Soprano Nadine Sierra is singing the title role of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera. The modern staging by director Simon Stone is set in the American Rust Belt and focuses on a family's fraught relationship to their community in decline. Sierra also explores the role of Lucia in her latest album, Made for Opera, as well as two other iconic opera heroines whose tragic story lines share a common theme: women who were deprived of their right to choose their destinies due to unavoidable circumstances in a rigid, patriarchal world. In this interview with Artist Propulsion Lab baritone Justin Austin — who makes his Met debut this month in Dean's Hamlet — Sierra discusses growing with the character of Lucia, the unflagging support for her family during challenging times, and making what once seemed like unattainable dreams for women, a bright and successful reality for herself.
Be sure to listen to the live broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor live from the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday, May 21, at 1pm.
Lucia is one of the great iconic roles in the operatic canon, how does it feel to take this role on yourself?
It feels amazing. Definitely humbling. To come to this point of my life and career and everything I've done since I was so young, it feels like a job well done. It feels full circle, and in a way, there's also another level to strive for from now on. So the work is not done, but the work that has been done up until this point doing this Lucia at the Metropolitan Opera. It's very gratifying, I have to say.
You've been studying opera since you were 10-years-old. When was your first experience with Lucia?
I joined the Palm Beach Opera when I was 14-years-old. I joined their opera choir because I wanted to be involved in the opera within the industry just to get a behind the scenes look as to what it is to be part of an opera. I was in the Palm Beach Opera chorus all throughout my high school years. The first opera I was ever part of was Lucia. That was my first experience. I was blown away. I was like, “Ah, how is this humanly possible to sing like this and to continue on like this?” I almost felt like an audience member being onstage. You know, submersed in the entire thing. I was trying to act of course, be part of the show, but I was just in so much awe of what was going on around me that I thought at that moment, “This is absolutely what I want to be a part of.” And there is no wonder that I fell in love with opera at 10-years-old. So that was my first experience with Lucia, literally being part of it as a chorus member.
Wow. That is so amazing to hear. I started my career very early. I was a boy soprano and at the age of five, I started my professional singing career. It's rare that I meet people along the way that have had similar experiences as a child and then continue to as they grow up. It's really inspiring to see someone like you just thriving and continuing to strive for new heights and meeting them and just being the prime example of excellence.
Well, you know how it is, it's a lot of hard work and you put so much of your soul into it all, you know? It feeds my soul. I'm sure it feeds yours as well. It's literally just a gift that keeps on giving.
Absolutely. So would you say that Lucia in some way a dream role?
Oh yes!
You're singing Lucia in three different productions this year. How has your approach or your interpretation evolved as you've explored this iconic role?
I started singing Lucia eight years ago. I was a bit younger and the things I had experienced in life up until that point. Not to say it was minimal, but it was definitely less than what I've experienced now, almost close to my mid -thirties. Because I've changed as a human being, and as a woman, and have developed over time, Lucia has developed, because I'm not the woman that I was eight years ago. I'm different now. Honestly, it doesn't really matter with the production. It's more [about] how I've changed personally. She changes more because of that, than the production itself. The production has certain influences: how you move, how you express yourself with your colleagues or with the other characters, but the core of her is really just because I change.
Has this production at the Met, as modern and fascinating as it is, [stood] out to you? What makes it special?
I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I have two sisters. My parents worked so hard when we were kids. We were raised in kind of a lower-class, middle-class family. My parents really struggled with money. My father at some point had three jobs and he was trying to support us girls. He was supporting my voice lessons, all these lessons that I had when I was young. I mean, my parents sacrificed a lot and so I grew up within a family who struggled. This family in Simon's Stone's adaptation of Lucia is a family that is absolutely struggling financially, so much so that they're having to turn to darker avenues to support themselves, through drugs, through strange ties with other families and controlling Lucia within that process. It's showing a family, and people as individuals, that are doing certain things or making certain decisions because of their environment.
And I know exactly how that feels. Lucia finds her escape from this life through loving Edgardo. When that chance of escape is taken away from her, she snaps. For me when I was a child, music was my escape. It was my escape from the realities of our life that my parents struggled.
There was a lot of fighting going on because of those struggles. It felt like we would never come out of that. And I thank God we did, and my parents still, today, are unbelievably supportive and are the best human beings I know in my life. So it's relatable if you really open your mind to it and not just see it as a modern adaptation of Lucia di Lammermoor. It's supposed to be something that opens up people's minds and is thought-provoking. It’s not just showing Lucia, but also demonstrating what is going on in the world today. These are real issues that we're especially facing in the United States and absolutely after the pandemic. So yes, it is very relatable. And because of the tangible elements that it has, I think it's all the more impactful.
These composers allowed for these women to be at the forefront of their own stories and then become so iconic, but [in their stories] they were never able to actually choose for themselves.
Maria Callas, Sutherland, have tackled this role and made it their own. Now, it's your turn and you have made it your own. How have previous Lucias influenced you?
[The character of Lucia] pushed me in a way emotionally. With the very famous mad scene, there's a lot of room for expressivity and making this moment your own, but you have to have the courage to go there: to be vulnerable, to portray that in a believable way, but in a way that is unique to you, not like how Callas did it, not like how Sutherland did it and copying the ladies from the past, but being true to yourself and not being ashamed of that. I think sometimes with these roles like Violetta and Lucia, young singers are almost afraid to tackle these roles because they're afraid of putting themselves in it. Because in a way it means they'll never be as good as Sills or Sutherland or iconic as Callas, but that's actually not the point. The point is to just be the best that you can possibly be to serve the music, not to serve yourself.
I don't want to become a legend. I'm just myself. I'm just me. I'm Nadine. And that's all I want to be. I want to serve the music. It's kind of the goal I always had when I was even a child. So [Lucia] influenced me a lot in this way. She's made me think a lot about the singer I want to be, the artist I want to be, how I've found the courage through portraying her, and how I found the courage to simply be myself and not be ashamed of that.
You explore these characters, Violetta and Lucia. What is it about these characters that speaks to you emotionally, as well as musically?
My grandmother was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, as well as my mom. My mother was the one who introduced opera to me at 10-years-old because of her mother, my grandma, who had wanted to become an opera singer when she was very young, but my great grandfather wouldn't allow her to pursue any career outside of being a housewife and a mother, so she never got the chance to kind of lead the life that she had wanted.
We find that in these three women that are in [my upcoming] album, Juliette, Violetta, Lucia, it's like these composers allowed for these women to be at the forefront of their own stories and then become so iconic, but [in their stories] they were never able to actually choose for themselves. And really, [it's] because they were women. It's very much like my grandma. It's the same story. Maybe my grandmother's was not as tragic, but there was definitely a little bit of tragedy within my grandma's story because of that. I didn't just want to show these women as, “Oh, you know, look what I can do vocally.” I never liked to choose repertoire because of that, because it's a little bit too narcissistic for me. I wanted to correlate this real life story of my grandmother, the one who inspired me to become an opera singer, and to continue down that road with these three women with their storyline and being a modern day woman, an opera singer. How having the luxury and being blessed to live my life the way I want, not just as a strong woman, but as literally a human being, as a free human being and what that means, how far we've come in society from the days of my grandmother to now.
That's why I chose these ladies. They're remarkable. And I think we remember them so much and they leave such an impact. Not just because of how beautiful the music is, but because of how iconic they lived their lives and what they gave up and what they sacrificed, to experience just a moment of freedom.
Well, thank you so much. You are a gift to us and our audience.
This conversation has been edited for this written article. Listen to the full conversation via the audio at the top of this page.
