Good morning, friends, and welcome to the Sunday edition of Opera Daily, the best opera community on the internet. To give you more of a taste of what’s to come, we are sharing an interview with Nicole Chevalier, an incredible dramatic coloratura soprano who is currently rehearsing for the title role in Jules Massenet’s
Oh my goodness, where to begin with the Nicole Chevalier experience in Opera Daily. Is it okay to tell an opera singer she rocks? How exciting to meet your friend, just as she is about to soar to the heights as Thaïs in the opera by Jules Massenet. I noticed that the only tickets left at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna are for Saturday, January 23rd. They'll probably be gone by the time I get there, so why bother?😄.Thirty years between Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming's performances, 13 years between Renée Fleming's and Nicole Chevalier's? This must be the Halley's Comet of operas!
Congratulations to you, Ms. Chevalier, on your amazing achievements to date, and best of luck in your new endeavor. Know that you inspired me to search for definitions (tempi, lirico-spinto, tessitura); more music from the opera ("C'est Thaïs" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxqL8QiKflU), "C'est toi mon père" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u80JDsK2wfA); and synopses of operas from your repertoire that are new to me ("Fidelio" and "Medea"). I was in awe of your beautiful voice, and your acting ability, as Elettra in the rehearsal video from "Idomeneo".👏👍
I'm thrilled to learn about rising international opera stars like you, and to become better acquainted with the work of established artists, e.g., Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson. Through exposure to YouTube and other music platforms, Michele has awakened me to a whole new generation of opera singers, who are actually alive - like you, Heather Johnson, Pretty Yende, Lawrence Brownlee, Roberto Alagna, and others! Opera's most famous composers, however, despite having been dead in some cases for centuries, just can't seem to let go of their audiences! 😉
Your training, mentors and career enable you to speak with authority about the significance of opera, what makes for a great opera, and the measure of a great opera singer. Even though I'm late for the opera train, I'm aboard now, with growing understanding and newfound appreciation. Somewhere on the other side of the rainbow, my mother is beaming with happiness. The opera seeds she planted in my heart as a child only needed a good gardener for them to bear fruit.
That said, these questions came to mind after reading your interview:
1. How do you know when you've performed well?
2. What makes you feel exasperated with conductors, other singers, fans?
3. When a singer (male or female) acts like a diva, is that a sign of greatness or boorishness?
4. Do you know any stories of backstabbing, jealousies and rivalries (think "Black Swan")?
5. Have you ever forgotten your lines, messed up the music, had stage fright? What did you do?
6. How do you unwind after a performance (you need only list the legal ways☺)?
Thank you for indulging me, and being a good sport! I don't much care for this expression, but since it resonates in the performing arts "Break a leg!" Good luck!
Ms. Chevalier, let me first acknowledge and thank you for taking the time to give us your answers with such heart, thoroughness and a real point of view. I read them several times before writing this reply. I also waited until I had seen the full opera "Thaïs" with Barbara Frittoli and Lado Atanel at Teatro Regio di Torino. I also listened to Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes and Nicolai Gedda. Now I understand what a fantastic role you've landed as the star of this extraordinarily complex opera. You must have some serious soprano chops even to audition for this role, let alone perform it. Congratulations, again!
There are so many fascinating threads to explore in Thaïs, the opera by French composer Jules Massenet. The idle thoughts of someone like me, who is neither an opera expert nor musically trained, may be of little importance to more knowledgeable listeners. Yet I hope someone will find value in my musings and first impressions, which are based on the video of Thaïs, recommended by Opera Daily (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYtASTqi_Y&feature=youtu.be), and the audio recording featuring Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes and Nicolai Gedda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zAHYpxRD4&t=3865s).
One can appreciate Thaïs for the beauty, expressive moods and grandeur of the music alone, or for its deceptively simple story line. Thaïs, a priestess of Venus and a Greek courtesan in the Ptolemaic court of 4th century Egypt, embraces Christianity before she dies, thereby assuring her salvation.
The first image of Thaïs onstage is not her physical appearance, but comes in the voice of Athanaël who sings of her beauty, her notoriety and her sinfulness. Athanaël was the leader of an ascetic community of Christian desert dwellers who practiced harsh disciplines of prayer, self-denial and mortification of their bodies, in order to deepen their faith. Offended by what he knows about Thaïs, Athanaël sets out for Alexandria on a mission to win her to God. He is given a cordial reception by Nicias, the lover and patron of Thaïs, unaware that he has met a rival. Soon Athanaël meets Thaïs herself, surrounded by her large retinue. She radiates beauty, elegance, wealth and power. At this first encounter, she disdains Athanaël's rough, austere appearance.
