In the neverending effort to improve myself both professionally and personally (which, in my opinion, must go hand in hand) I have been thinking a lot lately about what I see up on the opera stages today and what I see (thanks to YouTube) on the opera stages of yesteryear. it seems as though the opera business is all a buzz today with the questions "What can we do to save opera?", "Why is opera not as popular as it once was?" and although I think updating certain aspects of opera to reach a wider variety of audiences today are important , I think it is necessary to start even more bare bones then that..with the artists ourselves.
As I am a woman in the business, I, of course, feel most comfortable speaking on the subject of Women in Opera. Yesterday I was reviewing several video clips of myself from professional engagements of 4, 5, 6 years ago and standing as the woman I am today I see up on the stage a girl. Although, at that time I felt very confident with what I was delivering. I was receiving great feedback as to my portrayal as characters such as Carmen, Amneris, Maddalena, Malcolm, etc but, nevertheless, I look back now and I see a girl capable of moving on stage, having a basic understanding of what I was singing, but nothing close to those monumental women artists of the Golden Age of Opera, artists like Marilyn Horne, Fiorenza Cossotto, Maria Callas, Elena Obratsova and the list goes on and on.
Of course, the older I get, thankfully, I feel the more wisdom and experience I gain which I can put into my work, but, I still feel that in today's efforts to "normalize" or "make more accessible" the art form we are losing the jaw-dropping grandness that the above mentioned left with us when we watched them in performance, which I strongly believe comes through Elegance and an inner calmness. I think people are afraid of these words in opera because they think it translates into "boring", but if one looks at the way Pavarotti sang ANYTHING, there is not one moment where he busies himself with movement, motion, agitation and the like.
Thinking about my own upcoming roles, I by no means, mean a park and bark version of opera, but I, myself, am going to continue to define that fine line between making a character "real" while still letting the audience be transcended through the composer's music and the librettist's words.
As I am a woman in the business, I, of course, feel most comfortable speaking on the subject of Women in Opera. Yesterday I was reviewing several video clips of myself from professional engagements of 4, 5, 6 years ago and standing as the woman I am today I see up on the stage a girl. Although, at that time I felt very confident with what I was delivering. I was receiving great feedback as to my portrayal as characters such as Carmen, Amneris, Maddalena, Malcolm, etc but, nevertheless, I look back now and I see a girl capable of moving on stage, having a basic understanding of what I was singing, but nothing close to those monumental women artists of the Golden Age of Opera, artists like Marilyn Horne, Fiorenza Cossotto, Maria Callas, Elena Obratsova and the list goes on and on.
Of course, the older I get, thankfully, I feel the more wisdom and experience I gain which I can put into my work, but, I still feel that in today's efforts to "normalize" or "make more accessible" the art form we are losing the jaw-dropping grandness that the above mentioned left with us when we watched them in performance, which I strongly believe comes through Elegance and an inner calmness. I think people are afraid of these words in opera because they think it translates into "boring", but if one looks at the way Pavarotti sang ANYTHING, there is not one moment where he busies himself with movement, motion, agitation and the like.
Thinking about my own upcoming roles, I by no means, mean a park and bark version of opera, but I, myself, am going to continue to define that fine line between making a character "real" while still letting the audience be transcended through the composer's music and the librettist's words.
