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“Opera’s powerhouse mezzo” Natalja Sticco [INTERVIEW]

“Opera’s powerhouse mezzo” Natalja Sticco [INTERVIEW]

Natalja Sticco is a hot ticket in the world of opera. NY Weekly recently ranked her #7 in their list of Top 20 Artists to Follow in 2020. The Latvian-born opera and classical singer launched her career in 2009. She moved to Boston in 2018 and broke out as a soloist and concert performer. With over 200 performances covering 30 operas throughout her career, she has established herself as an emerging powerhouse and classical crossover artists. She’s known throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North America. This multi-talented “Verdi-Mezzo” is charming audiences around the world with her voice and beauty. Natalja also placed in the top 2% of models in Maxim Magazine’s 2020 Covergirl competition! 

Natalja is giving our Luxe Beat Magazine readers an exclusive interview! Even if opera isn’t your “thing” this artist is a one to watch. She shared with me some moving thoughts on why she believes opera is for everyone, on some level, how Armin van Buuren’s “Blah, Blah, Blah” influences each and every one of her performances, and the new TV series she’s working on.

My introduction to opera

As a young girl, I wasn’t much into cartoons, but I did favor Bugs Bunny. One might say, “Rabbit of Seville” my first introduction to opera. The music was incredible. My first actual opera experience was attending the performance of Madam Butterfly at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in the Buffalo Theatre District in Buffalo, NY. I was in elementary school at the time, maybe fourth or fifth grade and we were going on a school field trip, and I couldn’t wait. It was a snowy Buffalo day and I remember the chill of getting off the school bus and feeling the warmth as I entered the theatre. The building was ornate and everything was grand. With my ticket in hand, walking down the aisle amongst the sea of red velvet seats was magical. At the time, I didn’t understand exactly what an opera was and I believe I may have been told it would be in another language, but I didn’t care. It was a thrill to be out of the classroom. The lights went down, the curtain went up and voila! The story was dramatic and the music evocative. It was something I’ll never forget. 
Shea's Theatre Buffalo

Natalja the early years…

When asked about when she first remembers music being a part of her life, she said, “The short answer is that music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. But getting this question pretty regularly, I sat down once to really reflect on it and I think it goes back to the time of my home-country of Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union, around 1991. I was about 5 years old and I remember music being everywhere, and always loving it. It wasn’t until I was a teen that I learned that this period was actually called The Singing Revolution and it was a time when streets were full of people singing in protest. I think the experience of the music and seeing what it did to the adults around me left an imprint in me that music had this ‘power’ I didn’t understand, but knew it was something to be respected. So my interest in it deepened.”

She says she started performing around the age of five when her family would take train trips to Moscow, several times a year. The trips were long and it gave her an opportunity to woo the passengers along the way. She said, “There was a popular Russian children’s song at the time I would always sing on the train. If you figure at that time there was no internet to distract yourself with so I had a captive audience who luckily enjoyed my performance. The only problem was I’d be asked to sing more and this was the only song I knew.” Her career as a professional began in 2009 when she became a performing member with Latvian National Opera.

Connecting with the audience is everything

For Natalja the audience energy is everything. It’s what drives her to perform and says, “It’s connecting with people on a personal level and the power to take them someplace through music. When I’m performing I get that energy from the audience, but it’s afterwards when someone comes up and starts telling me a story about a particular song I performed and a moment in their life, or a friend or relative who is a musician and what they’re doing; what it tells me is that they’ve been moved to the point that they need to give back too, and it’s just a beautiful experience for me.”

Opera classics

Macbeth by Verdi, is Natalja’s favorite opera. She says loving the music and story is easy, but it’s also the opera she feels she has the most emotional connection. “It was the first time I performed outside of Latvia with the chorus of the Latvian National Opera. The role of the chorus is one of the strongest in Macbeth compared to other operas, so as a performer all those aspects gave me that first feeling of, Wow, I’m doing this!”    

She is a young singer and opera is a field where the voice must be developed. “Now that I’m a bit older and my voice has also grown it’s time for me to tackle two of the most prestigious Verdi roles for a Mezzo, “Azucena” in the opera “Il Trovatore” and “Eboli” in “Don Carlo.” These are really the roles I’ve been preparing for my whole career. In fact, very early on I had the privilege of working with one of the world’s top coaches for Verdi repertoire, Paulo Di Napoli, at his studio in Italy. I reached out to him just prior to the COVID crisis and he told me it was time for me to return and work with him on these roles.” As soon as travel is a bit easier she will be headed back to Italy to pursue.

Influences

This “Verdi-Mezzo” was inspired by performing arts like ballet, classical music and of course opera. “The arts are a huge thing in Europe in general and I think if you look at Russia and the Former Soviet Union performing arts…are at the top of any list. Mastering technical skill and having a deep understanding of music theory and history was paramount as a basis before anyone would even consider talking with you about performing. So I think being immersed in a larger society and culture which valued artists in general was a huge influence as well as inspiration.” 

Mezzo Soprano, Jessye Norman has been an influence throughout Natalja’s career. “While I can rattle of a list of musicians who I find interesting and inspiring I can honestly say that I truly admire Jessye Norman who, like me, was a Mezzo Soprano, but she was a remarkable woman who took many chances by not allowing her music to be limited by voice type, which is extremely common in the opera world. Throw in the fact that as a black opera singer, she rose to worldwide prominence in the industry during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and her accomplishments are truly extraordinary.”  

