wish all my students were like her.

Joyce DiDonato13:41

Mrs Miller, she sent a note home to my parents.

Joyce DiDonato13:45

It was you know, that's significant because that became my identity. I think that happens to kids when they're young. You become the troublemaker, you become the teacher's pet, you become the good student.

Joyce DiDonato13:57

And that became my identity.

Presenter14:00

And what did your mother say? Was she full of praise and warmth at this great little note that had come back?

Joyce DiDonato14:04

Ah, see, I remember my dad's reaction, not my mom's, actually.

Joyce DiDonato14:09

I I'm sure she reacted well. So tell me a bit more about your mom. What was she like?

Joyce DiDonato14:14

Well, you know, I I'm so glad I've gotten older because I have such a better understanding of her now. She was the mother of seven kids with no money and staying at home.

Joyce DiDonato14:28

And it was really hard on her. I don't think she enjoyed being a mom.

Joyce DiDonato14:34

She did the right things, but it was my sense was that she was doing it out of duty. So I didn't get along with her. And I think for a long time I you said something about not being worthy in the opening statement. I think that has been something that has been the challenge for me is that what else do I have to do?

Joyce DiDonato14:58

That was really a fundamental part of my growing up. How what else do I have to do to get her to see me?

Joyce DiDonato15:05

And I happily have left that behind for the most part, but it was that was a very formative part of my upbringing.

Presenter15:13

Let's have some more music, Joyce Didonoto. Tell me about your next one. This is uh it's your fourth of the morning.

Joyce DiDonato15:19

Well, this is still my high school years. And again, either it was in my bedroom with the hairbrush or it was at the piano that I felt understood. This was the one place that I could express myself freely. And I guess a little bit like my father, I started to understand my place in the universe because no other place made sense. So I really lost myself in the world of Billy Joel. I could play his music on the piano. And after I'd come home from school a bad day, the boyfriend didn't pay attention to me that day. And I would lose myself in Billy Joel.

Speaker 415:59

Lost touch long ago You lost weight, I did not know You remember look so nice after so much time

Speaker 416:09

Do you remember those days hanging out at the village green?

Speaker 416:14

The engineer boots, leather jackets and tight blue jeans Well, you drop a dime in the box and play a song about New Orleans

Speaker 416:24

Cold beer, hot lights, my sweet romance activated nights.

Presenter16:30

That was Billie Joel and scenes from an Italian restaurant. It was all in there, Joyce Didonato, wasn't it? In those words. Those were the days. Yeah. You studied vocal musical education at Wichita State University in Kansas.

Joyce DiDonato16:36

Yeah.

Presenter16:41

You went to study next in Philadelphia. You were studying vocal performance, building your technique. But it was also where you learned, among other things I heard, not to cry in front of the conductor. Mhm. Goodness me, that sounds tough.

Joyce DiDonato16:54

Mm-hmm.

Joyce DiDonato16:56

Best lesson, greatest lesson I needed at that time. It was it's the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and it's really probably the top place to go and train as an opera singer, perhaps in the world, but certainly in America. And it's tough. You're expected to stand up and to produce. You know, the birth of an opera singer takes so much psychologically, mentally, musically, vocally, theatrically, and it's not easy and it's not for the faint of heart. And I didn't understand it at the time.

Presenter16:56

Uh

Presenter17:32

Well, just tell me about one of the demands, because I read this and I don't know if it's true. The first time that you were rehearsing at La Scala for Riccardo Mutti, you stood in front of him, he opened the piano lid, began to play.

Joyce DiDonato17:44

Tell me what happened. He asked me why I was singing so poorly.

Joyce DiDonato17:49

And at that time, I'm a professional singer, and I don't think I was singing that poorly. But it's the precise thing that I had learned at AVA: that you have to be so tough mentally. You can get a bad critic, you could the audience could boo you, the maestro could say you're terrible. And you have to go deep down and find something within yourself that says, No.

Joyce DiDonato18:13

I'm going to sing.

Presenter18:14

And so, in that instance, he walks out of the rehearsal, doesn't even listen to you sing anymore. No. And what do you.

Joyce DiDonato18:17

Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato18:20

Or no.

