Interview: Christine Goerke Talks Boston Lyric Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra Collaboration on DIE TOTE STADT

Opera soprano Christine Goerke is well versed in bringing emotion forward in her performances.

Goerke will be doing just that in “Die Tote Stadt” (“The Dead City”) – composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s poignant opera about the struggle with haunting memories of a lost loved one, that captures the final chapter of the Romantic era – which will be presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in collaboration with Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) on January 30 and February 1 at Symphony Hall.

An Austrian-born prodigy who later composed the scores for 16 Hollywood films including “Anthony Adverse” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” which won him two Academy Awards for Best Original Score, Korngold began work on the opera when he was just 19 years old, completing it when he was 23.

The opera premiered in both Cologne and Hamburg in December 1920, its theme of loss resonating with audiences still reeling from World War I. In Boston, Goerke and tenor David Butt Philip will lead a cast that includes BLO Emerging Artist alumni tenor Neal Ferreira and baritone Elliot Madore (BLO’s 2023 “Eurydice”),  Elisa Sunshine, Karen Cargill, Amber Monroe, Joshua Sanders, and Terrence Chin-Loy. BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons will conduct the piece for the first time, in the work’s BSO debut.

“What’s so cool about this piece is that Korngold wrote it when he was so young. The score is through-composed, and incredibly lush,” explained Goerke by telephone recently from her home in a Detroit suburb. “The topic is loss but also life at the same time. Even when our loss is profound, we have to go on with life.”

In “Die Tote Stadt,” Goerke plays both Marie, the recently deceased wife of Paul, and Marietta, his new love interest.

“Paul absolutely desired and was totally devoted to Marie, and keeps a room full of her things, including a braid of her hair, in the home they shared. So he carries great grief as a widower along with this new attraction to Marietta. She truly feels for him and wants to pull him through the pain of his loss. She says to him, ‘Let’s go to your house,’ which he doesn’t really want to do, even though she isn’t sure she wants to, either, because of his shrine to Marie.”

Goerke says that making a role debut, as she will this week in Boston, is a challenge she willingly accepts.

“I’ve worked harder on this piece than anything else I’ve done recently. This kind of writing is complicated on the page, but when you hear it performed, it is glorious,” says the performer. “Seeing the BSO and the BLO perform this opera together will be astounding for the audience, and will take them on a great journey. And for me, it will be like coming home to work with friends.”

And when it comes to shrines, opera lovers may one day build one for Goerke, who has appeared in the major opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera, New York City Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, and La Scala, singing much of the great soprano repertoire with some of the world's foremost conductors including James Conlon, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Patrick Summers, Jeffery Tate, Christian Thielemann, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Edo de Waart.

After beginning with the Mozart and Handel heroines, her career is now primarily focused on the dramatic Strauss and Wagner roles. Her portrayals include the title roles in “Elektra,” “Turandot, and Ariadne auf Naxos,” Brünnhilde in the Ring Cycle, Kundry in “Parsifal,” Ortrud in “Lohengrin,” Leonora in “Fidelio,” and Ellen Orford in “Peter Grimes,” with leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and the Hallé Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Goerke has made previous concert appearances with Nelsons and the BSO at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood, but says she is particularly excited about being a part of this BSO and BLO collaboration because she recently joined the BLO Board of Directors.

“This is my first season on the BLO Board. I was invited by Bradley Vernatter, BLO’s general director & chief executive officer, to be the first working artist with real-time experience to serve on the Board,” says Goerke. “It’s Brad’s vision to bring more expansive understanding of the arts world as it is at this moment to the Board. He is passionate about this approach, because the way we collaborate, create, and become more inclusive is changing at every moment.”

Married since 2005 to James Holloway, and the mother of their two teenage daughters, Margaret and Charlotte, Goerke recalls becoming familiar with the concept of career change early in her life.

“I auditioned for my senior show at Patchogue-Medford High School in Medford, NY – trying out for the role of Berthe in ‘Pippin.’ I didn’t get the part and was instead told I should try out for the band,” she says. “I did just that, playing woodwind instruments. From there, I went to the State University of New York at Fredonia as a music education major with a concentration in clarinet,” says the singer.

While watching a PBS television special during this period, Goerke’s professional pursuits took another turn, this time toward opera.

“One day, I found myself watching a Metropolitan Opera production of Riccardo Zandonai’s ‘Francesca da Rimini,’ with Placido Domingo and Mirella Freni, that was just amazing. I was pulled in by it, before I had any idea that I could sing. When you’re a music major, you have to be able to sight-read music,” explains Goerke. “So, even though I was a clarinetist and music education major, I was told to audition for the upper choral divisions. Before long, and with my dad’s support, I changed majors and later enrolled at Stony Brook University where I earned my degree in vocal performance.”

Following graduation, Goerke went on to become a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company’s Young Artist Program from 1994 to 1997. And while she does not play the clarinet professionally, she still has an ear for the woodwinds.

“I still play the clarinet, flute, and oboe, although the latter kind of badly, but in my repertoire, I often sing with the woodwind section of the orchestra,” she says. “I get excited whenever I hear great woodwind players like those in the BSO.”

While her opera career remains at full tilt, Goerke has her eye on a future that may include musical theater.

“I have two roles on my bucket list that I’d like to do before I stop singing – Mrs. Lovett in ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,’ and the Witch in ‘Into the Woods.’ I drop that nugget into every conversation I ever have with a planner,” says Goerke. “The way I see it, we are artists and we don’t have to do just one thing.”

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