© Marina Rebeka / Prima Classic
After her debut at the Opéra national de Paris in 2018 in one of her signature roles, Violetta in La traviata, the soprano Marina Rebeka finally returns to the Parisian opera house for the five-act version of Verdi's Don Carlos (in French). She is thus continuing a solid career built around Rossini, bel canto and Verdi, although the French repertoire (Massenet's Thaïs and Gounod's Faust) and verismo (from Puccini onwards) are also beginning to play an important role in her seasons. She talks to us about her choices, through the mirror of her future roles, while remaining true to herself.
Opera Online : How have you approached the character of Élisabeth in Don Carlos?
Marina Rebeka : Until now, I turned down Don Carlo (in Italian) every of the four times I was offered it, and I finally decided to take the challenge of the 5-act version in French in Paris. You can approach this opera as a transition between belcanto and verismo, but what I think is correct for this role, is to think about its nobility. All the sounds are very even and have to be very calibrated and measured, especially the pianos – sometimes Verdi writes four pianos, like in his Requiem – and beautiful light tops. Although Queen Élisabeth has a strong character, she's a very fragile woman, and whenever she goes also into low notes, she can never sound like a contadina, she always has to stay royal. She keeps trying to control her emotions with dignity. This hybrid role educates your voice in all registers. It’s very lyric, but completely based on the quality of the sound. This first French version of Don Carlos is the one that Verdi tried to fit best to the French style, like Meyerbeer.
You recorded the original version of La Vestale and the critical version of Norma. Do you have a need for authenticity?
Yes, because recording is not just about singing. Traditions usually modify the original source somehow. You also feel more connected to the personality of a composer when you see his handwriting. Obviously, you have to keep in mind that his initial idea changed with the actual singers in front of him. Anyway, you have to go with the text and specific notes that were meant to portray a specific type of character. When Callas sings La Vestale, it's in Italian but also very much romanticized compared to what should be musically nearer to Gluck. Palazzetto Bru Zane made a completely new score for our recording. For my album Amor fatale: Rossini arias, I rewrote the material from the manuscripts I found in Pesaro and different libraries. In Norma, I was surprised that the whole “Casta diva” aria is in G major – the tone doesn’t change in the instrumental introduction – and that some articulations are not the ones we are used to. I wouldn't do it at La Scala because I know that I’d be booed by not doing like Callas. When I sang I vespri siciliani there, it was a battle in the audience between people shouting “brava” and three people booing. Callas and Scotto were booed too, so I consider it a compliment!
Thais, Teatro alla Scala © Brescia e Amisano
Your 2023 album Essence sounds like a teaser of your future career, with excerpts from Dvořák’s Rusalka, Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and verismo highlights…
Additionally to Tosca that I will have in my repertoire by 2029, I would love to sing Rusalka, even if I know that it would take some time to go deep into the Czech pronunciation. Getting the feeling of a language opens you up to a very different world. I would love to sing Lisa in The Queen of Spades too and re-sing Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. The only question remains if I would be asked. Many sopranos can sing Tatiana, but if you still have top E-flats and coloraturas, it’s more likely that you will be asked to sing Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereux. This is what keeps you in the market.
Sometimes, you also need to change approach with the roles you already know. Although I had announced I would stop performing Violetta in 2020, I decided to pick it up last year, unexpectedly, as this role has been sticking with me since the very beginning.
When do you identify it's the right moment for a role and that you’ll be able to sing it four years later?
I always need to figure out what my voice will be like, and what my previous roles will bring me. Verismo provokes you greatly, so I can never insert Rossini or belcanto just before or after. After Norma this summer in Milan, I’ll have to broaden the vocality a bit for Aida in Verona. Nabucco, which I’m debuting soon, remains close to Norma as Verdi wrote Abigaille for Giuseppina Strepponi, a dramatic bel canto soprano: it's the same type of precise technique, the orchestra keeps the vibe and you keep the line. I‘ll also sing Verdi’s Lady Macbeth in the next years, although I initially thought I couldn’t by keeping Norma and Nabucco around. I come to an age when I wonder what else I can do without ruining my voice, and calmly but firmly approach things my own way. Renata Scotto and Mirella Freni never changed their voice to fit the repertoire. If I did Don Carlos with throated lows and Nabucco with a huge Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana) sound, I’d betray my voice and Verdi’s initial idea. Somebody will always say that my voice is not right for this repertoire, but I'm singing like this. Blame it on the casting choices! You have to make decisions not to obey traditions or expectations but to stay true to yourself.
Throughout your career you have always made your own decisions, including created your own label, Prima Classic, to get the exact sound you wanted...
