Edmonton Journal (Alberta)
April 22, 2005 Friday
Final Edition
Award-winning opera diva thrives on diversity of work
Bill Rankin, The Edmonton Journal
EDMONTON
EDMONTON SYMPHONY MASTERS SERIES
Guest conductor: Yves Abel
Guest artist: Isabel Bayrakdarian
with the U of A Madrigal Singers
When: Tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m.
Where: Winspear Centre
Tickets: Winspear box office, 428-1414
– – –
EDMONTON – Juno one, Juno two, now what’s she going to do?
Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian has been busy, busy, busy after
taking home back-to-back Juno Awards in 2003 and 2004. She finished
her third role at the Metropolitan Opera last weekend, this time as
Zerlina in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. She also has plenty of
variety in her engagements: some opera, some recitals, some concerts,
like tonight’s with the Edmonton Symphony and the University Madrigal
Singers. She has operas on the horizon at Toronto’s new opera house,
opening in September, and the Met has teamed her up with superstars
Susan Graham and Bryn Terfel to perform a big part in its opening
gala in September. The Madrid-based artist could have been developing
a better prosthesis at this point in her life if she hadn’t decided
on a singing career.
Asked if she has any regrets about passing on a career in biomedical
engineering, which she trained for at the University of Toronto while
she was simultaneously getting a degree in singing, her answer is
really no surprise.
“A big no! No regrets.”
In an interview, Bayrakdarian talks about “following your heart” as
she tries to explain how she is where she is today. Then she shares a
little joke.
“If you want to give God a laugh, start planning. You can plan as
much as you want, for or against something, but life inevitably
throws you a curve and you just go one day at a time. That’s the best
way.”
Bayrakdarian hasn’t just been building up treasures in this world.
Her well-known devotion to her Armenian Christian faith has led to
perhaps more surprising honours as well. Bayrakdarian’s Junos for her
CBC Records discs Azul–o in 2003 and Cleopatra in 2004 recognized
her musical accomplishment, but she also received the highest
recognition the Armenian Church can bestow on an artist. In February,
she was given the Pontifical Encyclical of His Holiness Karekin II.
“It’s one of the highest honours that the equivalent of our Pope
could give. As a matter of fact, I got two in the same year because
we have two patriarchs, so to speak … the eastern and western. So
in the same year I got both the highest medals for artistic
achievement and I wasn’t even 30. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I still have
a lot to do.’
“I think it’s more to do with my general service to the church, which
I still continue to do today. One never does these things expecting
reward, ever. But when it does come, it humbles me. It doesn’t make
me boast about it.”
Her first CD, Joyous Light, is dedicated to Armenian liturgical
music, which was the first music she sang as a girl. Bayrakdarian
doesn’t want to do just opera or just recitals, but admits that
working at the Metropolitan Opera has its special compensations. At
the Met, she’s treated like royalty, but despite her relative
inexperience as a diva, she says she moves about the place with the
same confidence better-known artists in the opera world do. “The Met
is the shrine, the mecca, whatever you want to call it, but the plain
truth is you’re prepared. You are 120 per cent ready for it. You know
what you’re doing. Like any other place, as soon as you have any kind
of insecurity about what you’re doing, it shows in your singing and
you start overcompensating, which they detect. Everybody can detect
that, even the audience can detect it.”
Even rubbing shoulders with the world’s elite singers soon loses its
glamour because the Met is first and foremost a job site.
“It’s a beautiful workplace because all your colleagues are of
excellent quality, so there’s no insecurity. In smaller houses,
sometimes the tendency of other singers is tinged with envy or with
rivalry. There’s none of that (at the Met) because we’re all here
because we’re all good and we’re all doing our own parts. Nobody’s
taking anybody else’s part. It’s a healthy place if you have a
healthy disposition.”
Her summer schedule includes mainly recitals with her new husband and
accompanist Serouj Kradjian, with whom she recorded an Analekta disc
of songs by 19th-century French composer-singer Pauline
Viardot-Garcia. CBC Records’ Randy Barnard says Bayrakdarian will
record a disc of Mozart arias in June with with Michael Schade and
Russell Braun to help celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday next year.
Bayrakdarian will sing arias by Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi and Rossini
with the ESO tonight.
HEAR A CLIP
Listen to soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian sing an excerpt from Rossini’s
Bel raggio lusinghier.
and click on Online Extras