The Most Slavic of American Sopranos

by Nicolas Blanmont via Musiq3

This Sunday, January 21 at 12pm, Nicolas Blanmont is back on Self-portrait. For this second episode, he welcomes American soprano Corinne Winters, who talks about her musical beginnings with the Beatles and her flourishing international operatic career, which will take her to the stage of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège in Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka from January 25.

Click the video below to listen to Corinne’s interview with Nicolas Blanmont (in French)

On the evening of August 7, 2022, Corinne Winters' life turned upside down: her interpretation of Káťa Kabanová, Janacek's tragic heroine, aroused such enthusiasm in Salzburg that the public, media and professionals in attendance immediately inducted her as the Festival's new star. A coronation the like of which had not been seen in Mozart's birthplace since Anna Netrebko's in 2005.

Corinne Winters was born in 1983 in Frederick, a small town on the outskirts of Washington. A first name of Greek origin, but a surname that evokes the cold seasons: is this why she seems to master Slavic languages with such ease? Of course, she sings the great Italian repertoire - Verdi and Puccini above all - a few French roles, and German lieder on occasion. But it is by singing in Russian, Polish and above all Czech that she has earned her international stripes.

By an astonishing coincidence, Winters is also one of the few artists to have already performed on every Belgian opera stage: Desdemona in Otello in 2016 and Rachel in La Juive in 2019 at l’Opéra Flamand, Giorgietta in Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica in Puccini's Il Trittico in 2022 at La Monnaie and, after a recital in June 2023, she returns in January 2024 as Rusalka, Dvořák's mermaid, in Liège.

But don't call her a diva: this small, powerful voice, who speaks with simplicity, compulsively devours novels and never forgets her running shoes in her suitcase, has neither the look nor the manner.

Playlist for this episode of Self-Portrait (all performed by Ms. Winters)

A. Dvořák - Rusalka

L. Janáček - Jenůfa

The Beatles - This boy

G. Verdi - La traviata

G. Puccini - Madama Butterfly

F. Poulenc - Dialogues des Carmélites 

R. Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder

L. Janáček - Káťa Kabanová

S. Moniusko - Halka

X. Montsalvage - Canço amorosa