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Opera singer Priti Gandhi transitions to soprano, looks to make her mark in the most prominent roles

By Valerie Scher UNION-TRIBUNE CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC

April 13, 2008

It's a sunny weekday morning, and opera singer Priti Gandhi is seated at her family's piano, doing voice exercises. Playing chords as accompaniment, she sings a series of scales. Up and down they go, progressing ever higher until her voice soars so forcefully that you half expect the windows to rattle in the spacious Del Mar home.

“Singing higher feels good to me. That's why I'm moving into the soprano range,” the former mezzo-soprano says. “Voices can change. A soprano is what I'm meant to be.”

The transition from mezzo-soprano (the voice type that's between soprano and contralto) to soprano (the highest- pitched female voice) is a big milestone for the 35-year-old singer who was born in Mumbai, India, grew up in Encinitas and Del Mar and has an international career.

Sopranos have the showiest voices and the most prominent roles. They're also most likely to be superstars. Think of such legendary singers as Joan Sutherland and Maria Callas. Or contemporary stand-outs like Renee Fleming and Anna CRISSY PASCUAL / Union-Tribune Opera singer Priti Gandhi, at her family's piano, is Netrebko. increasingly comfortable with soprano roles.

For Gandhi, the change didn't come overnight. It took about two years.

Publicly, she performed what's known in German as zwischen Fach (“switcher” repertoire), which can be sung by mezzos or sopranos. Privately, she worked on soprano roles, aided by vocal coaches in New York and Los Angeles.

“I have to follow where my voice is going,” says Gandhi (whose first name is pronounced PREE-thee). “I'm excited to see where being a soprano will take me.”

In December, it took her to Lyric Opera San Diego, where for the first time in her long history with the company, she sang a soprano role – the mother in Menotti's “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”

Now she's at San Diego Opera, another organization where she's well-known as a mezzo. Last night, she made her company debut as a soprano, performing the (offstage) part of the High Priestess in the production of Verdi's “Aida,” which continues through April 23 at downtown's Civic Theatre.

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In August, she'll sing the same role at Seattle Opera. And in 2010, she'll appear in her biggest role yet at San Diego Opera – high-spirted Musetta in Puccini's “La Boheme,” with Anja Harteros starring as Mimi.

“I think she (Gandhi) can have a significant career as a soprano,” says San Diego Opera general and artistic director Ian Campbell, whom Gandhi considers a mentor. “Priti's voice has moved naturally from mezzo to soprano, although she still has the capacity to sing certain mezzo roles very well Her voice has the darker sound, as previously, but has greater shine at the top.”

Yet being a soprano means greater competition and pressure.

“There are a lot more sopranos than mezzos out there,” she says. “You have to stand out from the crowd. A soprano has got to have the high notes. That's a little scary. I have to work on my technique to make sure it serves me well.

CRISSY PASCUAL / Union-Tribune Soprano Priti Gandhi travels the globe for far-flung singing engagements but still considers San Diego her home base.

“What's important is to find a niche – to figure out how I'm unique and what I can do best,” Gandhi adds. “That's how I can create a career for myself as a soprano.”

Becoming a professional singer was far from her thoughts as a youngster. The eldest of three children of an engineer and an after-school math instructor, she began 11 years of piano lessons at age 6.

It was only when Gandhi was a 20-year-old communications major at UCSD (with a minor in theater) that she began singing for fun as a member of the university's concert choir. She also started voice lessons.

Her teacher, Laurie Romero, commended her student for having an operatic voice. Not that Gandhi knew much about opera.

“I come from a traditional Indian family so opera was not something I was exposed to,” Gandhi says.

When she first began learning the famous aria “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh my dear daddy”) from the opera “Gianni Schicchi,” “something inside me turned on. I felt happier in that moment than I ever had in my life.”

San Diego Opera became her major training ground, where she sang in the chorus, appeared as a member of the San Diego Opera Ensemble and served as an artist-in-residence in preparation for engagements everywhere from New York to Paris, Los Angeles to Mexico City.

Now that she's a lyric soprano, she's not about to turn into a tantrum-throwing diva who demands only a certain brand of bottled water in her dressing room.

“That's the most ridiculous thing,” she says of such behavior. “People are insecure, and they do whatever they need to do to make themselves feel good.”

For Gandhi, that means eating vegetarian fare (“I'm a New Age hippie granola type of girl”) and meditating daily. As a certified yoga instructor, teaching each summer at the performance training program OperaWorks at California State University Northridge, Gandhi believes that yoga helps with the breathing and diaphragm control that she'll need as a soprano.

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Does she yearn for stardom?

“That's not really a practical goal,” she answers. “I just want to be the best singer I can be, serve the art form and pay my bills.”

That's plenty.

Valerie Scher: (619) 293-1038; [email protected]

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