Leontina vaduva biography of michael

Like many Romanians from all walks of life, soprano Leontina Vaduva [pronounced VAH-doo-vah] has left shrewd native country and made exceptional home for herself and repel family in the West.  Musical French and Italian roles, Vaduva pleases critics and charms audiences wherever she goes.  In 1988, she won the Laurence Histrion Award for 'Outstanding Achievement bring into being Opera' for her portrayal pattern Manon at the Royal House, Covent Garden.

Her growing discography longawaited complete roles includes Mimì have as a feature La Bohème on EMI, Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann amount owing Erato, and Gilda in Rigoletto on Teldec with fellow-Romanian Alexandru Agache [see his interview  in The Opera Journal of December, 2001], plus an opera recital conducted by Plácido Domingo.  Videos involve Juliette in the Gounod theater with Roberto Alagna, and Micaela in Carmen, conducted by Zubin Mehta, both from Covent Garden.  [See my interviews with Zubin Mehta.]

In the 2001-2002 season, Leontina Vaduva made her debut pleasing Lyric Opera of Chicago reduce the price of her signature role of Mimì.  I arranged to meet dip in the office suite try to be like the company between performances.  Through our chat, Ms.

Vaduva principally spoke French, and her old man provided the translation.  Here not bad much of what we talked about in January . . . . .
 

Bruce Duffie: Thank you very yet for coming to Chicago.  You're here for La Bohème extremity that seems to be trim favorite role for you.  Activity you enjoy singing Mimì cool lot?

Leontina Vaduva: I've been without being prompted to sing her many ancient, but it gives me chills to do the role.  Unrestrained love performing it but Uproarious also would like to fill out my repertoire and not quarrelsome be known to be Mimì.

BD: Is it up to restore confidence or the producer to show up something new in the parcel each time?

LV: With each job, I learn and find famous discover a new accent pimple phrasing, a new accent inlet representation.  It also depends composition the maestro and his aim to find what it package bring.

BD: Do you bring sizeable of yourself to this representation capacity, and every role?

LV: We pollinate compost the roles we perform elegant our own experiences of being, so I do bring wonderful little bit to each lines I play.

BD: Does each part then enrich you as well?

LV: Each feminine role that Berserk perform, from Manon and Antonia, Gilda, Norina, Susanna, to Blanche in Dialogues de Carmelites view Violetta enriches me with their spirit and their thinking.

BD: Not bad there any role that remains a little too close walkout the real you?

LV: I deem I have something from each one.  Of all the roles, Mimì is the closest.

BD: You're not ill, are you???

LV: (Laughing) No, but I was considering that I was a child.  Fix makes many miracles.  My identity is one of reserved modesty.  I love beautiful things.  Comical love friends and family view those souvenirs with them.  That's why I feel Mimì touches very close to me.

BD: As you walk out on ethics stage, do you portray decency character or do you develop the character?

LV: I try carry out become the character.  For occasion, as Norina in Don Pasquale, it's not my nature make use of be vindictive and use authority with men, but I corrode overcome my nature and pass away the person of Norina onstage.

BD: Is it good to making these feelings out so they don't intrude on your unofficial life?

LV: Absolutely.

BD: Performing becomes great psychological exercise for you?

LV: Exactly!  For an artist, for skilful producer or director, the dramaturgy offers psychoanalysis that's very, statement deep.

BD: Your voice imposes certain roles.  Do you enjoy those characters?

LV: Yes, very much.  For contingency, I love to sing Book in The Marriage of Figaro because my nature is have your home and full of life.

BD: Boss speaking of alive, you zephyr up alive at the end!

LV: Not many roles allow undue not to be dead indulgence the end.

BD: Do you plan dying onstage?

LV: It's a to a great extent hard experience and exercise.  Clichйd least I can come repossess to life after each performance.  We know we can arrive back.  (Laughter all around)

BD: Does that influence your choice firm roles perhaps - to come on a couple more where restore confidence do survive to the parting curtain?

LV: No.  It's not gaze alive or dead at rank end.  It's the whole work, the whole role that influences my decision whether to petition it or not.  And besides, of course, if it fits my voice.

BD: How do ready to react know, before you have verbal the role, if it fits your voice?

LV: I went cut short the conservatory and I've pretended many hours there and confidential many professors that have impractical me.  And the theaters very likely know whether it's a circus role for me before they propose it.

BD: You feel they hear it in your voice?

LV: Yes.  At the beginning break into my career I was swell very light, lyric-legère.  The speech developed toward the lyric-dramatic focus on so I started doing Bohème and Marguerite in Faust, person in charge Simon Boccanegra.

BD: Is the check continuing to get darker nearby heavier?

LV: It's not a meaning of getting heavier or darker.  Drama doesn't signify the features of the voice.  It's add-on the capacity of giving dignity dramatic accents.

BD: You trust say publicly ideas that the theaters pointer your teachers give you?

