Dawn Upshaw: The Diva Next Door

It was a storybook debut. In 1988 the Metropolitan Opera needed a last-minute replacement for Kathleen Battle in L'Elisir d'Amore. It turned to an apprentice in its young-artists program named Dawn Upshaw. The audience cheered, and the critics raved about Upshaw's charm and freshness; she seemed set for a predictable rise in the soubrette roles of grand opera. But Upshaw had ideas of her own. A few years earlier, one of her voice teachers, Jan DeGaetani, had told her to "seek your own path." Upshaw took that advice. From Mozart to Stravinsky to show tunes, she sings a far wider range...