Have you been hatching this album for a long time?
In my heart, yes. I always wanted to record Mozart. He is the composer I have sung the most on stage. It suits my voice. This record was born out of a personal desire and I told myself that I’m going to do what I want. There is the idea of emancipation here. I decided on all the tunes with the help of a musical collaborator who let me discover two previously unreleased tunes, a great gift for Mozart!
Was he the Gainsbourg of his time?
Somehow. Because what is fundamental in his act of creation is that he wrote for female singers taking into account their technical abilities, but also what they inspired in him. We understand all the tenderness he has for Nancy Storace and all the nobility and the more distant side for Caterina Cavalieri. What touches us so much is that we feel an act of love in Mozart’s writing. This composer really feeds my joy. It’s intangible, but everything in life is mystical. Music, and especially classical music, belongs to the realm of the afterlife, beyond “good culture”, of what one finds attractive as a movement of a symphony or not.
I often say that people are wrong when they talk about us: opera singers are wild women. To sing you have to look in your gut, it’s not an elegant gesture. Music is vibration, therefore energy.
In the classics, especially in Mozart, there is a musical harmony that, I believe, is very good for the soul.
What is the topic being discussed today?
Every time I recorded a disc, despite myself, there was always an echo with my own existence. Here it is the theme of separation, farewell and intimacy. This opus tells something a little more serious, which people don’t necessarily imagine of me, but that doesn’t mean it’s sad. To me, Mozart is both profound and joyful! The separation has been my problem since I became a mother because my childbirth was a terrible separation experience. My boy is 4 years old and I am barely recovering. I loved my pregnancy, this moment of absolute connection, beyond words, the look. Even when I was pregnant, I told her about the operas I played and of course continue. It’s sometimes complicated, because go explain Pelléas et Mélisande to a 4-year-old child! He knows The Marriage of Figaro by heart since he was 2 and a half years old, but he also loves Michael Jackson. It’s my little Dario!
You seem like a cure for gloom, right?
I am rather positive, cheerful in nature, which does not prevent me from going through complicated periods, to be aware of what is wrong around us, but I am fundamentally optimistic. It’s not naivety, it’s in me and it’s a job to nurture that part, to make it exist against all odds. To do this, we find our tricks: I wear sequins all year round, on my clothes, my make-up, my nail polish… Life must shine! Of course I also undertook a real therapeutic and physical work with yoga, meditation. I try to surround myself with good people, those who are in a momentum of life, turned to the other.
Did becoming a singer change your life?
Totally. I would have become a different person without this job. It is a profession of journeys, discoveries, encounters, self-analysis. When you are an artist, you doubt and that comes with self-questioning. There is so much to manage. This profession helped me to be strong, or maybe to discover this strength in me. Without it, I would have remained a nice young girl who listens well to her father and mother, and not a wild woman. It’s a big chance. Singing opera is an endless and bottomless pit. The same goes for the repertoire, which is constantly evolving. “Opera is open”, I repeat all the time that opera is a genre that is open to everyone who wants to go there. I’m not of this world, it’s a total coincidence. My parents had the good idea to enroll us at the Conservatory. They had three children and did not buy instruments, but rented them. I saw my first opera with my CP class, I loved it. As a teenager I was in Avignon, so I went to all the rehearsals for free. Then, in Paris, I queued at the last minute, at Garnier or at Bastille, to buy my tickets at 20€.
What relationship do you have with your vocal cords?
If I have my voice, no one can do anything against me. It’s terrible, because I can’t rely solely on her anyway, poor thing! But if I can sing, nothing can happen to me, I feel powerful, independent. At the same time, I think I’m one of the artists who wouldn’t have a problem quitting. If I have to stop in ten years, I will be very happy to launch my jewelry line, to create a foundation to help young people discover opera.
Do you still live in Provence?
We came back to Paris and I’m sad about it. I still have my home there, I go there when I can, it’s my life, my heartbeat. But it was easier for everyone to settle in Paris. My schedule is very busy, even though I’m redirecting things more and more. Life is too beautiful to be lived on airplanes. When one is in his right place, in his joy, things turn around the right way. I feel at this moment in my life: it rings true, I have infinite gratitude.
What projects do you have?
Among other things, I will be singing Cleopatra for the first time, in January in Amsterdam, and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, in April in Zurich. I know my schedule for the next four years and wish it wasn’t so full to have more quality family time and travel for me. I want to go to India, Mexico, Japan, Argentina to dance the tango… I love it so much.
This profession helped me to be strong, or maybe to discover this strength in me
When you were a child, what were your Christmas traditions?
At home we didn’t celebrate Christmas, but I didn’t need presents or love! My parents simply agreed that the annual gift session was on their wedding anniversary.
Today it gives me the freedom to organize the Christmas I want and give it the meaning I want. It’s not sad, it’s great to decide. Since I have no tradition, then anything is possible. But I really like to decorate the tree and you don’t have to bother me when I start. The other night my son was in his bath and put some foam on his chin and said to me, “Look mom, I’m Santa Claus! »
What gift do you want?
Nothing that takes up space! It makes me tired… I’d rather be offered massages, workshops or pottery lessons… A gift that would make me really happy is someone offering to clean out my closet in Provence. The one in Paris is exemplary, but the one in my house in the South contains all my son’s possessions since he was born. I still can’t sort them out or separate them!
Album AmadSony Classic.