HONING VANCOUVER OPERA’S HIGH PRIESTESS HASMIK PAPIAN
By Lloyd Dykk

Georgia Straight
ncouver/honing-operas-high-priestess
Nov 26 2009
Canada

These days, Vienna-based soprano Hasmik Papian is the go-to Norma, a
truly operatic role that’s had many legendary names associated with it.

When Vancouver Opera opens its season with Norma, soprano Hasmik
Papian will sing the title role she’s played around the world

Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma is widely considered the bel canto
opera of all time, and the title role is one of the greatest for a
lyric-dramatic soprano. It hits the Queen Elizabeth Theatre stage on
Saturday (November 28), in a season-opening production by Vancouver
Opera.

This is a high-water mark for a company now celebrating its 50th
anniversary. It was in 1963 that the Australian conductor Richard
Bonynge introduced Norma to Vancouver Opera, with his wife, the great
soprano Joan Sutherland, in the lead, and another legend, Marilyn
Horne, as Adalgisa. In modern times, Sutherland has more or less
defined the part, though Maria Callas has an equal share in the claim.

Bonynge is back to conduct the current production of a work that
launched his international career. He’s seen as the person to go to for
bel canto opera, and has conducted more than 120 performances of Norma.

And these days, soprano Hasmik Papian is the go-to Norma, having
sung the role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York–and all over the
world–to very high acclaim. She lives in Vienna with her husband, who
is a dramaturge for Zurich Opera, and her eight-year-old daughter. If
she hadn’t gone into singing as a profession, she would have become
a violinist, with a particular admiration for Zino Francescatti.

I talk by telephone with the Armenian-born Papian, who speaks
impeccable English, at her Vancouver hotel, where she’s resting between
rehearsals. Asked whether she’s found it daunting to undertake a role
that Sutherland virtually carved out, and with the very conductor
who has practically defined the opera, she says this is her first
time working with Bonynge, but that she’s "always open to learning
new things, and it’s been going very well.

"There’s been no pressure–yet," she adds with a chuckle.

Her first time singing Norma at the Met was in 2007. "It was not
a beautiful production–it was a revival from 2000–and the stage
was very open, which didn’t help," she says. "I was stepping in
for Deborah Voigt, who cancelled." The critics didn’t like it,
she recalls, pointing out the New York Times review in particular,
"but the public went crazy. I sang very well. But I think the critics
were expecting someone more established."

Over its long history, Norma has had a few less-than-generous things
said about its plot–as if opera should be credible–but nobody
has ever said a word against its music. Even Richard Wagner adored
Norma. And I doubt there would be a problem with its plot, either,
if the parts were well-sung, because the story unfolds into a kind of
inevitability. The opera grows into the plot, reaching an apocalyptic
final scene that is, in a good production, intensely moving.

To put the story briefly, Rome has invaded Gaul, until then ruled by
druids. Gaul’s high priestess, Norma, has had two illegitimate children
by Pollione, the Roman proconsul, who has fallen out of love with her
and is now fixing his eye on the minor druidic acolyte Adalgisa. The
story deals with Norma’s chaste fury, Adalgisa’s tender morality,
and Pollione’s last-minute change of heart as he fully realizes
Norma’s great spiritual stature and joins her on her funeral pyre.

Norma has been a repertory mainstay ever since it was first produced
at Milan’s La Scala, in 1831. It would be as inconceivable without a
superb singer to play the title character as a Götterdämmerung would
be with an inadequate Brunhild, or a Carmen without a stellar Carmen
(and we’ve had a few of those). It calls not only for a great voice
but for the greatest of acting skills. The role has many legendary
names associated with it: Giulia Grisi, Maria Malibran, Lilli Lehmann,
Rosa Ponselle, all the way up to Callas, Montserrat Caballé, and,
of course, Sutherland.

Papian has followed as much as can be learned of the early great
sopranos and the way they approached Norma, but certain unique aspects
of the era when the piece was first performed still present the singer
with challenges.

"Opera was very different in those times," she says. "The orchestras
were different, playing at another pitch, and the opera houses were
smaller, and of course the audiences were fundamentally different,
there being no Internet, movies, television, et cetera. The opera
house was the place to show up. We’re living in totally different
times. There’s only so much we can know about how different the times
were. We can only imagine."

Norma continues on December 1, 3, and 5 at the Queen Elizabeth
Theatre. The leading tenor Richard Margison, who comes fresh from
singing Radamès in the Met’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida,
takes the part of Pollione. Papian has performed twice before with
Margison, including in Aida at the Met. "It’s wonderful working with
him," she says.

The production also features the internationally praised mezzo-soprano
Kate Aldrich as Adalgisa, and bass Alain Coulombe as Oroveso.