Strauss’s opera of 1928 – a sequel to the story of Helen of Troy – is an excellent vehicle for Voigt’s lush and powerful voice. Skillfully negotiating complex harmonies, she soars over the big Met Orchestra and sounds ideally suited to her role. And glittering in a form-flattering turquoise sequin gown, she’s visually convincing as Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.

Yet there was a time, not so long ago, when no opera director would have thought of casting her in such a glamorous role, no matter how good her voice sounded. The problem was her weight: until three years ago she wore dresses as large as size 30. But today, she’s not half the woman she used to be. This evening, when she gives her Toronto recital debut at Roy Thomson Hall, she’ll be – if not exactly thin – a Marilyn Monroe-esque size 14.

The day after her Met performance Voigt is feeling even worse than the night before, and she holes up in her luxury apartment, twenty floors up, on Manhattan’s Lower West Side. Yet she graciously agrees to talk about the remarkable events and decisions that led to her physical transformation – and also her transformation into a controversial media figure. At 46 years of age, the Chicago-area native speaks directly, freely bandying around words like "fat" and "obese," to describe her former self.

"I knew I was in a bad place, health-wise," she explains. "I was having a lot of orthopedic problems. I’d tried everything else, and I’d had enough. What I did was a last-step choice – it’s not something that I’d necessarily recommend." Her choice was gastric bypass surgery: in June 2004 she had her stomach stapled at a New York hospital.

Voigt doesn’t like to speak in precise weight statistics – but according to numerous estimates, she lost more than 100 pounds in less than a year. And along with the surgery came ongoing lifestyle changes. "I have to watch everything I eat," she points out, "and I exercise."

The catalyst for her decision was an unpleasant incident that took place in the previous year. At that time, Voigt was quietly dropped from the cast of an upcoming production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera Covent Garden, before she had arrived in London for rehearsals. The reason she was given, she’s always claimed, was that she was too large to fit into the dress that was to be her costume. (She was replaced by the slimmer German singer Anne Schwanewilms.)

The "Little Black Dress Affair" became a public scandale in March 2004 when Voigt told a reporter for London’s Telegraph newspaper about the incident. "I have big hips," she said, "and Covent Garden has a problem with them." As soon as that sentence appeared in print, Voigt found herself at the centre of a worldwide imbroglio. Her fame quickly spread beyond the opera world when media outlets around the globe – and even People magazine – took a keen interest in the story.

Probing questions were asked by the English press – to which Covent Garden spokespeople stammered things like, "the costume and the type of production made it not such a fortunate suggestion that she should be in it." The Royal Opera’s answers didn’t suit many opera fans, and the company’s director of casting soon had a stack of hate-mail on his desk.

In the United States, American newspapers took it as their patriotic duty to defend one of their nation’s leading opera singers against foreign attack. "I am flabbergasted by the decision," declared New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini. The Boston Globe called her dismissal "dumb," and the Chicago Tribune termed it "shabby." And many journalists asked how Covent Garden’s values had become so warped that the company valued a dress over a star like Voigt. "Evidently the art of making alterations has disappeared from the British scene," sneered the San Francisco Chronicle.

The chattering classes found much to chatter about. Some critics noted the sexist implications behind Covent Garden’s action, observing that male opera singers were not subject to the same standards of appearance. Others blamed the power that operatic stage-directors have usurped in recent decades, claiming for themselves the traditional authority of opera conductors in such areas as casting. The shallow values of Hollywood were duly blamed for their insidious influence.

Voigt does not come across as the kind of person who courts controversy – and to this day she’s a little bewildered by the media feeding-frenzy that followed her candid statement to the press. As the pundits fulminated, she took a pragmatic approach to the problem. Making good use of the weeks freed up in her busy schedule by the cancellation, and the handsome fee that Covent Garden was contractually bound to pay her (estimated by the Financial Times at about $130,000), she went under the knife.

Voigt is by no means the only opera singer today who has struggled with issues of weight. The Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, once known as "Big Ben" for his generous proportions, lost about 90 pounds in 2002. (Since then, his weigh has fluctuated.) Because of his weight problem, he was taking a brand of blood-pressure medication that nearly ruined his voice – and forced him to cancel several engagements. And last year, soprano Measha Brueggergosman, a rising Canadian star, turned to Bikram yoga to help her shed about 140 pounds.

According to Voigt, weight is an issue that’s here to stay for opera singers. "Unfortunately, it’s the way things are. It would be nice to say that it doesn’t matter – and it shouldn’t matter. But we’re competing for entertainment dollars. I tell young singers not to think they can walk around with 75 extra pounds on them and have a career. It won’t happen."

Does she feel that her decision to lose weight in any way vindicated Covent Garden’s decision? "I’ve never thought about that," she replies, taken aback by the question. "But I understand where they were coming from. And I don’t want to do things on stage that are inappropriate. My issue with Covent Garden was that they had nothing else for me – they didn’t want me in any other production, either."

Today, Voigt is more in demand that she’s ever been. "My voice feels really good," she says, "I think maybe the lower part of my voice is getting richer, and maybe there’s more strength at the top." But she knows there’s more to her current appeal than her vocal abilities. "Without the weight loss," she admits, "I would not be playing Helen or Salome on stage. We live in a culture obsessed with image and physique."

She’s even been invited back to Covent Garden, and is slated to appear in Ariadne auf Naxos – in the infamous little black dress – in June 2008. (At a press conference last month, Royal Opera music director Antonio Pappano described the idea she’d been let go because she was too big for her costume as "a bunch of rubbish.")

Fortunately for the Royal Opera, Voigt has broad shoulders, and has graciously agreed to return to the company that once snubbed her. "The reason I didn’t appear last time," she notes, "was because of a decision made by very few people. For me to say that I’m not going back wouldn’t be fair to my fans in London."

© Copyright Colin Eatock 2007

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