Süddeutsche Zeitung: When you sang Cherubino under Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg, it was immediately clear that your opera roles benefit from your experience with poetry and Lieder.



Christine Schäfer. Photo courtesy of Augstein Artist Management

Christine Schäfer (website): I try to make use of the old tradition. When I hear old recordings, it's clear how self-evident that used to be. I can always produce nice tones, but it's enormously boring. I like to work from the text up, but sometimes I can't use the text because of the quality of my voice. The text can be an obstacle and I notice how strenuous it is to speak many and good texts. I recently met a colleague Ann Murray at a private event and she sang a little song, very intimately. I noticed that I miss the feeling of intimacy in general. When I was told that my voice wasn't especially large, at a very early stage, I had to turn the weakness into a strength. And I like the fact that I could sing Cherubino so quietly. I was delighted that people were moved by that.

To what extent is Nikolaus Harnoncourt responsible for your affinity to all these levels of text, timbre and meaning?

He is a major role model, I've been working with him for more than ten years. He gives you lots of ideas about text and phrasing, like not holding the tone of an unimportant syllable for as long as it is written. That creates an astonishing spectrum of flexibility and tension.

Does this apply to all roles?

Yes. And I also find it quite important that I've sung so much Baroque music. It's wonderful to apply the ideas for paraphrasing Baroque music to contemporary music. Music should be sung this way, not in one colour, not in one tone.

Do you listen to a lot of recordings?

No, I don't listen to that much classical music or song. I had a phase where I listened to a lot of the singer Suzanne Danco, because there was so much heat in her voice, an energy. Or Janet Baker, whose Lieder evenings I went to when I was a student in Berlin. I think that an atmosphere is conveyed by the voice alone, you recognise that as soon as you hear it. It's very important that this personality is present.

New music is important to you...

It depends. There is a kind of new music that feels like an end in itself. With younger composers, I sometimes simply don't understand, nothing happens in my heart. I grew up with Aribert Reimann, and his music is all about emotions. I sometimes what is self-evident with Mozart – that you can give in to your feelings.

Have you sung Luigi Nono, would "Canto sospeso" be something for you?

No - it seems that I've done lots of new music but there are singers that have sung and know a lot more new music than me. It was always important for me that Mozart or Strauss play a central role. At Lieder evenings, I always have a set of modern Lieder, that's very important to me. It just opens the ears. I learned that from Aribert Reimann.

How do you build your programme?

For many years, I put together the programme with pianists. And slowly I'm starting to pursue my own plans. For instance, what I like to do now is to add a song at the end that's not in the programme – to build in a little surprise, to work thematically, to let songs melt into each other in such a way that new connections can be made.

Or to do an entire evening on one theme.

That too. I programme my own CDs, so that of course influences my Lieder evenings. Schubert's "Winterreise" (review) was one such project. We've already started another programme, a mix of the music of the old composer Henry Purcell and the contemporary composer George Crumb. A mix of languages and sounds, an expansion.

Can you imagine other more exciting combinations?

The "Einstürzenden Neubauten" occur to me, they are contemporary composers if you think about it. Then you'd have to melt more at a very high level. I always find it very depressing that high and low culture want to be kept so far apart. For me, pop is a form of new music, Mozart was writing for the people, after all.

Is pop not just louder, simpler music than classical?

No, it's not, There are very complicated elements to pop music, If I were a composer, I would try to use electrical tones in a classical orchestra. Or I would like to subject my voice to electronics, something like William Forsythe when he does classical ballet. I find that interesting – to be a little lighter, more spontaneous. What always interested me in singing is that there are coloratura that sound like they've been cut – almost electronic. Whitney Houston can sing like that. You mustn't forget how many good singers there are already. Incredible coloratura! I would love to be able to do them like that.

Your two daughters probably listen to classical and pop, like lots of kids.

Yes, they had different phases. I always feel that kids suffer when their parents say, "You listen to stupid music." I have a colleague whose son plays heavy metal and he doesn't go to her concerts because he says, "If you don't come to mine, I won't come to yours'." Children need a lot more support for what they think. I want to experience it too. We used to listen to everything, from Frank Zappa to Pink Floyd, Alban Berg and Stravinsky. It's hard work.

