Smaller by about 120 lbs., in fact. That's how much weight Voigt, 44, has lost since early 2004, when London's Royal Opera House deemed her too big for a little black dress in a modern-day production of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. It was Voigt's signature role, but the part went to a thinner singer instead.
Now Voigt is down from a size 30 to a 14. Her route: gastric surgery. She says it wasn't the dismissal that led her to have the operation—"I'd been thinking about it for a long time"—but it did free up some time in her schedule. For years she had tried to slim down. "I've done everything from Weight Watchers to fen-phen," she says, but the singer always gained back what she lost. "My knees were giving me trouble, and doing what I do was becoming too taxing. I decided now was the time to do it."
The Florida-based Voigt had the procedure last June in New York, in spite of facing not just the usual medical risks, but professional ones too: Losing weight has been known to affect some opera singers' voices. She was back onstage seven weeks after surgery, mainly to cheers. "Some people felt [her voice] lacked a little bit of the warmth she had before," says New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini. "I didn't feel that. I felt it was a radiant and exciting sound."
Though she still calls herself "a food junkie," she says that overeating now makes her ill. "I have a baby stomach, and I'm relearning to eat." Divorced for seven years, she jokes, "I'm a cheap date. We only need one meal to share."
The metamorphosis has yet to fully sink in with Voigt, who will release a CD of American music in the fall. "I did a production in Berlin recently and wore this little negligee," she says. "The review said, 'Ms. Voigt has transformed herself into a strikingly beautiful woman.' I thought, 'Who was he looking at?' I haven't gotten my head there yet."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
