“Music helps people hear each other better” | EUROtoday

Just a little. The problem if you end up high-pitched, which is my case, is to have the ability to undertaking your voice with out getting drained. To achieve making the textual content intelligible in a big corridor by passing over the orchestra pit the place eight double basses and twelve cellos will be heard. Like all singers, I take note of my instrument. Singing lieder relaxes me in a sure manner. But it’s additionally a manner for me to work in a brand new course. With this disc, I discover the intimacy of the dialogue between a single voice and a piano. I really feel a type of lightness in touring, for this tour, with just one instrumentalist.

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Yes, this theme is essential. With Mozart as with Strauss, music is like baby's play. This playful aspect could be very nice. These gentle melodies represent a superb gateway for an viewers wishing to find music that could be intimidating as a result of it’s grandiose, significantly that of Strauss which in the end seems to be very refined and due to this fact simple to entry. What is fascinating when listening to those lieder can be to contemplate them as a laboratory for all of the operatic music that can comply with… from these two composers.

Is this the way in which so that you can attain a brand new viewers?

Effectively. I think about that an individual who has by no means been to the opera will be impressed by the splendor of the decorations, the posh of the staging. Come and attend a chamber music recital, take heed to lieder [poèmes germaniques chantés par une voix, accompagnés par un piano ou un ensemble instrumental, NDLR] which typically don’t final greater than three or 4 minutes, this will represent a primary step earlier than confronting extra demanding lyrical works. And that may be a revelation. I due to this fact bear in mind experiencing an aesthetic shock after I went to take heed to a program of French melodies on the Lyon Opera. It will need to have been round 2012. Diana Damrau gave a quite simple recital there the place she was accompanied by a single harp. It was great. I had the impression that Diana, to whom I really worship, was stepping again to allow us to sit properly again in our seats and totally benefit from the music. I bear in mind discreetly taking out my telephone to put in writing down the titles of sure songs, telling myself that I completely needed to take heed to them once more at house. More than twelve years later, I’ve very clear recollections of it. That's what a profitable live performance is: a second the place the poetry of the tackle takes us right into a world of reverie that marks us perpetually.

The tune is, in a manner, the pop tune of the seventeenth^e and XVIII^e centuries…

Just a little. These poems set to music have a really trendy aspect. Some texts might be carried out by selection singers.

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I’ve eclectic tastes that embrace pop and rock. I recognize Pomme's texts. I actually just like the gravelly voice and banter of Colette Magny (1926-1997). And I draw loads of inspiration from it. When I give a Poulenc or artwork music recital, I typically take into consideration this artist who was an excellent teller.

Your admirers could also be stunned to study that you’re additionally a fan of electro!

I actually like an electro group that I take heed to on the subway. His identify is Moderato.

Does this imply that we must always count on to see you alter register someday?

Not for the second. Although I take pleasure in getting out of my consolation zone. I did loads of jazz after I was a scholar. This allowed me to really feel comfy improvising. This helps me at this time after I do a “da capo” on a baroque opera aria. Jazz helps you keep related with musicians. Despite the rating, an opera singer should typically be capable of extract himself from the written notes to create a suspended second…

In the profession of a lyric singer, there’s not a lot room for improvisation. Doesn’t this lack of freedom make you endure?

My diary is full for the subsequent three years, it’s true. But my nice freedom is that I’ve the privilege of with the ability to select what I’m going to play. Of course, my schedule is determined properly upfront, however I be certain to protect sequences of the 12 months the place I can determine, on the final second, what I’m going to do. In the top, it's all the time life that leads the dance. I’ve needed to cancel appointments because of the delivery of my kids. [Elle en a deux, NDLR]. I'm fortunate to share my life with somebody who works in music [Raphaël Pichon est le chef de la formation Pygmalion]. We typically go, all collectively, on sure excursions. Since changing into a mom, nevertheless, I’ve spaced out productions. Knowing {that a} creation can require us to maneuver away from house for 2 months, I be certain to solely make commitments in venues from which I can return on weekends throughout rehearsals: primarily in Europe.

What are your subsequent creations?

I’m making ready for subsequent July, a Pelléas and Mélisande, directed by Jetske Mijnssen for the Prinzregententheater, the Munich Opera. I’m very a lot trying ahead to enjoying Mélisande once more on this Bayerische Staatsoper manufacturing. I approached this function years in the past with Jean-Claude Malgoire on the Tourcoing Opera. Parisians will be capable of uncover this similar piece on the Opéra Bastille, in February 2025, in a manufacturing by Wajdi Mouawad. For readers who will not be accustomed to the work of Claude Debussy, I might fortunately suggest that they begin by listening to “La Mer”. This symphonic poem has a really cinematic aspect that we discover in Pelléas and Mélisande. This drama, whose libretto is by Maurice Maeterlinck, doesn’t correspond to the mannequin of a numbered opera comprising a grand aria for soprano, one other for tenor. Here, at Debussy, it’s music that evokes the passing of time, the place we’re immersed within the ambiance of an outdated, darkish citadel. It's very gripping.

Is it as a result of your mother and father had been educators that you’re so eager to share your ardour for music?

Maybe. It's primarily as a result of I’ve the deep conviction that music has quite a bit to deliver to folks. It permits us to get alongside higher. It affords the opportunity of externalizing emotions that we can’t categorical in phrases. When I see the influence that music can have on my kids who’re 4 and 7 years outdated, I can solely encourage different mother and father to share this treasure. It will be classical music or selection! At my mother and father' home, we listened extra to the Beatles, Michael Jackson or Édith Piaf and Jacques Brel than Debussy and Strauss.

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It's mysterious. I do not forget that I had a Walkman the place I listened to it on loop Piccolo, Saxo and Company [La Petite Histoire d’un grand orchestre, un conte musical pédagogique imaginé en 1956 par Jean Broussolle pour le scénario et André Popp pour la musique, NDLR]. Was it this cassette that pushed me to sing? In any case, belonging to a choir from a really younger age allowed me to undergo adolescence with lightness. It is thru music that I used to be in a position to study to make use of my voice, to know the modifications within the physique, to manage my respiratory, but in addition to search out my place.

So the choir could be a college of life?

Undeniably. By working in a choir, we develop a spirit of camaraderie. However, in our every day life, I feel it’s important. When I used to be a younger grownup, I spent a summer time as a counselor in a leisure heart within the north of Caen. It was a type of neighborhoods that’s typically described as “difficult.” » I made the youngsters I used to be mentoring take heed to loads of music. These younger folks had been typically very closed to communication. We dove collectively within the nice open air and had been in a position to break the ice. I bear in mind unimaginable discussions after listening to Mozart's fortieth. Music had established a direct connection between us, a bond of belief.

* Mozart-Strauss, lieder by Sabine Devieilhe and Mathieu Pordoy, Erato (Warner Classics), €17.90/