“Enchanted Forest, Heavy Metal and Blue Soup” Anna Prohaska talks to Sarah Willis live in Berlin about her new CD “Enchanted Forest”, her singing and performance tips and her love of heavy metal and science fiction. April 2nd 2013
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
So I think we’re live okay I think we’re live how exciting welcome welcome to this very special horn hangout this isn’t a horn hangout it’s a hangout because Anna prasa is with me the most one of the most incredible singers of this time really one of my personal favorites Anna welcome welcome welcome hello I’m so excited to be included into the the horn section the horn group you’re an honor an honory horn horn section this is a very very singer friendly program isn’t it because
Barbara Hanan was on there last time and I think horn players and singers have a lot in common totally yeah I really really do and we’re going to get to that it’s the first time you’ve experienced this sort of live chat as well well and you’re most impressed to see that partly all your family are on the chat it’s so funny
I mean it’s just so amazing cousins from Toronto and my parents from Berlin so from all around the world basically incredible incredible no we’ve got quite quite a few people here um Fabian is watching as well hello Fabian he just helped us to set up here a few minutes ago fantastic um so what I thought we’d do is
I would start with a few questions that I have for you and then for you at home um if you have some questions for Anna please please write them in I’ll get to as many as I can for you and um yeah and we’ll just take it from there I’ve got a couple of clips that I want to show
I can imagine what that might be but tell us Anna you’ve just got back to Berlin you spend a lot of time away from Berlin yes I do yeah I do have a steady job here though that’s at the shats orer Berlin uh in The Ensemble which I’m very proud of in Daniel Baron Bo emble basically and uh
I steady job that sounds a little bit like an office job yeah no but I mean it’s it’s um yeah basically the the home base I feel at home here whenever I come back to Berlin I am able to perform in the shs OPA or at the berlinville it was really feels like coming home uh I was in my old
Hometown in Vienna for two months uh working in the Tata and deine which was the original basically birthplace of the Opera Fidelio bw’s only Opera and that’s where I got to perform this offer this year 200 years lat your first marelin my first marelin saw the costumes they were quite sort of St very strict I was a bit sort of in the direction of a sort of
BM needle or something from the frankist fascist sort of era um like they often do they they often transpose Fidelio into a kind of totalitarian regime so it was a bit something that and Han conducting Han and yes and his wife playing second violin in the orchestra and it was just an amazing amazing privilege Michael wrote that he loved
Anna Susanna and Sophia the oh thank you very much those were two of my favorite roles ever to sing and I sing many many more of them so what is it about the you your voice Anna you you are not this huge ragnarian soprano you never will be no you have um you can’t call it a small voice it’s a it’s more of a delicate voice yeah
I mean the thing is I would say I have stamina I can sing for 6 hours straight I mean I once did a pot stama night of the Palaces where I I think did five hours of singing you know with like with 10-minute break in between so I wouldn’t call myself kind of frail or anything it’s just that the voice um you know if there’s a huge
Orchestra they have to make sure that they shut up occasionally you know that it’s not too much of a bar they can still come through but I would say I do have a focus and it does carry so yeah what what causes one person to be able to sing Vagner and one person to be able to a barck specialist what is it in the voice
I don’t know probably you’d have to ask um a phoniatrician but um I think it’s pH Atri and that’s a a voice doctor basically it’s sort of a speciality of the ear nose and throat how Spell phony attrition can you please write that down in the chat a phony phony attrition hopefully they’re not phony no exactly they’re very very real because they’re the ones that help us in distress when we have parentis and laryngitis and partis laryngitis yeah all the iers um no it’s it’s
I think it’s to do with um a mixture between the cavity at the back of the mouth how big that is um the the bone structure then some people claim that it’s to do with how big you are how big your frame is not necessarily fat but uh also the rib cage how wide it can expand and all these things there are various factors but
I would generally say it’s probably genetics cuz I suppose yeah um yeah it’s just a combination of various factors so you knew right from the beginning basically that you were going to you were going to go in this Direction I mean uh or did you did you not do you know that at the beginning as a singer well not really it was more of an instinctive thing in the first few years