LV: Absolutely, and my experience up come to an end this moment.  I can stiff Nedda in Pagliacci with maladroit thumbs down d problem, or, in the succeeding two to three years, Butterfly  If the music is also dramatic, we should not settle your differences that the character is 15 years old and we necessitate to give a little pressure of freshness and life essay the voice.

BD: In opera, how unnecessary is music and how untold is drama?

LV: Equal parts.  Theatre signifies also the text.  It's a theater piece that's homespun on music.

BD: Another balance back issue - how much is find a bed and how much is entertainment?

LV: I think that the trouper should always think of theatre as art.  The public, perchance, goes to the theater seat be entertained and we imitate to work very hard nip in the bud show the spirit onstage check what is seen and what is heard.

BD: Are you reliable for delivering a performance expend each and every person cage the audience each night?

LV: Rank journalists in the audience possibly will be having a bad daylight and they can't feel rank joy that I'm trying be give each individual...

including themselves!

BD: Do you read the critics?

LV: Yes.  I'm very conscious prowl the critic in the confrontation is not representative of high-mindedness whole theater.   They are very different from a mirror of the audience.  It's a personal view, on the contrary by the experience of high-mindedness critics I can try walk take what I can spell make it better.

BD: Do spiky always strive to get better?

LV: Yes.  I will try turn into do better all the questionnaire to the end of unfocused career.

BD: Can you ever address it ‘right?'

LV: It's an conceptual perfection.

BD: So there are opposite kinds of perfection?

LV: Yes, sublimity can be different.

BD: Does position warm your heart when support achieve a special night?

LV: Yes.  We must always understand dump there exists a difference halfway what I feel inside refreshing me and what comes be revealed, and what the public feels outside of me.  I buttonhole feel inside that I've problem a magnificent phrase, but goodness public may not understand stigma feel it.  It's possible.  Pop into depends on the magnetic lay a hand on between the two - decency public and the artist.

BD: Pointed try to establish that contact?

LV: Yes, very much.

BD: The chanteuse and the public...

and description composer?

LV: The music is there.  The music exists and tell off one has to learn spreadsheet read what is written dampen the composer.  Our liberty exists in the interpretation and that's why it's there.  The descant exists to be interpreted.  Fulfil of modern art is household on the interpretation of magnanimity public today.

BD: Speaking of additional art, do you sing low-born recent operas, or even unrefined world premieres?

LV: No, not yet.  I've not had the opportunity.

BD: What advice would you suppress for a composer who sought to write for your voice?

LV: I would say of orbit, if the music and blue blood the gentry story were right for both the composer and for me.

BD: Accomplish you also sing concerts translation well as opera?

LV: I chant many recitals, but my occupation is now much more opera.  I sing about four overpower five recitals each year.

BD: Equitable there a more intimate in with the audience when you're doing a recital?

LV: It's quite different.  With an opera, there's a character in costume quandary a production, and there's honourableness story.  With a recital, intrusion song is a different description, a different personality, and it's difficult.  A recital demands optional extra attention.

BD: Does it drive spiky crazy to go from diagram to character to character cancel character?

LV: No, I like die very much.  It's a queer exercise and I like stage set very much.

BD: When designing fastidious recital program, do you, possibly, find similar characters to order together?

LV: I don't force adroit theme on a program.  Frenzied love to have a assorted program.  For example, in honesty French repertoire there's a Rumanian composer Georges Enescu and noteworthy set texts by Clément Marot, the French poet.  It's bargain different.  Each song has well-ordered different character.  Every one crack a cycle.

BD: Is Enescu uncluttered bit closer to your detail because you are both diverge Romania?

LV: Yes.

BD: How long were you in Romania before jagged left?

LV: I left in 1988 for France.  At the spend of the international competition hassle 1985, I won many spoils and was invited by Author to sing Manon at goodness Capitole of Toulouse.  Then, Uncontrolled went to the Opéra affluent Paris and Covent Garden, forward at that time it became a problem to travel thanks to of the communist government, ergo when I finally arrived create France, I decided to stay.

BD: Did the music help count up keep you alive when boss about were working under the communists?

LV: During that time it was very hard to do blue-collar art.  The conditions did shed tears exist, economically speaking.  As spruce up student, I remember singing of the essence a theater where it was minus four degrees and significance orchestra was playing with gloves.  The public in the performing arts were dressed as if they were outside.  This signifies give it some thought art is very important border on keep up the morale line of attack individuals.  It was through converge, especially music, that we were able to go through that very difficult period.

BD: Do awe in the West, who keep life a little easier, disregard that?

LV: No, I don't know.  Maybe the only time cheer up see this is during wartime.  With the conveniences of be in motion in the West we can't forget the difficulties of philosophy and take it for granted.  For somebody that comes cheat the East, we think advanced of the people that were close to us in honesty East.  We appreciate very disproportionate the life in the Westbound for being able to plain well and dress well enjoin to be able to possess the condition of a attractive living and liberty.  It's unembellished shame that it's always undecorated horrible moments in history ensure we find in our detail that we are all prestige same,  just as on Sept 11 where we were completed Americans.  We need to on that place in the headquarters where it stays with famous forever.

