Danielle's dazzling performance

By Mahes Perera

The long awaited concert by the widely recognised soprano Danielle de Niese became an enchanting reality when "Opera's coolest soprano" as termed by The New York Times Magazine, performed here in Sri Lanka to the delight of classical music lovers. Danielle took time off her heavy schedule to share her views on her phenomenal musical career with us.

Question: With the successful album 'Beauty of the Baroque' behind you, are you specialising in this field?

Danielle de Niese: opera's coolest soprano

Answer: "A lot of people ask me whether I'm specialising in Baroque. In all honesty I don't consider myself a specialist. I did train in early performance practising in the university in the one year I was there, before I entered the Young Artist program at the Metropolitan Opera. I didn't plan or start out only in Baroque music. It just so happened I made my European debut at the Netherlands Opera when I was 21. I played Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare. It was a wonderful success so that all the European houses asked to do Baroque roles.

Young voice

That was wonderful as it was healthy for a young voice. The orchestra is not so heavy like in the operas of Puccini. If I had been asked to do Puccini roles, I would say no because I know better, than to do that. But it was wonderful to grow in the Baroque roles because they are not easy. The Handel roles have ten arias to sing. You sing for four hours - and you learn about stamina, you learn about technique but you don't have to push the voice over heavy orchestration like in Puccini's works. It was wonderful and that was how I came to be known as a Baroque singer.

Q: When you sing the Handel arias, is the ornamentation in the second part, something that comes from within you or do you study and get influences from the earlier singers like Castrati?

A: "I studied music theory classes from the age of 7 to 18, actually even to 21. I know music. Music is one thing. Notes are a page. When you understand how many notes come up, it's like three dimensional. There is a story that is in the harmony as well and its relationship to the story in the words as well. With that training it is easy for me to ornament. So, I write my own ornaments.

I have made up my own ornaments for the album. Of course, I run to my coaches, my mum, to people I trust to see if anything is a little too over the top. But I'm definitely from the school of thinking that ornamentation should be natural extensions of the intentions you have. It should have a dramatic intention and not just from a desire to sing as many notes as possible or as many high notes as possible to show off. That is a perfectly acceptable school of baroque practice.

Technique

Q: Do you have a different technique when performing on stage and recording in a studio?

A: "It's really hard to say which gives me greater satisfaction. I've had tremendous satisfaction from my performances. The live connection with my audiences is something you can never replace. So, I would say the magic is in the performance. However, I take my responsibility as a recording artiste very seriously, the gift that I have to be able to make recordings that can go to countries where people may never ever have a chance to see me in concert.

The challenge of recording is that you have to be able to channel the elements of live performance through a microphone, to give the listeners the sense that they are experiencing a performance and not someone singing nicely into a mic.

Q: You did Galetia at Covent Gorden, would there be a recording of that performance, or is there something in the pipeline?

A: "There's a DVD. I don't think Covent Garden will make a CD recording. The DVD is absolutely fantastic. I remember seeing it when I was studying for the broadcast.

I looked at some of the footage they had. I sing and dance in it. The performance marked the first time that the Royal Ballet collaborated with the Royal Opera House - it was a very momentous occasion. When I made that debut, I was so in the moment of playing Galetia. She had to dance.

Voice

There were singers but there was one moment at the end when I danced with the principal dancer from the ballet. I had wet shoes and wet tights. I had sung my previous aria in a water pond.

I took a few steps out into the audience and in that moment I saw the entire Covent Garden audience and it suddenly hit me "I made my Covent Garden debut at Royal Opera House." I got this huge lump in my throat and I was very emotional."

Q: So now you are doing Donizetti as well. Is that the direction your voice is taking?

A: "I will be doing the role of Norena in Don Pasquale. My voice is growing and developing daily. I sang some of these Donizetti's role when I sang at the Young Artistes program at the Metropole in New York.

But in terms of my career, singing in front of the audience with the whole shebang, I waited until I was ready to take on the more Donizetti's roles.

In 2011 I sang my first Adina. Oh my gosh! It was a wonderful success. I put a lot of hard work into it. Donizetti is my main composer I'm bringing into the fold.

I'm continuing with Mozart and Handel and Monteverdi. To allow my voice to grow into maturity, I'm taking one step at a time - you know the story of the tortoise and the hare, I want to be a singer for a long time. My schedule was planned five years in advance. So, I already know what I'll be doing in 2017.

When people offer you a role it is easy to think "Oh I don't know whether I can do it but probably by then I can do it." And it would be unwise, if you find yourself that you can't do it. And then you say, 'oh no I have to do it' and then you make a mistake, burn out and mess up your voice. You get only one voice. You break a violin you can get another violin, you break a piano you can get another piano. You mess up your voice - your voice is like a rubber band. You pull the rubber band and pull it and it doesn't work any more. It goes yo-yo-yo and you get the wobble. You're finished.

Q: Would there be a composer now, who would write something which you would want to sing?

A: "There are already two. I just did one in Australia which was written by Carl Vine. It was commissioned for me and was called 'Tree of Man.' It was an amazing composition.

James McMillan is composing one for me for a tour, based on the Song of Solomon which would be wonderful. I had the Song of Solomon done at my wedding. There are many composers now wanting to write for me.

Signature pieces

There are beautiful arias that people don't get to hear so much. They are too busy listening to Ombra MaiFu. So they gave us a say in the creation of the roles.

They asked us two years before 'give us a list of things you like, things you'd like to sing, things that you feel are your signature pieces'. So I had a real say in my final aria.

You had the perfect mix of the old and the new. Carl Jenkins was another composer who wrote for my album 'Diva.' I believe in these collaborations because it is good to respect the tradition, bring modern music in and mix both - like in Enchanted Island, where you had the old music but new English text. It was nice to bring that into classical music.