I mean I’ve probably been singing before I’ve could even talk um I think was lying in my cot making kind of atonal noises and stuff and of course I used to sing at school and there were school videos of around the campfire and you could always hear me out it was kind of was a bit embarrassing but you know then also the the um you know family parties and things and then the first sort of professional engagements were mainly solos in the church choir and in school choirs like many many other singers say as well and
I used to be very cross as a little girl that there weren’t any kind of the girls weren’t admitted to boys choir because I always loved boys choir and then they sang all this kind of really um high brow literature this highbrow music and I was never allowed to join in but of course Boy Choir are Boy
Choir um and and then uh through a very very good family friendly R cler he’s called a conductor and arranger he um opened up this whole world of modern music and uh recital and all these other um factors all all these other fractions of classical the classical music world which I probably didn’t get in touch with so much at home because it was a very very kind of
Opera based kind of education that I got at home and uh so I managed to see the whole broad scope of what classical music can be and what you can do with a then of course relatively small voice I was 14 15 so I did the nursery songs by mozari for example or children’s roles in the Britain operas and things like that which was suitable for my voice at 16 17 but
I mean Sophie then when you moved on to your Prof I mean no one can say you’re just a barck singer I heard you singing Sophie at the St and could hear you over the whole Orchestra of course it’s like 13 years later and now the voice has grown in the last few years and you hav well very yeah very wide to um no it’s it’s it’s um it’s a funny phenomenon it’s really interesting to watch one’s own voice one’s own development as it sort of goes along um you can’t really or you shouldn’t force it you shouldn’t try and control that and sort of
Say oh I want to sing Tusa next year and that’s why I’m going to force myself you know that’s just the most unhealthy thing that you can do so you just have to take you have to go on the journey you have to let the voice take you by the hand and um you know transport you wherever it takes you we we’re home players
I mean so I always have an instrument in my hand you know so if something goes wrong I can sort of look at the instrument and think ah you know and of course one of the slides is wrong the valves are stuck exterior your instrument is inside and that must be wonderful but it must also be pretty terrifying it’s terrifying because it’s also such a personal thing because every human being that not everybody knows what it’s like to play a horn that’s the
Magnificent thing about it that’s the magical thing about playing the horn as a singer it’s a relatively normal thing on the one hand because people sing in the bathtub they sing Under the shower in the car you know sing along with pop songs and it’s a very personal experience I think for people to hear a human voice on stage and when a note cracks when a top
SE cracks or whatever tell about it happens all the time it’s sort of like a I think everybody then gets a kind of jolt or the people that hear it at least when you’re on stage you think oh my God what just happened and I want to just I want the ground to open before me you know
I can imagine we can always blame our instruments if a note cracks and Kendall gray who is is um a very loyal member of our horn hangout Community um he’s written Anna as instrumentalists we are always encouraged to sing through our instruments and play with a vocal approach this is true from your point of view who are some of the instrumentalists that you believe really achieve this vocal style of playing you know what actually just now um
I Heard a beautiful concert in Vienna in the concer house with FR L um and I mean there were many many wonderful oboists I mean Jonathan Kelly Al and your Orchestra Dominic um fris it was amazing I mean it was really this also the top register it reminded me so much of a soprano voice it’s so close to the soprano so
I’ve always felt right my best friend as a oboist so you know it’s actually very very close to the to the the human voice but it’s close to the human voice is it with the in the larynx because actually the pressure in your head when you’re sing when you’re playing the oo is huge because you have a lot of air and you there little exactly and with the um maybe the voice is more similar to the the the muted zinc or something like that the the sync because that’s a this this long kind of early music instrument what
I think zinc I think it’s called Zin I’m not sure um I think that’s very very um I think you have to use very little air because we we’re always about saving air I mean I’m so jealous of obos because they have this permanent breathing thing and they circular breathing um which is you know our I think our greatest wish that we don’t have to take breaths in between because sometimes we just want to go on forever and then there’s always this wretched breathing that we have to do fo singers do that though no because you know the thing is that
