Soprano Madeleine Pierard Photo: Supplied by NZSO
Prominent New Zealand soprano Madeleine Pierard feels like her voice is a bit of a Madonna at the moment, it's been through so many transformations.
"But that's the nature of things if you want to do a great variety of projects," she says.
Madeleine would know. She's just arrived in Christchurch, where she will be the female lead in a concert performance of Purcell's great opera, Dido and Aeneas with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. Then she's off around the country with the NZSO singing the role of the Finnish goddess of nature, Luonnotar, in a tone poem by Sibelius before hitting the ground running in Wellington, playing the doomed Marie in Berg's Wozzeck in November.
Go back a few weeks and Madeleine was on stage at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London, singing Richard Strauss's 'Four Last Songs' for the English National Ballet, in a new production choreographed by David Dawson.
Luckily she wasn't in the orchestra pit, but sang on stage among the dancers.
Photo: English National Ballet
"I was wearing all black but you could see my arms, and I was vaguely interacting with them and they were interacting with me as well. It was quite lovely".
However, Madeleine had to sing the songs at David Dawson's tempi, and the tempi he chose was set by the great singer Jessye Norman: beautiful but slow, which requires a singer who's at the top of their game.
That would be hard enough in a one-off concert, but Madeleine had to sing the Four Last Songs eleven times in eight days.
She credits New Zealand pianist and vocal coach, David Harper, and US singer Nikki Li Hartliep, both now at The Aotearoa New Zealand Opera Studio (TANZOS) based at Waikato University, with arming her with the technique and confidence to take on such a massive challenge.
Madeleine regards Li Hartliep as her best singing teacher yet.
"It's extraordinary what the psychology of singing, and someone giving you permission to trust yourself, does. Since I've been working with her, and David as well, things have really come along. It's a different voice again".
She even found the time and energy to audition for The Royal Opera at Covent Garden, which went "really well".
Madeleine can't tell us what's come out of that audition yet, but keep watching that space, and all the other spaces the soprano is inhabiting these days.
