Detroit coup: Christine Goerke stars in MOT's 'Elektra'
"There's no screaming in opera, and there's no crying in baseball."
Christine Goerke was on a roll. One afternoon last week between rehearsals at the Detroit Opera House, the 45-year-old soprano was talking, in her typically animated and amusing way, about the challenges of singing the demanding title role of "Elektra," the Richard Strauss masterpiece that opens Michigan Opera Theatre's 44th season on Saturday.
Full of fire, frenzy and the crazed desire for murderous revenge, Elektra demands the cannon-like vocal power to rise above the ginormous orchestra that Strauss requires be stuffed into the pit. Yet that doesn't mean that beauty takes a holiday. In other words: no screaming.
"There's a big, lush orchestration, and there are parts that are very bombastic," said Goerke. "But people forget that this is the same man who wrote all of these beautiful art songs, and you have to sing with the same lyricism. This role is exhausting. It's like running a marathon. Every runner knows where they have to sprint and where they have to sit back and let someone else lead. But it's also one of the most fulfilling pieces that I've ever sung. Oh my gosh, it's so great. The orchestration is so fierce."
It's been a while since MOT had a meteoric star like Goerke in its midst. She is the dramatic soprano of the moment. From the Metropolitan Opera on down, everybody wants her for those impossible-to-cast Wagner and Strauss heroines that have impresarios, critics and aficionados praying for the Opera Gods to send them another singer who can cut it as Brünnhilde and Elektra.
What makes Goerke so compelling is her unusual marriage of vocal grace and guts. She initially made her mark in the operas of Handel and Mozart, revealing an agile flexibility and range of color that epitomized the Italian art of bel canto (beautiful singing). A little more than a decade ago her voice rather suddenly grew into its current weight and power. While the changes made for a rocky transition as Goerke revamped her technique to the demands of the evolving physiology of her instrument, she emerged from the chrysalis as a full-fledged dramatic soprano.
Yet Goerke never threw away the lessons learned from her early mastery of the bel canto style and its dazzling coloratura fireworks and modulated color.
"She has the power to bestride these big roles, but she also has the ability to bring it all in when the music calls for quiet and lyricism," said MOT founder and artistic director David DiChiera. "That's what makes her singing so expressive, and that's what Wagner and Strauss really wanted."
Powerful night of theater
Rooted in Greek mythology, "Elektra" (1909) tells the story of the enraged daughter of the murdered king Agamemnon, who was killed by her mother, Klytemnestra, and her mother's lover, Aegisth, the sworn enemy of her father. All of this is the back story to the action, which traces Elektra's tragic obsession with revenge and her success in convincing her brother Orest to carry out the killing of their mother and co-conspirator.
The libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal is a marvel of concentrated drama. But it is Strauss' prescient and influential score — its massive swirl of tonality-stretching dissonance, tempered by memorable arcs of melody — that makes the opera such a powerful night of theater and an expressionist landmark of early modernism.
DiChiera has always wanted to stage "Elektra," but until now had never been able to land an Elektra that (a) could deliver the vocal goods and (b) was affordable. When Goerke made her MOT debut in spring 2013 as Leonora in Beethoven's "Fidelio," DiChiera popped the question. Goerke, who had already fallen in love with DiChiera's charm and the family atmosphere at MOT, had a slot open in her schedule for this fall.
While big paydays and a factory-like quality at some of the big opera companies go hand in hand, Goerke remains committed to also working at smaller companies that she believes are nurturing the art form and where the experience feeds her soul:
"I told my manager, 'I'm going to offer this up for whatever the hell they can do. I don't care about money for this. That is not the point, so don't have an argument trying to get the fee up.' "
If you're getting the idea that Goerke is not your standard-issue diva, you would be right. A native of Long Island who lives with her husband, a construction worker, and their two children in New Jersey, she is known backstage for her collegiality, her aversion to tantrums and her humor. MOT conductor Steven Mercurio recalled that while rehearsing Elektra's dance of death at the close of the opera, Goerke tried out various styles — the macarena, the twist, the hora, a Michael Jackson moonwalk.
"She's the Roseanne Barr of the opera world," said Mercurio. "She has no problem parodying herself and the character. Trying to make sense of this German expressionist psychodrama can fatigue you in rehearsal because it's so demanding. There's gallows humor to break the tension. She's always the first to jump in."
In the end, Goerke's ultimate trump card is her musicianship: her command of the fundamentals of vocal technique like breath support, her big-picture vision and her understanding of musical style, history and theory. A self-described "music theory geek," she has studied Strauss' entire score — not just her own part — so she can better understand how Elektra's vocal lines relate to orchestral details and the underlying complexities of the harmony. That kind of nuts-and-bolts knowledge might not be unheard-of among singers, but it's rare.
"I think a lot people feel you can fake it in music that's a little bombastic in the orchestra," Goerke said. "But you can't for survival, you can't for vocal longevity and you can't because that's not what we're supposed to be giving the audience. In Strauss, the voice melody often leads the harmonic change.
"If you're not dead set on exactly where you're going," she said, letting out a big laugh: "You're toast!"
Contact Mark Stryker: 313-222-6459. mstryker@freepress.com
'Elektra' by Richard Strauss
Presented by Michigan Opera Theatre
7:30 p.m. Sat. and Oct. 22 and 25, 2:30 p.m. Oct. 26
Detroit Opera House
1526 Broadway
313-237-7464
$25-$125