Feelings are the key
(photo: Marco Borggreve)
Those who have attended this season’s first «Matinée» concert may remember her:
Without any doubt, Vesselina Kasarova is one of the leading Mozart singers of our times. Back in 1999, the New York Times described her performance as «unforgettable and deeply affecting». Since then, nothing much has changed: The Bulgarian-born mezzo-soprano continues to enchant audiences and critics alike with her highly emphatic portrayals of baroque and bel canto roles, and is equally acclaimed for her Verdi and Wagner interpretations.
In her upcoming recital at the Philharmonie on 11 February , she will be singing German lieder by Schumann and Brahms as well as Russian romances by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. Versatility is important to the singer who gave her first recital in 1992 at Milan’s La Scala – with an all-Prokofiev programme! «I really like doing a lot of things. Being limited to a small number of composers or to a particular repertoire is not my cup of tea», she says.
Critics rave over her expressive voice, and the singer admits having a weakness for dramatic outbursts on stage – on the opera and concert stage, one is tempted to add. Just listen to Kasarova singing Brahms’s lied «Von ewiger Liebe».
And now compare it to her interpretation of Pauline’s gloomy aria «Podrugi milyye» in a 1992 Vienna State Opera production of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.
Who would have thought that Brahms, whose music is often described as being austere, and Tchaikovsky, who seems to have worn his heart on his sleeve, have so much in common?
Speaking of Tchaikovsky, the mezzo-soprano told us that the Russian composer acted as a kind of go-between for her and her now-husband: The latter allegedly attended 18 performances of Eugene Onegin before Kasarova finally accepted to have dinner with him. It comes as no surprise that her favourite selection on February 11 is Tchaikovsky’s «Cradle Song». We couldn’t not draw your attention to Rachmaninov’s rather virtuosic arrangement of this melancholic yet charming lullaby.
Apart from flawless technique, Vesselina Kasarova considers the singer’s own feelings as a major key to interpretation. This is what she tells her students and what she put down in a recently published book. It might also be the reason for her ongoing success on the worldwide stage.
— Karsten
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