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| Natalya Romaniw (Photo Patrick Allen, Opera Omnia) |
When we meet, Natalya is still in the middle of her performances in Jenufa at Grange Park Opera, finding the role beautiful, even though rather harrowing. She is also enjoying the new theatre, and finds it helpful to sing in as it does give a bit of feed back to the stage.
She played flute with her grandfather but she was so bad at it that she took up singing instead
She loves the Slavic heroines and feels that something in the Czech and Russian operas seems to resonate with her. They are also roles in which everyone wants to hear her. She will be performing Tatyana again with Welsh National Opera (WNO) in September 2017, and in a new production directed by Oliver Mears at Scottish Opera in 2018.
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| Susan Bullock, Natalya Romaniw - Janacek: Jenufa Grange Park Opera (Photo Robert Workman) |
She finds it a privilege to be working with WNO, her home company, though this will not be her debut with them. After she was scheduled to sing Tatyana with WNO she asked if she could cover the title role in Madama Butterfly (in the WNO 2016/17 season), and she had to go on for a single performance, her debut with WNO and her role debut, she describes it as a brilliant experience. She loves Butterfly and she promises that we will hear more of her in the role.
As a young singer with a developing role, a more unusual role takes the pressure off
Since first hearing her in college, many of Natalya's roles in the UK have been relatively unusual ones. Whilst she sang the Foreign Princess in Rusalka with Scottish Opera and the Governess (Turn of the Screw) with Glyndebourne on Tour, roles such as Mimi in La Boheme, Micaela in Carmen and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus were at Houston Grand Opera where she was on the young artist programme. In fact, her range of roles in the UK has been just the way it turned out, though she feels that it has played to her advantage. As a young singer with a developing voice, singing a more unusual role such as Maliella in I gioielli della Madonna takes the pressure off as there is little to compare it to. But if she was doing lots of Mimis there would inevitably be comparisons to artists like Mirella Freni. In fact, the run of UK roles rather owes its origins to that first role as Maliella in I gioielli della Madonna with Opera Holland Park (the first UK professional staged performances of the opera).
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| Natalya Romaniw as Malilella - Wolf-Ferrari: I gioielli della Madonna - Opera Holland Park (Photo Robert Workman) |
Natalya is in no hurry to sing Wagnerian roles, even the jugend-dramatisch ones, she thinks that there is plenty of time to consider these later. She has sung 'baby roles', singing in Ortlinde (on the the Valkyries) Wagner's Die Walküre in Houston with a cast including Iain Paterson, Christine Goerke and Karita Mattila. And even if a young singer has the voice and the vocal tools to sing Wagner, these are roles which require pacing and stamina, not to mention life experience. When Natalya first came to the role of Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, with the Letter Scene she had never sung an aria that long before. But taking that experience and nurturing it provides her with a good foundation for the bigger stuff.
Exploring the lyrical side
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| Natalya Romaniw - Tchakovsky: Eugene Onegin Garsington Opera (Photo Mark Drouet) |
Natalya has been nominated as a Sky Arts Breakthrough Artist, and with the winner announced at a ceremony on 9 July 2017. She has no idea how they are going to make the decision as the nominated artists are all from such different fields. She thinks that her being nominated was to do with her debut as Tatyana at Garsington Opera, when Hugh Canning (opera critic of the Sunday Times) not only reviewed the opera but did an interview with her, and she was making her role debut as Lisa in Queen of Spades with Opera Holland Park during the same season.
Debuting as Tatyana and Lisa during the same season was a big learning experience, she found Lisa a bigger role but enjoyed singing them both. Tatyana was less dramatic, and she has a vulnerability about her, but the final scene proved a real foundation for developing the role of Lisa, and Natalya also found a vulnerability in Lisa. Singing the role of Lisa is a lot about stamina, and Natalya feels that she learned a lot including being brave enough to sing softly. Queen of Spades is a long piece but Natalya found it paced well for her, except at the end where you have to 'get on the conveyor belt, and stay on!'.
She admits that she can't sing everything even if she wants to!
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| Rosalind Plowright, Natalya Romaniw - Tchaikovsky: Queen of Spades Opera Holland Park (Photo Robert Workman) |
During her two years in Houston she did a lot of roles on the main stage, and regards herself as very lucky. She was the alternate cast Mimi in La Boheme, had two minor roles in Il Trovatore, was in Weinberg's The Passenger, and sang Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. Though Natalya had seen Die Fledermaus at WNO and enjoyed it, she admits to finding Rosalinde a 'thankless role' and though it can be made to work with her voice she is unsure whether she would want to do it again. She also played Micaela in Carmen which she feels was casting against her temperament and her gut instinct was that she would prefer to play to the title role, but she admits that she can't sing everything even if she wants to!
A long-time dream role
Tatyana was a long-time dream role, one which she studied whilst at the Guildhall School and always wanted to do on stage. And Natalya feels lucky that in the next three or four years she is going to be able to sing most of the roles that she currently wants to sing, though she admits to wanting to sing Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana but feels that this is another role where you need experience, and to have lived a lot.
She sang Tchaikovsky's Iolanta at the Guildhall School, and would love to sing the role again, and having done Jenufa she would love to sing Kat'a Kabanova, though she feels that the role of Emilia Marty in Makropoulos Case is some way off yet. At the moment, every single role is new and she finds it a gift to be able to sing a role for the second time.
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| Valkyries in Houston - Natalya Romaniw, Eve Gigliotti, Julie Makerov - Wagner: Die Walkure (Photo Lynn Lane) |
She admits to preferring old-school sopranos. She loves Callas, feeling that though it was not the most beautiful of voices she sang with absolute integrity. Another soprano she admires is Mirella Freni, one who always sang lyrically and always sang with what she had, and never pushed.
Natalya Romaniw on Planet Hugill:
- Janacek Jenufa at Grange Park Opera (June 2017)
- Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin at Garsington Opera (June 2016)
- Montemezzi L'amore dei tre re at Opera Holland Park (July 2015)
- Wolf-Ferrari I gioielli della Madonna at Opera Holland Park (July 2013)
- Poulenc Dialogues des Carmelites at the Guildhall School of Music (March 2011)
- Stravaganza d'amore Raphael Pichon & Pygmalion in early Florentine Intermedi and opera - CD review
- Debut disc: Perfido, concert arias by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, from Ian Page, The Mozartists & Sophie Bevan - CD review
- Vibrant performances: Gillian Keith & Armonico Consort in Bach cantatas - CD review
- Not quite a classic: Puccini's Turandot at Covent Garden - Opera review
- Remarkable encounter: Iestyn Davies in Schubert's Die schone Mullerin - concert review
- Strong performances of astonishing music: Mozart's Lucio Silla at the Buxton Festival - opera review
- Comedy of class: Britten's Albert Herring at the Buxton Festival - opera review
- Rethinking early Verdi: 1847 version of Macbeth at the Buxton Festival - Opera review
- Secrets from the rehearsal room: I chat to Nina Brazier & Alice Privett - interview
- Significant achievment: Wagner's Die Walkure at Grange Park Opera - Opera review
- Station of the Cross: Simon Vincent's piano work inspired by William Fairbank installation - CD review
- Complex and thoughtful: Bartosz Glowacki at Rhinegold Live - concert review
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