Czech sounded like Japanese to me at first, admits American soprano CORINNE WINTERS. Now she shines as Káťa Kabanová and is going to Prague next year.
Article: Štěpán Hobza
Photos: Emitha Studios
(Janáček understood women. His operas are like movie thrillers, says American soprano)
Corinne Winters is definitely not a typical opera diva. She could fit two or three times into many sopranos and speaks with a deliberateness that we hear more from musicologists than from singers on stage. Add to this a piercing beauty and convincing acting - and behold, we have before us an artist who "touches the heart and mind," as Shakespeare once said. We speak English together - Corinne is an American originally from Maryland, where her father still lives. But she has ancestors from the Ukraine, and she was drawn to Slavic music from an early age. Those who heard her sing Janáček's Káťa Kabanová at the Salzburg Festival last August could not help but think that Corinne was born for the role. Her Czech sounds clear and incisive: she pronounces it with conviction, with the conviction of someone who knows what she's singing about, and knows why. We can look forward to seeing Corinne Winters in Prague next year, where she will give a concert with the leading Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša. "I already know that Prague is going to be my favorite city," she says convincingly.
Janáček's Káťa Kabanová you sang with great success last year in Salzburg and now again at the opera in Lyon. Has it changed your career?
I think so. I've come a long way with Káťa. I sang it for the first time six years ago and then I took a little break from it because I felt I wasn't ready vocally. I still felt like my voice needed more time to develop. I did the next one in Rome at the beginning of 2022, just half a year before Salzburg. And that was completely different, because I had matured and I was also more into the acting. My interpretation deepened.
How did you get Káťa in the first place? For a young American soprano it's not exactly a typical role...
I've done a lot of Italian repertoire, and I've always liked Czech, Polish and Russian roles, because on the one hand I just love them, and on the other hand my dad comes from a Ukrainian Jewish family and I've always been drawn to Slavic music. Then the theaters started offering me Slavic roles, which started with Tchaikovsky and then with Halka by the Polish composer Moniuszko. Káťa was born out of that, because people put me in the Slavic repertoire and then they said: Oh, maybe she would be good in Janáček! So then I did it again and I felt much more confident. And of course, when everyone heard that I was going to sing it in Salzburg, they were thrilled. So I also started singing Jenůfa, Rusalka and many other Czech roles. It was much easier to get them. So, to go back to your first question, Salzburg opened a lot of doors for me to really deepen my relationship with Slavic music, especially Janáček. His work is so rich and complex that there is always something new to learn.
What is it about Káťa that makes you so comfortable? Is it just the music, or does the role resonate with you personally?
If I compare it with Jenůfa, for example, I love that role and the opera, but Káťa has the advantage for me that it is very intense, musically and dramatically, in a very small space of time. I think that's one of my strengths. I also found it funny when I read that Janáček composed Káťa after seeing Puccini's Madame Butterfly, because Butterfly is one of my favorite roles and has a similar intensity. She's onstage for almost the entire evening, and the second act itself is as long as the whole of Káťa. And yet there's the same fragility and strength in her. The operas are kind of like sisters. I love all of Janáček's music and roles - even though he was a complicated man, I think he understood women. I think it's also because he wrote most of his works at a ripe old age, in his sixties and seventies (Káťa premiered in 1921, Janáček was 67 at the time). He had wisdom and depth of experience. And you can really feel that in these operas. Káťa is like a film, it's like watching a thriller.
I read somewhere that the difference between Wagner and Janáček is that, while Wagner spends the whole evening repeating three motifs, always with Janáček you hear something beautiful, and immediately it disappears, never to be heard again...do you agree?
Yes, I learned this from the conductor Jakub Hrůša, who performed Káťa with me at Salzburg. I've had two Káťas under my belt, and I loved to savor the juicy romantic moments. It has to be there a little bit, because Janáček wrote it that way, but on the other hand it is not good to linger too long on them. Then it's no longer Janáček, it becomes Puccini or Wagner. What makes Janáček's music so special - you can hear something similar in Richard Strauss - is the alternation of release and enjoyment that it gives to both the listener and the singer. The enjoyment comes for a moment, but then returns to the clearly enunciated delivery of the text, never lingering too much on one musical passage, but actually maintaining the flow of the music. I think at one point Jakub said that his music is not a stagnant body of water, it always flows like a river.
How's your Czech? You have a really good command of it - when I first heard you, for a while I thought you were Slovak, Polish or some other Slav...
In my earlier productions, I worked a lot on the Czech pronunciation, but I wasn't so specific, so careful, until Jenůfa in Geneva, which was just before Salzburg. It was my first Jenůfa, so I was new to it. The conductor Tomáš Hanus - another great Czech conductor who influenced me a lot - really encouraged me to be more specific with my Czech. My pronunciation was relatively correct, but it was not idiomatic. Hanus helped me to start and then when I got to Salzburg, I continued with Jakub Hrůša and his team, as well as with the diction coach, to be able to maintain a sufficient quality of the vowels in singing. After Salzburg I started to learn Czech fully - grammar, conversation. But I have to say it's been a long journey.
Want to switch out of English? [into Czech]
I'd rather not yet. (laughs) I speak a little Czech already, but not very well. But it was really good for me, because now I did Jenůfa and Káťa again, and the feedback I get now is: you sound really Czech. I suddenly have the words in my body, before I only knew how to pronounce them.
How do you like Czech as a singing language? Does it stand up to Italian or German?
