From C to Shining C

Denyce Graves has sung for presidents and seduced critics and audiences around the world as a sizzling Carmen and a voluptuous Dalila.

But the mezzo, who will make her Orange County recital debut Friday at the Performing Arts Center, recalls being a gangly teenager who could never get the peer attention she wanted.

“I was the one who was not cool,” Graves said. “I wanted desperately to be with the in crowd, the cheerleaders. I was always taller than the guys. Skinny. So I wasn’t very popular. I spent a lot of time on my own. I had a few friends, but not as many as my brother and sister did.”

Graves, 35, was speaking recently from Washington, where she was preparing to sing at the inauguration of George W. Bush. The invitation had come from President Clinton’s office, which asked her to sing a piece she had sung for the Clintons--Gene Scheer’s “American Anthem.”

“It’s an absolutely gorgeous, patriotic, majestic piece,” Graves said, “one of those that break you in half. . . . Oh, it’s going to be crazy. When I arrived for rehearsals, the Rockettes were there, and so was Ricky Martin. It should be an honor. It’s my hometown.”

Graves was the second of three children whose “abusive, alcoholic father” (as he’s described on Graves’ Web site) abandoned the family when she was a baby. Her mother, Dorothy Graves Kenner, a hard-working typist, kept the family together, partly by making sure there was church in their lives seven days a week.

The singer discovered her love of music in elementary school and had the uncommon good luck to have her supportive music teacher, Judith Grove, move up with her as she graduated from one school to another.

When Graves won admission to the Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts, Grove became the principal.

“She was my guardian angel,” Graves said.

Her knowledge of music blossomed, and so did she.

“For the first time in my life, I had found what my purpose was, the one place where I could be popular and feel valuable.”

So she now makes a special effort to make sure her music reaches kids like her.

“I always buy a block of tickets for inner-city kids,” she said. “You have to pay for that yourself.”

‘Too Many Sopranos’

In the beginning, no one was sure what type her voice would be--soprano or mezzo.

“My teacher said, ‘It doesn’t matter what it is. You have to learn to sing correctly. The voice will go in the direction it will go. It’s important to build your technique and see where you land.’ And that’s how it was.”

She’s happy it landed as a mezzo.

“I never wanted be a soprano even though their repertoire is so rich. I think the mezzo voice--and not just because I am one--is a more natural and pleasing voice type, in line with the speaking voice. It resonates with people sooner.”

Besides, “there are too many sopranos. It’s nice to be unusual.”

Initially, Graves was shy about performing in public. When the family singing group--the Inspirational Children of God--performed, her brother and sister sang the solos.

“I was always the one hiding behind my mother’s skirts,” she said.

So her mother began putting her out front.

“She had no idea what she was creating,” Graves said with a laugh. “I really felt that I got my wings, got breath in my lungs for the first time.”

Even so, she remained wary of playing such blockbuster, sexy roles she’s become famous for until a 1991 production of Bizet’s “Carmen” directed by Keith Warner for Minnesota Opera.

“That production was so wild and so bold, and there was nowhere to hide,” Graves said. “You just had to go for it. That helped me a lot. After being that wild onstage, I thought, if I’m able to do this, everything else is going to be a cakewalk.”

From there she went on to sing at the Met, Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opera Nationale de Paris, among others.

Not All Directors Are Golden

But making a career hasn’t been easy.

“It’s been a struggle since Day One, and the struggle continues,” Graves said. “People who look from the outside of it can’t possibly know what it’s like until you get there, how much work it is.”

For one thing, singers often must work with stage directors who put their own careers first.

“Don’t you know we often have to stand behind things we don’t believe in? I was told in the conservatory: ‘Nobody cares if you like it or don’t like it. Your job is to sell it, whether you like it or not.’

“We often have to get behind directors’ ideas we don’t agree with. That’s our challenge.”

That’s one reason she enjoys doing recitals.

“You get all the praise or all the blame, but the choice is yours. It’s very liberating.

“There’s so much they don’t teach you in the conservatory,” she said. “That’s just on-the-job training. Even when you get a manager, you still have to do work, guide them and direct them. You have to be very discriminating about that. You make poor choices in roles and that news is all over the Internet.

“I’m not complaining. But the life is not at all what people think. I’ve decided that they pay you for the traveling, not for the concerts. That’s what costs the most.”

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Chris Pasles can be reached at (714) 966-5602 or by e-mail at chris.pasles@latimes.com.

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SHOW TIMES

Denyce Graves will sing works by Handel, Brahms, Elgar, Falla and Henry Thacker Burleigh in her Orange County recital debut Friday, 8 p.m., Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Warren Jones will be her accompanist. $35 to $65. (714) 556-2787.