The warmth of her vocal timbre contrasts with her strong stage presence. And his youth, with the determination with which he designs his projects. The highly expressive Italian-Canadian mezzo Emily D'Angelo is an angel from the future. Deutsche Grammophon has signed her after winning –something unusual– the four main prizes of Operalia 2018.
The world of opera soon fell in love with its Mozarts. She was acclaimed at Covent Garden for the seriousness and sonority of her voice, now steel now velvet, perfect for the adolescent Sesto of La clemenza di Tito. And the Munich Opera enjoyed with hers Idamante hers in Idomeneo, re di Creta. In her first album, Enargeia, she shows her concern for the contemporary by bringing together ten centuries (from the XII to the XXI) of music composed by women: from Mazzoli and Snider but also from the Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Some of these pieces will be performed in the lyrical recitation that he offers on Saturday 23 in the church of Carme de Peralada. Accompanied on the piano by Sophia Muñoz, she tackles songs by Schönberg or Clara Schumann but also opera arias by Rossini, and even zarzuela by Chapí. She tells it from Paris, where she has just played Siebel in Gounod's Faust.
“I was lucky to have the opportunity to record an album. I wanted to do something special, thoughtful, that would show who I was at that moment. The seed of the project was Hildur's vocal music and from there it grew to be a journey through history. It was magnificent to work with the oldest music of the West and at the same time with a living composer. We were having a hard time because of the pandemic but it was an organic process.”
The question is: where does this self-confidence come from? “It's not so much about believing in myself but about what I want to do. And I have prepared this recital in Peralada specifically. In the first part I continue with this mixture of late romantic and modern music, while the second is a tribute to Teresa Berganza. Also, Rossini's lightness goes very well on a hot day, with this cantata, Giovanna d'arco, which is almost an opera in itself. And as for zarzuela, I like it: it is rhythm and melodies, lightness and drama...”
He grew up singing in choirs, in Toronto, and apart from his Italian culture, with its tradition of listening to opera even if it is in a mountain town, he also has the storytelling tradition of his Irish roots. Her mother was a pianist and she always encouraged her children to sing and play. She grew up studying cello and her operatic references range from Pavarotti and Placido to Cecilia Bartoli.
“As a singer, Bartoli is great and I found his quantity and variety of repertoire and his interest in recovering lost works very cool. Berganza is another of my great influences, and Elina Garanca”.
This clever young woman is aware of how her own thoughts affect her voice. “It even seems that the voices have their own thoughts, because they are very connected to ours and also to our feelings. Sometimes it is something unconscious –he explains–. Many of us singers create with our voices by training our bodies to think about very specific things. They are mental exercises that achieve those connections between images and sounds and physical experiences. The thoughts themselves are stronger than the training of the vocal cords, yes. I have a technique for all of this.”
