8 COVER STORY

Danielle de Niese in make-up for a Proms in the Park in England; during rehearsals with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, bottom ET IMAGES GETTY

anielle de Niese isn’t quite ready for never knew classical music was like this!’ her close-up. A security guard is still Honestly, if opera is done well it can be a life- on the way with the diamond neck- enhancing experience.” lace she left behind in rural Glynde- She bites into a strawberry tart. “I would say bourne, a good two-hour drive from STAR ON to Australians that The Merry Widow is the Dthis luxury Knightsbridge hotel with its thick perfect opera for those who still have those old shagpile, edgy modern art and sweeping views stereotypes and mental barriers about opera. of one of London’s most privileged postcodes. It’s frothy, fun and beautiful but at its heart lies She had been busy getting ready when she this universal story of the one that got away.” locked the bling in a safe, out of reach of her Ah yes, The Merry Widow. Penned by 19th- two-year-old, whose eager little hands had been THE RISE century Austro-Hungarian composer Franz grabbing at everything shiny. Then she prompt- Lehar, this Paris-set tale of a rich dowager and ly forgot to bring it: “I really wanted to wear it the attempts to find her a husband was the run- with this dress for our photo shoot,” says the It has been a huge journey from Young Talent Time to away hit of its day. Opera Australia’s produc- internationally acclaimed Australian-American tion of the operetta (think a lighter, more bite- soprano in her sunny Californian twang. “Never the world’s opera houses: Danielle de Niese tells Jane sized opera) looks set to be similarly popular, mind; we can do the interview first. Cake?” what with choreography and direction from A silver high-tea stand filled with pastries, Cornwell she couldn’t have done it without Australia Graeme Murphy (late of the Sydney Dance biscuits and other colourful, calorific treats sits Company), an English translation by Justin on the table between us, the legacy of an Insta- Fleming and more glitter, ballads, waltzes, silky gram session that de Niese, 38, has just done for would make her a household name among ing,” de Niese has said. Promotional tie-ins fishtail gowns and dapper dress suits than you the hotel. Like the maker of the jewels and the opera fans: an all-singing, all-dancing Cleopatra aside, her forays into other mediums variously can shake a champagne flute at. designer of her dress, a fabulous clingy number in David McVicar’s production of Handel’s include performing a song in Ridley Scott’s 2001 Opening in Melbourne next month, and festooned with psychedelic swirls, the high-end Giulio Cesare. thriller Hannibal, singing a duet with Mika on heading to Sydney in the new year, it’s a work establishment is one of several purveyors of lux- De Niese’s skimpily dressed portrayal (for British TV show From Popstar to Opera Star, with the feel-good vibe of a dance musical and ury with whom the international singing star which she trained, singing and running, on a and collaborating with rapper LL Cool J at Car- the perfect, if unusually youthful, star to bring has, well, a special arrangement. treadmill) had critics waxing ecstatic. One negie Hall. Genre-crossing comes naturally to a the title role to life. Brand ambassadors are nothing new, but drooled that she had put the sex into Sussex, a woman who, as a teen, won an Emmy for her “It is a really big deal for me to be coming they tend to be cherrypicked from the worlds of reference to the English home county where hosting skills on television talent program LA back to Australia,” says de Niese, who last visit- sport (David Beckham), film (George Clooney) the annual opera soiree takes place. Oh, and Kids — and who, aged nine, was the youngest ed our shores in 2012 as part of a national and pop (Beyonce). Try as it may, opera has indirectly, the Glyndebourne estate, in whose winner of Australia’s Ten Network series Young concert recital tour with the Australian Cham- never been viewed as a bastion of cool. Or at 17th-century manor house adjoining the audit- Talent Time, more of which later. ber Orchestra. “As a performer you give every- least not until the genre-hopping, coloratura- orium de Niese happens to live. Going far beyond opera singing is all part of thing onstage and often you don’t know what wielding de Niese came along, blowing back the Having reprised Cleopatra at the privately de Niese’s cunning plan to lure non-opera you’re going to get in return, but when you go hair of audiences at top houses everywhere run Glyndebourne in 2006, and become lovers over to her art and challenge the purists, home you can feel the energy, people going: from London and New York to Vienna and involved with Gus Christie, third-generation the fusty old guard who were appalled by, say, ‘She’s our girl, she’s one of us.’ Munich with her silvery lyric voice and nimble owner and Eton-educated chairman of the her role as kidnapped diva Roxanne Coss in “Because I have a mixed background I can dance manoeuvres. Glyndebourne Festival Opera, she Bel Canto, a 2015 adaptation of the best- sometimes feel like I belong nowhere,” she con- Now, finally, Australia will be privy to the married him in 2009. The couple have selling Anne Patchett novel staged by tinues, “but then I can also feel like I belong fuss when the Melbourne-born diva makes her reigned victorious over British opera the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and had everywhere. I go to these places and they open antipodean opera debut in a lively new Opera ever since. conniptions over the LL Cool J hip- their arms like this …” De Niese mimics a hug, Australia production of The Merry Widow. As Switched on and savvy, more opera thing. her dark eyes sparking with tears. homecomings go, this one has been a long time Markle than Middleton, de Niese has De Niese nods as she choos- “Australia gave me this huge chance, which coming. worked hard to make opera more es a couple of pastries and makes me emotional because if I hadn’t been “I’ve always made it clear to Opera Australia accessible. The covers of her albums — pours from a white china tea- given that chance …” She shrugs, as if to say it that I would move whatever I could to find a recordings that range from her pot. “If there is going to be a doesn’t bear thinking about. way to work with them,” says de Niese, whose trademark Handel and Mozart arias classical singer in something One of two children born to Sri Lankan diary is booked a staggering five years ahead. to new pieces including a vocal that’s not classical,” she says, Burghers (“people of mixed descent from the “But going to Australia is not like popping over arrangement of Karl Jenkins’s “then it should be a legitimate island’s colonial days”) who arrived in Australia to Europe or even to New York. You need a Palladium Suite — capture a modern one who can represent. I’ll as teenagers, de Niese spent her early life in couple of months or more. Plus I’m a mum now; diva with fashion nous and a know- take the knock for the Glen Waverley in Melbourne’s southeastern I can’t flit about like I used to.” ing gaze. A woman who centres her- benefit of reaching a dif- suburbs, singing before she could walk. Not just De Niese was 19 when she made her debut at self by listening to top 40 ferent audience. You’ve the usual coos, either: “My mother tells me I the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Barba- hits through headphones got to put your money used to be able to sing back to her exactly what rina in a production of Mozart’s Le nozze di before she steps onstage. where your mouth is. she’d sung, with perfect intonation.” Figaro directed by English auteur Jonathan Baroque and roll, indeed. “I have lots of friends Recognising their daughter’s preternatural Miller. A series of increasingly starry appear- “Being an opera outside of opera who, after talent (and, later, the sporting prowess of her ances across Europe were followed, at the singer today goes far seeing me in something for younger brother, who had tennis lessons with Glyndebourne Festival in 2005, by the role that beyond opera sing- the first time, say: ‘Oh my god, I Peter McNamara), they enrolled her in Satur-

October 28-29, 2017 theaustralian.com.au/review AUSE01Z01AR - V1