Adina Nitescu knows what it’s like at the top. In the next several months alone, the respected Romanian soprano will appear in starring roles at Venice’s La Fenice, the Staatsoper Dresden and Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera.
But she decided it would be worthwhile to take a break from that rarefied realm and make her Opera Colorado debut in the title role of “Madama Butterfly.” The production opens Saturday for four performances in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.
The attraction was twofold. The Berlin-based soprano always seeks opportunities to sing in one of her favorite operas, and she was eager for a chance to collaborate with Stephen Lord, a frequent guest conductor with Opera Colorado.
She knew Lord by reputation, but had never worked with him. In addition to regular engagements with companies across the country, the conductor also serves as the music director of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
“It’s the first time,” she said in her dressing room before a rehearsal earlier this week at the Ellie. “But I feel I’ve known him for ages. He is really great.”
Another appeal for her of working with a smaller company is the chance for longer rehearsal time and the opportunity to really hone a character.
“You can sometimes get more professionalism in a smaller house than a bigger one,” she said. “Vienna, for example, you have two days of rehearsals. No more. Which I think is horrible.
“Even if you are a genius, you can’t do it in two days. It’s too much routine. You have to just push one button and go on automatic, and I hate that.”
Nitescu has appeared with several American companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Dallas Opera, and she likes the professionalism and seriousness she finds in this country.
Unlike European companies, which often receive considerable government subsidies, American opera companies rely heavily on ticket revenues and private contributions to survive. And she suspects that motivates them to work harder.
“I have the feeling that people don’t take it for granted,” she said. “Everything is private money, so maybe they won’t be there anymore tomorrow if (audiences and supporters) decide that you don’t do the job the way you should do it.”
Nitescu devotes much of her time to the operas of famed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), especially “Manon Lescaut,” “Tosca,” and, of course, “Madama Butterfly,” the title role of which she has performed many times.
“It’s the perfect balance between music and drama,” she said. “He has great characters. I think Butterfly is a very complex woman, even if she is only 15, and she goes through so many colors and so many emotional periods.”
Each time she returns to the role of Cio-Cio-San, Nitescu said, she always finds new facets of the adolescent woman who falls in love with an American naval officer. Butterfly travels from the ecstasy of love to the agony of betrayal in a span of just three years.
“I still discover words,” the soprano said. “I still discover colors in the music. I’m always searching, so I will never get bored. I can never say, ‘Oh, this part, I know it perfectly.’ I can always learn something.”
Performance challenges include the need to subtly shift vocal timbres as the opera progresses and Butterfly’s youthful innocence is ripped away and the tragedy of her life settles in.
In addition, a singer portraying Cio-Cio-San has to be onstage for nearly the entire opera, requiring considerable vocal endurance.
“She sings from beginning to the end,” Nitescu said. “She has very little break.”
Denver might not be able to claim a place among the world’s operatic capitals, but Nitescu does not care.
“I do my job exactly the same,” she said. “I do it here the way I would do it at the Met or at La Scala.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Madama Butterfly”
Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica; based on David Belasco’s play, “Madame Butterfly”
Premiere: Feb. 17, 1904, La Scala
Setting: Nagasaki, Japan, early 1900s
Synopsis: B.F. Pinkerton, an American naval officer stationed in Japan, agrees to marry 15-year-old Cio-Cio-San, but regards their union as a meaningless fling. After he returns to the United States, she gives birth to a daughter and waits faithfully for a reunion with her husband. Pinkerton does finally return, with his American wife, and Cio-Cio-San is devastated. She takes her own life after agreeing to give up the child.
Stage director: Ron Daniels
Conductor: Stephen Lord
Set and costume designer: Michael Yeargan
Cast: Cio-Cio-San, soprano Adina Nitescu; B.F. Pinkerton, tenor Michael Fabiano; Suzuki, mezzo-soprano Mary Ann McCormick; Sharpless, baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore.
“Madama Butterfly”
Opera. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Opera Colorado presents a production of “Madama Butterfly” with sets and costumes from the San Francisco Opera. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Tuesday and Nov. 14 and 2 p.m. Nov. 16. 2 hours, 35 minutes. $29-$162. 303-357-2787 or .
