Meet Our Singers: DEBORAH NANSTEEL, Juno & Ino

The opera-lovers of Seattle remember the strong impression Deborah Nansteel made as a Young Artist here in 2012/13, and from small mainstage roles such as the Nursing Sister in Suor Angelica and the Foreign Woman in The Consul. But the Washington, D.C.-based mezzo is about to embark on a much bigger sing: the dual role of Ino and Juno, both rivals to the title character, in Semele. When we spoke the other day Nansteel told me about the great new journey Semele represents in her career—and about an extremely exciting world premiere she just did at Washington National Opera.

Deborah Nansteel sings a passage from Act 3 of Semele

First off, tell us about the role you played in this recent world premiere of Penny by Douglas Pew and Dara Weinberg.
Yes, Penny is about a 28 year-old autistic woman finding herself in life, finding her confidence and her voice. At the beginning of the opera she is traumatized—her uncle has just died and she was the one who found his body. She doesn’t speak, and she’s scared of going outside. So she goes to live with her estranged sister, who becomes her legal guardian. Penny’s uncle has left her a big trust to live off, but Penny’s brother-in-law wants to use her inheritance for a surgery he needs to go back to work. So the family situation is complicated! And my character, Penny, can’t speak.

Odd, for an opera character!
Instead she sings these dream-duets with her dead uncle, who is trying to help her find strength. Penny also has a social worker, who wants Penny to move out of her sister’s house and into assisted living. And there’s a neighbor, Martin, who is also a pianist, and he gets Penny to start talking again through music, through singing—he makes up a song and she repeats it. They have a strong connection. So the opera ends with this Penny opening the blinds and letting the sun come in, as she sings this empowering aria. We debated whether or not to show her walking out the door at the end, and untimately realized the audience may need the resolution after so much conflict in the show.

Deborah Nansteel sings the conclusion to Penny

This opera was premiered in Washington, D.C. at the National Opera?
Yes, Alan Paul was the director, he is currently the Associate Artistic Director at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C.. He’s one of the best directors with whom I’ve ever worked.

And it was written for you! What’s that like, to have a composer get inside your voice like that?
I loved it, I’d never had something written for me! Douglas Pew and I went to Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at the same time, so we already had a great working relationship. He’s a wonderful collaborator—for instance, I could say: “What if the musical line were to go down here instead of up, because what has come before is pushing my voice this way?” And he’d take that to heart. We were still making changes up until the final dress rehearsal, which made it such an exciting process.

What research did you do to portray a character with autism?
We met with a high-functioning person on the autism spectrum, as well as a care-worker and some family members of people with autism. But no two autistic people are the same, in terms of body language or functionality. My character, Penny, was high-functioning but at the beginning she was so traumatized she couldn’t speak. But she did make noise! Alan, the director, and I spent lots of time figuring out the right kind of movement for the character.

Deborah Nansteel as the Foreign Woman in The Consul, 2014
Elise Bakketun, photo

Now in Semele you play both a downtrodden, rejected mortal woman and an all-powerful goddess. How do you switch gears from scene to scene?
Power is one of the big gears that you shift here. Juno has a lot of power. She’s not self-conscious; she’s always in control. Whereas Ino is more helpless. She’s passive-aggressive, whereas Juno is aggressive-aggressive. Juno sets out to make her husband feel the same pain that she’s felt.

That’s interesting, both your characters share this emotional state of pain: rejected, jilted.
Yes, but Ino lets it take over her life: “There’s nothing I can do about it.” Until she takes action and tells Athamas how she actually feels. In a way they are both strong women who take action, they just go about it in different ways. Also, they both get what they want in the end.

How do you play a superhuman divinity like Juno? As an actor, how do you make that character alive?
I think about—not necessarily a goddess, but someone who is grounded, in control, powerful. Whatever she does, whatever decision she makes, is going to affect other people and she knows it. She knows what she wants she’s going to go get it. I certainly don’t think about this...ethereal being.

Will Juno ever give up and just let Jupiter go do his thing?
No. [laughs] He’ll never stop.

But she’ll never stop, either!
No! That’s her husband.

Does she love him?
I think so. Without love you wouldn’t have the pain. If she didn’t love him, what would be the point of going to all this trouble to make him suffer? If she didn’t care about him, why bother? I don’t think she’d want revenge if she really didn’t care for him.

Deborah Nansteel as the Nursing Sister in Suor Angelica, 2013
Elise Bakketun, photo

We last heard you in Seattle singing lots of Verdi. Have you sung much Handel?
Only the Messiah.

How is singing Handel different from what you normally do?
Everything is different. I’m not used to singing coloratura—this is the first coloratura role I’ve ever done.

