The seat of my contentment is the woodland near my home. For the last twelve years I’ve lived with my family in Pressbaum, about ten miles from Vienna. We used to live in the city, in the 2^nd district, but I missed the trees and nature in general. Now, when I look out of the window, I see sweeping hills and a forty-year-old fir tree standing guard over our house.

It’s a short walk to the woods, which are good for mushroom gathering. You can find ceps, parasol mushrooms and all sorts of boletes, including my favourite, the dotted stem bolete. Most people think it’s poisonous because of its orange stem. All the more for me! I learnt about mushrooms from books and watching videos. Some people watch series on tv; I watch YouTube clips on mushrooms. I love their bright colours, pretty as flowers. I feel at home in the woods. As a child back in Russia I was always out in the countryside picking berries, mushrooms and herbs. My father was into hunting and fishing. There wasn’t much to buy in the shops, so we pounced on whatever nature had to offer. The Russian word for wood is »les«, which even makes up part of my name: Olesya. And it’s also the title of a story by Nikolai Leskow about a girl who lives with her grandmother in the woods and knows all about plants and talks with the animals. People take her for a witch and drive her out of her hut.

There’s something about me and witches. My last role at the Deutsche Oper Berlin was as Silvana in LA FIAMMA, and she ends up burnt at the stake. Els in Franz Schreker’s THE TREASURE HUNTER is also suspected of being a witch. I’m standing in for someone and have very little time to mug up on this sizeable role! But you get used to pressure in my line of work. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin I once stood in for a Gilda in RIGOLETTO on the day of the premiere. I walked out of a church at 2pm, turned my phone on and saw a text asking if I could be on stage at 6pm. I got to the airport and landed in Berlin with an hour to spare. I told Jan Bosse not to worry, I could do all the scenes on stage, and he took me for a madwoman because I had no clue about his production. Whatever. I sang Gilda from the theatre wings, without notes, because the role was still fresh in my memory. It was a big hit.

Golovneva’s most recent role at the opera house was as Silvana, who was burnt as a witch in LA FIAMMA. Here the soprano plays another woman dicing with death © Carolina Frank

 

Els is a first for me. Although Els has men killed, I’m trying to identify with her motives and situation. She’s trying to avoid a nasty fate, being married off to a man she despises. »He’ll bruise my little white body with his rough fists,« she laments, imagining herself as a princess waiting for her Prince Charming. And she sets her sights on getting hold of the Queen’s jewels, not out of greed but because she’s convinced that gold will make her beautiful.

In her dreams she’s astride a white horse and being led by the prince into a castle. As well as being naïve, it’s sad because the dream never comes true. Els builds Elis up in her mind as her prince. The minstrel is tall, blue-eyed, an artist and poet. She finds his tales riveting, fancies herself as a character in them. She’d like to vanish into one of them and escape her fate that way. At the start of Act 3 Els sings the same Wiegenlied that her mother had sung to her: a fairytale about a girl and her father, a powerful count who died in a foreign country. A touching story of love and loss.

In the woods as a child I, too, felt like I was in a fairytale. It was a mysterious place where I came across animals and nests and such like. And I’m still drawn to the undergrowth, off the beaten path, the realm of salamanders, snakes, frogs and deer. I listen to birds and sometimes sing, too. If someone saw me scrambling through the woods, singing, holding mushrooms, they might well take me for a witch.