Emotional power plant

Hm, I'll have to think about that because I don't have a motto for my life. Maybe like this: people often ask me why I chose this or that role or what message I want to convey with a production. I always think to myself that the answer is actually: "My singing is not a statement, but a confession."

What we generally call art is a very abstract thing. You know, loving someone is also art. Nature is art. Living in a certain way can be art. So for me, art is not just music, painting, theater and so on, not just paintings, operas. But rather: The greatest and most interesting work of art is our life itself. So in a way, I really feel that every single person is an artist, because we all create every single day of our lives. If you look at it that way, then yes, of course, you can say that art is more fulfilling and greater, because love is only one part of our lives.

I actually try to place individual roles in such a way that the performances are not too far apart. Because when I rehearse a role - and I sing a lot of them - it may be several years since the last time I sang it. So it's definitely worth singing it several times in the course of a new rehearsal and not just in one series.

Every role is, and I mention this again and again, a part of me. So I don't have to change to become Tatjana, I already am. On the other hand, of course, each of the roles has an influence on my life. I learn something from it for my existence. So it's like this: Not only do I bring something to the role, but it influences me to a certain extent. It would be impossible for me to be an artist and live the roles the way I do without also being touched by them.

I need a moment, because I don't think about these things that much ... So perhaps it's less about the learning itself and more about being absorbed in a stage character. She is me and I am her. I simply become this character that you experience on stage. Of course, this also has to do with the opera, because Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin is such a fantastically written work. The characters are so perfectly captured, plus the emotions, the text and the music, so much is so universal - you don't have to be a special person to be Tatyana. I think every single woman has a Tatjana in her.

I do believe in differences between men and women. And I think we can see these differences very clearly in this opera. Being a woman means having a different way of thinking, a different vocabulary system and a different way of feeling. Of course, we humans all share the same feelings. But I still think that we are also different. For me, men and women are different planets.

We must not lose sight of the eras. Of course, we live in a different time today, a time in which divorces are much easier to implement than when the opera was written. But it's not just that. Tatyana loved Eugene Onegin, but he hurt her, very badly. After that, she managed to put the story behind her. So I honestly think that the true love in this opera is between Prince Gremin and Tatyana: that's the really great relationship. Tatyana gets from him what she never got from Onegin and probably never would. Apart from that: You have to be honest and loyal and faithful to your decisions. So I can understand Tatyana very well. There is, of course, a sadness that happiness would have been so close: that it didn't happen. But if the two of them got involved with each other now, who knows whether it wouldn't end in another catastrophe?

But is that really genuine love? I don't think so. I think she loves him in memory. A memory from her youth. She doesn't really know him, it was a teenage love at the time. Let's look back: how did she fall in love with Onegin? She ultimately fell in love with an image she had created. Tatyana could have fallen in love with almost anyone at that time. I see her love for Onegin more as her having created the illusion of a person - and we women are good at this - and ascribing to him qualities that he never had and never will have. Onegin was a character of her dreams that she found in books. This is already very clear at the beginning, and the moment he coldly refers to her letter, she realizes what this illusion is all about and who this person is in real life. That's when the rose-colored glasses break for the first time.

No. At least from my perspective and from my life experiences, I can say that she doesn't feel any satisfaction at that moment. If this had happened earlier, in the second act during her name day party, it might have been different. But years later - no. Tatjana is happily married and she has a good life. I've had situations like that, where people come after years and suddenly tell you that they love you - but there's nothing left. No emotions, except perhaps a feeling of pity or occasionally the regret that things could have turned out well. But it just didn't happen. You no longer suffer because the story is over. So: for Tatyana it is over, whereas for Onegin it seems to be something new.

I don't think so. It doesn't change anything in her life anymore.

Absolutely! I've always thought that art has more to do with emotion than intellect. If you have to read a book after a performance to understand what it was about, then that's not my way. From my perspective, art is absolutely something that you simply have to feel.