What are the worst seconds in a soprano life?
What does she think of a black monostatos?
Golda Schultz talks about all of this and much more in this interview.
The rehearsals for the "Freischütz" at the Bavarian State Opera are running.
But nobody knows in what form - with or without an audience - the premiere planned for February 7th will take place.
The main thing is to sing and work, says Golda Schultz to herself.
The 37-year-old soprano sings Agathe for the first time.
The next big task awaits at the Salzburg Easter Festival, when the native South African will be seen in a "Turandot" under Christian Thielemann as Liù.
It is often said that the "Freischütz" is the German national opera par excellence. Is that a cliché?
It's actually a kind of grandfather opera for what comes next.
A cornerstone.
It immediately strikes you: Ah, Wagner used that later!
Or Humperdinck.
And yet you can feel that the "Freischütz" was also written in the era of Italian bel canto.
What is so special and important here are topics such as the forest, nature, but also humanity, everything that connects us, how we influence each other, to whom or what we belong.
I don't know whether that's typically German.
Conductor Antonello Manacorda is Italian, director Dmitri Tcherniakov is Russian, they come from South Africa: Does that help you avoid false traditions?
In order for anything to survive, be it a single piece or the opera in general, fresh ideas and an outside perspective are required.
Not necessarily to make a difference.
It's about the relevance of the piece, always with respect for tradition.
We all bring new perspectives.
This applies to the “Freischütz”, but also to “Figaro” or “Wozzeck”.
This guarantees that these substances do not become clichés.
Agathe, Countess, Liù, Freia, Ann Trulove: It seems that you have escaped the German or Italian subject drawer. Because you come from a different culture?
I really think that's an advantage.
The other side of the coin is that when you sing such a diverse repertoire, you have to be very careful with your voice.
A certain subject can also protect you.
Still, I want to try out as much as possible.
The first question for me is always: do I care about the story?
What can I add to this story?
So not necessarily: How do I sing the part?
But let's be honest: you are a very spirited, emotional singer. Do Liù, Sophie or Micaëla suit you, these suffering women?
You shouldn't confuse legato, the beautiful line, with character.
Micaëla walks to Seville in "Carmen" to get her boyfriend back.
Later she follows him alone into the mountains.
There is a lot involved!
Sophie in “Rosenkavalier” makes a confident decision.
She has no desire for the man whom her father wants her to marry.
Liù in “Turandot” is not passive either.
She is ready to die for what she feels is right.
In addition, the game is perfectly written.
And, like Micaëla, she often gets the most applause even though she is not the main character. These are games that work almost automatically. That makes it pretty grateful, doesn't it?
Oh god no!
Because everyone in the hall is waiting for the well-known arias!
Hope, pain, passion, everything comes together in these arias.
And as a singer you have to give everything to show that in these few minutes.
You don't have a second chance.
You can feel the audience waiting.
The three seconds after the aria has ended are always the worst ever: do they clap or not?
Did i make it or do you hate me?
But you basically know whether it was good or bad. The question is how far do you admit it?
Yes, yes.
But I mean the almost unbearable tension after the last note and before the applause.
You just totally opened your soul - and now ...?
With Liù's “Signore, ascolta”, Puccini wanted the story and music to continue immediately after the aria.
But it is tradition that the soprano gets her applause.
So the question is: does the conductor take a break and make room for applause?
Once, I thought, I had given a lot.
The conductor was waiting and nobody applauded!
That was so embarrassing!
A colleague passed me later in the piece and whispered: “That was super nice.” I was reassured again.
This energy from the hall was gone for the past few months. Even if thousands followed the performances via the streams.
It is strange.
You give a lot of yourself but get nothing in return.
Usually there is a soul conversation between the audience and the performer.
Now our energy is going out - and no answer.
I miss the audience so much.
The performances in autumn did us all good, even if there were only 500 in the hall.
With “Figaro” in the State Opera, we felt that we are not alone.
That's what makes theater!
We sit around the fire, telling each other stories, and then someone says: I feel the same way, it happened to me too!
That's why we singers became very lonely ...
How is it as Sophie when you are on stage in the last minutes of the play and then little Mohammed, the “Mohr”, comes in?
Does it bother me that another black person is on stage?
Oh god, a black one!
(Laughs.) No, seriously: if a boy of color wants and can play that, it should be like that.
The question is always: is it really necessary for the action that Mohammed be black?
I think no.
Does it even have to be a boy?
No.
With the Otello it gets more difficult.
We know that Shakespeare clearly conceived him as black.
We know what's behind it - and how we can deal with it today.
It just has to be made clear that Otello is different, an outsider.
We are already so far that we know: it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with color.
I would like to sing Desdemona one day.
And I'm already wondering: what will the director do with Otello then?
In the Munich “Magic Flute” Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke was a white monostatos, the text was also changed.
Traditions always have to be questioned.
If I'm Pamina and Monostatos, who is in love with me, sings about himself “Because a black man is ugly”, then something is wrong and changes must be possible.
It would be psychologically interesting what a black Monostatos singer feels at this point.
Self-hatred because of the color, because you have to live in a different, white environment, that already exists.
So much remains to be done on this subject.
For example, we still have far too few black people in the administrations, among the composers, directors and, yes, also among the singers.
Ultimately, our perspective is still missing in the cultural scene.
Do you even have a chance to discuss it in the daily opera business or during rehearsals?
Well, sometimes we're not together for rehearsals that long.
But it's always like this: when I walk into a room, the subject of ancestry is present in some way.
Sometimes just as a short, unspoken thought, sometimes as an important conversation about Monostatos or Otello.
I'm there - and something is a little different.
That is exactly what makes the difference to a room full of whites.
The interview was conducted by Markus Thiel.