My friend Erika Wueschner has been singing the title role in Bellini's NORMA with Delaware Valley Opera in their twentieth season of opera presentations. The opportunity to try out this demanding role, which has been known to defeat established divas, was one which Erika seized was anticipation since she loves the bel canto repertoire. Learning and coaching the role here and in Los Angeles was rewarding in its own right, she told me. When I asked her about specific passages - such as the fiendish trio which concludes Act I and reportedly once prompted Montserrat Caballe to call on Maria Callas for help - Erika said it came easily to her. She also took the option of throwing in a E-flat in alt in the Norma/Pollione duet, something Beverly Sills used to do. I asked her what, if anything, she found daunting about the role. She said: "The hardest thing about Norma is coping with it emotionally; it us draining both to learn and to perform. It takes me about a week to recover from a performance of it emotionally, whereas vocally I could get up the day after singing it and sing it again. It is absolutely haunting and stirs up so much within me."
We had lunch today at Bleu, a great little restaurant on 187th Street, and Erika told me how gratified she was by the audience response to her singing and by the comments she received backstage from people who were touched by her vocalism - one gentleman in fact was moved to tears. She received a very nice review in the RIVER REPORTER.
Erika & I have been friends for so long now and frequent lunch pals; it's going to be a big change when she moves to Los Angeles in November. She has established some valuable contacts on the West Coast while in the meantime continuing her work for the Piatagorsky Foundation with upcoming tours of Iowa and Arizona. Fortunately we have e-mail to keep in touch...though it's not the same as having lunch at Bleu.
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