Q: Have the Metropolitan Opera live broadcasts made a difference to you, in terms of being able to reach out to more people?
A: “The Metropolitan broadcasts? Are you kidding? No, because I am not engaged only at the Metropolitan Opera house. I’m a singer who is singing all over the world. (Gheorghiu reminds me that her international career started at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1992, and how she starred in a new production of La Traviata that in 1994.) The BBC changed their schedule to put my Traviata on television for the first time in history. So there’s nothing original going on at the Met, at this point. It’s just an opera house between the others. The most unfair thing about these broadcasts is that, all over the world, people are buying tickets to see a performance, my performance, or a colleague’s performance, and we are not paid for that. But we do it anyway. If we think we like it, we do it, that is all. I am not selling more CDs because I am singing La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera House. No. The times have changed, you know?The most important for an opera singer is to be so good that it doesn’t matter which stage you are on.”
