Last fall, Nova Scotia-born soprano Barbara Hannigan sang Alban Berg’s Lulu for the first time at La Monnaie in Brussels. It was the culmination of a long and agonised journey that she retold at the Women of the World Festival at London’s Southbank Centre two weeks ago.
Her retelling is powerful on several different levels, most especially in how she describes the web of emotions and factors that go into any act of interpretation.
From the moment she signed her contract to perform Lulu in 2008, “I felt like Lulu took me hostage… She invaded me, she took over my mind, my heart and my soul, and, eventually, I fell in love with her.”
Because Lulu and Barbara shared a body for four years, the psychological journey became far more complex than I could ever have imagined.
Hannigan is remarkably candid about the experience, which included confronting her 40th birthday. It may just be an arbitrary number for most of us, but, as any singer or dancer knows, their professional hourglass comes with less sand in it.
Although Hannigan is reading, her words are powerful — be they about overcoming fear, or performing characters through which men are working out their sexual problems. It only takes 12 minutes to listen.
(A big thanks to Toronto artist and music lover Derek Wong for sharing this.)
John Terauds
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