This is a huge week for Italian soprano Maria Luigia Borsi. She’s in Cincinnati to make her American debut as Desdemona, the girl in the middle of Giuseppe Verdi’s classic tale of betrayal, Otello. Before Monday’s dress rehearsal, Maria Luigia and husband, American violinist Brad Repp, sat down to talk about the remarkable events of the past few years that have brought her to the Cincinnnati Opera stage.
Q: How did your American debut in Cincinnati come about?
A: Evans [Mirageas] had been following my career for a long time. He talked to me two years ago about doing Otello here after I sang the role of Desdemona in Salzburg and Rome with Maestro [Riccardo] Muti. My career has been more in Italy, Europe, and Asia. I’m quite a well-known singer in Japan, but not at all in America. And Maestro Muti said to me, “They’ll love you in America.” So, I’m very excited.
Q: What is it about your voice that Muti thinks Americans will love?
A: My voice is a soprano lirico, and many people tell me that my sound is very pure. I also think it’s because when I sing, I communicate what I’m feeling at the moment.
Q: What will you be thinking about when you’re portraying Desdemona?
A: I feel very close to Desdemona because she feels everything with her heart. It is the same for me. Every time I sing an opera I connect it to something in my life. My mom died seven years ago, and perhaps she would still like to hug and kiss me, but she can’t. I can find extreme emotion in that, and I feel that, especially in the last act of Otello. Even after Otello has killed Desdemona, I think she would still want to kiss and hug him.
Q: I know it’s also important for you to try to figure out a character’s backstory. What have you learned about Desdemona that would surprise audiences?
A: Many people think she’s not so clever, but I don’t agree. When I bring her to life on stage and understand the motivation behind her decisions, I think she’s just young. She loves Otello, the warrior, the soldier, and she doesn’t care what other people think about her decision, even her father. And she takes responsibility for her actions. At the end of the opera when Emilia asks her, “Who killed you?” She says, “It was myself.”
Q: What can women today learn from Desdemona’s story?
A: It’s always important to trust your instincts, follow your heart, and take responsibility for your decisions.
Q: Have you always been that confident?
A: Yes. I have been very lucky. I don’t come from a musical family. My father was a train driver, and my mother was a teacher of handicapped children. I think I’m a regular, simple person, and I don’t believe in being a diva. I believe in hard work. My father also taught me to believe in honesty, especially with yourself. I began to sing in a very natural way when I was 3 years old after I saw Tosca with Maria Callas on the television. The moment when Tosca kills Scarpia impressed me so much that I began to sing all the time. When I would argue with my mother, for example, I would sing.
Q: How did your mother handle that?
A: Well, she thought I was very strange. [Laughter] My father says I hummed a lot, too. When I was 7, my grandfather gave me a recording of Madama Butterfly. It was the first complete opera that I heard, and I loved it with a passion. I started to sing in a church choir when I was 6 and went to a conservatory when I was 15, but I didn’t imagine I’d be singing with such famous conductors as Muti, Mehta, and Maazel or with singers like Carreras and Domingo. I can’t believe it now.
Q: How important has the role of Desdemona been to your career?
A: It comes down to a moment in Salzburg. It was after a rehearsal. Maestro Muti said to me, “You’re coming to Rome [to do the role] with me, right?” And I said, “No, Maestro.” He said to the artistic director, “Why isn’t she coming to Rome?” He called the president of the Rome Opera and said, “I want Maria because she is very good, and I want to work with singers I have already worked with.” It was set up in two minutes. I said, “Thank you, Maestro.” He said, “You don’t have to thank me, because I don’t do favors.” Then he said in front of the cast and crew, “If you aren’t one of the top sopranos at an international level right now, you have a bad agent.” Right after that, I got a new agent.
Q: It’s been a year of debuts: your American debut here, your London recital debut in January, and your role debut as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly coming up in October with the Royal Danish Opera. All of these come with intense scrutiny by the press and audiences. Will you be glad when the pressure of debuts is behind you?
A: My happiness and excitement outweigh the nerves. I’m so excited to connect with the American audience. I was in the audience here for Meistersinger, and it was wonderful to see people so open and laughing when it was funny. You don’t get that often in Italy. Audiences are much more formal. I think it’s a beautiful thing to enjoy it and express it.
Q: What do you do to connect with the audience?
A: I want the music, what is happening onstage, and the audience to be one. I don’t really know how it works, but there are moments when the audience is breathing with me. That is magic.
Kathleen Doane is a freelance journalist who writes about the arts. She is a retired Senior Editor of Cincinnati Magazine where she covered the local arts scene for 10 years. Prior to that she was an Assistant Features Editor at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