I think it's challenging until you understand how it works. The alternation of short and long syllables that Czech has creates a beautiful singing language. But until you really understand that the long syllables can actually be longer than in spoken form, it can sound like Japanese. And then of course there's r, ř and other consonants...
Do you know the word “řeřicha” (watercress)?
(Corinne's face is very pensive.)
It's a kind of language test. Czech children learn to pronounce r correctly...
I'm good with the word “čtyři“ (four) for now.
In the Prague dialect, you can simplify it to „čtyry“, didn't they tell you?
Oh, that'll come in handy! (laughs) I like the word "fourteen", because there I just need the rolled r, which we also have in English. But yes, when you understand this push and pull of long and short syllables, it's easy to feel free, because you can sing in longer syllables, put the stress on the first syllable and then lighten up - suddenly it sings itself. But until you have that knowledge, it can be limiting.
Some foreign singers are talking about the similarities to Italian. Like mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick, who years ago sang Ježibaba at the Metropolitan Opera, says the Czech language is sung like Italian, only it has more of an extra bite because of the consonants...
Yes, I agree. When I talk about Czech, I try to tell people that the long syllables are like Italian, they are Italian vowels. So really sing it like Italian, just don't lengthen the short syllables. Of course, I'm not a language expert or a diction coach yet. But I have your language in my ear a lot now and I've been saturated by it for the past year. It was hard at first, but eventually I fell in love with it.
There's still a Czech role, you'd like to sing? Perhaps of Janáček again?
Yes, there is a project for Emilia Marta in Janáček's The Makropulos Case, but that's still five or six years away. That's good for me, because I will have enough time to mature into this very interesting role. I wouldn't say it's explicitly dramatic, although it can be sung by dramatic voices, but it has its own specifics. Because Emilia Marta is supposed to be a really old woman, she can be sung by singers of all ages. It is a role without age. Still, I’ll wait for now. I want to be more mature when I start doing it. Until then, I want to do a lot of Jenůfa, Káťa and Rusalka. And I'd like to try other Dvořák roles that I haven't gotten to do yet because they are not done so often outside the Czech Republic. Next year I'm also going to do concerts with Jakub, including Dvořák's Stabat Mater and The Spectre’s Bride.
What made you so interested in Emilia Marty?
Her mystery. Jenufa is an honest, grounded person who's been through terrible things but has her feet on the ground. She's a very wise person for her age. Káťa is almost like an animal. She is part of nature in this otherworldly character who is so passionate and lives by instinct. Káťa is almost like science fiction, and Emilia Marta is even further along in that direction. You really live the sci-fi with her. I like the idea that she's become very cold and exhausted by everything she's been through over the centuries, but at the same time she still has a heart that can love and she's still on her own journey (the title character of the opera based on Karel Capek's play hasn't aged thanks to the elixir of youth). I think this complexity is why I resisted doing the role too early. To do it convincingly, you have to be a woman who has lived something - really lived it. On the other hand, I'm very much looking forward to doing it because of the musical side. She's much more modern and complex, even more so than Káťa. Jenůfa is quite romantic, Káťa is still romantic, but it's a step in a new direction, and Makropulos is already very modern.
Do you think Janáček understood women? He had some complicated relationships...
Yes, he did, he was a very complicated man. On the other hand, he had a tremendous tenderness that I think he only showed to certain people. He had a wife, of course, but after everything they went through, when their son and then their beloved daughter died, their relationship cooled down. He also allegedly had an affair with the soprano who premiered the role of Kostelnička, but above all with a much younger mistress, Kamila Stösslová, essentially a platonic love. I think he needed all those muses around him to bring him out of himself - he was a very closed person, he didn't like to lose his self-control. I also think that he mellowed with age. Still in his sixties - when he had to rewrite Jenůfa - he was much rougher. I think he wrote so many great works towards the end of his life because of his love for Stösslová and the endless inspiration he drew from her.
We're still talking about Janáček and Dvořák. What about Smetana? He never interested you?
I had an offer to sing Mařenka in The Bartered Bride, but unfortunately it clashed with another performance. I'm certainly not opposed to Smetana! It fascinates me how many great artists were born in such a small country as the Czech Republic.
You are going to give a concert here next year. Do you want to tell us more?
Unfortunately, I can't talk about that yet, since the season hasn't been announced. I'll definitely be performing with Jakub Hrůša, and I'll also be singing in Prague. Finally! I've never been there before. I already know that Prague will be my favorite city. I've heard so much about it! But I have to say that I really liked Brno too. It has a long musical tradition that is very present in the culture there, and also an amazing youthfulness because it's full of students. I also remember a joke from a teaching podcast that I listen to. Someone from Prague says that Brno is the biggest village in the Czech Republic.
Yes, that's Czech sarcasm, which you soon get used to. Do you know what else they say in Prague about the Brno people?
What?
Nothing at all.
(laughs)
Štěpán Hobza, journalist
Corinne Winters, American soprano.
She has over thirty roles in her repertoire, most famously as Káťa (Káťa Kabanová, Janáček) and Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly, Puccini). She performed the former role in Geneva (2022) and subsequently with great success at the Salzburg Theatre Festival (2022) and at the National Opera in Lyon (2023). She has also staged other roles in the Czech repertoire, including Rusalka (Dvořák) and Jenůfa (Jenůfa, Janáček). In 2024, Corinne Winters will be performing a series of concerts with the Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša in the Czech Republic. On this occasion she will perform in Prague for the first time ever.
To Read this article in the original Czech language, visit the link here*: Lidovky.cz
