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Joyce DiDonato in La Donna del Lago at the Metropolitan Opera
(Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)
As Joyce DiDonato walks down the hallway from the stage to her dressing room at the Metropolitan Opera in a wig of long, flowing curls,a full skirt and puff-sleeved blouse, she looks perfectly suited to the 16th century Scottish tale she's portraying onstage.
Within minutes, she is tearing off her false eyelashes, and wiping her face clean of all traces of makeup, her real hair short and rock-star voluminous.
DiDonato, a preternatural talent with the glamour of a Met regular who sang the National Anthem at the World Series, lives up instantly to the down-to-earth diva reputation that has been long been central to her persona.
There seems to be no pretense on or offstage, and her openness and emotional generosity are always apparent when she sings.
Her relatability should come in handy as she takes on diverse works that are likely new to listeners in New York and New Jersey this month.
At the Met, she sings the leading role of Elena in the rarely performed "La Donna del Lago" ("The Lady of the Lake") by Rossini, whose florid music has been a touchstone in DiDonato's career. She has the rare ability to bring heartfelt dramatic intensity to the most difficult, firework-studded vocal lines written, many for the composer's wife, the mezzo-soprano Isabella Colbran.
"She was a powerhouse and fiery, fiery singer," says DiDonato. "One of the reasons I love singing Rossini is that none of his heroines are wilting flowers."
The challenge of the music, and the freedom to amplify the expression of a score in ways that feel organic to DiDonato through ornamentation - the classical equivalent of a vocal riff - also appeals to her. Although "La Donna del Lago" has an outlandish plot, she says, it's a vehicle "to show real emotional journeys through spectacular vocalism."
"You use the beauty of the vocal line to illuminate what's happening in the inner life of these characters," she adds. "That's the world of bel canto."
"Lago," which DiDonato describes as dealing with a woman who lives in a war-torn world and stands up to the lovelorn men surrounding her to demand honor and peace, marks a graduation for the mezzo-soprano from Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" and the title role in "La Cenerentola" to "the big girls" of heavier, more serious repertoire.
DiDonato praises the work as showing an innovative, daring side of Rossini, with through-composed music replacing set pieces and an offstage "banda," or marching band, and the limits of traditions being stretched in a manner that paves the way for later operas by Verdi.
It's also a chance to hear some of the reigning singers in the genre, including Lawrence Brownlee, John Osborne and Daniela Barcellona.
"It requires "four kickass Rossini singers," DiDonato says with a deep, slightly braying and unselfconscious laugh.
She leaves the gyrations of Rossini's vocal and story lines behind tomorrow, when she joins the Princeton University Concerts series.
"Oh my gosh," she says. "I'm so excited!"
DiDonato has fond memories of singing on the series before, and also looks back with a smile on grad student days spent visiting New Jersey.
When she was studying at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, she used to cross over to Cherry Hill to work as a singing waitress at Graziela's, an Italian restaurant.
"The ricotta cheesecake? I'll never forget it," she says. "Soooo good."
At the Richardson Auditorium, joined by the Brentano Quartet, DiDonato will sing a new song cycle by Jake Heggie called "Camille Claudel: Into the Fire," inspired by the sculptor, as well as works by Debussy, Strauss and Charpentier.
In Claudel's operatic life, she was both a renowned sculptor and lover of Rodin, and a woman who endured an unwanted abortion and spent the last 30 years of her life in a psychiatric hospital. The song cycle imagines her reflecting on her life and work on the night she was committed.
A few of the songs focus on a bust of Rodin, a waltz sculpture Debussy kept on his mantel, and a lullaby she imagined singing to her child.
"The first time I performed it in San Francisco, I was shaking at the end," DiDonato says.
"It's very powerful, in that you feel like you're not only giving voice to a human being who was discarded from society...it feels bigger when it's such a talent that was just cut off in their prime."
There's an activist, earnest streak as DiDonato talks about her work, whether it's showing listeners a new side of a composer they think they know, bringing out rarities for albums such as her recently Grammy-nominated "Stella di Napoli," or giving voice to real-life characters like Claudel.
More explicitly, recently, she made a statement by singing Purcell's "Dido's Lament" outside of the Stonewall Inn for an NPR Music "Field Recording" video as a tribute to victims of intolerance and injustice.
"My personality is such that I have a very hard time staying silent when I see something that I see is damaging to people that I love," she says.
DiDonato has a missionary zeal in spreading music not just as a singer, but also as an educator. As part of her ongoing Perspectives Series at Carnegie Hall, which showcases various facets of her singing over the course of several events, she will conduct master classes with young singers.
DiDonato's singing often sounds effortless, like something she does not even have to think about when she throws herself into enacting a text. But that wasn't always the case.
As a college student, she says, her voice broke every time she moved past her passagio, the place where the voice shifts registers, to try to access her top notes.
"I had a natural musicianship and a natural voice in a way," she says. "I just didn't know what to do with it."
In the bel canto specialty, "there's nowhere to hide, and if you can't sing an even scale, and sing legato, you have no hope to survive. The music is so demanding I had to build a technique that would serve it."
The process, she says, went slowly. "And painfully actually, a lot of the time."
DiDonato is now more than well-equipped to give technical guidance. But that's not her main goal.
"I want them to know how powerful that music is...if they're generous, how many lives they can touch and how it can open up endless avenues for people," she says.
"If you have this moment in the spotlight, what do you want to say?"
La Donna del Lago
Where: Metropolitan Opera, Broadway and 66th St., New York
When: Feb. 20, 25, March 3, 10 at 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 28, March 14 at 1 p.m.; March 7 at 8 p.m.
How much: $30-$495, call (212) 362-6000 or visit metopera.org
Brentano String Quartet & Joyce DiDonato
Where: Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University, 61 Nassau St.
When: Tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.
How much: $20-$45, $10 students, call (609) 258-9220 or visit princetonuniveresityconcerts.org