Interview: Soprano Diana Damrau Finds Verdi's 'Lost One'

"What's new?" I asked German soprano Diana Damrau, fresh from her role debut in the Metropolitan Opera's production of LA TRAVIATA.

It was a joke, of course. Besides singing her dream role of Violetta for the first time anywhere, to great acclaim, she was also RIGOLETTO's Gilda in the Met's new "Ratpack" production that was seen by millions worldwide as an HD broadcast in February. (Also an unqualified success.) And, oh yes, there was the arrival of her second son, Colyn, whose impending birth late in 2012 had sent the opera world into a tizzy, when Mama Damrau began cancelling performances.

"I didn't expect I was going to be able to do all this," she confides, since the baby's delivery was by Caesarean, which is worrisome for any woman but most certainly for a singer, whose stomach muscles are critical to vocal production.

Perfect timing

Many operaphiles had expected her to cancel the new RIGOLETTO, because it was so close to Colyn's birth. "But timing-wise, it was perfect," she says, of doing Gilda, followed by Violetta in a month's time. "A role like Gilda is already in my body, in my muscles, in my voice. I could really test how far I could go, what was possible. The voice came back--I was surprised that everything worked--and I didn't lose any high notes. I could still make it silvery, shiny for Gilda.

"Then to do the big step, LA TRAVIATA ("The Lost One" in Italian). I was supposed to make my role debut last fall, but I had a different production--Colyn--so the new role fell to the Metropolitan, my sixth or seventh at the house," she says.

TRAVIATA is something special for Damrau in many ways. She has talked many times in interviews about seeing the Franco Zeffirelli film with Teresa Stratas and Placido Domingo when she was 12 years old and being immediately smitten with it. "Doing TRAVIATA was something important for me, a big step voice-wise," she explains. "I always wanted to be careful about doing it and now I knew it was time. I was ready for it, with my technique and my voice. I could really dive into this music, into these big Verdi lines."

Technique and muscles

She explains, "Coloratura repertoire is very concentrated, in each note and every line, and you have to work. When you go very high, you have to sing with more awareness of your technique and use your muscles. But diving into these lines of Violetta, I found that they lie very comfortably in the center of the voice. I could really relax and enjoy myself." Does she thrive on the nerve-wracking part of debuting a role in this house? "No. I was just so happy to know that I was going to do Violetta.

How long did it take her to learn TRAVIATA? "You know, the character, the story, the music, this was always with me and I would see some production or other wherever I was. But actually learning the role? I never opened the score until I was doing RIGOLETTO. Till then, it was a time problem: having a 2-year-old plus being pregnant--that was a bit more extreme than I expected, even if my husband Nicolas was around to help. [Bass-baritone Nicolas Testé makes his Met debut as Colline in LA BOHEME next season.] Colyn was at every rehearsal, Alexander was at every rehearsal.

"I had no coaching, because there was no time. Then, I was sick from Christmas well into January, with three courses of antibiotics and a really bad cold. There was simply not much time to get it into the voice. Besides, I had to find my Gilda first. In January I looked at the words--I didn't know it by heart--and worked on it up to the premiere." When I said I was pretty impressed that she could learn this complex role so quickly, she responded, "Well, ja. I knew the music. It's like when I listen to pop songs. I only listen to the music, the melody and the beat. Sometimes I am quite surprised at what it means."

"Willy Decker is a genius"

What about making the debut in this modern production by Willy Decker? It's not to everyone's taste, with its stark scenery and spectre of death sitting around on stage, waiting for Violetta to join him. Any qualms she may have had about doing a modern take on the opera vanished when she saw it in Salzburg for the first time. "I think the director, Willy Decker, is really a genius. I saw the production when Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon created their couple and fell in love with this production. For me, it really works as a modern side, a purer side of this piece, as it goes into the hearts of the people there. Willy really loves this piece, he knows every note of it--but it is his ideas in this setting and you have to accept it."

This Violetta has a manic side to her, as she rushes around, jumping on furniture, trying to wring every bit out of life, with the inevitability of death hanging over her. There is not even a bed for her death scene, but a ledge that encircles the edge of the scenery, where she can sit when she is exhausted.

