Anna Netrebko reveals her future plans

In Salzburg to sing Giovanna d'Arco in concert and promote her new Verdi album via the medium of cake, Anna Netrebko discussed her future plans with the Kleine Zeitung. 

After Salzburg, she's been booked to sing a concert version of Giovanna d'Arco "in many cities" but "cannot imagine" a staged version. More Verdi includes Il trovatore in a new Salzburg Festival production and Lady Macbeth at the Met. 

She'll sing Manon Lescaut for the first time with Riccardo Muti in Rome, and a little later Adriana Lecouvreur.

The Austrian soprano will also, finally, tackle singing in her adopted native tongue. It's been well-publicised that she's taking on Elsa in Lohengrin with Christian Thielemann in 2016. But her first step in Deutsch will be Strauss's Four Last Songs with Daniel Barenboim in Berlin next year.

So what's off the menu? Although she sang Elisabetta's last aria from Don Carlo on her Verdi recording, she believes the role  requires a large, dramatic voice. "At the moment I would not be able to sing this part on stage," she said. Netrebko isn't interested in Desdemona either - she says it's simply not for her.

And it's a goodbye to coloratura roles like Elvira in I Puritani. "That was a huge challenge for me, because I was never an easy coloratura soprano. Actually, I have absolutely no coloratura in my voice," she acknowledged.

Comments

[John]

But what about Norma?

Kudos for the frankness, though - I can't imagine any other performer admitting their weaknesses quite so honestly!

[SJT]

She needs to be careful, not about her repertory (her sort of dark, full-bodied lyric soprano can sing virtually anything she pleases in either direction, heavier or lighter) but her weight. As she gets wider year-on-year, she's starting less and less to resemble herself, if you see what I mean, requiring increasing amounts of photoshopping at the promotional level. No celebratory cake for you, I'm afraid.....
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Intermezzo replies - Come on, Anna may no longer be model-skinny, but she's far from overweight. Those chubby cheeks make her seem larger than she really is.

[Nik]

Um... It's interesting what happens when you start to type "anna net..." into Google.

The first suggested combination is "anna netrebko weight", and the third one is "anna netrebko fat". Looks like SJT has performed enough searches to skew the statistics.

Incidentally, no.2 is "anna netrebko rolando villazon". Erwin doesn't make the top ten.

[Sheila]

Don't you see how happy she looks? She obviously has a healthier attitude toward her weight than is prevalent in our culture these days. She's chunky around the middle, but if she cared, some gym time would eliminate that. Obviously, she does not care. So we shouldn't, either. It's not as if her extra 40 pounds is endangering her life. She's singing better than ever.

[John]

She posted photos of herself in her bikini not long ago. Looked pretty good to me! Are her and Erwin still an item? I thought they'd separated.

[Nik]

Lots of rumours over the last 3-4 months, mainly in the Austrian tabloid press, but officially they're still together. She's made a few cryptic statements to the effect that they don't each other much due to diverging travel schedules.

[yvette]

Thank you so much for these great posts and above all the complete Verdi. Anna Netrebko is a passionate artist who cares for her art of singing, and she is happy... a happy diva who smiles a lot to her audience and friends on stage ! This is something!

[Oroveso]

Netrebko is now in her early 40s and has had a child. She’s a middle-aged opera star (a very big one --- no weight pun intended) and not a Hollywood cinema star or runway model. She (still) looks damn good, age appropriate, perhaps a bit more zaftig, but whatever extra weight/widening has occurred has certainly not impacted her ability to sell out performances worldwide, sell lots of records, or more importantly, ban her from today’s all-important HD movie operatic presentations. In 2013 it’s all about opera stars (men and women) looking reasonably thin, pretty, dramatically credible and camera-ready. Netrebko still does and actually has a voice too. If and when she blossoms to Caballé proportions maybe there will be some negative effect in her bookings but I doubt it.

[JDabrowski]

I thought she sounded luscious in the snippets of Desdemona she's done over the years, so when she says that the role's not for her, what does that mean? That she doesn't find it dramatically interesting? I could see that, I guess.

