I had a lovely time in Dresden speaking with Nicole Hacke of Operaversum.de! We covered a lot of topic about vocal health, crazy happenings on stage and what I think about AI. Read the interview here!
Operaversum: Dear Lisette, two new role debuts are coming up on your schedule. One of them is Mathilde in Guiliam Tell and the other one is Amina in "La Sonnambula".
How did you choose these two roles? Where they apparently chosen for you or are they a step further into your career?
Lisette Oropesa: Yes, they are a bit of a step further into my career. As for "La Sonnambula", I have been wanting to sing Amina for many, many years, but never really had a chance to.
It has just never come my way, no matter how much I have auditioned with the final aria „Ah! non credea mirarti“ or the first aria from La Sonnambula.
But I remember that during the pandemic I had one opportunity to sing it and it felt like there was this moment where I was so close to be doing it. But then for various reasons it eventually did not work out for me in the end.
So finally I will now be performing Amina in Rome, which is a big deal, because it is a debut of a belcanto role in Italy, which for me means a lot of pressure as Italians are very specific about their taste with belcanto.
But I feel that in Rome I have a great rapport with the public, plus this is a role I wanted to sing for a long time. And it will be my third Bellini part. So I feel comfortable debuting it this way.
Talking about Mathilde, I had already recorded the aria of Guilliam Tell, as you know, and I listened very much to the opera, which is so amazing.
So my first performance will be in Vienna, followed by other theatres, where I will be singing Mathilde again because this role is so amazing and the opera such a masterpiece.
So having a lot of repertoire can be both good and bad. Actually there is always more repertoire I want to sing.
At the moment I am also reworking "Giulio Cesare" in parallel to "I Puritani", as I will be going to Paris at the end of the month to start "Giulio Cesare" rehearsals, which I will be very much looking forward to as well.