Presenter18:22

Uh

Joyce DiDonato18:22

Think. This was a Christmas concert, and I thought, okay, well, at least they're gonna fire me, but at least I'll be home for Christmas. Here's the truth about that, now that I look back on it. You don't become Riccardo Mutti without an exacting demand for excellence. And he was hearing something that was not excellent at that moment. And I was contracted to sing a concert with the La Scala Orchestra, with Riccardo Mutti, at La Scala in Milan on television.

Joyce DiDonato18:54

And he was right to demand excellence. Was he right in the way he demanded it?

Joyce DiDonato18:59

That's his way.

Joyce DiDonato19:01

He just had this way of.

Joyce DiDonato19:06

Either I would have broken or I would have raised the bar and stepped up to the next level. Happily, I didn't break, but I stepped up to the next level. And I'll tell you.

Joyce DiDonato19:16

That concert was one of the best musical experiences I've ever had.

Joyce DiDonato19:20

Not easy, but it made me better. Joyce did an odd tell me about your neck

Presenter19:23

Piece of music then. It's your fifth.

Joyce DiDonato19:26

Well, this is, I think, one of the great creations of all mankind, first of all. It's by the Titan Mozart. One of the first roles I ever sang. I auditioned for Carabino, the sort of star mezzo role in the opera, but I didn't get it.

Joyce DiDonato19:43

In college I got Marcellina, the old lady.

Joyce DiDonato19:47

But then happily I was able to come back and sing Carabino as a debut role in a number of important theaters. But also simply as a music lover, this is the piece that restores my faith in mankind and humanity. It's the Overture to the Marriage of Figaro.

Presenter21:15

Part of Mozart's overture to the marriage of Figaro with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted there by Yannick Nisega. So the reason that you chose that, Joy Stidonato, apart from it being, as you say, one of the finest pieces of music surely ever created, was that it reminds you of your debut at the Met. That was it, two thousand five? Yes.

Presenter21:34

Tell me about the hours before tell me about what's going through your head.

Joyce DiDonato21:38

A lot of nerves, a lot of excitement, a lot of responsibility. There's that idea that if this doesn't go well, I'm finished, which is again a terrible place for an artist to be, is in a defensive place. So one of the things I try to do is do a lot of mental work. Know you're prepared, you're ready for this, it's time, this is your moment, you know, and try and go into a proactive mental space.

Presenter22:05

And what had taken you to the Met by two thousand five were these thousand tiny little bricks that all had been put in place and a lot of them were to do with

Presenter22:15

Rebuilding your technique were to do with learning how to work with conductors. Tell me about the time when you went round Europe, and I said in the introduction, there was, by this time, you had a manager, you were lined up to do 13 auditions in two weeks. You did a dozen, and each person said, nah, carry on. You're all right, we'll find somebody else. It was that 13th audition where the tide most decisively turned. Tell me about it.

Speaker 122:33

Carry on.

Joyce DiDonato22:41

Yeah, the lead up to that was I had spent three years from 26 to 29 rebuilding my technique. My voice teacher had said, you have no future, you have to rebuild. And at this point, all my colleagues were whizzing past me. But after rebuilding the technique, I did find management.

Joyce DiDonato23:02

But it was European management. The European manager found me and said, You have to come to Europe because nobody over here knows who you are.

Joyce DiDonato23:11

So I said, Okay, and we set up a thirteen city audition tour in sixteen days, and I got twelve outright rejections right away. And it wasn't she's terrible, it was we have nothing for her, we already have singers that fit in that area.

Joyce DiDonato23:26

And my thirteenth audition and I was really tired and I was really over it all and I thought, see, I have no I have no business in this career it was the only A level house, and it happened to be the Paris Opera.

Joyce DiDonato23:40

And about two hours after my audition and I think I sang the same audition that I had for the dozen before it was the same voice, it was the same presentation

Joyce DiDonato23:50

But they called and said we have a new production of the Barber of Seville.

Joyce DiDonato23:54

And I broke in at the A level.

Presenter23:57

Did you do anything to celebrate when you got that part?

Joyce DiDonato24:00

I cried.

Joyce DiDonato24:01

I cried, and I said, What, what? And I kept saying, Are you sure? Are you sure? Really? Me?

