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Harpist comes home for recital
A lot has happened for the principal harp for New York's Metropolitan Opera since she graduated from St. Petersburg High School. Among her experiences: a life-changing illness.
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 12, 2000
In terms of pay and prestige and artistic excellence, being a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is one of the best musical jobs in the world. It's also one of the busiest.
One night, it's Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila, the next it's Debussy's Pelleas and Melisande, then it's Puccini's Turandot and so on throughout the long season of 25 operas from September through April. Orchestra members also play in symphonic and chamber music concerts.
"It can be grueling," says Deborah Hoffman, the Met's principal harp, who gets a break now and then because some of the greatest opera scores don't call for harp.
"There's no harp in Mozart or Rossini," she says. "Verdi usually has some, but it's sketchy."
Some of the most effective overall harp writing in opera is by Puccini. Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor has a famous harp cadenza. Wagner, Debussy and Strauss also wrote well for the instrument.
In some ways, though, it takes a harpist to write for the harp, as reflected in Hoffman's recital program Sunday in Tarpon Springs. Three of the pieces were either composed or transcribed by Renie, Grandjany and Tournier, harpists all. Also on the agenda are a harp sonata by Hindemith, a solo arrangement of Handel's Concerto in B-flat, Faure's Une Chatelaine en sa tour and Glinka's Nocturne.
"I'm going to talk a bit about these composers who were great virtuoso harpists and harp teachers, so the audience can see how the harp evolved in composition and also what the instrument became capable of doing from the baroque era on," Hoffman says.
The harpist has longtime Tampa Bay ties. Her father, Irwin Hoffman, was founding music director of the Florida Orchestra. Her mother, Esther Glazer, was a violinist. The Hoffmans, who lived on Snell Isle in St. Petersburg, had four children, all musically gifted, and the family gave many chamber music performances in the area.
Irwin Hoffman, now music director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, returned to guest-conduct the Florida Orchestra two years ago. He and Glazer divorced, and she is now a painter in New York. Each of Deborah's brothers -- Joel, Gary and Toby -- also has a top-level music career.
In 1978, she graduated from St. Petersburg High School and went off to the Juilliard School in New York. Eight years later, she won the audition to become principal harp at the Met.
In recent years, the Met's artistic director, James Levine, has taken the orchestra out of the pit and put it onstage at Carnegie Hall for a series of concerts. The musicians have earned widespread acclaim for their fresh approach to symphonic repertoire.
"You listen to singers all the time, and it changes you," Hoffman says. "You have a sense of making a phrase as a human voice would make it. You don't hear other orchestras doing that."
Hoffman, 40, clearly cherishes her association with the Met, especially since surviving a scary health crisis.
"I had a rare lung illness that they don't know a lot about," she says. "It's a genetic glitch that seems to strike only women in their 20s through 40s. I was unbelievably healthy my whole life, never had any problems, and then suddenly this. It destroyed my lungs, destroyed the actual lung tissue."
Continuing in the orchestra was out of the question, and Hoffman had to go on leave. "Playing the harp is a very physical thing," she says. "Any time you raise your arms above your heart, you're getting a kind of aerobic workout. When I was ill, I had to stop playing because I was just so winded when I lifted my arms and tried to play a little bit."
She was out of commission for nearly two years. "I was in and out of the hospital, basically housebound on a lot of oxygen, with a full-time nurse. My mother devoted herself to taking care of me."
In December 1998, she had a double lung transplant. "I got the call for the transplants, and it was amazing that within a week I was up on an exercise bike. It's that miraculous, if these things go well."
The Met stood by her. "They were astoundingly loyal to me. They bought me a computer because I couldn't speak on the phone."
Hoffman says her breathing tests are now above normal. With the support of a "fantastic team of doctors" and the Met's "really great insurance plan" to help cover costly transplant medication, she is back in the musical fast lane. Recently, she and flutist Elizabeth Mann completed a recording of Chopin works, forthcoming on the Arabesque label.
Still, Hoffman's illness was life-changing.
"It's changed me in so many profound ways," she says. "Even just taking time in a phrase. You know, there's a sense of not quite being in a hurry in life anymore, and that affects you musically."
Music preview
Harpist Deborah Hoffman gives a recital at 3 p.m. Sunday at Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center. $11 and $13. (727) 942-5605.
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