When Rice stepped out on the world stage this week as America's new secretary of state, though, she seemed like a different woman -- engaging, self-confident, even commanding in daily on-the-record interviews. Rice even showed moments of openness and humor.
Occasionally the old nerves still showed -- as when she delivered a speech Tuesday in Paris about U.S. rapprochement with Europe.
The address was billed as the centerpiece of her week-long trip. But after going through a couple of drafts at home and three reworkings on the plane, she still didn't think it was quite right, aides recounted. So she gave up watching a tape of her beloved Super Bowl (which she missed watching live because it began at 1:30 a.m. during her stop in Jerusalem), only occasionally sneaking a peek and reflecting with aides for a moment on great wide receivers in the National Football League.
In the end, the speech was profound, but her delivery lacked oomph and she clung to the text. A former provost at Stanford University, Rice recovered during the question period, a format in which she exhibited more command throughout the trip.
The speech played well in Paris, the center of opposition to U.S. foreign policy. Le Figaro gushed in a front-page piece Wednesday that "Rice, wearing black, a pearl necklace and an impeccable silhouette, put the 'la' back in the new American diplomacy" or, in French, la diplomatie. "She turned the page on our differences, chiefly Iraq, and our work together," the paper opined.
To show the human side of a normally reserved woman, her staff arranged for Rice to drop in on the Hector Berlioz Conservatory in Paris on Wednesday to attend a children's music class and then watch three young adult groups perform.
"I learned to read music when I was 3 years old, before I learned to read," she told a group of 16 students ages 7 to 9. An accomplished pianist who still tries to play with a chamber ensemble weekly in Washington, Rice sang a basic music comprehension refrain in French with the kids. "Fa-do-sol-si-re-la-sol," Rice sang softly. "I remember this," she said, through an interpreter.
"It takes a lot of work to learn to read music," she told the kids. "You have to practice and practice and practice."
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