Presenter24:07

Tell me about your next piece of music, Joyce. What are we going to hear now?

Joyce DiDonato24:10

Well, it goes back again to these choral days and listening to my father conduct the choir, but also that sense of music giving expression when

Joyce DiDonato24:23

when I don't know what to say. And this is the actually it's the piece we played at his funeral and the piece that brings tranquillity in a millisecond. C everything can be out of control and I put this on and I immediately come back to center.

Presenter25:49

Randall Thompson's Hallelujah, performed by the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers. Joyce Didonato, I once read you say an extremely funny thing about the four stages of an opera singer's career. T tell people about this.

Joyce DiDonato26:01

Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato26:04

Actually, Francesca Zambello first said this to me, a wonderful stage director. And she was giving a talk to us in the Houston Opera Studio. We were very young and eager young artists. And she gave this wonderful context for what we're starting off. And she said, There's four stages to a career. I'll use my name, for example. She said, Who is Joyce Di Donato? And then, get me Joyce Di Donato. The third stage is, get me someone like Joyce Di Donato.

Speaker 126:18

Dave

Speaker 126:35

Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato26:36

And the fourth and inevitable stage is who is Joyce Di Donato?

Presenter26:40

Not a fault.

Presenter26:42

So you are at the Get Me Joy Stidonato or the Get Me Somebody Live Joy? It might be easier.

Joyce DiDonato26:45

Or they get me somebody laughed just because

Joyce DiDonato26:49

I I might be between the two right now.

Presenter26:52

Living the life you live, as we know, constantly on the road, constantly striving, constantly managing the bookings and the diaries. A considerable strain, surely, on personal relationships, I'm sure. You have been married twice, you are now in a relationship again. Is it to do with, as you explained it, the personal journey and the trajectory and the strength of that personal journey? Or is it a logistics thing that makes it difficult?

Joyce DiDonato27:19

Oh, wow Now that's a really good question.

Joyce DiDonato27:23

I will have to ponder this on my own for a while. I think it is obviously a combination of the two, but ultimately I would say it is that personal journey. The logistics of having any kind of a relationship in this career are very tricky. You want to be best friends with somebody, but you can't be that person that brings them chicken soup when they're sick. And that's difficult.

Joyce DiDonato27:48

But ultimately, I know in my case, it really has been about giving myself permission to continue to grow. I've had to reconcile a lot of guilt along the way because, going back to the Catholic thing, you know, you get married and you take a vow and it's for life. And it's a struggle when your reality doesn't line up with what you thought you were going to do. But I know in my case, every instance in my personal life has brought me to much deeper personal growth, and I don't have a single regret. Tell me about your sevenths. What are we going to hear? Well, this was, I think of this because there was a really cataclysmic event in my life, in the world's life. It was 9-11. And I was in Washington, D.C. the day that this happened. So it wasn't quite New York City, but D.C. was the second area of attack. And I feel like my entire world collapsed in that moment because.

Speaker 428:46

Hmm.

Joyce DiDonato28:54

Nothing made sense to me.

Joyce DiDonato28:57

Here were people in the name of their religion doing something devastating.

Joyce DiDonato29:05

I went to church that morning and I saw a priest in the most remote way.

Joyce DiDonato29:12

going through the motions and I looked and I said, But that's m this religion here, there's that religion. I was already religion wasn't making much sense to me any more in a in a dogmatic kind of a way. And it just that part of my world dissipated. It didn't make sense any more.

Joyce DiDonato29:32

and it was no longer a place that I could rationally find comfort.

Joyce DiDonato29:38

So the thing that I turned to was music.

Joyce DiDonato29:42

And again, music was there to bring sanity back in.

Joyce DiDonato29:47

And oh, what I would go to was YouTube and in the name of love. And I was screaming this out, going, Can't it just be about love? Can't we just stop the insanity of everything else? And I'm still screaming that out today, and you know, I hope one day we get it.

Speaker 430:10

One may choose.

Speaker 430:11

In the memo, bruh

Speaker 430:14

One man come and go.