Artistry is something unique you deliver. If somebody tells you to feel sad in a role, of course you won’t. If it’s fake and doesn’t move anyone, why do it?
Also, why record an album in three days? The voice is tired, you cannot express everything you want just because you need to pay the orchestra and then this stays forever. I want to record what’s right in the moment for my voice, even if that’s not what the market asks. I’m not interested in recording unknown arias just to please critics, who forget about your album one year after it’s released.
In previous generations, all important sopranos knew that it was a must to record classics to show their own ideas and personality. You need a creative approach in anything, starting with the sound, and always wonder why you are doing it. How come in pop music do they have three types of mastering and not in classical music? When I was recording Amor Fatale the sound engineer kept on asking me for a smoother sound in the top notes. I can’t, and it's always a huge success in opera houses. A huge range between piano and fortissimo, which is very impressive in a theatre, is very hard to record, but that's why these voices should be recorded.
Do you feel that it’s harder today to still be the actress of your own craft?
It's a question of how much you use your body, emotions and brain. To make it true, I need to deeply understand what the composer, librettist and stage director want. If the stage director’s intentions go against my understanding of the music and text, he has to convince me.
I have the reputation of being difficult because I believe that it's my responsibility to keep this art form for next generations. What's the point of holding the top note or doing crazy coloraturas if you express nothing in particular? Why should I get undressed or violent, or have sex on stage if it was not meant by a composer?
Singers playing honestly and singing beautifully make the audience come back. Creating compassion and co-understanding relies on us, as we’re the ones the public actually watches on stage. Without singers there is no opera. In ballet, which I adore, you cannot change one movement, costumes have to be all perfect. Couldn't it be the same in opera? At the Metropolitan opera or La Scala, Zeffirelli’s La Bohème is always sold out. You can still find people wearing jeans in musicals, at the theatre or in films. A historical staging in opera doesn't mean it's old-modish. People are intelligent, and if the performance is really capturing, the public will continue thinking.
Maria Stuarda, Opera di Roma © Yasuko Kageyama
A few years ago you said that you were not that attracted to Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly) and Aida, but you eventually sang them. Have you changed your mind?
I was referring to the personality of the characters rather than the voice. I had been preparing Butterfly for more than nine years and I couldn’t portray her truly without reading a lot about the Japanese culture. Sometimes you have to forget everything you listened before and just look at the score. My key to Butterfly was her duet with Pinkerton in the first act. She’s terribly afraid but ready to abandon everything for this man. In act II, deep inside she knows that Pinkerton betrayed her but she won’t admit it because she's so stubborn. When reality hits her, she understands there’s no other way than giving up everything, including her own life. As a singer you have to try to convince everybody until the very end that it's going to be alright.
Aida gets manipulated by everyone, nobody has real compassion for her. The only thing she does for herself is put herself inside the tomb. You have to find the switches inside the character: a probable queen, a fake slave, a fragile loving woman. In her first aria, “Ritorna vincitor”, she is terrified, there’s no need to show your voice there! Amneris is straightforward, but Aida is a question mark. Amneris is weaker in her shouting and strong emotions than Aida in her being calm.
You did your first Rachmaninoff songs recital last December at the Opéra national du Capitole in Toulouse. How do you feel about that?
Rachmaninoff is really a piece of my heart. A recital of his songs isn’t less than an opera, it’s like going through a large part of his life because he wrote his romances from 1890 to 1916, just before he had to exile from Russia. Very intriguing, is that the text is never direct, words and music are so unbelievably connected. “To Her”, in opus 38, is not to a woman, but to the Russia he knew and that isn’t there anymore. It’s a huge task to sing all songs put together because they use all registers, in different atmospheres and durations. If you sing “Dissonance” in opus 34, you can sing anything. Rachmaninoff is a passage between Tchaikovsky into Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. I actually recorded an album of Rachmaninoff songs, but I didn't release because I wasn’t satisfied with it. I will eventually re-record it, I don't know when, I need to find time and the right pianist. I don't want to just release it, I need to sing that a lot to have all these reflections, and I believe the right time will come.
Interview by Thibault Vicq
published on 19 March 2025 at 07:41
- Don Carlos | 29 March – 25 April 2025 | Opéra national de Paris (Opéra Bastille)
- Ravel’s Shéhérazade | 12 May 2025 | Barbican Centre (London)
- Rachmaninoff songs recital | 3 June 2025 | Oper Frankfurt
- Norma | 27 June – 17 July 2025 | Teatro alla Scala (Milan)
- Aida | 24 & 28 August 2025 | Arena Opera Festival (Verona)
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