Apropos Berg: is the role of Lulu a very important one to you?

You need to be pretty fit to do it for three hours. But I have to say that Mozart's "Donna Anna" is three times as hard. With Lulu, it's constantly going up and down, that's good for the voice. Richard Strauss knew that too. With Anna, the continuously high register is really difficult. Let's just say this: I could sing a lot more easily but then the emotion wouldn't be in it, the colour. I would like to do it in the old mood, to sing it half a tone lower, that would be easier. I sang Lulu for the first time in 1992. I think I could jump in tomorrow as Lulu and would only have to look at the notes, that's how often I've sung it.

Why do you sing so little of the Italian repertoire?

I love it, but am not asked to do it very often. I just sung Traviata with a young Italian conductor. At first, I was a bit scared but he was so enthusiastic about my Italian style that I was very encouraged.

Why is it that German signers always have trouble in the Italian compartment?

That's the Italian tradition. An Italian signer sings everything with much more voice. But for example with the recitative, which is a mix of singing and speaking, I don't like it when Italians sing out with this huge sound and style, if it all takes place at one level. When I look at the partitures from "La Traviata" and then sing them like that, I think, oh please, we don't want to hear that. After the Traviata in Berlin, one paper wrote: Schäfer turns the third act into a Lieder evening.

Did you build up your repertoire deliberately, consciously? Or do you wait for the offers to come to you? Where is the core of your musical- vocal interest?

My two children are just starting school so I'm singing less at the opera and thinking carefully about what roles I want to sing. I might sing for 15 more years, maybe longer. I'll have to think about what will not be possible in five years' time and what I definitely still want to do: "Manon" by Massenet or "Melisande" from the "Pelleas".

Without modern operatic direction and the Baroque opera, musical theatre would be a lot less lively: have directors rescued opera?

What I don't like about modern directors is when they don't trust the material and do something just for the sake of doing it differently – and to make a statement. For me the best example of a modern staging that remains close to the original is Michael Haneke's "Don Giovanni" in Paris. Don Giovanni is really a mystery. I would like to try an experiment once: modern direction in historical costumes. Singers in modern costumes do away with the operatic gestures. The worst is a singer is standing there in a jogging suit doing the old opera gestures. The most important is body language on the stage, the costume designers Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann pay close attention to this, as does Pierre Audi.

Or there's a constant stylisation, like with Robert Wilson.

I've never been in a Wilson staging but the images are great. But I wouldn't want to have to think during an aria that my left or right hand should be held that high. That would be a waste of my time. But often, the subtext will be performed and this can be hard for the audience to understand. It can be very interesting to play, but nothing more. In a jogging suit or a period costume. Most important are the relations, the tensions among the characters on the stage. Precision is helpful for everyone.

Here in Salzburg, we are in the wonderland of the superstars. Do you have a problem with that and with the marketing mechanisms?

I do have something against marketing. Me personally – but what other people do is their thing. I noticed that I had a problem with this, also with Deutsche Grammophon, because I didn't feel comfortable. I don't like giving three interviews a week, it just brings me down. And I prefer not to be recognised on the street. But I've enjoyed this work, this time in Salzburg very much. And I'm happy about the "Winterreise" (audio samples) – that I didn't do the typical marketing campaign and that the people just listened to it.

Why is this recording of Schubert's "Winterreise" so central and important to you?

Because it's a break with the business. For me, the personal is most important. I don't make a CD to feed some record label, but because it's a theme that interests me. Somehow I find it nicer say on the spur of the moment: we have to make this record now. The recording of "Winterreise" was not planned half a year in advance, it came into being in three weeks.

Is there such a thing as truth to the work in your opinion and experience?

I am totally true. I take whatever is there very seriously. But I think that personalities are so different that something different is bound to come out every time. For example, I know how flexible Aribert Reimann is. A composer is actually totally happy when he hears something that he doesn't know in a piece. Even Boulez was tolerant – I think composers are just happy when it sounds good. And when it is felt.

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This interview originally appeared in German in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 30 August, 2006.

Interview: Wolfgang Schreiber

Translation: nb