Soprano Carol Vaness needed a lifetime of experience to be opera's Marschallin
Grand opera is like Hollywood: Nearly all the great roles for women favor the young and nubile. Despite the fact that the operatic voice doesn't usually reach its prime until the singer's 40s, many of the leading roles call for much younger priestesses, princesses and ingénues.
There's one glorious exception, a choice role that awaits a woman of middle years and just the right voice — and life experience — to sing Richard Strauss' Marschallin in "Der Rosenkavalier." Soprano Carol Vaness will undertake that role for the first time in Seattle Opera's production of "Rosenkavalier," opening this Saturday. Can't younger singers also make a success of the Marschallin, a powerful and worldly-wise Viennese aristocrat who gracefully cedes her younger lover to a girl his own age? Certainly it is possible, but Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins says, "I have seen more than a few young, beautiful sopranos make no impression in the part as they simply have not the experience to convey the meaning and feeling of the Marschallin."
Vaness herself, now 52, turned the role down three times when other companies earlier offered it to her.
"I knew I wasn't ready," she explained in a recent interview between rehearsals in Seattle.
"Now I am."
Part of that readiness includes some very Marschallin-like life experience that Vaness might gladly have foregone. A few years back, she fell in love with a young man 26 years her junior — an aspiring singer, to boot. Vaness now calls her decision to start a relationship with him "a stress decision," occurring at a time when her father had become ill.
"It wasn't worth it in any way," she now says of the relationship. "He lived off me for four years, and then one day he said, 'I have an agent and a career, and I'm going.' It's painful, being with someone who doesn't understand where your heart is. It didn't make me feel younger; he actually made me feel older. I was burned so badly."
The experience may well have contributed to Vaness' deeper understanding of the character of the Marschallin, who finally decides it's unseemly for her to remain with her young lover. But mastering the Marschallin's quiet dignity wasn't always easy.
"I've done coaching over a long time period, and gotten 9 million opinions on how to sing one word," laughs Vaness.
"This character has dignity and restraint, and is very different from the 'verismo' roles I'm used to, like Tosca. I'm more of a passion person. If I wanted someone to leave, I'd blow my top and yell, 'I'm sick of you, get out!' But the Marschallin would do this." Vaness draws herself up, and in a calm voice with just a hint of steel beneath, she intones, "It is time for you to go."
Learning this role has been good for her, Vaness thinks, because over 30 years of a major international career, she has become — well, a diva. People cater to her, make allowances for her artistic temperament and try to anticipate her every need.
"In this role, I can't maintain my slightly childish behavior," she says. "The Marschallin may be the kind of woman who appreciates a young lover, but she is all grown up. I've had to grow up, too."
The past few years haven't all been easy. Vaness' father died; her mother now is seriously ill in California, where the singer grew up. Health problems have made Vaness' life more difficult: a back injury when another singer fell on top of her, and a car accident last year that nearly ended her life. On a freeway in Los Angeles, another driver clipped Vaness' back bumper, causing her car to swerve into the next lane and plow into the back of a semi trailer at 70 miles per hour. She missed smashing her face by a matter of inches, and had to kick out the crumpled car door despite whiplash and knee injuries in order to escape when the car set fire. One of her vocal cords was slightly damaged when she cried out during the crash (it's now OK).
"I'm lucky to be singing at all," she reflects. "I'm lucky to be alive."
Her injuries kept her from fulfilling some of her engagements, but Vaness says, "The joy of singing has remained in spite of an unsettling couple of years."
Taking stock of her life after the accident, Vaness said she decided to spend more time with her fiancé, Nik Nikolieff.
"Why am I rushing around from place to place?" she asks. "I have Nik in my life, and I know life can be short. I want to really be with him. This is a selfish profession, singing; you have to be self-sufficient, but that can exclude the rest of life. You can die alone, saying, 'But I had a great career.' "
Another wake-up call for Vaness: Her old friend and colleague Luciano Pavarotti was recently diagnosed with cancer. Vaness sang opposite him in his last "Tosca," and says she is "terribly worried about him."
These factors contributed to her desire to keep singing, but also to enjoy everyday life: "I have a chance to continue doing what I do, but I also have a chance to be in one place a little more."
For now, that one place will be Bloomington, Ind., where Vaness has accepted an Indiana University faculty position that gives her a full professorship and tenure for teaching 12 hours a week. Indiana U. wants her to keep singing, something those shorter hours should make possible; the University of Washington, where Vaness resigned a part-time lectureship last January, couldn't match this opportunity. Vaness says she is looking forward to "nurturing young singers while still allowing their voices to be, to produce the best version of themselves."
Meanwhile, Vaness is working on the best version of her Marschallin. Knowing this part would be hard both vocally and emotionally, she found herself breaking down over lines where the character reflects on the passage of time, thinking about how little time Vaness may have left with her mother. She mulls over the Marschallin's distant husband: Is he too dallying with younger lovers? How did the couple grow apart?
"This part, and getting older, really makes me reflect how time slips through our fingers," Vaness says.
"That's something the Marschallin knows very well — and I have learned it, too."
Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com
"Der Rosenkavalier"
The background: The Seattle Opera presentation of the Richard Strauss opera is a revival of the 1997 Seattle Opera production designed by Bruno Schwengl, with staging by Dieter Kaegi. This time the conductor is Asher Fisch, who debuted here with a 2003 "Parsifal."
In the leading roles: Carol Vaness (the Marschallin), Alice Coote (Octavian), Frances Lucey (Sophie), Peter Rose (Baron Ochs), Wolfgang Holzmair (Faninal), Vinson Cole (Italian Singer), Mary McLaughlin (Marianne), Doug Jones (Valzacchi) and Graciela Araya (Annina).
"Der Rosenkavalier," by Richard Strauss, opens at 7 p.m. Saturday. Shows continue at 7 p.m. Aug. 9, 12, 15, 18, 23 and 26, with a 2 p.m. matinee Aug. 20, Marion Oliver McCaw Hall; performance time is 4 hours and 20 minutes (including two intermissions); $49-$127 (tickets: 206-389-7676 or 800-426-1619 or www.seattleopera.org; or go to the Seattle Opera ticket office at 1020 John St., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday).