First Listen: Christine Goerke As Turandot At The Metropolitan Opera

Christine Goerke as Turandot with Marcelo Álvarez as Calaf in the Franco Zeffirelli production of Turandot.

Puccini's Turandot opens this evening with soprano Christine Goerke making her role debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Watch a video of her singing an excerpt from "In questa reggia," after the jump.

Christine Goerke Gives Top Wagnerian Performance In New Zealand

Brünnhilde Ascending: Christine Goerke is quickly climbing to the summit of Valhalla. (Photo: Arielle Doneson)

Concert review for Wagner Gala featuring Christine Goerke (soprano), Simon O'Neill (tenor) with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pietari Inkinen at Michael Fowler Centre on June 12, 2015, in Wellington: "In 2012 we had that thrilling concert performance of the second of Wagner's Ring operas Die Walkure, and two of the outstanding cast were Christine Goerke and Simon O'Neill. Now as a kind of addenda to that extraordinary experience we heard large slices of the last two Ring operas, Siegfried and Gotterdammering [sic]. I suppose there was a hint of frustration in the hour or so of each opera we heard, in that we moved from act to act, missing huge chunks that tie the operas together, and were treated to surtitles that were quaintly absurd in the manner of English translations of Wagner's words. Having said all this, though, the evening was a marvellous experience of Wagner 'writ large'; a huge orchestra with

Christine Goerke Converses With OPERA America President

Eine große neue dramatische Stimme: 
Christine Goerke discusses new opera repertoire

On November 5, 2014, dramatic soprano Christine Goerke visited The National Opera Center to discuss her career resurgence in dramatic new repertoire with OPERA America President Marc Scorca. The dialog from the evening includes her discover of opera at age 13; transferring her woodwind skills to her vocal training; experience working with young artist programs; the transition from lyric coloratura to a larger voice category with the help of Diana Soviero; the pressure of living up to opera legends in her repertoire; being a self-professed "music theory geek"; how she came to her acting skills in opera; copying text into notebooks to learn music; winning the Richard Tucker Award; breaking into the Wagner fach; her love of Astrid Varnay's voice; how much time she takes with an orchestral score while learning a role; returning to Glimmerglass to give advice to young singers; the future Ring cycles that she will be performing; and a myriad of questions from the audience at the event. "American soprano Christine Goerke is a Grammy Award-winning artist who has performed with many of the world's top opera companies, orchestras and musical ensembles. Goerke has been acclaimed worldwide for her opulent voice and her regal command of the Strauss, Verdi and Wagner repertoire. She has won the prestigious Richard Tucker Award for exceptional artistic promise and continues to astonish audiences with her outstanding vocal and dramatic artistry. Her basic approach to singing is marvelously anchored by an ample voice that has grown measurably in the past years, making her one of the most exciting dramatic sopranos of our time." Take a look at the evening's program by clicking here. Watch a video of the whole event, plus Ms. Goerke singing "Ah! Du wolltest mich nicht" from Salome by Strauss under the direction of Christian Thielemann,  after the jump.

Soprano Christine Goerke with OPERA America President Marc Scorca

Christine Goerke Balances Being a Wagnerian Opera Star & Mother

Goerke at home with a picture on the wall featuring her
with the great Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson.
(Photo: Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger)

"Goerke’s world is carefully balanced between her family and her art, which requires frequent travel — this season, to Australia, Spain, Poland and Chicago. And next month, she’ll be local as the artist-in-residence at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y. She has never stayed away longer than 60 days — 'too long' — and video-chats with the girls every day. In her home, past the practice room where sunlight streams through a picture window to a grand piano, opera DVDs share space on living room shelves with Charlie Brown and Barbie. Goerke’s Grammy Award certificate hangs on one wall, framed crayon drawings on another. She is determined that the girls receive music instruction to enrich their lives, but how far they pursue the field is their choice. In general, she sees education as essential as the opera world goes through changes — in her words, people need to know 'that it’s not the kind of thing they think it is.' She describes the rich scores she sings as really great movie soundtracks, the emotional subtext of compelling stories — with incredible voices. 'To hear no microphones, no speakers, just unadulterated, mind-blowing, butt-kicking sound coming right at you is so fierce and it’s so visceral,' she says. 'It’s something everyone should experience once in their life and then, if you don’t like it, I’m okay with it.' The kind of sound that Goerke describes comes to very few people naturally, even if they work as hard as she has. But when she asks her colleagues if she can be heard in the audience over 120-piece orchestras, they laugh. “While some might find that daunting, I finally feel like I don’t have to hold back anymore,” she says. 'I finally feel at home.'" [Source]

Olympics Of Singing To Air January 11 On PBS

"Tune in to PBS on Jan. 11 to watch Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Gregg Grimsley, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, Ailyn Pérez, Matthew Polenzani, and 2013 Richard Tucker Award Winner Isabel Leonard perform at the highly anticipated opera event. Check local listings: http://to.pbs.org/12CzT1B"

Christine Goerke Celebrates Dramatic Voice Change

Goerke is all smiles after a four-year absence
from the MET stage, she will return in
Wagner during the 2018-19 season.

