This is your debut as Marie in Lortzing’s THE CZAR AND THE CARPENTER and your first ever appearance at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. What took you so long?
It was what it was. I was at the Komische Oper for a long time. Then, when I decided two years ago to rough it in the world of freelancers, the Deutsche Oper Berlin instantly asked me if I’d audition for the part.

You had to audition?
That’s actually not as rare as you might think. And I also got to test out the new libretto.

Many consider this light piece of Lortzing’s as a bit drab.
That’s precisely what I like about it. Although I adore big romantic operas, I’m also interested in the hybrid forms: musicals, buffa, spoken light opera, works which are also about language and meter and humour. A lot of singers avoid the spoken-word form, but I love it. I’m attracted to genre cross-over. And as for drabness: director Martin G. Berger has totally reworked Lortzing’s libretto and updated it. I’ve read the texts and was won over immediately and thought: that’s something for me. Marie is very strong and feisty and single-minded. And suddenly the work is very relevant to the present day.

How so?
Berger has infused it with social and political references. In fact, it couldn’t be more contemporary – but not in a finger-wagging way. The opera is still emotional and entertaining.

Thoroughly modern Marie? How has Martin G. Berger gone about that?
When I read it, I immediately thought of Luisa Neubauer. The new Marie is a young activist type. We’ve got her opposing the politics of her uncle, the mayor, standing up for refugees and forming a protest group. So, she has character and attitude; she’s not a victim. And her relationship with Ivanov survives all the misunderstandings and petty jealousies. But Marie clearly has opinions. That was my impression on the first reading.

There was also a group read-through – which is unusual for opera.
Right! The way we did that was new to me. The ensemble sits down and reads the libretto with some music overlay and we sang some stretches. That’s more associated with plays or musicals. I found it really helpful, because it gives us all a sense of the characters and how they interrelate.

And the director hears his own revamped text for the first time.
It’s a special moment. The whole set-up shows the extent to which musical theatre is conceived as a joint process.

How do you approach the role musically?
Marie’s voice is pitched at mid-register, which is a different challenge, technically. It’s more about enunciating the words, although you still want to preserve the nice melody. The trick is striking a balance. Lortzing is known as a composer for the theatre; he himself was a singer and actor – and that really comes across from the focus on narrative, on storyline. I find this dovetailing of action and music fascinating.

Your own roots are in dance and you wanted to be an actress. Can you channel that?
I did competitive ballroom dancing for many years, attended a music secondary school, played the concert flute, wanted to act. I was 16 before I discovered the world of opera – and fell head over heels with its sheer complexity.

You’re a true all-rounder.
Here’s the thing – and it’s the reason I’m so into Lortzing: what I love about him, and it’s so important to me, is that he combines everything: drama, singing, opera. He was a dyed-in-the-wool theatre man, yet he refused to be pigeonholed. I like that. Lortzing was an all-rounder in musical theatre.