Speaker 430:18

One man can't heat justified

Speaker 430:22

One man sit over

Speaker 430:26

IN LO MAN

Presenter30:43

That was you two and pride in the name of love. So, Joyce Didonato, I was very careful today in speaking to you not to use the word diva, and the only person who said it at the table is you. Of course it has all sorts of modern connotations now, but

Speaker 430:53

Yeah.

Presenter30:55

But do you rather enjoy sort of swanking through the great opera houses of the world? And you do you have a good sort of rider? Do you make sure that your dressing room is painted a certain colour? Do you

Joyce DiDonato31:04

Painted a certain color. No, that's so much work. I find that so much work is, and then I'm sort of, I play a character on stage and I love it. I love to disappear on the stage, but I really don't want to play a character off stage. It's exhausting. I want to be me. I want to, I just, I've tried that. I tried on that coat. Yes. What did you do?

Presenter31:25

What did you do?

Joyce DiDonato31:27

Well, you know, it's the behavior, it's the dress, and trying to add a sense of mystery. I've tried it and it just doesn't work. And the truth is I've broken through several other ceilings by being myself. And I think the audience then can relate to me on a more genuine way because I I

Presenter31:48

It's who I am. Joyce De Donato, you know the purpose of this whole conversation is that I'm about to cast you away to an island all on your own with your music. How will you manage practically? I mean, are you somebody who can, you know, gut a fish or wrestle an alligator or or or plant a palm tree to make a hut?

Joyce DiDonato32:05

I can learn.

Joyce DiDonato32:09

Right now I don't have those skills, but I'll figure out a way. I bet you will. Tell me about your eighths then. What are we gonna hear? Well, it's Sister Helen Prayjean.

Joyce DiDonato32:17

Who is the dead man walking? Nun. She first came to fame through the film with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon as becoming a spiritual advisor to a death row inmate. But her platform has become so much bigger than that. And I had the extraordinary privilege of now calling her my friend. But I first portrayed her in an opera, and she penned a song cycle, also written by Jake Heggie.

Joyce DiDonato32:47

Called The Deepest Desire. It's phenomenal to hear her talk about this desire to serve.

Joyce DiDonato32:54

And it's a four-song cycle. And the fourth song, she called it Primary Colors. And the first part of the song, she says, I live my life in primary colors. I let praise and blame fall where they may. I hold my soul in equanimity and give the fruits of my labors to God.

Joyce DiDonato33:17

And then she says how she finishes her day.

Speaker 433:27

They catch it far.

Speaker 433:38

I put my hand on the

Presenter34:27

Well, the voice was My Castaways, Joyce Didonato. The piece was The Deepest Desire, Four Meditations on Love, Primary Colours, composed by Jake Haggie, and the music was performed by the Kansas City Symphony. It's time then, Joyce, to send you away with the books. We give every Castaway two books. They get the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and then they get to take another book, too. What will yours be?

Joyce DiDonato34:50

My go-to book is called The Power of One, which sounds like a self-help book, but it's not. It's actually a novel by Bryce Courtney, about a young boy growing up in South Africa. And it's fascinating and inspiring and long. So I could take a long time reading it.

Presenter35:09

But

Joyce DiDonato35:10

Um We also Love you

Presenter35:12

You are l

Joyce DiDonato35:12

To Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato35:13

You know, I think I want to sound so silly.

Joyce DiDonato35:20

And I'm assuming I can't bring a masseuse. You're assuming correctly. Yeah, okay. Stupid rules.

Joyce DiDonato35:27

I'd bring some lavender scented oil.

Presenter35:30

Yeah.

Joyce DiDonato35:30

Yeah. I imagine it's gonna be stressful being on the island and it will calm me down and then I

Presenter35:31

Yeah.

Presenter35:35

Heathway, good for the bites, good for the sunburn, all of that too. It's certainly yours. And finally, if you had to save just one of these eight discs from the waves, if they were to threaten to be washed away, which one disc would you save?

Joyce DiDonato35:38

I'm very not with that too.

Joyce DiDonato35:48

I think I would save the Jake Heggie. It's he's a friend, Sister Helen is a friend. It's talks about the big picture. It's so it's going to remind me about what's really important, and I'd be surrounded by friends. Choice to

Presenter36:01

Donato, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter36:46

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.

Speaker 437:00

Uh