Opera star Carol Vaness defines the word `diva'

How do you define a "diva"?

Most people may not be entirely certain, but they know one when they see one - and when they hear one.

Soprano Carol Vaness, long a star in the diva firmament, will be seen and heard in Seattle this weekend, when she opens the season with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra and guest conductor Dean Williamson.

A star of considerable wattage, Vaness has a rather queenly public demeanor and a commanding air that says she doesn't take any sass from anyone. Early in her career, she politely told off legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan when the maestro, well known for ruining young voices, wanted Vaness to sing more heavyweight roles.

Later on, she battled Kathleen Battle, possibly the world's most tempestuous opera singer, when the latter usurped Vaness' star dressing room - and she has been frank about what she considers Battle's "unprofessionalism." She has clashed with the high-profile maestro Riccardo Muti, telling one interviewer that Muti often "serves more himself than the actual music and what humans are capable of doing . . . I knew what he wanted, but my personality is also very strong."

Yet behind all this strength is a singer of considerable practicality. Up close, the tall and glamorous California-born Vaness is not the imperious diva, but a big-hearted, down-to-earth woman who works just as hard on this week's concert in Iowa as she does for the big-ticket engagements in London, Paris and Vienna. She worries about her recently widowed mother; she takes long daily walks; she does her homework, studying a difficult Rossini role that's coming up again (after a long hiatus) at the Vienna State Opera.

The suitcases are open at her San Francisco hotel, where Vaness just appeared in an opera gala, and she is packing frantically for the trip back to New York. Molly, a four-month-old beagle puppy, is trying to eat Vaness' tube of mascara. Charles Castronovo, the lyric tenor who has shared Vaness' life for the past several years, is trying to make Molly smile by rearranging her hangdog beagle jowls, and Vaness is laughing into the phone as we speak.

"Is this a normal life? It is not!" she laughs.

"I am just way too busy singing. That's why I've never had babies; this is too difficult a career, I feel, to mix with babies. You can't have a `normal' life - but you can have a great one all the same."

Normally ebullient, Vaness gets very serious when discussing the death of her father only five weeks ago. The San Francisco gala was her first performance since the death, which left her emotionally shaken and forced the cancellation of her appearance at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival opener with Gerard Schwarz and tenor Vinson Cole, both particular favorites of the soprano.

"Daddy had cancer of the vocal cords, of all ironic things," Vaness reflects. "He was very sick. But no matter how much we knew it was coming, this death was a terrible shock. Have you ever been singing along with something, the radio or a hymn or whatever, and suddenly had an emotional recollection, and your voice just goes? - it just chokes up? That was what was happening to me. I knew I didn't dare sing, not for several weeks. It was a relief that the San Francisco gala went well, and I now feel able to go forward."

The stress caused the svelte Vaness to put on about 10 pounds, but she has already shed six of them. She's the poster girl for successful weight loss in the opera world, ever since losing about 55 pounds seven years ago - and keeping it off. Watching her calories, giving in to the occasional temptation, and "walking and hiking at least five or six miles a day" are the crucial factors in her success.

"It's a major drag," Vaness confesses.

"You have to be constantly vigilant, and you have to think about weight and health all the time. And sometimes the chocolate cake just . . . calls to you. `Eat me! Eat me!'

"So I'll have a small piece, but then I won't touch it afterward. And I'll eat some cheeseburger, but only half of one, and not very often. I don't want to go through all this again; it's so hard to lose all that weight. For me, exercise is the key. I walk every day; I don't care if it's raining. The rain isn't going to make you sick. Of course, you have an umbrella and good rain clothing, and you try not to get soaked. But no excuses!"

Looking to her future, Vaness has some new directions in mind.

"There are so many things to sing," she says. "There are so many wonderful singers who can sing Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (both in Mozart's "Don Giovanni"). I've sung more than 200 performances of Donna Anna already, and about 120 of Donna Elvira. Maybe it is time to move on.

"I'm looking forward to singing Leonore (in Beethoven's "Fidelio") and Lady Macbeth (in the Verdi opera "Macbeth"), and I want to do (Puccini's) `Manon Lescaut.' "

At 47, Vaness says she still feels "in excellent vocal health," largely through the careful choice of roles since her big debut as Vitellia in Mozart's "La Clemenza di Tito" at the New York City Opera in 1979. She has grown into a singing actress who is able to rivet the listener; one San Francisco critic said of her 1998 Norma, "Vaness occupied this character so fully and so ferociously that she simply defied a listener to find fault."

In Seattle, she'll sing several arias from Mozart's "Idomeneo" and "The Marriage of Figaro," Verdi's "La Traviata" and Rossini's "William Tell" with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra. Vaness' old friend from Seattle Opera, conductor / pianist and coach Dean Williamson, will conduct the two programs (8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya; $30 and $35, at 206-343-0445).

"Dean is an angel; I've worked with him many times at Seattle Opera," explains Vaness. "Now I tease him about going over to the Dark Side and becoming an orchestra conductor. Most singers don't really love conductors that much.

"I'm so looking forward to being in Seattle. I love it there. I feel very, very well taken care of in Seattle. And no matter what the weather, you'll find me outdoors on my daily walk!"