That’s right, you sing some fierce coloratura in this opera.
I didn’t even know how to move my voice until a couple of years ago. When I was an undergrad I experimented with “Una voce poco fa,” some things like that, my technique was very different then, and I had no idea how to sing it then, either! Figuring out how to do coloratura with good technique came late to me.

These are also bigger roles than you’ve sung here before.
Yes, I’m used to doing maids, or the Nursing Sister or the Foreign Woman.

What’s your favorite moment in Semele?
At first I wasn’t so fond of “Turn, hopeless lover.” But now that we’ve staged it and I’m there with Athamas, interacting, that might be my favorite. It’s such raw emotion, it connects so viscerally. I didn’t think that would happen. But I love it, I just love it.

Meet Our Singers: DEBORAH NANSTEEL, the Foreign Woman

Mezzo soprano Deborah Nansteel made an incredible first impression on the opera-goers of Seattle last spring, when she sang at the “Viva Verdi!” celebration with our Young Artists Program. She appeared on the mainstage a month later in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and returns now as the unnamed “Foreign Woman” in The Consul. I checked in with her the other day about being the only character in an English-language opera who sings in Italian...and about how this role has tested her boundaries.

Deborah Nansteel (with Colin Ramsey) singing a scene from The Consul

On the first day of rehearsal for this show, the cast and staff shared a number of real-life The Consul stories, of themselves or their families fleeing to escape persecution.
Yes, it was interesting to see how many people had had this kind of experience. There were many more stories than I was expecting.

What about your family?
My grandmother’s family came over through Ellis Island before she was born...she was first-generation Italian-American.

So basically, the character you play in The Consul was your own great-grandmother!
Yes. I don’t know exactly where they came from in Italy. I know my great grandfather moved to the main peninsula of Italy from Sicily before he married my great grandmother.

Costume Design by Melanie Taylor Burgess for the Foreign Woman

Tell us about the character you play in this opera.
She’s called “the Foreign Woman,” there is no name. I think she’s widowed, because if she had a husband he’d probably go to the Consulate for her. Her daughter is probably the only family she has. Menotti didn’t give me a backstory, so I had to make one up myself! My daughter, Giulia, left with a foreign soldier when she was young and I haven't heard from her for three years. I receive a letter from her the morning I go to the consulate telling me she is ill and has a three month old son. Her husband has abandoned them and she needs help before she dies. So the Foreign Woman tries to get a visa in order to save the lives of her daughter and grandson.

So how old is the Foreign Woman?
Well, my daughter probably ran off when she was 15, or earlier. So I’m probably not all that old...maybe early 40s, late 30s.

Just people age quickly, wherever this takes place.
Right, she’s very worn down and has been through a lot.

Does she have any money?
No, she’s broke. If she has any other family, they’ve died.

What’s an Italian woman doing in...wherever this opera takes place?
She’s already fled here from Italy; she thought she would stay here. But then her daughter ran away with a soldier from yet another country. So the Foreign Woman isn’t fleeing from anything; she just wants to get to her daughter, to take care of her.

Everybody else is singing in English, but you’re singing in Italian! Does that make your life easier or harder?
[Laughs] Well...for the type of lyric music Menotti writes, it’s easier. It’s a more singer-friendly language, because of the pure vowels, because of where the consonants are placed...as far as memorization goes, I find it a bit more difficult because it’s not my native tongue. But I’ve been learning the language, not just the pronunciation—I have lessons twice a week—and that helps!

Deborah Nansteel in rehearsal with Colin Ramsey. As Mr. Kofner, Ramsey translates for Nansteel’s Foreign Woman
Bill Mohn, photo

Is it weird to sing the only Italian character in an all-English opera?
It’s not as awkward as I thought it would be...but yes, it’s a little weird.

Your big scene is said to be a pastiche of Puccini. Do you think that’s the case, musically?
I don’t have a whole lof of experience with Puccini...

Oh, of course! Because he never wrote for mezzos!
...but from the experience I had last year with Suor Angelica, yes, I’d say it’s very Puccini-esque.

Deborah Nansteel sang the Nursing Sister in Suor Angelica last May.

Does that affect how you perform it?
I’ve started to look at it that way. That’s certainly what Carlo [Monatanaro, the conductor] and Peter [Kazaras, the stage director] are thinking. They keep bringing up Suor Angelica!

That scene is extremely emotional. Is it difficult to get into character for that scene, or is that emotion easily accessible?
It’s there; sometimes it’s hard for me to put away the singer brain and access the emotional brain. I have to stop thinking, “I wonder whether this high note is going to sound pretty,” and just go for it. You have to turn something off, in order to let go.

