Nadine Sierra will sing at the Colón: “I am honored to come here”

“When you love something so much and have a lot of passion for what you do, even if it’s quite exhausting – like now, when I was on a plane for I don’t know for how many hours – it doesn’t matter, because the end goal is worth it. The love for what I do pushes me and at the same time motivates me to find a balance in everything “, says the American soprano. Nadine Sierra (Florida, 1988), the youngest winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions and the Marilyn Horne Vocal Competition.

Today she has become one of the most sought after singers in the great opera colosseums. The report of her activity in the last few weeks, before her arrival in Buenos Aires where she will make her debut on the stage of the Colon Theaterit would exhaust any mortal: from Milan to Paris, then Florida and finally Buenos Aires, through hot summers and mild winters.

But she arrived, with a few hours of rest, splendid at the interview with Clariny of the most cheerful and predisposed.

-In a few days you will debut in a theater where many lyric legends have passed. What are your expectations?

– I just wanted to get there. I feel so honored to come here and be in this theater with my pianist Kamal Khan. He is my friend, my teacher, my coach. We have known each other for a long time. A while ago I was singing for a while and I heard the famous acoustic that everyone is talking about. It’s like being in a dream. He suddenly he came true. It doesn’t happen very often that you have this kind of experience. It was definitely magical. I don’t want to sound religious, but it was kind of a spiritual experience. I felt very lucky, with a talent I received to share.

– Speaking of your debut, what do you remember about yours at the MET? He was very young, he was 27 years old.

Those years were very special. At the MET I sang Gilda, da Rigoletto, and immediately afterwards I went to sing it at the Scala in Milan. I thought I was really living my childhood dream, because I fell in love with opera when I was very young. I was finally living this dream and singing a role that is very special to me, I feel so comfortable singing it. I made one Guild after another, I don’t even know how to describe it. She came from another planet.

-It was the big leap in his career.

-Yup. And I felt a leap in my life too, as a woman, I felt like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. Being born into a new professional life. Obviously there was a lot of training and work behind all of this, but I felt ready for that jump because I was so prepared.

– It was very successful. However, her repertoire is vast despite traveling and singing all the time. How did you manage to manage so many commitments and at the same time learn new jobs?

-It’s a mix of things. Of course, I always try to keep in touch with Kamal whenever I can. In the past it was a bit more difficult, but it was only after COVID that it became more normal to use Zoom, WhatsApp or FaceTime. Kamal and I worked together personally, but now we can do it virtually. He sometimes he travels with me and stays, because it’s better to have the person with you and experience the whole thing together. It was there when I sang Lucia in Zurich. It was also a relief.

– Did your career stop with COVID?

I stopped, but not for long. I was very lucky. I’ve been maybe five months without singing live, which isn’t too long.

-Have you sung in theaters without an audience?

-Yup.

-A radical experience.

Yes, it was very strange. But somehow I am grateful. And I think COVID has helped some theaters incorporate other digital technologies, other ways to reach audiences. The two sides of the coin.

– Regarding the program you will present, how did you put it together?

Virtually every job on the program was given to me by Kamal, some when I was 13 or 14.

-It must be a great experience to get in touch now with a repertoire you started singing when you were a teenager, right?

-Absolutely. It is as if we are showing our story together through a program. Everything he taught me, but also how I was able to use those tools in the rest of the world and add what I learned from the different experiences I have had for myself. It is our story of friendship, even that of a student-teacher, and that of my professional growth.

-What does “Somewhere”, the Leonard Bernstein song, which you included on your first album and is on the show you will sing here, mean to you?

-That album was created when in the United States we were dealing with “the orange man” (by Donald Trump, laughter). And we don’t want to face it again. My family, especially my mother, immigrated to the United States from Portugal when I was very young, I was 18. And my father’s family, both grandparents, emigrated from Puerto Rico and Naples. So my whole family comes from different parts of the planet. They have influenced and supported me so much that they have a lot to do with who I am today. Not only the singer, but also the person I have become.

-And how did you experience the days when Donald Trump became the center of attention with his high-sounding statements?

-It was so disappointing for so many people, especially me. And I thought, how are we going to deal with this divide between people and also the love people have for each other in 2015-16? It was so sad. So with that in mind, I created a program to say, “No matter where you come from, what your financial situation, or the color of your skin, or whatever, there will always be a place for everyone.” Nobody should be excluded from many things, especially listening to music and experiencing it. And at that moment I thought that the best way to do it was through an album, as a place to take refuge.

-In general, behind every great singer there was someone who sang to him in a special way during his childhood. Who sang to you when you were little?

-Yes, it’s true, my grandmother, on her mother’s side, sang lullabies and folk songs to me, all in Portuguese. She grew up in Lisbon, she had a beautiful voice, but they didn’t allow her to be an opera singer because my great-grandfather told her that women had to get married, be mothers, and that’s it. And so she lived her life of hers and my mother was her only child.

Has your grandmother ever seen you sing professionally?

-My grandmother came to see my beginnings, what I was creating. And she saw how the world had changed especially for women. She saw it in me. I think it was shocking for her.

-There must be an opera that is special to you, that you have a deep love for and that you like to sing more than anything else. Could you share which one it is?

-First, La Bohemefrom puccini. Not only the aria of Mimi, but also Rodolfo (sings Oh sweet girl). She is always in my head. I always remember that music because it was the work I fell in love with when I was ten. It was the first time I understood – I was already taking singing lessons – that I liked the music I sang, but it didn’t have as strong a bond as with the opera. The opera really changed my life. Until La Boheme I didn’t understand that music could be so deep, that it could touch someone so deeply. Ever since I first saw it at home on VHS, I haven’t stopped watching it over and over and over. And now I feel it in my head every day.

-The show was a real turning point in his life.

-Yup. Singing Mimí is like the ultimate goal for me, because of my childhood and what that opera gave me: the opportunity to walk this path and open up other worlds. Also, I had some circumstances in my childhood with my parents, we are very close now, but when there were problems this music specifically helped me to survive a lot of things. And it still does.

-What are the advantages and disadvantages of the recital format?

-Oh! Disadvantages! … I don’t know. Perhaps it could be perceived as a disadvantage that you have nothing to hide in. But I like it! In fact, I prefer it because I don’t think making music is selfish. It’s something we share and grow if we really want to enrich the audience. And recitals allow it. It allows a lot of freedoms. Having that moment with other humans in a room is unforgettable.

-And it also creates by itself all the intimate atmosphere that is created in the theater.

-Yup! As if it were my living room. I love.

-And what’s your life like after this recital?

I am very excited about what will happen. My first Violetta at the MET. It’s something I was looking forward to, I loved singing Violetta in Italy and I think this will be another kind of magical experience. And I think they will broadcast it in HD around the world in November. Then, in December, I will do my first Sonámbula in Madrid.

-And perhaps in the near future to return to the Teatro Colón with an opera.

-Yup! I would like. I want to come back as many times as possible.

The program

Series of the great international performers. Nadine Sierrasoprano. Kamal Khan, piano The repertoire includes Italian classics such as Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi; moments of zarzuela, pieces by Villa-Lobos and Bernstein, among others. Teatro Colón, Saturday 23 July, at 8pm.

POS