Interview, Nadine Sierra on Made for Opera

The American soprano Nadine Sierra's conviction that she was 'made for opera' certainly kicked in early - having fallen love with the art-form when she was just six, she was singing small roles professionally by her mid-teens, and at nineteen became the youngest person ever to win the Marilyn Horne Foundation Award. But despite plenty of premature offers she's bided her time before tackling some of the more strenuous roles in the lyric-coloratura repertoire, including the three leading ladies who feature on her second recording for Deutsche Grammophon: Verdi's Violetta, Donizetti's Lucia (which she'll sing at the Metropolitan Opera next month), and Gounod's Juliette.

In the run-up to her performances of Lucia at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Nadine and I spoke over Zoom about her experiences of bringing these three roles to life with different directors, how she looks after her vocal, emotional and physical health, the various women who've empowered her over the course of her career, and how the #MeToo movement has impacted the opera world...

As someone who was singing at a high level from a very young age, were you tempted to dip into the three roles on the album early in your training?

No! I’m like a turtle with repertoire, because I’m so fixated on keeping my voice healthy. I always knew that starting on roles like Violetta and Juliette in my early or even mid-twenties would have been a terrible idea: I know it can be completely the opposite for other sopranos, but I didn’t feel right with that for myself. I did get pressure to take them on, right from being twenty years old - but saying No to these kinds of things helped me along, not just in terms of preserving vocal health but also personally. The life-experiences we accrue as women all cater to how we interpret these roles; if I’d tried to play Violetta when I was younger I don’t think I would have fully understood her, and it wouldn’t have been as believable or as fulfilling.

And was your first Violetta as fulfilling as you'd hoped, from a dramatic point of view?

Absolutely. The director was Davide Livermore, who did a wonderful job of highlighting the seamier elements of Violetta’s experience – the production was set in the 1970s with a lot of references to drugs and ‘love-children’, and she was very definitely portrayed as a prostitute, living a much seedier life than the Violettas we see in more traditional productions. That meant that you could see this real big shift in her life from experiencing that darker world and then finding the light in her existence and surroundings; that makes it all the more tragic that she has to return to the darkness, but Davide’s production emphasises that she just doesn’t feel she has another choice.

It's often said that the role really requires three different voices for each act...do you subscribe to that approach?

No – I had that conversation with my coach, and I imagine approaching it like that would be exhausting! (I’ve worked with the same coach for twenty years, so I trust him immensely, and he was there with me right through all the rehearsals for my first Violetta). I just decided to approach each act the way I approach her in the beginning: I don’t want to manufacture or manipulate my sound in the last two acts because I want her to sound more dramatic or more lyrical than I’m capable of doing naturally.

I think singing is as much mental as it is physical – our brains are so close to the throat, and the way that you internalise things energetically can affect what comes out. So I approached Violetta with a lot of kindness towards my voice, not judging it for not being big or dramatic enough – I thought ‘this is the voice I have, and that’s that’. By the end of the performances I felt absolutely fresh, and that was a valuable lesson for approaching other roles that I sing.

You've sung Lucia in a number of contrasting productions recently, including Barbara Wysocka's staging in Munich and Barcelona - did working with a female director give you a new perspective on the character?

The idea of Lucia’s ‘madness’ is definitely seen in a very different light when you work on the piece with a female director: she’s not really going ‘crazy’, she’s finally snapping under the male-dominated pressure that she’s been having to live with since she was born. She finally breaks free of that not just through the act of killing Arturo, but through coming out in public in the ‘mad’ scene and finally expressing feelings that she’s been keeping bottled up inside for her entire adult life.

I’m also very excited about working with Simon Stone on Lucia at the Met this spring – he’s such a clever guy. His production is going to be set in Middle America, I believe, in a community where opioid addiction is rife: I think the concept is that Lucia’s family is a small cartel, set on marrying her into a more prestigious and richer drug-family, so instead of her being ‘mad’ it’s her addiction and the circumstances around her that cause her to have this episode.

Much ink has been spilled about the 'undoing of women' in nineteenth-century opera - as an ardent feminist, how do you navigate any discomfort you might feel about bringing these self-sacrificing women to life?

Of course a lot of these operas were written at a time when women had a very different role in society, but the way I look at it is that after singing Violetta or Juliette I get to go home as a free woman who is empowered and has my life in my own hands. When I play these women in the moment I sympathise with them and their circumstances, but I also try to make them a bit stronger: I’m quite a strong woman, and I’m also Latina, so I try to incorporate those elements of myself rather than playing them as tragic wilting flowers. I don’t like that - I want the audience or listener to walk away unable to get these women’s voices out of their heads.

I’m a very big advocate for women’s rights and the empowerment of women, and I’m so lucky that there are three more strong women in my family: my two sisters and my mother. My mother’s side of the family is Portuguese, and my maternal grandmother always wanted to be an opera-singer when she was young; she had a beautiful voice, but my great-grandpa didn’t want her to pursue opera because he said that a woman’s only role was to be a wife and mother.

