Golda Schultz Cleveland Orchestra: A Deep Artistic Bond

Ten-plus years ago, soprano Golda Schultz met Cleveland Orchestra conductor Franz Welser-Möst, and the two immediately hit it off.

“He was coming to conduct a concert that I was singing,” says Schultz via Zoom from her home in Munich, Germany. Schultz joins the orchestra for performances on Thursday, Sept. 17, and Sunday, Sept. 20, at Mandel Concert Hall. In January, she’ll return to town to play again with the orchestra on Thursday, Jan. 14, and Saturday, Jan. 16. “It was a Strauss gala. It was the first time I had met him. He was so kind and so professional. There is this wonderful calmness about him that I find so soothing. He trusts the people around him to do their best work. That trust he gives you is such a gift. To have a conductor give me trust intrinsically was great, and I didn’t have to prove anything. It was like he knew that I belonged in the room.”

So when Welser-Möst asked her to come to Cleveland in the dead of winter for a 2019 concert featuring Haydn’s The Seasons, Schultz naturally agreed, even though experiencing the cold and snow that Northeast Ohio delivers in January certainly was not on her bucket list.

“It was a horrifically cold winter that only you in Cleveland can survive,” she says. “I don’t know how you do it. For the concert, there were three soloists — a tenor, a bass and a soprano. On the day of the concert, the tenor and bass were sick. We weren’t sure if we needed to cancel the concert.”

Because there was a snowstorm, the orchestra couldn’t fly in subs for the sick tenor and bass.

“Franz called me and said, ‘It is just you and me and the chorus and the orchestra,’” Schultz recalls. “I said, ‘How does that work?’ He said, ‘Trust me. It’ll be fine.’ We did that first concert. He was a wonder to behold. He talked the audience through the whole Seasons, and I sang my parts, and the chorus sang their parts. When it was supposed to be the bass or tenor, Franz would turn around and explain the parts to the audience. It was hilarious, and it was just fun and creative. He stayed calm and collected and trusted everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and it still remains one of my insane memories of crazy things I have done for my job.”

Schultz came to her “job” as one of the world’s foremost sopranos in a roundabout manner. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, she initially studied violin before realizing stringed instruments weren’t her thing.

“I started playing violin when I was 5,” she explains. “My mom took me to my first lesson, and I still have my little violin. There are good memories associated with Cape Town. My dad was studying mathematics in Germany. He wasn’t home a lot, but it was still a lot of family. That was the thing I always associate Cape Town with.”

After dabbling in journalism in high school, Schultz quickly made the switch to singing and headed to New York to study at the Juilliard School.

“What became apparent was the question of asking the right question to open up a person became more interesting in terms of music [than journalism],” she says. “I think, ‘What is this opera saying to us as people and as humanity? How can I open it for them and help them hear the music differently?’ I have kept the journalism mindset.”

She describes Juilliard as “culture shock” but says she cherishes the time she spent there with artistic-minded colleagues.

“People have this understanding that Julliard is a competitive school,” she says. “I think that’s the furthest thing from the truth. It’s competitive to get into the school. It’s one of the most competitive experiences as a musician you will ever face. That’s the audition process. Once you get through those doors, it’s an inspiring and collaborative and challenging space — and not just because I was around other musicians. I was around other artists and dancers and jazz musicians. I think to myself, ‘Those were the good years.’ I was just there for two years, but those were, like the TV show, The Wonder Years. That was when I discovered my wonder.”

After Juilliard, she moved to Munich in 2011 and entered the young artists program at the Bavarian State Opera. She honed her skills as part of an ensemble where she received a monthly salary that was “a good living wage,” as she puts it. She then began starring in opera productions at high-prestige venues, such as the Vienna State Opera, London’s Royal Opera House and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. She also recently hosted a portion of the BBC Proms classical music season.

She says the Strauss piece represents a perfect ending to her lengthy collaborative history with Welser-Möst.

“[Welser-Möst] told me he was ending his season with Cleveland and wanted to end it with people he loved working with,” she says. “He said he wanted to do Strauss. I thought, ‘That is the best thing anyone could say to me. It’s like he said, ‘I respect you as an artist, and I want to hear you doing something I like.’ The Strauss piece is a meditation on ending. It is about our end of days as people and how we meet our ending.”

Schultz describes it as “a love letter to the [Cleveland] Orchestra and this city with which he has such a deep relationship.”

“I feel absolutely honored and thrilled to be part of that,” she says. “I also feel pressure. I want it to be a good memory. I want people to hear and feel through my performance the love he has for his orchestra and for Cleveland.”