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Jennifer Cooper has a new voice but is still reclaiming the old one that made her an opera star
Friday, May 8, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo
Jennifer Cooper's numerous opera roles included that of Tisbe in a San Francisco Opera production of Gioachino Rossini's "La Cenerentola."
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Jennifer Cooper was in, booked for operas several years away. Then, in 2001, a doctor found a congenital cyst in her vocal pathway and the mezzo soprano lost her voice — her job, her art, her best friend — as fast as a shooting star streaks across the sky.
No more fat checks after every performance — no unemployment checks, even — and she had to dump her savings into surgery not covered by her health insurance plan.
No more paid-for trips around the world: As she might tell a reporter in an interview or tell an audience through a performance of her one-woman play "Go-DIVA!," Cooper returned home to her parents' house in Southern Maryland.
Cooper's father, her first vocal instructor, was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. On top of that, rumors were spiraling within the "small, gossipy, superstitious" opera world.
Did you hear what happened to Jennifer Cooper? She got pregnant. No, she got married. No, she had a nervous breakdown.
That's all fine, really, but one rumor was simply too much: Cooper had nodes, damaged her voice. That one filled her with rage.
Try to imagine that. There is nothing she could do except reinvent her identity. But she didn't particularly want to; she wanted her old life. Over the years, Cooper's voice — her instrument — had developed its own persona. So who do you blame — the voice or the universe?
Cooper was so mad and depressed for a few years that she refused to consider new opportunities. Finally, with reluctance, she accepted a temporary teaching job, as an adjunct voice instructor, at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. The friend she was filling in for never returned, and she stayed for four years.
At EMU, Cooper met fellow temporary professor L.B. Hamilton. Hamilton, who began as an actress in Southern Maryland, heard Cooper's story and wanted to write a play. Cooper was hesitant … until there was an opportunity to perform what would become "Go-DIVA!" for charity. The title, incidentally, comes from the gifts of Godiva chocolates given to Cooper by her mother, who would sign them "Go-DIVA!" It's perfect, Cooper said, because it is through those notes that she learned her mother connected to what she was doing.
In writing the play, Hamilton interviewed Cooper and Cooper's mother and was allowed to read her diary. "Go-DIVA!," in turn, is a one-woman, autobiographical, multimedia play packed with cabaret.
It's about Cooper's life, beginning with her Pomfret beginnings and ending right where her life left off around 2006, when the play was first produced. It's about getting back on the stage, and getting the record straight.
"I think in some ways it has helped me to get beyond it," she said, "because in some scenes I find myself having to listen to myself, getting to rewatch myself."
Eight years after having surgery to remove the cyst, Cooper still can't believe it all happened. At least now she can deal with it: These days, when the anger bubbles up, she can calm herself in a matter of hours, not months.
In 2001 she expected to have surgery and return to the stage six months later. Instead, recovery has been slow. Singing in a lower register, however, has not been an problem, and it has allowed Cooper to develop a new passion for jazz.
"Go-DIVA," as it happens, is packed with such passion, and show tunes. Wearing a sparkling black top with black pants, Cooper slides on dark shades and belts out a Roy Orbison number, illustrating the days when she sang along with her father to not only Orbison but Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers.
From an early age, she was destined to sing, she says. She could feel it, squeezing her "like a bear hug." Only one decision remained: Karen Carpenter or Julie Andrews. And Cooper rolls through numbers by both of them.
She is accompanied, meanwhile, by pianist Michael Santana, the former musical director who cast her for a role in a Port Tobacco Players production of "The Fantasticks." At the time, Cooper, who had attended Archbishop Neale School, was at Maurice J. McDonough High School.
In "Go-DIVA," Cooper describes herself, in the early years, as too tall and skinny and gawky — with braces.
It was the 1980s. Her high school sweetheart, Scott, was just as into the theater as she was. In comes a Phil Collins tune, with old photos posted on the video screen.
Her first career: Good Little Catholic Girl.
Her first and continuing addiction (except for singing): Hershey syrup, straight from the squeeze bottle. No chaser.
On Aug. 29, 1990, Cooper wrote: "Dear Diary: I love college. I love UMBC … I am going to be a singer. My voice is who I am. I will follow the rules, do all the right things and you just get me on that stage."
At 20 she boarded a plane for the first time and went to Arizona State University School of Music, and at some point there were auditions for Leonard Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti." Cooper had never been in opera, and she was confused: The title was so easy to pronounce. Then there was this weird aria, and she nailed it.
The play darkens, however, as the "golden years" of 1997 to 2000 lead to her last opera performances, as Cooper's voice is failing her and doctors are prescribing allergy medication. Even today, acting out her last performance in Michigan, Cooper has to pretend she is someone else.
In Act 2, as the depression is setting in, she walks out on the stage and asks the audience why they are still in the seats. She tells us a little about the surgery that required a week of silence.
Slowly, she picks herself up, and leaves the stage after a triumphant, show-capping number called "Alive." "There are going to be days when you hit rock bottom," Cooper said describing the song, "and on those days you have to be OK with just being alive."
Afterward, the audiences have questions, and Cooper does her best to answer them. People want to know what and how she is doing.
They share their own stories, and Cooper realizes other people, too, have faced similar curveballs. She relates her experience to what many have faced during the recession, perhaps losing their jobs and savings in an instant. Feeling lost. Having to rebuild.
Cooper has learned that teaching is not for her. She left EMU last year.
Cooper has to perform, and lately she has been taking odd jobs here and there while pursuing opportunities to sing.
Once in a while she tests out her ability to sing in the high register required of a mezzo soprano. Cooper is progressing, and believes one day she might reclaim the full range of her instrument.
It's not perfection yet. Her voice, though, and her life, have become a lot more manageable.
If you go
Jennifer Cooper and Michael Santana will perform "Go-DIVA!" at 7:30 p.m. May 9 and at 2:30 p.m. May 10 at the Black Box Theatre. Tickets are $12, $10 for senior citizens, students and military. The theater is at 4185 Indian Head Highway, Indian Head. Call 301-743-3040. Go to www.indianheadblackbox.org.