I think they sort of blow up the um they save the um air in the in the in the Cheeks is El have to explain it and then sort of push it back in while they can already take a new breath but the sound is sustained horn players can some horn players can but but it’s a singer that’s just simply physically not possible but what
I mean is I think the vocal cords the way they kind of um vibrate together is a bit like the read but probably also your lips when you’re playing it’s just a little bit further outside exactly oh it’s totally similar phenomenon yeah so you’d say oo players are very similar that would be also those are some of the instrumental do you think match a human voice yeah and also maybe this whole kind of panic about read making and with us it’s also about climate and about air conditioning and getting ill and all these things but
I think a lot of professional musicians have that that you were I mean probably the string players are worried about their instruments too if they get too cold or whatever and that kind of thing so it’s but with with us it’s just we take our instrument everywhere to the pub to the Disco whatever so it’s really something that sometimes
I just love to like lock away my vocal and take Janice jins with me to the Disco you know I’ve been at a pop concert with Anna and more about that later but we made her she was not allowed to say anything she for she knew all the words she was not allowed to sing any of the words that night do you remember exactly
I had a performance two days later so it was just like I really wasn’t allowed to scream and shout that’s the word screaming and shouting over loud music that’s the worst um right now the reason not well the one reason main reason I wanted you on here because you’re just you know we all adore you and and and for me the way you sing is such a natural way of music making
I I Adore it but it’s quite a good timing to have you on because you guys ready for this I think I can show this in the camera this is Anna’s new CD it’s not this one okay this is Anna’s new CD we’re setting up the technical stuff still here um the Enchanted Forest now I heard this fell totally in love with it how long has it been out for uh it came out on 15th of
March yeah just under a month um not only the CD it’s really fantastic baroy passionate laments it’s got everything on it I think but the film that you did with that is stunning now I’m I’m all for you know all the online communication um we have a a little bit from the film you ready to go yob um we have a little bit of
Anna singing at the Berlin main train station have a look at this [Music] fr [Music] for that was um I oppressa by Vivaldi and I was wrong it wasn’t the h b of the main train station it was Alexander plat now why on Earth sing Vivaldi on a train station well um it was actually more of a kamikazi gorilla project that we did
Andreas Morel and me and our wonderful uh production team from Ali um because it had to happen really quickly because I only had like this window of time of like seven days between two projects Munich and then Rosen Cav with Simon in Berlin and um um i’ you know we just I I just conjured up this idea with
Andreas on a plane from Saltsburg to Berlin just a few months before um saying that why don’t we because we haven’t got so much money and we’d like to keep it kind of close to the Bone and show a kind of um well the discrepancy but also yeah between a kind of artificial figure from the Barack world but also the kind of natural normal modern person that
I obviously am I mean I’m not some kind of artificial figure so we wanted to show those both both those sides um and and I said why don’t we do a kind of design a kind of Journey around Berlin to all the places that I go to or that I frequent so we basically started off in a
Gothic Club where I used to go a lot when I was a teenager in donka um and I danced there and on my Gothic outfit we had a fantastic costume designer that conjured things out thin the costumes Anna really I mean you were you were you were on the on the train station in this amazing red dress it was sort of a
Elizabethan red thing and you were dragging it across I mean you guys you really have to see this um I don’t know how much of it is on YouTube quite a lot of it otherwise you can go to Andreas morel’s Vimeo site you can see the whole film there um because it was on TV it was on
R and I think it’s now on on the video site maybe someone could put up a link on the chat while we’re watching that would be great um but then you were Harley Quinn yes that was a kind of mixture between PK and sort of 1960s stewardess but my idea was because a lot of the album is based on
Shakespeare’s mid summon I stream that I’m a kind of um in this video which is again a fair a good fairy that she kind of transforms green stuff into people yeah like a Lou potion but then with one guy I just transform him into a donkey you know like bottom in mid nights that one guy was he the one of the players in your
