Galina Gorchakova: 'music is food for the soul.'

UNESCO Courier, June, 1996 by Isabelle Leymarie

* When you study a new role, how do you get into the character?

Galina Gorchakova: I have no set way. My interpretation is shaped by the music and my voice. I sit down at the piano and work on the phrasing; I listen to recordings and watch videos. Singers influence each other, but there are always differences between them. When I know the part, I rehearse it with the concert master. The dramatic aspect is essential. I have to live and breathe the role. The character has to get to my heart and become mine.

* Does your conception of a role ever diverge from the director's?

G. G.: I usually have my own conception of the character, but when I meet the director, my approach sometimes changes radically. I have to make compromises. For example, my own reading of Tatiana, the heroine of Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky's opera based on the poem by Pushkin, does not exactly correspond to the way I sing the role today. It's a role I know well; it was the first one I sang at the Sverdlovsk Opera. I always defend my point of view, but if the director is worth his salt, he always wins. Of course it's fantastic when the director's approach is the same as mine. Since I'm rather headstrong, I sometimes have to make an effort not to annoy the director.

* Is it hard to skip from one repertory to another? From Russian to Italian, for instance?

G. G.: No, it comes naturally to me. I was raised that way, and my second culture is Italian. I have also sung French opera, Gounod's Faust, for example, but in general I'm less familiar with the French repertory. On the other hand, there is one role I've never sung but would love to try because I identify with her, and that is Carmen.

* Have you ever sung Mozart?

G. G.: If I had to sing Mozart, if my life depended on it, I would, of course - I've got the power and the intellectual capacity to do it! [Laughs] But as an artist, I'm not attracted to Mozart. Some people think Don Giovanni is an absolute masterpiece, but it leaves me cold. I'm very emotional and fanciful, not at all methodical, and Mozart's music bores me. I much prefer Verdi, especially his later work, Puccini, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss. They are closer to my passionate temperament.

* What about contemporary operas?

G. G.: Prokofiev is the most modern composer I've sung so far, the role of Renata in The Flaming Angel.

* Are there any Russian composers you'd like to make better known abroad?

G. G.: More than Russian composers, there are certain works by Tchaikovsky I'd love to make known because they are rarely performed outside Russia. I'm thinking particularly of Mazeppa and Yolanta.

* What are your favourite roles?

G. G.: I like them all, but at different times and for different reasons. Right now, Tatiana, of course, since that's the role I'm singing. But it's more than just singing. I live and breathe Tatiana!

* How do you manage not to wear out your voice with such a busy schedule?

G. G.: I rest, I sleep; I go for walks. I make sure that I don't take certain drugs, especially those containing hormones because they can change your voice. A beautiful voice is largely a matter of well-trained muscles. Under the effect of certain emotions one's voice can start to tremble. Opera does not allow that kind of weakness.

The atmosphere of an opera house can also influence singers, for better or for worse. Everything at the Bastille Opera House in Paris, for example, is designed to put the singer at ease. It's a quiet place, and singers work well there. But I remember one time at Milan's La Scala when the atmosphere was electric. The theatre people were getting very agitated all round us, and I could feel myself getting angry. But stress stimulates me rather than upsets me. In Milan I reacted to all the bother by saying to myself, "I'll show them what I can do!"

* How do Russian audiences respond to you?

G.G.: Badly! I spend most of my time on tour, and I frequently travel with my husband, my mother and my son. All the same, I spend four months of the year in St. Petersburg. People go on about the "Slavic soul", but I find Russian audiences rather cold. No one is a prophet in their own country, of course. Perhaps one reason for this coolness is that the St. Petersburg public is very spoiled. As far as I'm concerned, the warmest audiences are the British, the French, the Hong Kong Chinese, the Americans and the Italians.

* I suppose that as a result of so much travelling you feel at home anywhere.

G. G.: Yes, what interests me most is to produce a heartfelt response, to get people to think of something more than material things, to think of their souls as well as food and clothing. After all, music is food for the soul.

RECENT RECORDINGS:

* Galina Gorchakova Verdi/Tchaikovsky: Arias Krov Orchestra/Valery Gergiev CD Philips 446 405-2

* Kirov Opera and Orchestra/Valery Gergiev Tchaikovsky: Yolanta Box of 2 CDs Philips 442 796-2

ISABELLE LEYMARIE, a Franco-American musicologist, has recently published Du tango au reggae, Musiques noires d'Amerique latine et des Caraibes ("From the Tango to Reggae: Black Music from Latin America and the Caribbean", Flammarion, Paris, 1996).