My own mother was of course aware of this story, so when she saw that I loved to sing right from being only six years old she thought: ‘I’m going to give my daughter the opportunity to find out what this is about because clearly this is a passion, and if she wants to pursue it I’m going to let her because I remember how my mother lived’. That story of being denied the freedom to choose your destiny because of your sex or gender was a very big part of putting Made for Opera together.

In terms of professional development, which women in the opera industry have particularly inspired and guided you?

Marilyn Horne came into my life when I was around seventeen, and auditioned for her Music Academy of the West programme in Santa Barbara. The first time we met I kind of knew she was Marilyn Horne, but at the same time I couldn’t be sure because her demeanour was nothing like what I’d imagined from seeing her on stage: in real life she’s the loveliest, most humble woman, more grandmother than diva! She gave me such good advice, and always without any agenda of her own: she helped me with choosing roles, choosing the manager that I currently have, and also gave me really sound guidance about life as a singer. She taught me that staying healthy in this mad world of ours is not just about performing and taking care of our voices - it’s also about taking care of yourself as a human being and having a balance in your personal life. Marilyn was the first person that I ever had that conversation with.

I should also mention Teresa Stratas, whom I fell in love with aged ten after seeing her as Mimì in La Bohème from the Met - not only her singing but her whole interpretation, which was very human and natural. I later found out that she did her own make-up for that part, because she didn’t want to look pretty or healthy: she wanted to look like she was very ill. I love that she took things into her own hands and had no interest in being the diva who waltzes in looking immaculately glamorous – no, she chose another route, and one that I really respected. I had the pleasure of meeting her years later, and like Marilyn she was the most unassuming woman: I was of course showering her with compliments, but she gave me this beautiful hug and said ‘Everything’s going to be great, have fun with it - let it add to your life, not be your life’. I think that’s such an important message for young singers.

Have you already picked up the baton, as it were, in terms of getting that message out to the next generation of singers?

During the pandemic I gave a lot of voice lessons, and I’m still in touch with a lot of the students I worked with, trying to support each other and build a community of younger women in this industry. I try to give as much advice as I can – a lot of people contact me through social media and I aim to answer every single message. It’s very important for young singers to feel connected to somebody, especially in the wake of COVID; I would love to pass the torch to the younger generation when I’m older, with all the love and dedication which women like Marilyn and Teresa showed to me.

Do you feel that attitudes towards female empowerment in the rehearsal-room and on stage have shifted since you began singing professionally?

Absolutely: I’d say that things started to change immediately after the #MeToo movement. Of course opera’s full of intimate moments, and now the majority of my male colleagues will ask permission in advance if we have to kiss or make things look a little bit more passionate. In a way I'm always surprised by it, but I’m also very proud of them: proud that they’ve listened to the information that they’ve been given, and that it’s made such an impact on them that asking in advance has become the norm. And directors have definitely changed their approach too: often it’s not even framed as asking permission, it’s all about asking women if they are comfortable. And that really is empowering to me: I feel like I can be more assertive and be more myself (with women and with men), and I no longer feel anxious that if I voice my opinion on something that we’re doing in rehearsals that I’ll look ‘hysterical’ or ‘silly’ or even ‘bitchy’.

I’ve never been sexually harassed at work, but I have had some uncomfortable comments thrown my way in the past, and it was kind of satisfying to know that certain colleagues of mine (who are now ex-colleagues because of their actions) were finally held accountable for their behaviour. I knew that they were doing this to other female colleagues, and eventually justice was served: the majority of those people are no longer performing around the world as they did before. It’s so important to keep discussing these issues: we can’t just have the #MeToo movement happen and it never be talked about again, because we have to ensure that the resolutions we made actually stick.

Earlier on you mentioned the importance of achieving a healthy balance in your career, and nurturing the mind-body connection that's so crucial for singers: how do you take care of yourself in the run-up to a performance?

Sleeping is very important for the voice, and also for the mind - we singers get all up in our heads, and sometimes you just need to quiet that chatter and get enough rest. I also exercise every morning, including on performance-days: I will still make it a priority to get in some kind of workout, even if it’s just fifteen minutes to a half-hour, because aside from warming up the body it’s also an excellent way of dealing with stress and getting that negative energy out of one’s system.

I eat very healthily and drink a lot of water, and lately I’ve got really into steaming: it’s great for hydrating the vocal cords and stopping them from getting inflamed or tired. I do try not to talk too much right before a performance, but I’m quite relaxed about all of that - if we start stressing about every single thing and feeling like we need to wear ten scarves because the wind might blow in our face it all gets a bit much!

What’s coming up in terms of new roles?

I’m revisiting Adina in L’elisir d’amore soon, after a very long time – the first time I played her was in a summer programme when I was 20, and now I get to play her professionally for the first time with Javier Camarena who I love! That will be at the Teatro Colón, which has such historical significance and from what I’ve heard has great acoustics; then I’ll sing her again in my Covent Garden debut next fall.