Big voice, big heart

On the stage or in the street, one of the world's top sopranos gives it her all

It was early evening on Oct 8, and Wangfujing Street in downtown Beijing was as crowded as usual. In front of one of the street's glitzy shopping plazas, a group of young students and a petite dark brown-haired middle-aged lady were singing Happy Birthday. Casually dressed, she looked like any another Western tourist.

The young people were music conservatory students who had attended a recital at the National Center for the Performing Arts the day before. They were celebrating a friend's birthday when they spotted the lady in the street and asked whether she could join them in their musical tribute.

The lady in question was none other than Cecilia Bartoli, one of the best sopranos in the world today, and the woman they had seen perform the day before.

Asked to help with the birthday festivities, Bartoli shot back, "Why not?" a phrase that seems to be a set piece in her repertoire.

"Because I love their spontaneity, their warmness," she said. "When you walk in the street and think it's a big city and people might be stressful they work from 6 in the morning till midnight, but still have this positive attitude. That is a miracle. I want to learn from them."

On Oct 7 after her recital she spent an hour signing autographs for admirers until 11:20 pm. Staff from the National Center for the Performing Arts said few artists would spend so long signing autographs after a three-hour concert.

She not only buried herself in signing autographs but seemed happy enough to greet all and sundry and chat to them about the albums.

After the albums had sold out, all that dozens of fans had left to sign were tickets or brochures, and they got the diva's good will treatment as well.

A young man went to Bartoli and said he had an audition the next day and hoped she would be willing to hear him sing. Taken aback, she said, "Do you mean you want to sing here and now?" A reluctant agent not withstanding, she looked into the man's pleading eyes and said: "Why not?"

She was on such a high after the concert that she told China Daily, "The energy I got from the concert will kill me forever."

Of concerts two days later at the Peninsular Hotel Beijing, she said: "It's unique, unique."

Bartoli was suffering from a bad cold and fever before she arrived in Beijing.

"But I just so have wanted to perform here for a long time. I did not want to cancel the concert. For me it is important to discover the country, to meet the young audience here."

Even though she had high hopes for the performance on Oct 7, she did not expect it to turn out like a "rock concert".

The audience screamed when she walked on stage. It brought down the house after every song. She sang three encores but still could not dampen the applause and sang Rossini's Canzonetta spagnuola again. She played the tambourine, danced and snapped, just like a flamingo queen. Rossini's Spanish tune came alive in her performance.

"You have to be noble and serious onstage," she said. "That is the art you do. This is the responsibility for an artist: to share emotion, to be able to convey emotion. This is what music is about."

When she sang Bizet's La Coccinelle you could hear the sound of beetles.

"That's one reason I love baroque music. You need a flexible voice, like instruments. The voice has to play with the instruments. In baroque music, sometimes you have to make duet with trumpet, or with flute, with oboe or with violin so you play your voice like an instrument. Sometimes, you have to imitate nature. It's fascinating."

Bartoli loves baroque and pre-romantic music, because she started her career with Rossini, Mozart and Handel and then wanted to know who influenced Mozart and Rossini.

She has done many operas but not Carmen.

"A good Carmen is very rare to see. Carmen is a very dark piece. In some recent productions, I saw Carmen with flowers here (she pointed to her mouth), dancing flamingo and smoking a cigarette. I think Carmen is more than that. I would love to do Carmen one day with a director who understands the dark side of Carmen."

The Salzburg Whitsun Festival chose her to be its artistic director last year, on a five-year contract. She is the first woman to hold the position.

"For me it's wonderful to create projects for other musicians. And more important is we must have a theme. The festival is over a long weekend. We have different performances, but all follow a red line. It's a huge success. We doubled the sales of tickets this year."

Next year's festival will be dedicated to Rossini, she said. There will be the comic opera Cenerentola and the tragic opera Otello and some sacred music. There will also be a gala with the theme "from yesterday to tomorrow", with great tenors including Carlo Bergonzi and Jose Carreras and young singers singing together.

She also plans a big dinner concert with great food, "because maestro Rossini was a gourmet. Music and food were two big things for him."

Rossini was a very funny man and cried twice, she said. Once was when he heard Paganini playing the violin and the other time was when he had a picnic with friends, and a turkey fell into a nearby river.

Bartoli had not been to the Chinese mainland before, and said that as a Roman she considers other cities and countries other than Italy young. But after a few days in Beijing, she realized how old it is, too.

She performed in Guangzhou on Oct 13 and was to perform in Shanghai on Oct 19. She said she is looking forward to a concert tour with Chinese conductor Tang Muhai in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Iceland next month.

She traveled from Beijing to Guangzhou by high-speed train. "If not in a rush, I prefer riding on a train to see more of the country and to experience more."

One project she has in mind, she said, is to create a "train of harmony", from Russia, running through Siberia to China, inviting musicians to perform on the train and in towns along the railway line across Europe and Asia, to see the reactions of audiences in different regions. The long journey would be shown on television.

"I should come back to China early with this project," she said.

chenjie@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/18/2013 page29)