An interview with

Diana Damrau

What drew you to this project?

I had my debut as Maria Stuarda two years ago – I’m doing her again at the moment at the Zurich opera house – and next year will be my debut as Anna Bolena. So I had been playing with the idea, and then the possibility came to record in Rome with Antonio Pappano, the chorus, orchestra and the young singers. I think there was no question; it was a wish, a hope and then it was a dream come true.

Were you impressed by the young singers of Rome Opera? They performed with all their heart and all their love, and they were completely committed. We need young singers and it’s wonderful for someone at the beginning of their career to see how an opera recording works. Just to be more focused on the music, and bring everything you would normally cover with stage acting, movement and the visual – you are forced to put everything into your voice.

How different musically are the three roles?

I would say they’re quite different. What connects them is that they are powerful women in very dramatic moments.

Their femininity, hope and love is imprisoned by their circumstances, but Donizetti shows their hearts. Anna is painted like a woman who is blinded by her ambition; she’s more lyric, the tessitura slightly lower than Maria. In Maria’s music you feel a lot of longing; it’s a little bit more silvery and softer. Elizabeth’s reign was the longest, but it was at the cost of her soul, her love and her body. Donizetti finds beautiful music for all three of them.

Leonore Overture No. 3; Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92 Saito Kinen Orchestra/seiji Ozawa Decca 485 0027 52:50 mins

Released to mark the veteran conductor’s

85th birthday, these 2016/17 live recordings from Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra bring meticulous attention to detail to Beethoven’s thrilling Symphony No. 7 and the Leonore Overture No. 3. The playing from the Saito Kinen Orchestra, formed every year for the Seiji Ozawa Festival Matsumoto, is lively, clean, full of joy and orchestral breadth, with rapturous applause at the end.

Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 is in fact the second version of the overture he wrote for the 1806 revival of his opera Leonore (which later became Fidelio). Dramatically fleshing out the entire opera, including the ending – and here Beethoven realised his narrative error, the reason for subsequent versions – it is neatly played by Ozawa and the Saito Kinen, from the dark confines of the prison cell to the distant off-stage trumpet and the heroic finale.

The composer’s Symphony

No. 7 is given very much the same treatment, the opening movement sprightly and meticulous. This is Beethoven, refined, elegant, sculptural, exciting at times, but lacking depth. Ozawa creates a billowing cloud of lovely, elegant sound, assiduously sculpting the dynamic range, swirling along with beautiful containment – but it is too much so. There is great majesty in the third movement and an appropriate dance-like buoyancy. Wagner called this symphony ‘the apotheosis of the dance’, something which Ozawa takes to heart. But it is perhaps too light in places, and among all this meticulous musicmaking, we sometimes lose the thrilling drive inherent in the piece. Sarah Urwin Jones

PERFORMANCE ★★★

RECORDING ★★★★