Natalja Sticco album cover

M.I.C.E TV series “Easter egg” cameo

Just when you think this opera superstar can’t get more interesting…she does! She’s working on a TV series called M.I.C.E. “It is exciting! It’s a TV series in-development that’s actually based on my husband’s experience as a contractor for the CIA. He had wrote a book about his experiences and being embedded inside international oil and gas companies undercover but ran into a bunch of legal roadblocks, so he had met some writers and someone interested in producing it and took all the different stories he had, mashed them together into a few themes and began rewriting everything as fiction based on real events. My role and appearance is a bit of a cameo or an “Easter egg” as he refers to it. The lead female character in the series is based on several women he worked with or was romantically involved with (in the years before meeting me of course) and based a bit on me as well! I play the mother of the female lead.” The M.I.C.E. acronym stands for Money, Idealism, Coercion and Ego or Extortion, all reasons people become spies. The series explores all the different aspects of those motivations in relation to the characters.   

Blah, Blah, Blah…

When preparing for “repertoire” or for a role Natalja says she tries to find a nice spot and sun someplace to get herself comfy. She has quite a specific song she uses to warm up. “I do…Blah, Blah, Blah by Armin van Buuren. I’m a huge fan of his anyway and this mix is just one that makes me happy and pops into my head pretty frequently when dealing with people!”

When she’s approaching a new project, whether it’s an on-stage role or piece of music she starts by exploring the composer’s intentions for it. “As an opera singer, our responsibility is to be the voice of the composer, and to give life to the music.” For her it’s about becoming part of the orchestration, not always “making it your own.” 

Biggest misconception about opera

Natalja had a passionate and well-thought out response to my question about what the biggest misconception about opera is. In her words…

“That people think they “don’t like opera!” Most times I’ll just passively say, “well it’s not for everyone” but if I have time I like to probe deeper and ask what exactly it is that they don’t like about it? Usually the answer is simply that they don’t understand it, or they don’t know anything about it, and you can see they feel a bit foolish then for having said they don’t like it. My husband just had this exact conversation with a friend of his. Then he took out his iPad and went to my Spotify playlist titled “Wait for it! Opera you didn’t know you loved” and begins going through the songs on that. His friends’ reaction was “oh yeah, I do like that, or I know that, or well yeah of course everyone loves that one.” I’m not saying that means someone will become a passionate opera lover, but it proves the point that opera is wove throughout popular culture in ways people don’t recognize, and they do enjoy the music so it’s disingenuous to just say “I don’t like opera.” Another couple who are friends of my husband came when I performed in “Carmen.” The wife was a lifelong opera lover. Her husband had never been to an opera. At the intermission when my husband went and asked the guy how he liked it, he was full of excitement and amazement that he knew so much of the music and didn’t realize it!  

The other aspect, particularly for American’s is that they don’t understand the language and cringe at the thought of reading subtitles during a performance. I can’t help with that, but when I tell them what a popular aria like Nessun Dorma (which everyone knows from Pavarotti) is about, and then the context of the opera it comes from, people are like, “wow, that’s something I’d watch.” I could go on and on about how opera has influenced Broadway Musicals, Classic Rock like Queen and Led Zeppelin, and even Pop stars like Beyonce and Lady Gaga!. If you’re passionate about music and don’t understand the influence of opera and classical music through other genres then you’re really missing out on understanding the music you’re quick to say that you do love.  

I became really passionate about this idea too at the height of the protests around the George Floyd killing. Now, I’m as far from a political advocate or social warrior as you can probably get, but I never heard one person say that this shooting was not a horrible tragedy or that the cop was justified. When my husband saw the video the first thing he said was, “That cop needs to go to jail.” Then the “Black Live Matter” vs “All Lives Matter” rhetoric began, and we know what happened from there. What I realized though was that, like the response I get about “not liking opera,” people were reacting to words they didn’t understand and that they weren’t taking time to actually listen. I had someone once comment that opera was just a bunch of old people screaming on stage. It’s not. Opera singers aren’t just telling a story, we are breathing life and vocalizing the emotions the character in the story is feeling. While the lyrics of a pop song or broadway musical say what happened or how something made the singer feel, in opera we vocalize the expression of that emotion. That’s why you don’t need a translation to enjoy it. You can hear excitement, anger, a broken heart or fear. If we got past the words “Black Lives Matter” what you’d hear is a community that is afraid and in pain. Whether you agree that they should feel like that or not is irrelevant. It’s like any relationship, your friend says they’re hurt by your actions you can dismiss it or say “I don’t want you to feel like that, and it wasn’t my intention for you to feel like that” and you work through it. So my message, my position if I have to say I have one, is that whether it’s opera, relationships with loved ones or bigger issues like social equality is maybe what we all need to do as individuals is make time to listen to the emotion behind the words before we react.”

What an interview! Natalja, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and for being so open. We’ll continue to follow your career and I look forward to seeing you in a live performance when it’s safe for us all to be out in the world again. Best of luck to you!

To keep up with Natalja Sticco visit nataljasticco.com.

Natalja Sticco interview questions luxe beat magazine

About The Author

Sherrie Wilkolaski

Sherrie Wilkolaski is the Editor-in-Chief of Luxe Beat Magazine and CEO of Luxe Beat Media. She's a luxury lifestyle journalist, bestselling author, speaker, radio talk show host, content strategist and Publishing Architect™. France is her favorite country to visit, her most memorable travel experience was walking the Great Wall of China and she is looking forward to making her inaugural visit to Ireland soon! Her column Cookies & Cocktails is Luxe Beat's most popular. She’s a former International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association board member and treasurer. Her most recent book, Publishing Architect’s Blueprint: Self-Publishing Fundamentals is a 2017 Indie Book Awards Finalist. She's currently studying for her first Sommelier exam. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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