Sarah Larsen (Secretary) and Deborah Nansteel (Foreign Woman) in rehearsal
Bill Mohn, photo

Does the emotionality of it pose a danger to your vocal technique?
There’s a fine line...I’m figuring out where it is and how not to cross it. Because yes, in such an emotional scene, it would be easy to go overboard. Most mezzo roles are a lot more controlled. It’s good, it’s testing my boundaries. Nerve-wracking...but I like it.

Why should people come to The Consul?
It's such an amazing work. The music and the story are very interesting and different than most of the standard repertoire and it’s incredibly emotional. It’s very dark, but I like things like that! That's one thing I love about opera—it will make you laugh and cry.

Our Young Artists Talk about "Viva Verdi!"

The Seattle Opera Young Artists have spent an entire season singing Verdi’s operas. They celebrate the great composer’s bicentennial in our "Viva Verdi!" concert on April 6—a dynamic evening featuring some of Verdi’s greatest music. The beginning of La traviata, the magnificent overture to La forza del destino, “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco, the arresting “Storm Scene” from Rigoletto...and that’s not all. What more could one ask for in a single performance?

2012/13 Seattle Opera Young Artists: Tenor Theo Lebow, Mezzo-Soprano Deborah Nansteel, Baritone Hunter Enoch, Soprano Dana Pundt, Bass-Baritone Matthew Scollin, Mezzo-Soprano Sarah Larsen, Pianist/Coach Christopher Lade
(photo by Alan Alabastro)

The fine young musicians of our Young Artists Program shared some of their thoughts with me—what they’ve learned, what they’ve found challenging, and how Verdi has changed them.

Dana Pundt starts the concert with what she calls Violetta’s tour de force. Violetta’s first aria in La traviata is the most challenging music Pundt has sung with the program all year. “It’s very exposed in places,” she says, “has high-flying acrobatics in others, and requires an incredible legato almost throughout.”

Dana Pundt and Sarah Larsen in La Cenerentola
(photo by Elise Bakketun)

Mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel is getting the opportunity to revisit a role she first sang in 2011 as a Young Artist in San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program. Eboli in Don Carlo is a role she loves. “It is a big sing, and it is a very dramatic role so that makes it challenging,” she says. “But it is one of the most exciting scenes I’ve done.”

Theo Lebow in Fidelio
(photo by Elise Bakketun)

Usually a singer has only one challenging role to learn for a performance. Theo Lebow has three! The New York-born tenor plays Alfredo in La traviata, Don Carlo, and the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto. “The challenge for me,” he says, “is balancing myself through three very demanding roles. The vocal writing is daunting, requiring a lot of conservation.” The rehearsal and training, he says, has taught him to pace himself as he transforms from ardent suitor to doomed prince to self-interested ladies’ man.

Pianist/Accompanist Christopher Lade, who is back for his second year as a Young Artist, will make his conducting debut with this concert, leading “Oh dischiuso è il firmamento” from Nabucco. “I'm just looking forward to working with the orchestra and accompanying Sarah Larsen,” he says.

Sarah Larsen in Madama Butterfly
(photo by Elise Bakketun)

In addition to singing Fenena’s aria from Nabucco, Sarah Larsen is looking forward to embodying Preziosilla in La forza del destina. “She gets to sing several rousing, zesty numbers,” Larsen says, “‘Rataplan’ being the most famous of all. The challenge of ‘Rataplan’ is one of ensemble—the chorus and orchestration are very crisp, so one has to be mindful of rushing the tempo. This is probably my favorite piece to sing on the concert.”

Hunter Enoch is also looking forward to singing an evening that ranges from ensembles to individual roles. “As a young singer, it is infrequent that one is fortunate enough to sing this music outside of a chorus situation. The music is amazing, and I am so glad that I have had this opportunity to sing it…I have learned a lot about the inner game of singing as well.” Enoch takes on Verdi’s tormented jester in the final scene from Rigoletto, and also sings music for Barone Douphol, Fra Melitone, and Rodrigo in Don Carlo.

Deborah Nansteel, Dana Pundt, and Theo Lebow in Verdi's King for a Day
(photo by Elise Bakketun)

Matthew Scollin is most looking forward to singing the role of the assassin Sparafucile in Rigoletto. He has enjoyed the opportunity so sing the “heavier” roles of Verdi, as compared to Mozart, for example. His main takeaway from a year with Verdi applies to every role he’ll ever sing. “I’ve learned that I need to have something to say when I’m singing,” he says, “not just go through the motions.”

Dana Pundt, too, has taken something meaningful and lasting from a year with Verdi. “I feel that I’ve rediscovered my reason for singing,” she says. “After being preoccupied with technique, study, and accuracy for so long, it’s become something artistic and fulfilling once again.”

Join us on April 6. It’s a performance you won’t want to miss!