Massenet's music - heretofore somber and meditative as befits a man of God - took on a more festive tone when Thaïs and her paramour Nicias, leaders of their community of hedonists, hosted a festive celebration. Athanaël surely felt further mocked as he watched people who reveled in luxurious living, and the pleasures of the flesh engage in music, dancing and merriment.
I enjoyed the lively, upbeat music in this scene which marked a turning point for Thaïs and a kind of before-and-after moment. The music began to match the plaintive lament of the penitent Thaïs, as she sought to make amendment of life. The rest of the score seemed to alternate between melancholy and exalted until Thaïs ascended to heaven. The music then became positively ethereal, the perfect sign and symbol of her sainthood.
It was in 1890 that the French poet and writer Anatole France published Thaïs, the novel on which Massenet's opera is based. Massenet, his librettist Louis Gallet and France gave opera a masterpiece, in which the protagonists undergo a reversal of roles as each wrestles with a desire for the fruits of the spirit or the pleasures of the flesh.
Even the most irreligious person could not miss the themes, values and dogma which lie at the Catholic heart of Thaïs. I will challenge myself to identify scene(s) that portray: self-abnegation, sin, suffering, guilt, confession, repentance, conversion, redemption and salvation. Even in modern Christianity, many adherents still believe that carnal love (eros) and love of God (agape) are antithetical, and cannot peaceably coexist in the human heart and soul.
The historical Saint Thaïs was a Greek hetaera. As such, she would have been highly educated, an entertainer, a conversationalist and perhaps an artist, in addition to providing sexual service. The status of the hetaera was so elite that unlike the average woman in ancient Greece, Thaïs would have been permitted in the symposium, a ritualized drinking event often sponsored at private houses by aristocratic men for their peers. As the mistress of Ptolemy 1 Soter, the Pharaoh who founded the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty in 4th century Egypt, Thaïs was not nobody.
This is what made this unusual love story compelling. A man and a woman, diametrically opposed in every way imaginable, found in each other the fulfillment of an unmet need. I had expected my feminist hackles to be raised about patriarchal values in a religious morality play, or a timeworn narrative about a "fallen-woman-rescued-by-a-good-man". Instead, I found a story focused on relationships: between Nicias and Thaïs, between Nicias and Athanaël, between Thaïs and Athanaël between the two of them and their respective communities. These relationships were punctuated by the internal struggles of the principal characters with their feelings about each other, and their relationships (or lack thereof) with God.
Thaïs had sacrificed her comfortable life, her jewels and her worldly goods to live in Athanaël's community of desert hermits. She fell totally in love with God and, for her devotion, received her heavenly reward. Athanaël realized, only as Thaïs lay dying, that he had fallen in love with her and desired her in a most unholy way. This immense irony set the stage for their exquisite duet in the finale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyWYzWnS4f8).
One doesn't have to be a Catholic, or even a person of faith, to feel the pathos in the music and in the dilemmas faced by Thaïs and Athanaël. The music is, in a word, divine.
For context, on the early roots of Christianity as it spread in North Africa during the 4th century, I refer you to St. Augustine, who became one of the great doctors of the Catholic Church. Like Thaïs, he, too was also a 4th century convert to Christianity in Africa. He lived the life of a libertine until his mother, St. Monica, led him to Christianity. While I was familiar with these two African saints, the historical Thaïs came as a complete surprise.
For Egypt's Coptic Christians the hagiography of St. Thaïs may be intended to set an example for all of us beautiful, wicked women out here. So a word of caution to men and women alike from a wise priest I used to know: “Don’t be so heavenly bound that you're no earthly good!"
Left out of the argument by accident, so it stands alone:
Athanaël is portrayed as the catalyst for her conversion. Yet Thaïs clearly had agency in this opera. Through self-examination and the incredible aria "Ô mon miroir fidèle...Dis-moi que je suis belle" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whL7UkzsWhU), she reveals her inner turmoil. She expresses dissatisfaction with the emptiness of her life, an awareness of the fleeting nature of her beauty and a deep longing for a different future.😭
Oh my goodness, where to begin with the Nicole Chevalier experience in Opera Daily. Is it okay to tell an opera singer she rocks? How exciting to meet your friend, just as she is about to soar to the heights as Thaïs in the opera by Jules Massenet. I noticed that the only tickets left at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna are for Saturday, January 23rd. They'll probably be gone by the time I get there, so why bother?😄.Thirty years between Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming's performances, 13 years between Renée Fleming's and Nicole Chevalier's? This must be the Halley's Comet of operas!
