Christine Goerke is staking her future, as are four opera houses, on her becoming the top Wagnerian singer of her generation.
The dramatic soprano is donning the corsets and work boots of Brunnhilde in the Canadian Opera Company’s Die Walkure at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts this Saturday.
She then will continue to play the role in star turns at the Houston Grand Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In the 2015/16 season, she’s Brunnhilde again in the COC’s Siegfried.
Goerke is “an incredible artist,” says Chicago’s general director, Anthony Freud, who knows her well from working with her in Houston. “It is rare to find an artist with that physical quality, power, stamina and dramatic integrity.”
Brunnhilde is the role she was meant to play, Freud says, “She’s fearless onstage. Die Walkure is Olympian in its demands. She’s already known internationally, but this will make her a major, major star.”
Atom Egoyan, who is directing Die Walkure for the second time at the Four Seasons Centre, says Goerke “is becoming a Wagnerian megastar. It’s an exciting time for her.”
The 6-foot-tall New Jersey native stood recently on the Toronto stage littered with trees and other trippables, calmly preparing for the role of her career.
“I don’t scare easily,” she says.
Like Brunnhilde, Goerke is called a “warrior” but also described by all who know her as funny and down to earth.
“She’s alive to the world, has enormous joy in her children, her husband, her friends and in the life force. She’s a deeply grateful person,” says Houston’s artistic director, Patrick Summers.
He is one of the reasons Goerke is at this juncture in her career. She contemplated giving up singing altogether when her voice started to transform: the Mozart pieces she’d been singing no longer suited a voice that was growing larger every day.
“We nearly lost her,” says Summers, adding, “She took the leap. She’s brave. She’s a warrior.”
Diana Soviero, Goerke’s voice teacher, says, “All I did was teach her how to open her sound. She is my pride and joy because of the change in her repertoire and what she has achieved.”
Brunnhilde, the eldest and favourite of nine daughters of the Norse god Wotan, is a bruising role to perform, says Soviero. Brunnhilde defies her father and loses her immortality as punishment.
“You need to be physically fit and strong.”
“She’s a star, that one,” says Soviero. “I couldn’t be more proud or love her more than if I was her own mother.”
Goerke’s family life is cited by all who know her as the centre of her happiness and confidence.
The former college clarinet player, who switched to singing at the urging of her teachers, married a man she met online who had never seen an opera.
She lives in New Jersey so daughters Charlie, 5-1/2, and Maggie, 8, have a backyard in which to play.
“I hate to be away from them,” says Goerke. “It’s a balancing act. The day I left (for Toronto), Dec. 28, I ugly-cried to the airport and through security.”
She recently spent the entire summer with her children and has taken them to the Metropolitan Opera to see Hansel and Gretel.
When she relaxes she likes to listen to Billy Joel, Earth, Wind & Fire, Adele, Bruno Mars and Queen. An avid cook, she travels with a bag of her favourite spices.
Her husband, Jim Holloway, used to be a chef but switched to working in his family construction business to have a more family-friendly schedule. The first time the “terrified” Goerke cooked him dinner, he asked for macaroni and cheese with hotdogs in it.
This anecdote is following by a full-throated laugh, something she does a lot.
Old friend Barry Crawford, who played flute alongside her clarinet in their college band, says, “We’re just big goofballs.”
Goerke does terrific voice imitations (like her dad’s New Jersey accent during the interview), says Crawford, usually of people they’ve just passed in the street.
Once, Crawford got an emergency call from Goerke in Paris: she’d left the dress for her concert there on the back of the bathroom door. There was a New York cab outside waiting for him. Crawford jumped in, picked up the dress and flew to Paris with it, staying for a week’s holiday. He’ll be seeing his friend in her role premiere in Toronto.
Goerke can’t wait for people to meet her Brunnhilde.
“She’s one of the best characters of all of opera. She experiences every emotion, joy, heartbreak pain, loss and devastation. We follow her all the way.”
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