I'm definitely looking forward to that Elsa...

[Siggy]

Personally I find Desdemona more dramatically interesting that Elsa or Marguerite but that's just me I guess.

Also a strange choice between Elizabeth and Lady M but again, she's in a better position to judge what is good for her voice.

[fragendefrau82]

Speaking of photoshopping, according to the Abendzeitung, the extreme photoshopping on the album cover was intentional.

AZ: You appear on the new album cover with heavily photoshopped images. There has already been wide criticism on the internet, because it looks so unnatural.

AN: That was the point. To look as artificial as possible. It was an experiment, that we've gotten a lot of positive reaction to, but naturally there are some who don't like it. I'm sorry if some didn't like it--obviously it can't be changed now. In any case the next cover will be different! (laughs)

[SJT]

I haven't searched for anything in connection with Netrebko at all, so if there's plenty of online comment all I can say is therefore I'm not the only one to have noticed, and in her case noticed with regret. Which is what she'll come to have if she continues to let things slide. I know whereof I speak as a former fatty who now weighs 5 stone less than I used to at my worst. This, believe me - insidiously gradually - is how it all starts.

[Yes Addison]

I believe it is within bounds for discussion. What she looked like was a big part of her marketing and the dialogue about her ten years ago. She had a great voice, but there are many great voices (and better technicians) who don't get to make a DG album with Claudio Abbado and get featured on 60 Minutes at a young age. She was svelte and glamorous and wore little dresses well, and this was said to add measurably to her portrayals of Violetta, Manon, Adina, whatever. Over the last four and a half years, that appearance has changed. At the time of the Met Lucias, I felt she looked lovely with a bit of post-pregnancy weight. But by the Met Anna Bolena, Manon and Elisir, it could be called neither "a bit" nor "post-pregnancy"; she was downright frumpy.

The musical performance matters the most, of course, and she still performs on stage with a confidence and self-possession that count for a lot. But much of what I read about her still seems as though it was written in 2006.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

She's still a sylph compared to, say, Caballé or Margaret Price in their prime, so I don't think she need worry too much about her weight. I know this is the DVD age, but I don't think a few extra pounds are going to worry managements unduly. Her bum may be bigger than it was five years ago, but she probably puts more bums on seats than she did then.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Well said, Oroveso and sorry for repeating your Caballé reference. Monsterfat as she was affectionately known, sang on stage into at least her late 50s, so I think Anna has a long way to go before she needs to worry about her bookings.

[SJT]

Comparisons with singers from a less visually exacting world are not strictly relevant. She's here, now, at her vocal prime: and my point is intended less to highlight where she's at now - itself already the object of much comment if others' reports are to be believed - as to warn against where she'll wind up in the NEXT four-and-a-half years if she's not careful.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Karita Mattila expressed a lack of interest in Desdemona, so I suppose the role is not for every soprano. I can well imagine there are a few like Netrebko, Mattila and Gheorghiu - who would have been perfect for the part - don't want to be pushed around by a bullying man, even on stage. All of favourite 'mona's are the ones who stand up Otello in Act III - Rysanek, Tebaldi, Scotto, M Price. All fabulous in their different ways. And in the theatre Varady was electrifying.

[SJT]

" And in the theatre Varady was electrifying."

Amen and then some. She took hold of a revival here with Vladimir Atlantov like some scout mistress, seizing it by the scruff of the neck and almost visibly dragging both it and him along with her, lifting the level of the whole thing to remarkable expressive heights.

I've seen lots of singers who could shine on their own account amidst relative dross: most can. But only she had the will, and the ability, to do what you would normally think of in performance as the conductor's job of galvanising the entire show and everybody in it, and not by nasty little competitive ploys - held long notes, bizarre behaviour - designed to provoke, but by sheer musical will-power and intelligence. In this respect, I think she's been unique in my lifetime: and I long to witness another such artist tread the boards.