Interview, Magdalena Kožená

I must admit I was a little surprised when I found out that Magdalena Kožená new recording project would focus on Monteverdi - over the past few years, the Czech mezzo has become increasingly associated with Romantic repertoire such as the songs of Mahler, Dvorak and Ravel, and with operatic roles like Carmen and Octavian (I last saw her as the Angel in the Wiener Philharmoniker's Prom of The Dream of Gerontius last summer, and as Debussy's Mélisande at the Barbican a few months ago, both conducted by her husband Sir Simon Rattle). But I first fell for her astringent, lean mezzo in earlier music such as Handel, Bach and Gluck, and in a sense this new project represents a return to the repertoire which made her name, so it was a pleasure to speak to her last week to find out more about this change of direction and her vocal evolution over the past decade…

When did you first encounter the music of Monteverdi, and what is special about it for you?

Actually in a way, for me it’s a big come-back to things I used to do a lot; as a student I had my own group doing early music like Monteverdi and even going back to Renaissance music and older, and I did this for quite a lot of years – let’s say 10 years, from the age of 16 to 26 – together with some Czech music, so it’s something I’ve really done a lot in the past. It was always special and I learned so much from this music, because I started to study when we were still behind the Iron Curtain and so we didn’t have very much access to recordings of baroque music on period instruments - we were basically discovering it 20 years later [than Western Europe], on our own. In some ways it was difficult, but I think in others it was a really fascinating process for me, because I didn’t have recordings and so I was making up my own mind, by reading books and working with other people who’d studied this music. And also it was my first contact with the Italian language – we didn’t have translations of these very beautiful and complicated texts that Monteverdi sets; it was something I tried to translate myself, part of my learning the Italian language, so it had a great impact on my education and actually my future career.

You've been singing a lot of Romantic, heavier repertoire over the past five years or so: what prompted you to move back to early music now?

I started out almost as a pure baroque singer, and I always wanted to explore a wider range of repertoire ….but I always love to come back (and this is not the first ‘come back’ – I’ve also recorded Vivaldi, with Andrea Marcon), so I would say I’ve always kept the balance between more dramatic, Romantic and modern music and coming back to Baroque music, not only because I love this music as a style, but also because I think it’s a very important thing for the voice, especially once you’ve started moving heavier, to always come back to something lighter, with coloratura etc. If you look at some of the singers whom I admire so much, like Janet Baker and Anne Sofie von Otter, they always came back to baroque music every year or two, just as a sort of hygiene for the voice.

And has singing roles like Mélisande and Carmen fed into your approach to this music, or do you feel it demands a radically different perspective?

One thing influences the other in a way, but in terms of classical singing everybody basically has one technique – it’s not that you would completely change the way you sing, but what’s very different in baroque music is that you can afford to sing softer, you can afford to sing without vibrato; there is much more space for expressing details, which is what I like about it, because if you sing something like Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier you’re in this wave of amazing sound and emotion, but the main thing vocally is to get through the orchestra and produce a beautiful tone and there is not so much space to play with each word and each detail the way you do with baroque music, and I have to say that that’s what I really love. You can be much more detailed, you can find more colours, and you don’t always have to constantly watch and maintain the perfect technique to get through the role.

How much has the voice itself changed since, say, you recorded your Handel disc ten years ago?

I don’t think my voice has changed dramatically, but everybody’s voice alters with age and experience - life-experience, having kids, being pregnant, whatever….We just change, our bodies change, and the voice is so much a part of the body; so yes, I think it’s probably got more mature, stronger in the lower register, richer…but there are also disadvantages! For example, coloratura is much easier when you’re young, and if you want to sing that repertoire later on (especially if you take on heavier roles), it’s extra work, something you really have to practise. But what is so fantastic about singing is that it’s something that really changes throughout your entire life: you change roles, you change repertoire, it’s never the same and you always have a lot of room to explore new things.

Who are your biggest inspirations and influences in music of this period, both in terms of performers and the composers themselves??

Of course there are a lot of singers from the past, and a lot of colleagues I really admire, but it’s so very hard to pick just one or two! But I always completely fall in love every time I sing Bach. There’s something so very special about it - very intimate, very humble. When you sing Handel, you always have this fantastic melody, and you can write your own ornaments, you can show off your high notes and low notes and fast notes and slow notes! And with Bach, there is not this thing: you just have to go with the music, and be part of something bigger, and that something which always gets me the most – the extreme simplicity, but at the same time the complicated structure of his writing.

There are several operatic excerpts on the new disc: do you have plans to do any of these roles on stage?

I’m doing a Monteverdi opera next year, but actually it’s not something that’s on the disc: I’m doing Penelope in Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, in Paris with Emmanuelle Haïm, but what I’m starting next week (which will be an extremely exciting process) is that a Czech director called Ondřej Havelka (who is very well known in our country) has staged the Combattimento for me, and I’m doing all three roles! Andrea Marcon came to me and said it would be great, and I said ‘Well it maybe works from the point of view of the text, but it’s hard to actually perform three roles, just in terms of people really knowing which role you’re singing right now…so I said ‘I’d love to do it, but let’s stage it – because that way the story becomes much clearer!’ So I’ve really worked hard for a year on this project, and we’re starting in Prague [on 24th February], but we’re also going to Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Luxembourg – so that’s what’s coming next!