Ensemble no I think he’s part of the someone in there but there’s um one guy he’s a video artist who worked with the shats for a long time or you had all your friends yeah yeah yeah yeah because of course we couldn’t pay anybody so we just had to beg people could you please come as an extra you know so you were a harleen in the in the in the coffee shop and then you were you were in some mental institution yes so that was my idea about this this whole kind of lamento
De laa by Mont how can you make it kind of not really touching yeah well I was wondering if I should do that because of course I didn’t want to in any way romanticize being stuck in a mental hospital I mean that’s just the most you know you know very very difficult time in a person’s life when
I I just didn’t want to of course it’s a theme of many kind of Gothic romance novels like Dracula for example or whatever and I wanted to kind of crossbreed between um kind of Gothic romance and um you know realism and that how can we make L DEA modern because you know there aren’t any kind of nymphs and swains running around the forests anymore but uh you did that
CD anyway you had the the in Ser you were in the forest so that was sort of the hisorical thing been there done that and this time around I thought would be cool to what you know what could could it could a modern person maybe with a kind of paranoia or whatever imagine to be a nymph and having
Been Loved by Apollo and being left by him again and then having these Visions in hospital about Apollo appearing as this kind of golden god to save her out of her straight jacket and stuff you know I mean it’s all kind of a bit weird but I mean I like weird so well I mean it’s really really a fantastic
CD and I’m not just saying that because I feel like it I really really love it and I love the film to go with it and Andreas also made a lovely little film about you being filmed in all sorts of he filmed you waking up in the morning maybe I shouldn’t even ask well yeah no I mean there’s just this kind of thing where you know yeah that’s one of my favorite occupations is sleeping and
I get very cranky if I don’t get my sleep because I’m always worried about the voice of course and blah but sleep so good through your voice it’s so important because it’s the re hydration re you know it’s really so important because a lot of people say oh you know resting and just lying there is okay but when you’re actually not sleeping the brain is course still working like mad and you just really have to you know really sleep because when you’ve had 8 hours 9 hours the performance the next night is just so much better than usually you know when you yes um uh
Kendall’s just put up the the the link to Andre’s Vimeo site thank you very much for that Kendall Jonathan Kelly is sitting at home with a glass of wine watching us our principal over on the Berlin fil hello Jonathan very happy to hear that sometimes I go off track with what I’m asking because there’s so much stuff here to ask um
Dion Doan has said from B she said you will be recording the Calio with Dam Von quasto and San how exciting I know that’s so amazing it’s one of my favorite roles I did that at the first time in the B with Philip yordan with M Thim really famous German theater director an amazing costume yeah sort of a baby doll dress and it was a well
I was called blondon but I had black and it sort of this page boy will yeah kind of look and um yeah it’s fun your fans know your stuff um Ellie in Sweden has asked something that I definitely wanted to ask you and we were talking about that just now with the sleep with such a busy schedule how do you look after your voice because um
Barber told us a little bit also about this you know performance we Sports people basically you know we look after our lips and our backs and our hands and and you you you singers have to look after the inside after this but also the whole body because the body is uh the vo is totally connected with the whole body and the soul and
I think a lot of people often forget that if you’re in trouble if you’ve got you know if you’re very sad very depressed or whatever you know every person knows you lose your voice you get horse or your voice becomes lower and that kind of thing and we really have to make sure it doesn’t mean to say that we have to be on
Prozac all the time and run around go I’m so happy on Prozac all the time well I think to be honest I think a lot of singers take prescription drugs like beta blockers and um sleeping pills things I really I’m really trying not to start with those things because because I don’t want to become dependent I want to actually you know trust my body and if
I can’t sleep okay well then you know that’s the way it is I’ll sleep better the next night or you know fight things like if there’s noise then you change the room whatever you know rather work on the exterior and the interior and not kind of manipulate your body with chemicals but of course in some occasions sometimes it’s so annoying if you’re flying over the ocean you know to another time zone and that’s just very yeah and sometimes you have to sing the next day like the next morning and you just have to be there but what really really helps us in our body is
