Hitting the high notes
One of the world’s top sopranos comes to town for the Lyric Opera’s season opener
Soprano Ana Maria Martinez once entertained the idea of a career in psychology. But some might argue she hasn’t entirely missed the mark. After all, with its grand passions and tortured souls, opera offers her the opportunity to explore the dizzying array of emotions and behaviors that define the human condition. This week, she begins her role as Shakespeare’s Desdemona — the Venetian beauty who defies her father and comes to a tragic end — in Verdi’s “Otello,” which opens the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 59th season.
“Verdi, what a blessing!” says Martinez, who is singing Desdemona for the first time. “He wrote some of the most beautiful, inspiring, soaring vocal lines, accessing what I would describe as the ethereal transparency of love and benevolence. These qualities are generously displayed in Desdemona’s vocal writing, particularly when she is expressing her love for Otello and in her final prayer, ‘Ave Maria.’ ”
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Florida and New York City, Martinez grew up around music (her mother was an opera singer) and knew early on that it would be a part of her own life. She studied musical theater at the Boston Conservatory before a knowing teacher steered her to classical training at Juilliard. Professionally, she found a nurturing home at the Houston Grand Opera, where she made her mark singing Cio-Cio San in “Madama Butterfly.”
No stranger to the Lyric stage (previous performances include Nedda in “I Pagliacci,” Mimi in “La Boheme” and Marguerite in “Faust”), Martinez says of her current role: “Desdemona is all love, innocence and purity. One of the key tasks is to keep her emotionally clean and naive at every moment, while still emotionally charged in a delicate way.”
Martinez’s talents have taken to her to opera houses and concert halls across Europe and the U.S. She has sung opposite the legendary Plácido Domingo at the Los Angeles Opera, toured with the wildly popular Andrea Bocelli and earned high praise for her performance in the Glyndebourne Festival Opera production of Dvořák’s “Rusalka.” And as she returns to share her talents with Chicago, she remains as committed to the opera as ever. “This genre remains a virtuosic art form, and if you can excel in the technical vocal demands required, are disciplined, professional and talented in the art of living out of a suitcase, you will have your chance to shine.”