Joyce di Donato – an exotic surname belongs to her first husband, and she herself is an Irish-American – not only an excellent lyrical melodrama, but also a bright, deeply witty personality with a strong drift and a positive aura. A perfectionist and consummate professional (she broke her leg during The Barber of Seville at Covent Garden a few years ago and, after a short pause for immediate assistance, continued the show from a wheelchair), she is at the peak of a brilliant career that, although mainly oriented to the opera, in recent years it has also included original, creative interactive projects that combine many types of art and touch on the pressing problems of our time.

An example is her arrival in Athens with the play “Eden” in the Concert Hall of Athens the day after tomorrow, Tuesday, May 30th. The result of her insatiable curiosity and social sensibility, the play premiered at London’s Barbican Hall in March 2022 and has since traveled to Brussels and 43 other locations, including Manaus, the Amazon jungle, the caves with beautiful marble quarries in Carrara in Tuscany, the Pyramids of Giza and the Vatican.

“Child”…COVID

“The idea for Eden was born during lockdown, a long period of forced inactivity, which I realized I needed and decided to be as creative as possible. In this, I was encouraged by the global success of our previous project, War and Peace, inspired by the 2015 Paris attacks. The theme of “Eden” is our relationship with nature, a hot topic of our time, to which we approach through a wide musical repertoire with my constant co-author maestro Emil Emelyanacheva and the famous ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, as well as with the French director Marie Lambert, stage designer Vita Chikun and award-winning composer Rachel Portman. The music of the latter is part of a vast array of works by Vivaldi, Handel, Gluck, Copland, Ives, Mahler and Wagner. I think this journey through the best music of so many centuries carries a very resonant message.”

He tells us: “Look, for centuries we have been singing the same songs, experiencing the same delight in the beauty of nature, and for centuries we have been systematically destroying it. The question is, what are we going to do now, at this time in this century? Shall we unite, protect or destroy? The project also contains an educational part, in which children in each country will participate, who will be invited to start thinking consciously about the world and nature and raise their voice on this issue. Because I believe that many of today’s problems – social unrest, discrimination, violence, terrible, pervasive anger, environmental destruction – stem from our disconnect with our true nature, our collective knowledge, our shared memory, our awareness that we are everyone is one not only with each other, but also with trees and with all living beings. The exaggerated age and the period of general decline in which we live have cut us off from our true nature. My motivation for projects like War and Peace and Eden is the need to connect and communicate with the world, to inspire and inspire it through music. Because I know well the power of music, the ideal medium that connects us through the heart, and not just through our mind. I know her! But the world has forgotten her. And I don’t want him to forget her.”

We have been singing the same songs for centuries, experiencing the same delight in the beauty of nature, and for centuries we have been systematically destroying it. The question is, what are we going to do now, at this time in this century?

All this is good, as our people say, but Joyce di Donato is, first of all, a leading opera singer, with a repertoire of more than forty parts of Bellini, Donizetti, Mozart, Massenet, Berlioz, Janacek, but especially Rossini and Handel. And we miss him when he is away from the lyrical stages for a long time. So she herself did not miss the opera all this time while touring with “Eden”?

“Believe me, I didn’t even think about it. Shortly before the start of this tour, I had a string of triumphs in titanic roles, such as Agrippina in the opera of the same name, Irene in Handel’s Theodore and Sister Elena in Dead Men Walking (originally a film with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn), Jake’s Shock Opera Heggy is about a nun who, despite everyone’s objections, supports a dying hardened killer and I still feel so “full” inside that I don’t feel like I’m missing out. Yes, you are right that although Rossini dominated the first decades of my career, in the last years he was replaced by Handel. Although I have never liked to publicly admit that I have a favorite composer, you have finally made me admit that it is Handel. Why; After all, he taught me so much! The huge emotional range of the roles I sang – from extreme, festive joy and jubilation to despair and complete despair, and this is with such a “pure” orchestration that the performer is required to fill in the gaps and “dress” the role in a three-dimensional state. So I had to think about how to achieve it musically, emotionally and dramatically.

“In the parts of Berlioz and Massenet, everything – dynamic and expressive lines, as well as tempo – are spelled out, the latter with metronomic accuracy, in the score. You have no choice or room for doubt. The roles are ready, on the page. This is not the case in Handel. Here the performer must fill in these gaps in the lines and expand the role. And because the content is so inspired, this music offers a lot of freedom to the performers. And I really like it. Every time I return to one of these roles, I find that because the score doesn’t force you to interpret them, there’s always room to explore them again and again… That’s why, as an artist, Handel’s roles fill me up. and satisfy me more deeply than any other.”

Of course, to do this, the singer must first acquire complete technical mastery and absolute control over his vocal performance. Because Handel’s music is one of the most demanding ever written. Not only because of the very impressive fireworks that impress the audience, but also because of the simple, clean form that Joyce says you will find in Mozart too. “Like in Mozart roles, you have to participate with all your being, your spirit, your voice, your theatricality, but at the same time you have to wash your hands, distance yourself and allow the music to materialize, as if by itself. . And it’s hard to find the right balance between participation and distance… Being inside and outside at the same time.”

Like meditation

Surely this does not apply to the practices and approach to things that Zen philosophy teaches? “Yes, exactly. That’s why I said that I learned more from Handel than from all other composers. Because here you have to achieve this balance. Like in a good meditation, you are alert, but at the same time relaxed, you let go, don’t tense… And if you achieve the same in the performance, if you find that zen balance, then the audience responds immediately, with bated breath. , they also enter you. “This wonderful enclave, and together we reach another dimension, we are all becoming One… An experience quite different from singing Contra-C to Verdi’s aria.”