Congratulations to you, Ms. Chevalier, on your amazing achievements to date, and best of luck in your new endeavor. Know that you inspired me to search for definitions (tempi, lirico-spinto, tessitura); more music from the opera ("C'est Thaïs" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxqL8QiKflU), "C'est toi mon père" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u80JDsK2wfA); and synopses of operas from your repertoire that are new to me ("Fidelio" and "Medea"). I was in awe of your beautiful voice, and your acting ability, as Elettra in the rehearsal video from "Idomeneo".👏👍
I'm thrilled to learn about rising international opera stars like you, and to become better acquainted with the work of established artists, e.g., Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson. Through exposure to YouTube and other music platforms, Michele has awakened me to a whole new generation of opera singers, who are actually alive - like you, Heather Johnson, Pretty Yende, Lawrence Brownlee, Roberto Alagna, and others! Opera's most famous composers, however, despite having been dead in some cases for centuries, just can't seem to let go of their audiences! 😉
Your training, mentors and career enable you to speak with authority about the significance of opera, what makes for a great opera, and the measure of a great opera singer. Even though I'm late for the opera train, I'm aboard now, with growing understanding and newfound appreciation. Somewhere on the other side of the rainbow, my mother is beaming with happiness. The opera seeds she planted in my heart as a child only needed a good gardener for them to bear fruit.
That said, these questions came to mind after reading your interview:
1. How do you know when you've performed well?
2. What makes you feel exasperated with conductors, other singers, fans?
3. When a singer (male or female) acts like a diva, is that a sign of greatness or boorishness?
4. Do you know any stories of backstabbing, jealousies and rivalries (think "Black Swan")?
5. Have you ever forgotten your lines, messed up the music, had stage fright? What did you do?
6. How do you unwind after a performance (you need only list the legal ways☺)?
Thank you for indulging me, and being a good sport! I don't much care for this expression, but since it resonates in the performing arts "Break a leg!" Good luck!
Ms. Chevalier, let me first acknowledge and thank you for taking the time to give us your answers with such heart, thoroughness and a real point of view. I read them several times before writing this reply. I also waited until I had seen the full opera "Thaïs" with Barbara Frittoli and Lado Atanel at Teatro Regio di Torino. I also listened to Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes and Nicolai Gedda. Now I understand what a fantastic role you've landed as the star of this extraordinarily complex opera. You must have some serious soprano chops even to audition for this role, let alone perform it. Congratulations, again!
Thank you so much. I so enjoyed conversing with you! This role is my Wagner so far! 🤪
and it’s even better to hear you were so inspired to watch the opera and listen to some of the businesses greats!! 🙏🏼🙌🏻wonderful!
There are so many fascinating threads to explore in Thaïs, the opera by French composer Jules Massenet. The idle thoughts of someone like me, who is neither an opera expert nor musically trained, may be of little importance to more knowledgeable listeners. Yet I hope someone will find value in my musings and first impressions, which are based on the video of Thaïs, recommended by Opera Daily (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYtASTqi_Y&feature=youtu.be), and the audio recording featuring Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes and Nicolai Gedda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zAHYpxRD4&t=3865s).
One can appreciate Thaïs for the beauty, expressive moods and grandeur of the music alone, or for its deceptively simple story line. Thaïs, a priestess of Venus and a Greek courtesan in the Ptolemaic court of 4th century Egypt, embraces Christianity before she dies, thereby assuring her salvation.
The first image of Thaïs onstage is not her physical appearance, but comes in the voice of Athanaël who sings of her beauty, her notoriety and her sinfulness. Athanaël was the leader of an ascetic community of Christian desert dwellers who practiced harsh disciplines of prayer, self-denial and mortification of their bodies, in order to deepen their faith. Offended by what he knows about Thaïs, Athanaël sets out for Alexandria on a mission to win her to God. He is given a cordial reception by Nicias, the lover and patron of Thaïs, unaware that he has met a rival. Soon Athanaël meets Thaïs herself, surrounded by her large retinue. She radiates beauty, elegance, wealth and power. At this first encounter, she disdains Athanaël's rough, austere appearance.
