World-renowned singer Violeta Urmana meets the media and talks about her career and the up-coming China debut
Photo by Xiao Yi / chncpa.org

From August 13^th to 17^th, NCPA′s Production of Cavalleria Rusticana & I Pagliacci will have their premiere. The production stars world-renowned singer Violeta Urmana. On August 6th, Violeta Urmana met the media and talked about her career and the up-coming China debut. 

Violeta Urmana will sing Santuzza in NCPA's production of Cavalleria Rusticana
Photo by Xiao Yi / chncpa.org 

It is known that you have much experience in presentingSantuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, so how do you understand this character? 

I've been singing Santuzza since 1996, when I made my role debut in Geneva. After that I've sung Santuzza in Vienna, New York, Bologna, Florence, Madrid, Paris, and St. Petersburg. So it’s true that I have a lot of experience in this matter. 

My understanding of Santuzza didn’t change much from the beginning. My perception of this part is founded on a dramatic situation, vocal line and text as well as the profound meaning of it. The music has in every moment its own underlying atmosphere and is telling us on a deep level the real emotional situation. My interpretation can be influenced by a particular interpretation of a stage director as well as just of a scenography alone. I would not accept a complete change of author's ideas that are written in a score. But if it has a clear and a very new and well elaborated concept that works also if it’s of a very modern point of view, I’m always open to it. What I can’t accept is vulgarity of every kind. The public should understand the idea of the composer that always should be respected as a genius. If not, we could write our own piece and interpret in a way we think it’s correct. 

Santuzza is for me a young woman in a quite desperate situation: she felt in love with a young man, she is pregnant and he left her. The only way to avoid a scandal and to continue to live is that Turiddu should marry her. But he’s preparing the next scandal: he has an affair with a married woman. Her husband is a respected man in the village. After Santuzza implored Turiddu and was rejected by him, she told to Alfio that his wife is having an affair with Turiddu. At the end Alfio kills Turiddu and Santuzza remains as a widow of him and her honour is washed with blood. My interpretation is that I’m not sure, whether Santuzza still loves Turiddu. She loved him once. She is really desperate and would like him back and have a family with him just to avoid that her life would be destroyed. She forgets her pride and dignity and implores him even if he would beat and mistreats her. When he rejects her, all her feelings that she once had for him turn into the strongest hate and vengeance. In that rage she spits out the crude truth to Alfio. She didn’t even realise in that moment, that this could be a death sentence for Turiddu. She is not happy at the end but her honour is washed from a terrible shame. 

What qualifications are required to present Santuzza? And in your opinion, what are the critical difficulties in this role? Could you please tell us something about your experience? 

This role is of so called “Zwischenfach” (german) which means that it can be sung by mezzo with good high register and by soprano with well founded medium and low register. As I cover both categories, I sung this part in both periods (mezzo and soprano) of my career. 

All these very strong emotions have to be shown to the public. This is a real difficulty and challenge of this part. While singing Santuzza I must be always very careful not to surpass the line of control. For me just to sing nicely this part is not enough, but it’s necessary to keep a distance between vocal control and all these destroying emotions. Even if the part is not long, it’s very demanding because of negative emotions, which make you unhappy. As it’s a verismo opera for the public it must seem extremely realistic. You can’t scream out your hate singing in a beautiful bel canto manner. Sometimes it’s necessary to really shout so that the voice suffers, but this is “Cavalleria”. But I’m not a fan of too much liberty: the notes have to be sung exactly as they are written in the score. After executing the vocal line and not before we are free to interpret. Our instrument is the voice and we must be able to express all we want with our voice. 

Are you familiar with Chinese singers? Have you ever corporate with any Chinese musicians, and what do you think about them? 

For sure there are many Chinese musicians in the orchestras with whom I've sung all over the world. I suppose, there is much interest in China to study music. I heard a few Chinese singers while studying and later who had very good voices. Musicality has no nationality. Either you have it or not. Maybe for Asian people is not always easy to make our European culture and music their own. China and other Asian countries have their own very old and very important cultures. There are many differences in language and writing. But music is a most universal language. And the world is getting smaller and different cultures have constantly more contacts, so we can learn more about each other. For example, many years ago I saw a performance of Chinese opera. Even if it’s called opera, it’s a completely different kind of a show. It was fascinating!  

We know that you work with director Giancarlo del Monaco very often. Could you talk something about your cooperation?  

I worked with Giancarlo del Monaco just one time on a Cavalleria Rusticana” production in Madrid, that we showed in Paris a few years later. He’s an expert in any operatic repertoire. The production was very strong and very essential in black and white; the relationships were very well elaborated. It was inspiring to work with him. A DVD of this production was released by Opus. 

How do you think of the NCPA version of Cavalleria Rusticana? 

I hope it will be something classical like in Madrid, so that the Chinese public can really understand all conflicts of this Sicilian story of about hundred years ago. Even though a similar story could have some actuality today too.