PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Nina Stemme tilted again her head after the ultimate notes of her 126th and final Isolde efficiency, and her eyes crammed with tears.
She was hugged by tenor Stuart Skelton and mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill because the viewers in Marian Anderson Corridor stood and applauded Sunday night.
A number of days earlier, Stemme thought again to April 2000, when Glyndebourne Pageant normal director Nicholas Snowman and opera director Nikolaus Lehnhoff walked into her dressing room in Antwerp, Belgium, asking her to sing within the English firm’s first-ever efficiency of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”
“I really did think they were joking,” she recalled. “My colleague, Christopher Ventris, mentioned, ‘No. No. They’re not joking. It’s a must to watch out.'”
Stemme went residence to Sweden, thought-about the provide with vocal coach Richard Trimborn and made her Isolde debut on Might 19, 2003, on the Glyndebourne Pageant with Robert Gambill as Tristan and Jiří Bělohlávek conducting. She selected to sing her ultimate two Isoldes 22 years later with the Philadelphia Orchestra and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who carried out the opera for the primary time on June 1 and coaxed a luminous rendition from a premier orchestra at its peak.
“I’m 62 now. I gave it to my 60s to sing these big roles and now I’ve dropped Elektra and Brünnhilde, and Isolde is the last daughter on stage that I’m singing,” Stemme said. “I decided this years ago. This is how it works and every year that I was able to sing Isolde feels like a bonus and a privilege.”
Connection to Birgit Nilsson
Stemme was mates with Birgit Nilsson, one of many biggest Isoldes and Brünnhildes, who died in 2005 at age 87.
“I was on the verge to go down to her in south Sweden to study Isolde but of course me as a young singer with little kids at home, I never felt ready,” Stemme said. “At that time when we got to know each other, I was singing mostly a lyric repertoire.”
Skelton sang with Stemme in Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer” on the Vienna State Opera in 2004 and his Tristan was paired with Stemme’s Isolde in New York, Munich and Naples, Italy.
“It’s as radiant now as it was when I first heard her sing it in Glyndebourne way back in the day,” he mentioned. “No one knew really who Nina Stemme was to a certain extent. Certainly I don’t think anyone was ready for what she brought to Isolde even then.”
A conductor studying from the singer
Nézet-Séguin first labored with Stemme in a efficiency of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 2007, did not collaborate once more till performances of Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” on the Met final fall.
“The breadth of her expertise with the position is simply guiding all of us, me, but in addition the orchestra, who’s taking part in it for the primary time in understanding the movement of the piece, understanding their shades and the colours, and that’s invaluable,” Nézet-Séguin said of Stemme’s Isolde. “It was fantastic for me to profit from it.”
Singers have been on a platform above and behind the orchestra, with LED lights beneath setting a temper: crimson within the first act, darkish blue within the second and light-weight blue within the third.
Stemme wore a darkish robe within the first and third acts and a shimmering silver gown within the second, whereas Skelton, baritone Brian Mulligan (Kurwenal), bass Tareq Nazmi (King Marke) and tenor Freddie Ballentine (Melot) have been largely in black, and Cargill (Brangäne) in a lighter-colored costume. Displaying units and sophisticated instructions weren’t obligatory, she conveyed Isolde’s emptions along with her eyes, smiles and nods. In the course of the nice second-act love duet, Stemme and Skelton clinked water canisters.
“Twenty-two years ago I could act the young princess that was in love or hated her love for Tristan,” she mentioned. ”I’ve different colours to my voice now and I’m older so after all this interpretation will change. I really feel extra at residence within the center vary and with age, after all, the highest notes aren’t as gleaming as they was, however I could make up for that in different methods hopefully — on a great day.”
Stemme’s future schedule consists of less-taxing roles, reminiscent of Klytämnestra in Strauss’ “Elektra” and Waltraute in Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.” She leaves behind an excellent recording of her Isolde, comprised of November 2004 via January 2005 at London’s Abbey Highway Studios with tenor Plácido Domingo and conductor Antonio Pappano.
Lise Davidsen makes her Isolde debut subsequent yr
Anticipation is constructing for the following nice Isolde. Lise Davidsen is scheduled to make her position debut on Jan. 12 at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu after which open a brand new manufacturing at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on March 9 with Nézet-Séguin.
“She said how happy she is to in a way symbolically pass this role, pass it on to her, in a way through me,” Nézet-Séguin mentioned of Stemme. “That is almost like a torch that has been carried.”
In spite of everything these Isoldes, Stemme feels extra a Puccini heroine than a Wagnerian star.
“At heart,” she said, “I’m still Madama Butterfly or Mimì.”
