O.C. MUSIC : Soviero Old Hand With ‘La Traviata’

COSTA MESA â€”  The wildest production of Verdi’s “La Traviataâ€� soprano Diana Soviero recalls starring in was staged by Italian director Luca Ronconi for the Theatre Chatelet in Paris in 1984.

“In the First Act, when the curtain opens, the bed is the set: Wall-to-wall bed,� Soviero said in a recent interview. “I greet everybody in bed--leg out, garter on.�

Costa Mesa will not see Soviero’s gartered leg--or anything else so avant-garde--when the Metropolitan Opera soprano launches Opera Pacific’s fourth season as Violetta in “La Traviata� on Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. (Soviero will alternate with Stephanie Friede in the role, through Jan. 21.)

“This is one of the most traditional ‘Traviatas,’ � Soviero said, speaking of the Opera Pacific version. “We are not doing anything out of the ordinary. . . . As far as now, we are doing the (usually cut) cabalettas of both the father Germont and the younger Alfredo. We don’t know what will happen when we get into production week. That’s the only thing I think would be different.�

Soviero has been singing Violetta, as well as Mimi, Manon, Cio-Cio-San, Nedda and Marguerite for companies such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the New York City Opera, the Rome, San Francisco and San Diego operas, among others.

She is generally considered a hot property.

Local audiences might have heard her most recently in the title role of Puccini’s “Suor Angelica� during a Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast.

Soviero’s career has received extra attention because often she has filled in for other singers at the last minute.

“In this business, (success) is a lot chance--more than anything I would say--because my career has been built on just that: being at the right place at the right time,� Soviero said.

Her Met debut in 1986 took place a week earlier than scheduled because Cecilia Gasdia left after the opening of Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette.�

Soviero was scheduled to sing Mimi in “La Boheme� at the Center in 1987 for Opera Pacific but was released from her contract to make her debut at La Scala in Milan. “Somebody canceled,� she said.

And it happened this season at the Met and again in San Francisco.

Soviero took over “Suor Angelica� from Teresa Stratas, who fell ill after the opening night. When Soviero then flew to Dallas to sing Nedda in “Pagliacci,� she received a call from San Francisco Opera, which needed a replacement for its Cio-Cio-San in a current production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.�

Soviero credits her early training with Marinka Gurewich in New York for giving her the foundation to endure such demands.

“I spent two years singing vocalises for her,� she said. “I don’t think anybody today can say that. Two years! You could join the Olympics after that. Half notes, thirds, fourths, then trilling on two notes only, then three notes, then a fourth. . . . Nobody learns these things (today). They want to quick learn and go make money singing.�

How did she have the patience to wait?

“I got beat up by my voice teacher, never mind (my own) impatience,� she said. “She gave me things to do. Learn the piano, learn how to move your body around, to separate your body movement from your voice. Learn how to do these things because when you sing, you can’t sit still all the time. She never babied me.

“She was Hungarian. She didn’t fool around for nothing. . . . She was like, Gestapo.�

Still, such last-minute substituting takes its toll.

“It’s very taxing vocally, emotionally,� Soviero said. “You’re working on your excess energy, which is bad to do. But in times like that, what do you do? . . . In a way, it was a challenge and I love challenges.�

All this jet-set singing is a far cry from Jersey City, N.J., where Soviero was born in 1946. She maintains a family house in Inglewood, N.J., and calls it home, although she and husband Bernard Uzan (director for “Traviata�) have apartments in Paris and Montreal.

“I’m a New Jersey girl, oh yeah,� she says, the Jersey accent coming through. She remembers listening to Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts as a Saturday “ritual� with her family and boasts of a great-grandfather “on my father’s side� who was the first violist for “Cavalleria Rusticana� composer Pietro Mascagni.

Although she became a leading soprano with the New York City Opera in 1973, Soviero cites Europe as has having been “kinder� to her career. She disputes those who claim that American singers can now make careers without going to Europe first.

“Look, I made my international career in Europe--La Scala, Rome, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg. You name it, I’ve been there,� she said. “It’s like the greatest opera star in the world can live in Des Moines, Iowa. But if there’s an opera company in Des Moines, they won’t hire him because (to them) you’re a local yokel. It’s sick. So sad.�

The Opera Pacific engagement is giving her a chance to work with her husband, who also is general director and artistic director of L’Opera de Montreal in Canada.

Working with Uzan is “a rarity,� she said. “Sometimes it interferes, which isn’t good, because he knows me so well. . . . He’ll get angry with me, whereas I don’t know if he’d do that with someone else.�

While critical response to her voice has sometimes varied, praise of her acting abilities has been virtually universal.

“To be a good actress,� Soviero said, “you cannot think about your singing. That has to be second nature to you. To give a performance, you can’t worry, ‘Oh my God, here comes a B-flat. Oh my God, I’m going to sing a high note. . . . ‘ How can you create a character like that? You can’t.

“You have to be able to separate yourself emotionally, you have to be able to create a character aside from your singing.�

Not surprisingly, Soviero said the coloratura demands are not the hardest part of singing Violetta.

“No, the hardest part is to intelligently keep the continuity till the end,� she said. “You have to forget you’re in the 1990s. I think that’s the secret. You really have to think what you’re doing, always.

“As far as interpreting the role, the personality of Violetta, I don’t think it has changed too much, although I must say, the past five years I have suffered a great deal more in my life and I think I can tell the story much better as an actress because of that fact--because I have suffered death: my father’s passing on. It hit me very traumatically and I was doing ‘Traviata’ at the time.

“The death wasn’t sudden. Emphysema. A very long, worn-out death. But at the end it was very traumatic because he could not breathe. And I was helpless. My mother was helpless. And that’s what Violetta was.�

Diana Soviero will sing Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata,� presented by Opera Pacific, Jan. 13 through 21 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Soviero will sing at 8 p.m. on Jan. 13, 18 and 20; Stephanie Friede will sing the role on Jan. 14 (matinee), 19 and 21 (matinee). Tonio Di Paolo and Rico Servo will alternate as Alfredo; Timothy Noble and Andreas Poulimenos, as the elder Germont. Mark Flint will conduct. Tickets: $20 to $69. Information: (714) 979-7000.