"The change, when it came, took her by surprise. 'I noticed it during the run of Alcina at City Opera (in 2003),' Goerke said. 'Handel always felt easy and comfortable, and it didn't feel easy. I went home and told my then-fiance: 'I broke it.' . And it turned out that in fact, my voice was just changing . and I had disconnected from my support, because my voice got so big and I was trying to keep it very slim.' Once she corrected the problem, she said, her voice became 'immediately twice the size, then three times, and my coach said, 'My God, there's still more in there!' It wasn't something that was broken, just something I had to grow into.' At the same time, Goerke was growing into a new personal life. She married her fiance (whom she affectionately refers to as "a tone-deaf construction worker") and had two children, girls now 4 and 7. Her reincarnation as a full-fledged dramatic soprano began when she sang the title role of Strauss' Elektra in Madrid in 2011, a part she has reprised in Chicago and London. But coming back to the Met

The soprano at the beginning
of her career (Photo: Christian Steiner)

was special. Born on Long Island, she had apprenticed with the Met's program for young artists. Her Met debut came in 1995 and she sang there regularly for a while. But since 2004, her only appearances had been in 2009 as the Foreign Princess in Dvorak's Rusalka. 'Singers should never think of a house as a 'home' because it's all business,' Goerke said. 'But this will always be home to me. I grew up here.' Within days of the Frau opening, the Met announced it had signed her to sing Brünnhilde in Wagner's Ring cycle in 2018-19, as well as to appear in Elektra and as Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin. Other Ring cycles are on her calendar, including one in Houston. And she's studying new roles, among them Isolde, Lady Macbeth and Cassandra in Berlioz's Les Troyens. And she looks forward to many years of singing at the top of her game. 'It's very rare at 44 to be able to say I'm a baby,' Goerke said. 'It's just at the beginning of where things start to get comfy in this repertoire.'" [Source] Find a fun photo, that may have foreshadowed Christine Goerke's future singing endeavors, after the jump.

What the FACH? Christine Goerke Transitions From Mozart to Strauss

"What the FACH?" is a new addition to the Opera Fresh blog that examines the transition from one vocal category to another of a completely different nature. Up first is a performance of Christine Goerke singing "Come Scoglio" from Così fan Tutte by Mozart in 2001 and the other taken from a 2008 performance that honors her upcoming opening at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in the title role of Elektra by Strauss.

Three Strauss Ladies Reviewed in HGO's "Ariadne"

"As The Prima Donna in the prologue and Ariadne in The Opera, Christine Goerke was confident and insistent, magnificent in every respect and clearly at the top of her game. Funny and dramatic, she seemed entirely natural in these roles, as if they had been written expressly for her. As well, her commanding voice was the only one that prevailed over a largely dominant orchestra. She has a powerful, fully resonant quality that would make her an ideal Wagnerian singer, and one can only imagine what her recent interpretation of Kundry in Parsifal at Turin’s Teatro Regio was like. I’d safely bet that it was incredible. Standing on her lonely rock and beckoning to what she believes is Hermes ready to escort her towards death, a spine-tingling moment, she was one of the most extraordinary artists on HGO’s stage this season."

"Just a month ago at Dallas Opera, Laura Claycomb gave an exacting, emotional performance as Gilda in Verdi’s popular Rigoletto. Her voice was rich and confident, clear in the high notes, her phrasing smooth and inventive. Thrilling to hear, she was also a very convincing actor, vulnerable and endearing as the hunchbacked jester’s beautiful daughter. This being the only other role I’ve seen her perform, however, it appears that she is much more attuned to Verdi’s flowing Italian than Strauss’ dense Austrian-flavored German. Her interpretation of Zerbinetta on Friday was largely unremarkable. It seemed she was protecting her voice in order to make it through the thing. Her high notes were raspy, sometimes thin. She struggled with the coloratura flourishes in the lengthy second-scene 'Opera' aria. She looked tired. This might have been unnoticeable if she had exuded more charisma. Zerbinetta is an 'all or nothing' role, and Claycomb stayed safely in the middle."

"In the prologue it is Zerbinetta, I believe, who refers to The Composer with contempt, saying, 'his endless top notes are irritating.' Funny when mentioned within the opera, unfortunately this was exactly the case with Susan Graham, who didn’t seem in good voice on Friday night. It was as if she couldn’t hear herself. She seemed even out of breath at times. Most of her top notes were distinctly sharp or flat, and vocally she wandered throughout the scene, giving us far too many sudden fortissimos. Strauss gave some of his most glorious phrases to this character, and I kept waiting for Graham to settle in and dazzle, but she didn’t. There is also the matter of her acting. Yes, The Composer has a stormy persona, but that doesn’t mean the part is one-dimensional. 'He' has to do more than stamp his foot time and again."

[Source]