Surrealistic moments

"Ja, but I love these surrealistic moments of it. There are images of her last journey, like when she takes the flower before 'Prendi, quest'è l'immagine'. He lets her take a long, legato walk around the whole stage, gather her loved ones around her and say farewell to everybody, embracing them for the last time. Willy came for one week to work with us (tenor Saimir Pirgu as Alfredo Germont and tenor-turned-baritone Placido Domingo as the elder Germont, also a role debutante) and I was very happy he was there for us."

Did she mind not doing her first TRAVIATA in something more traditional than this--that Zeffirelli film she saw as a child couldn't have been more plush, more 19th century. Perhaps this was different than other TRAVIATAs she had seen, but when she saw it in Salzburg, "I knew this was equally good for me."

Well, perhaps not "equally." "The problem for me, Diana Damrau, at this moment of my life," she says quite frankly for a diva, "was the red dress [which is a focus of the production]. In a more traditional concept, they put you in beautiful dresses, you have a corset, you can look fragile even if you have a few kilos too many." She laughs. "Well, I still have my baby speck and I'm breast-feeding, so I don't look like a tuberculosis patient. Sorry." She laughs. "Of course, in this production, it's a different disease--it can be any kind of disease."

The red dress

There's still the problem of the simple red dress, which hides nothing. The Met costume shop did "everything in their power to make it work." "From this point of view, I would have wished for a traditional production because TRAVIATA is an opera that must have everything: It has to have the best singing, the best acting, and has to have the looks as well. This is my wish for it, anyway. I want this credibility."

She had a similar problem with the costumes for RIGOLETTO, which was of particular concern because of the HD broadcast that was scheduled. "I wrote to them the moment I heard it was going to be set in the '60s and said, 'Please don't make me wear a dress with a waist because I don't have it at the moment and there is the broadcast'," she recalls. As it turned out, they hadn't listened carefully to her requests--at first. "I asked for no short sleeves, but I got short sleeves; no waistline, I got a waistline; no short skirts and it was to the knees. We kept it for the opening but I insisted that we have a different dress for the broadcast, without sleeves, less cleavage, more girlish."

Two minutes of "aah' time

What about all the stage business in Rigoletto--being carried out in the sarcophagus in Act II or being put in the truck of the Cadillac in Act III? That was no problem, says Damrau. "The sarcophagus was comfortable and trunk was wonderful, because it bounces, with carpet and light inside. It closes and I have two minutes of 'aah' and I could listen to my colleagues and concentrate on the next thing. It was no problem at all. We wondered if it was possible to set Rigoletto there, in Las Vegas in the '60s, but I think it really worked."

Are there any parts she's not singing any more, now that she's taking on TRAVIATA and Donna Anna in DON GIOVANNI? For example, is she still doing Queen of the Night, from Mozart's DIE ZAUBERFLOETE, which she has done in 15 or more productions? "Yes, and I could sing it tomorrow," Damrau says. If you look up her clips on YouTube, you may be surprised at how many "hits" her versions of "Der Hölle Rache" have had: one has 3.6 million views, another 2.8 million views, while others have several hundred thousand.

"I was the mean stepmother"

"I love the role of the Queen, because I always see the drama behind the music--I want to know what makes the queen that mean and that angry. She has these magical powers and this dark side to understand when you sing and play this role," she says. ("You know, even in kindergarten, at Carnival, I didn't want to be the princess; I was the mean stepmother, a real woman with a red dress, red fingernails and a silver crown, nothing rosy and gold," she confesses.) "There's so much in ZAUBERFLOETE that you can do it in so many ways--I've done 15 productions and they were all different. I was so happy to do the dialogue [in the video that has the most views]--it's the screaming before the singing. In David McVicar's production, you understand who she is and what drives her.

Her next new role is the world premiere of the new Iain Bell opera, A HARLOT'S PROGRESS, at Theatre an der Wien in Vienna on October 13, which is based on the etchings of William Hogarth and is a kind of companion to A RAKE'S PROGRESS. And, Damrau reveals, it has one thing that TRAVIATA does not: "It's complete with a mad scene."

Photo: Diana Damrau and her red dress, as Violetta in Verdi's "La Traviata."

Photo Credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

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