Massenet's music - heretofore somber and meditative as befits a man of God - took on a more festive tone when Thaïs and her paramour Nicias, leaders of their community of hedonists, hosted a festive celebration. Athanaël surely felt further mocked as he watched people who reveled in luxurious living, and the pleasures of the flesh engage in music, dancing and merriment.
I enjoyed the lively, upbeat music in this scene which marked a turning point for Thaïs and a kind of before-and-after moment. The music began to match the plaintive lament of the penitent Thaïs, as she sought to make amendment of life. The rest of the score seemed to alternate between melancholy and exalted until Thaïs ascended to heaven. The music then became positively ethereal, the perfect sign and symbol of her sainthood.
It was in 1890 that the French poet and writer Anatole France published Thaïs, the novel on which Massenet's opera is based. Massenet, his librettist Louis Gallet and France gave opera a masterpiece, in which the protagonists undergo a reversal of roles as each wrestles with a desire for the fruits of the spirit or the pleasures of the flesh.
Even the most irreligious person could not miss the themes, values and dogma which lie at the Catholic heart of Thaïs. I will challenge myself to identify scene(s) that portray: self-abnegation, sin, suffering, guilt, confession, repentance, conversion, redemption and salvation. Even in modern Christianity, many adherents still believe that carnal love (eros) and love of God (agape) are antithetical, and cannot peaceably coexist in the human heart and soul.
The historical Saint Thaïs was a Greek hetaera. As such, she would have been highly educated, an entertainer, a conversationalist and perhaps an artist, in addition to providing sexual service. The status of the hetaera was so elite that unlike the average woman in ancient Greece, Thaïs would have been permitted in the symposium, a ritualized drinking event often sponsored at private houses by aristocratic men for their peers. As the mistress of Ptolemy 1 Soter, the Pharaoh who founded the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty in 4th century Egypt, Thaïs was not nobody.
This is what made this unusual love story compelling. A man and a woman, diametrically opposed in every way imaginable, found in each other the fulfillment of an unmet need. I had expected my feminist hackles to be raised about patriarchal values in a religious morality play, or a timeworn narrative about a "fallen-woman-rescued-by-a-good-man". Instead, I found a story focused on relationships: between Nicias and Thaïs, between Nicias and Athanaël, between Thaïs and Athanaël between the two of them and their respective communities. These relationships were punctuated by the internal struggles of the principal characters with their feelings about each other, and their relationships (or lack thereof) with God.
Thaïs had sacrificed her comfortable life, her jewels and her worldly goods to live in Athanaël's community of desert hermits. She fell totally in love with God and, for her devotion, received her heavenly reward. Athanaël realized, only as Thaïs lay dying, that he had fallen in love with her and desired her in a most unholy way. This immense irony set the stage for their exquisite duet in the finale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyWYzWnS4f8).
One doesn't have to be a Catholic, or even a person of faith, to feel the pathos in the music and in the dilemmas faced by Thaïs and Athanaël. The music is, in a word, divine.
For context, on the early roots of Christianity as it spread in North Africa during the 4th century, I refer you to St. Augustine, who became one of the great doctors of the Catholic Church. Like Thaïs, he, too was also a 4th century convert to Christianity in Africa. He lived the life of a libertine until his mother, St. Monica, led him to Christianity. While I was familiar with these two African saints, the historical Thaïs came as a complete surprise.
For Egypt's Coptic Christians the hagiography of St. Thaïs may be intended to set an example for all of us beautiful, wicked women out here. So a word of caution to men and women alike from a wise priest I used to know: “Don’t be so heavenly bound that you're no earthly good!"
Post-Insurrection Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Massenet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tha%C3%AFs_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetaira
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_I_Soter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Monica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers#:~:text=The%20Desert%20Fathers%20(along%20with,around%20the%20third%20century%20AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mysticism_in_ancient_Africa#:~:text=In%20the%20mid%2D%20to%20late,intellectual%20components%20of%20Coptic%20Christianity
Left out of the argument by accident, so it stands alone:
Athanaël is portrayed as the catalyst for her conversion. Yet Thaïs clearly had agency in this opera. Through self-examination and the incredible aria "Ô mon miroir fidèle...Dis-moi que je suis belle" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whL7UkzsWhU), she reveals her inner turmoil. She expresses dissatisfaction with the emptiness of her life, an awareness of the fleeting nature of her beauty and a deep longing for a different future.😭
FYI, Nicole's Thaïs is going to be streamed on April 3rd!
https://operawire.com/nicole-chevalier-ausrine-stundyte-bo-skovhus-lead-broadcasts-from-theater-an-der-wien/