The soprano recently spoke with OperaWire regarding her upcoming projects, putting a spotlight on her desire to leave no stone unturned in her passionate immersion into every single character she portrays.
To this point in her career, the 36-year-old Latvian, who has made waves around the world for her passionate and detailed interpretations has employed a rigorous preparation process to each of the 26 roles she has interpreted so far. And it is this way of working that has allowed her to make a whopping nine role debuts over the last two seasons.
“First I take a story and look at the score. I read my lines and read everyone else’s words,” she explained. “Often you have a vision of what you are from the other words.”
Then she sits down with several recordings to get the opera in her ears. But then, she takes a step in a decidedly different direction.
“Then I read everything I can find. Who was the historical world of the story? I watch movies, read stories, go to Wikipedia,” she revealed, noting that this intensive process consumes up almost all of her free time.
For the preparation of “Maria Stuarda,” she immersed herself in a website, Mary-Stuart.co.uk, that has “all the information about her.” After reading everything she could about the character and every important person in her life, she turned to a BBC series narrated by several experts on the historical figure.
Only when she has completely absorbed all of this data on the character does she return to the score and really take a deep dive into the music.
Read the entire feature via Operawire