Blue heaven

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This article was published 14/04/2018 (3034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

She sings like an angel, with her soaring soprano voice hailed for its agile upper register, “smoky” middle register and lustrous timbre seemingly a gift from heaven above.

And Winnipeg audiences will be the first in the country to hear American rising superstar Angel Blue when she makes her Canadian debut Saturday night. The internationally renowned artist performs the lead role of Violetta in the Manitoba Opera’s season-closing production of Verdi’s La Traviata, directed by Montreal’s Alain Gauthier.

“I adore Canada and I’m so thankful to be here,” Blue, who has performed in 35 countries during the last six years, says backstage at the Centennial Concert Hall of her Manitoba Opera première. “I’m really grateful to be here in Winnipeg and I’m having a wonderful time and hope to be invited back. And I adore Violetta. She’s a great person.”

It’s a coup getting the visually striking artist — who commands the stage at 5-11 — here. Blue, who made her Metropolitan Opera as Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème last September has also garnered rave reviews for her deeply expressive artistry on such notable world stages as Milan’s La Scala, English National Opera, San Francisco Opera and Frankfurt Opera, among others. She counts fabled Spanish tenor Placido Domingo as a revered mentor. In the next year, she headlines the Canadian Opera Company’s 2018-19 season and makes her Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut in January 2019.

“Angel is truly an exceptional artist,” says Gauthier, who is directing the singer for his first time as well as making his own Manitoba Opera debut. “She’s a very instinctive actress and actually asked if she could cry onstage during Act II. To have a performer ask permission to act as deeply as she would like is rare gift for a director.

“As a person, Angel has this innocent feel and is even a bit shy in life, so it gives this kind of fragility to her character, which becomes absolutely heartbreaking by the end.”

La Traviata was last staged by Manitoba Opera in 2008. It is arguably the most beloved opera in the repertoire, penned in 1853 by the 19th-century Italian composer based on Francesco Maria Piave’s libretto, in turn adapted from Alexandre Dumas’s play La Dame aux Camélias.

It tells the story of courtesan Violetta, who is dying of tuberculosis, and sacrifices her love for Alfredo (performed by tenor Adam Luther) after his father, Giorgio Germont (baritone James Westman) convinces her to leave him for propriety’s sake. La Traviata’s famous arias and choruses — some major operatic ear-worms — include Sempre Libera and its Brindisi, also known as the The Drinking Song, teem with ebullient high spirits that leave listeners humming for days.

This staging eschews the opera’s traditional mid-19th century setting, transporting the narrative to 1920s bohemian Paris, with Violetta’s character inspired by American cabaret performer Josephine Baker, who become wildly popular in the French capital for her risqué stage performances during the Roaring ‘20s. Yet Blue, who made her debut as Violetta in January 2017 with the Seattle Opera, vows she has stamped the character as her own.

“I didn’t want to become a caricature of Josephine Baker, but instead just portray who Violetta is to me,” she says. “I think she’s really a good-hearted person, and is truly authentic in every sense of the word.” With the show’s title literally translated as “The Fallen Woman,” the artist also disputes the oft-held belief that Violetta is an ill-fated victim of tragic circumstances, more to be pitied than admired.

“She’s a very strong woman, very cultured, and able to speak multiple languages. She is also very selfless, which makes her a great person alone. I think of her as truly being one of my best friends,” she says.

Blue was born in Los Angeles into a close-knit family. Her father Sylvester was a church pastor, and her mother Sylvia was a high school teacher, and has three sisters and a brother. She first realized her dream to sing after being swept away at the tender age of four by a concert performance of Puccini’s Turandot.

She told her father — a fine gospel singer — that she wanted “to be like that woman in the light.” His immediate response that she could do anything her heart desired, including becoming that “woman in the light,” has fuelled her passion ever since, saying of her opera and concert career, “I sing for my dad.”

She also credits him for leading her to Domingo, who once was a 22-year-old singer aspiring for a spot with the Young Artists Program at Los Angeles Opera. The elder Blue, who helped his daughter with her vocal technique and repertoire selection, fatefully predicted that Domingo would fall head over heels in love with his daughter’s voice and her positive personality.

Two months after Sylvester’s death in December 2006, Domingo now an opera superstar, summoned Blue to sing for him in L.A. After listening to her five carefully prepared arias, the tenor spookily told her verbatim the words her father had spoken only weeks earlier, about loving her voice and personality. It sent chills down her spine and further instilled in her the sense that her father’s watchful spirit is always close at hand.

“It felt like my dad was passing him the torch to guide me further on this journey,” says Blue, who has performed with Domingo numerous times, adding nonchalantly that she had just spoken with him by phone two weeks ago during the La Traviata rehearsals. Domingo also encouraged Blue to move to Valencia, Spain, to further build her career. She says living in Europe not only honed her opera chops and helped her pick up four languages, but broadened her horizons to even greater worlds of possibility.

Blue also nurtured a career as a model and beauty queen, holding the title of Miss Hollywood 2005, as well as being the only African-American to be named Miss Apple Valley California. Her signature song for the pageants’ talent competitons was Violetta’s Sempre Libera. She still speaks of her former pageant colleagues, now lifetime friends as a respectful “sisterhood,” while crediting her competition years from age age 18 to 26 for instilling in her poise and confidence she now exhibits on the opera stage.

“I only have the fondest memories,” she says. “We were a bunch of girls that all had goals and aspirations, and I learned a lot. I never compared myself to the other competitors, as I now never compare myself to other singers. I learned very early on that this is my own journey.”

She understands people believe she is a role model for young African-American singers, but she says she can provide inspiration for all.

“I just want to be a trailblazer for people, period,” she says. “I do feel like the baton is in my hand — I don’t know from whom — but all I know is I’ve been very blessed. I’m just running my race to get to my goal, and hopefully when it’s time to pass that baton to the next person they will have learned from my journey.”

holly.harris@shaw.ca