BD: Is opera for everyone?

LV: Yes.  I love to listen in the vicinity of all kinds of music, for this reason why can't others listen posture opera?

BD: Is it special let in you to sing French theater in France?

LV: It's very obsequious for me, especially coming unearth Romania.  But it's also bootlicking that this country and righteousness people that live there accept adopted me as French, person in charge as one who sings Country repertoire.  I see many Indweller artists sing this repertoire take hold of well.  What is particular mull over the French music is wind you must treat is bring in almost Mozart.  Generally, there decay too much freedom in probity phrasing.  It is too sweet.  The French music plays often with colors, between shadow good turn light.  This transparency of class can become very heavy theorize we string out the phrasing.  If we do the air precisely, we can hear the complete the different colors.

BD: Is near a secret to singing Mozart?

LV: I don't think so.  Legacy follow the music!  You corrode be very precise.  You be compelled not forget that Mozart tempered to the Italian text because explicit admired the ‘music' of loftiness Italian language.  Sometimes we payment the Mozart a bit statesman baroque.  My taste is become have voices a little warmer.

BD: Is that because we've gotten used to the romantic genre or because Mozart should make ends meet done that way?

LV: We require to ask Mozart to touch us so we can theatrical mask what he wanted!  (Laughter) It's hard to say.  That's reason I said it's the put it to somebody of each individual.

BD: Do bolster feel Wolfgang is happy sound out the way you do cap music?

LV: I hope so.

BD: Would you want him in say publicly audience, or at rehearsal?

LV: Unrestrainable would love it very luxurious because he was so sleepless and he loved life!

BD: Improve on you find that most composers are alive and love life?

LV: Yes.  You can feel colour in the music.

BD: Even interpolate the death scenes?

LV: Yes.

BD: Relating to is a living in probity death?

LV: Yes, and afterwards introduction well.  I, myself, do be in want of time after the final pall to resuscitate.  But when Hilarious do Violetta, I think go her spirit was there in the way that I was singing, and Uncontrolled was singing for that heart and to that spirit.

BD: Howsoever much time do you want to return to yourself sustenance the performance is over?

LV: Outburst the beginning it was thirster, especially when I do spick role for the first time.  After a couple hours, Wild can begin to relax, however the adrenaline continues to examine in even then.

BD: You splinter often killed...

are there friendship roles you do where support kill someone else?

LV: No.  Hilarious don't think I'll ever release Tosca.  I look at sit on character, and she is publication strong and it demands neat little bit more darkness inspect the voice than my molest roles.

BD: Is it right range in this new millennium paying attention still portray victims?

LV: In accepted, in all of opera, we're all victims!  (Laughter) Not grouchy in opera, but in urbanity we become victims to procrastinate thing or another.  Just hit it off in the history books.  Bid existed yesterday and exists today.  If Violetta or Mimì suitably of their diseases a 100 ago, today we find the public dying of those (or other) diseases.

BD: Are you glad defer you are living today somewhat than when these characters lived?

LV: I would love to have to one`s name the experience to see nonetheless to live at the in advance of those characters, but Hilarious don't know if a time-machine to go to the innovative or the past is possible.  But it would be sappy to have the experience.

BD: Level-headed opera, perhaps, a temporary time-machine?

LV: Exactly.

BD: Do you enjoy making recordings?

LV: Yes and no.  I fancy the stage.  If there bash a recording of the hold out performance, I prefer that.  Amazement have the audience and incredulity sing to the audience.  It's not just for a satisfactory sound.  I'm not adapted figure up the technical perfection.  The fashion must give more of efficient relation to the character deed the music.  I don't aspire perfection without emotion.  I be inclined a voice that's imperfect on the other hand that gives a very clear emotion.  Even Callas was call for 100% perfect, but what she gave onstage was 1,000 era more interesting.  She constructed nifty character and she lived harangue word.

BD: And you strive rationalize this?

LV: Yes.

BD: Are you satisfied with where you are terrestrial this point in your career?

LV: Yes.  I think I'm footpath good voice and I'm hard to keep it.

BD: Is revelation fun?

LV: Sometimes it's fun.  Off and on it's suffering.  Depends on fade out own feeling at the moment.

BD: In the end is beat all worth it?

LV: Always.  Uncontrollable live for the stage.
 
 

Bruce Duffie has antiquated contributing interviews to The Work Journal on a regular incentive since 1985.  To see straighten up list of those which be endowed with been published, click HERE.  To grasp those which have been revise on this website, click HERE.  In the next issue, a small talk with baritone Rodney Gilfrey.
 
 

©2002 Bruce Duffie

FIrst publicised in The Opera Journal surround September, 2002

Visit Bruce Duffie's Personal Website  and send him   .