Natalie Dessay: No Shrinking Violetta

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NATALIE DESSAY ARRIVED for her interview with ClassicalTV looking casually beautiful, as if a stylist had been working for hours to produce a look called sun-kissed: hair streaked with dark blonde and pulled back in a single braid, skin glowing with a slight tan, big Prada sunglasses that she was quick to remove. She wore a perfect little black tank top and perhaps a black cardigan tied about the waist of her black slacks, but perhaps not. The reporter was besotted at the time.

In fact, she had wedged this appointment into a busy day and was hurrying between meetings and vocal practice when she stopped for lemonade and conversation. Still, she spoke expansively and with frankness that was more than a little disarming — for example, when asked why she had chosen to sing Violetta, and why now. “Why now? I’ll tell you: at a certain point, it becomes too late! You need a lot of strength and energy for this role. If you wait too long, you just can’t. After all, I’m 44.”

Coming after a triumphant string of bel canto heroines, her decision surprised even fans who have been following her closely for years. “Oh, I know, I know, everyone was saying ‘she can’t do it, her voice is too light, it’s not a coloratura role.’ I thought exactly the same at first, that I don’t have the right voice.” But studying the music changed her mind. “When I looked at the score I knew I could do it my way, not the way people are used to hearing it. You think ‘lyric dramatic soprano,’ you don’t think any more of a high soprano. But in the past many high sopranos did it and could interpret it and were very interesting Violettas.”

The old rule of thumb for casting Traviata was that you needed someone who could be a coloratura soprano in Act I, a lyric in Act II, and a dramatic in Acts III and IV. “But actually, that cliché is not true,” says Dessay. “The role does not actually grow heavier and heavier through the opera. For me, the most difficult act is the second — that is where the singing is most dramatic.”

Dessay-watchers felt that her Violetta might signal a general trend toward darker roles, but at least so far, this is not the case. “My voice is not darkening much,” she says. “People don’t realize that my repertoire is shrinking every year. When you have a voice like Renee Fleming or Anna Netrebko or Angela Gheorghiu, you have so many options! But with a voice like mine, you sing these lighter roles for a while, and then it becomes difficult to find anything else. I plan to do Puritani before it’s too late, and perhaps Giulio Cesare, but what other kinds of challenges are out there for me, really?”

Dessay’s remarkable Melisande in Vienna, and her staged concert of Michel Legrand songs in Toulouse — she enacted and sang the songs while sharing the stage with the audience and a 12-piece string band — form at least a partial answer.  But with her unique assets as a trained singer, actress and dancer, operagoers might have more to suggest. One reporter found himself imagining a Dessay Lulu as he listened to her looking forward to future work in acting, or perhaps in cabaret.

Of course, with Dessay’s voice and body still athletic and resilient, talking about her operatic endgame takes on a touch of the absurd — especially while she looks so much younger than 44. Why be quite so forthcoming about her age? She counters with a question: “Why should I hide it? I am very proud of my age. I had surgeries on my vocal cords, I have been through a lot, but look! I am a survivor, and I’m in great shape.”

Another irrepressibly youthful overachiever, the American actress and writer Ruth Gordon, used to joke about looking younger than her age when she was well into her 80s. “I should tell them I’m 96,” she once said. “Then they’d really be impressed.” The quip sat well with Dessay: “Really! I like that, it’s perfect. You know what I would like? In France, the whole idea is to retire as soon as possible, at 55 or 60. But I would like to retire at 95 if possible. If I could work until 95 I would be the happiest woman in the world.”