Anastasia Bartoli: Mein Seelenort … Die Arena in Verona - Deutsche Oper Berlin
Anastasia Bartoli: My private place of peace … the Verona Arena
Anastasia Bartoli is heading to Berlin for her turn as Lady Macbeth. In Verona she can be found rehearsing the role with her mother, the soprano Cecilia Gasdia
I was born in Verona, so it goes without saying that the place where I feel most at home is the Verona Arena. It’s been a presence for as long as I can remember, and whenever I return to the city, I get a fresh buzz from it. Its beauty, its history… there’s nothing else like it. My mother has been its Artistic Director since 2018, and before that she used to sing here. I first visited as a young child. It was so exciting watching productions being put together and seeing great opera singers at rehearsals. Plácido Domingo, for instance. What an artist!
Once, when I was still a young girl, I appeared as an extra in LA BOHÈME. Don’t ask me what I had to do, but I still remember what an amazing experience it was. Then there was the time my mum had a role in PAGLIACCI in which she dies. I was totally caught up in the drama of it and yelling at the man on stage: »Don’t touch mummy! Don’t hurt her!«
I’m privileged to have had inside knowledge of the Arena from an early age. The setting affects the production of any work being performed there. I’d say the venue has influenced my relationship to music as a whole. And the fact that my mother was a singer meant that I’d been hearing opera and feeling music in her tummy before I was born.
That said, I didn’t slot straight into opera as a profession. My first job was as a parachutist. I definitely had zero interest in following in my mother’s footsteps. Not because I didn’t love the music, but rather because I’d been so miserable as a child when my mum was away for long periods. As a pre-schooler I went wherever she went, touring the world’s opera stages. Then came school: I stayed at home and she took off. That’s another reason I love the Arena, because she was with me when she was singing there. I used to cling to her like an octopus. So basically I steered clear of the profession because the memories were too painful. But there came a time when my love for the music prevailed and I decided to give it a try. I was 23, quite late for a singer. My mum was like: »Ok, I’ll train you. If I see you’re not talented, we’ll pack it in.«
It takes more than a good voice to be an opera singer. Could be that skydiving taught me that. When you jump out of a plane, you’re always wondering why you actually do it. It’s a bit like that with opera: as you walk out on stage, you’re asking yourself what possessed you to put yourself in such a situation. Both jobs are very adrenalin-based. Both demand a certain amount of passion and courage from the person involved. Obviously they’re poles apart in terms of training and execution.
I’m glad to have had my mother as trainer. In fact she’s still tutoring me. It wasn’t always smooth in the early days, but we bonded over the music and it took our relationship up a notch. Now she gets a real kick out of me singing Lady Macbeth. Our voices are very different and she’s never sung the part, so when we’re learning it together it’s as if she’s singing the role with me, or through me as a proxy.
For me, Lady Macbeth is one of the best roles out there and my favourite Verdi part. She’s quite cuckoo and the trick is to convey her madness in your voice. The great conductor Riccardo Muti once said to me: »You’ve got a great voice, but what are we going to do with it? We’ve got to bring out the inner ugliness of Lady Macbeth in your voice.« Muti showed me a little trick: I should use the lyrics and their shades of colour but pay less regard to the harmony, which is what you’d normally be focusing on. And »Read Verdi!« he told me. Really. It’s all there in his annotations.
Every Lady Macbeth is different, though. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Marie-Ève Signeyrole does with the part at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, especially as I have a personal connection to the venue through one of my best friends, who’s worked there for years; I’ve often visited him there. Naturally I secretly hope to sing Lady Macbeth in the Arena one day, with my mother watching from the terraces.