Our wonderful little drug that we have by ourselves is adrenaline adrenal and um for for an important rehearsal for a for for a concert you just get this boost and then all of a sudden a lot of the fleem sort of Falls away even when you’re ill the FL that’s on the this is a word you guys are my dear horn hangout friends this is a word you hear a lot you hear very rarely from horn players but you hear a lot in the singer
World F the hills are alive with a sound of mucus so that’s [Music] of you guys are obsessed by FN absolutely because you know yeah it’s like what what you call when you have a frog in your throat or something it’s when it’s like and just now for example the the wonderful beautiful bait from quartet and Fidelio and it’s so quiet it’s like a string qu at the beginning and the clarinet comes in and then it’s if you sort of is
I mean that would be terrible wouldn’t that well I a horn player we live in fear of splitting notes all the time that’s why we feel so close I think because it’s this just being on the edge but I think that’s why people think horns and the voice are so exciting to listen to because of the risk and
I think that’s why a lot of composers wrote in this danger zone for singers like verie and molart they wrote in the most excruciatingly difficult part of the voice which is the Paso and that’s the most difficult to control because that’s where The Voice gets well it’s a passage it gets a little bit more narrow and then it opens up again at the top so in this narrow part and that’s sort of the really really exciting part of the voice and they knew all that and they knew that they could they would write for all these virtuoso singers that they because they had them in
Those days so you you have to take care of your Flem and your mucus sorry really it’s here it’s 9:00 about all these yummy things um you one of the things you see in the film in Andre’s film is you jogging around is it Mar par Park in Berlin in really cool shorty thingies well actually yeah because
I think I didn’t have my you know my normal trainers or something that were in the wash I don’t know but you really you really do Sport and you you look up yeah you know look I’m actually not such a sporty person I actually have to force myself CU I’m not really you know it’s not my absolute passion
I prefer to go to the movies or whatever but but um I I just do it so I can you know to be fit you know when you’re running around on stage and musical singers will will definitely signed that for me um they have to sing and dance so much more than us Barbara said as well she has to she had to dance exactly but for example
I did I worked with a choreographer on nle Sala where I did one of the wood Sprites and we were in sides sporg and we were jumping around and jumping on and off tables like these wild Woodland creatures and and it was so exhausting to you know sing during that and then when especially when there’s a long beautiful kind of piano line or something and then you and you’ve got to kind of make sure that your heart rate doesn’t rise soon well
AAL does that for you yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly how do you deal with do you get scared of course I’m I’m terrible with nerves actually and it the thing is it it it’s got a little bit better to this certain extent that I think I’ve done a few things that I was so incredibly terrified of for example the
Moz ARA and the Lulu Suite with clao AB with the bur F monic because it was of course live on the radio live in the digital Concert Hall that was just a a terribly scary experience for me but the great thing was I had you guys as a backup you were so supportive and smiling and grinning at me and everything and that that really helped but of course yeah weeks before
I had sleepless nights about what if what if what if um how do you deal with it well you know it’s just basically this gladiatorial thing you know you’re like a gladiator going out there in the arena facing the Lions facing the Tigers the audience around you um they’re they’re your enemies but you have to grin at them and show them your teeth basically you know it’s it’s more of an aggressive thing it’s probably this fight and flight symbol isn’t it that sort of direction do you think we’re born with that or do you think we can learn it or you know whether we go
Whether we fight or whether we F I think it’s sort of self-discipline I think you have to learn it because uh you know there were moments where you know School concerts and things where or you know in the in the in the academy when you’ve got a class evening or something I really messed up Jonathan Jonathan wrote be proud to be nervous only boring musicians don’t get nervous oh thank you
Jonathan I totally agree with no it’s true because there are these kind especially with singers there are these I call them the moo cows you know they just walk on stairs and go Mo and everything’s perfect and you know they they they see nothing can phase them you know they’re just kind of um but but of course they then sound like fish or like something well what’s boring fish yeah
I don’t know like sort of blob blah blob you know it’s just oh some you know I mean I I I I think virtuosity is so exciting and a person can sing moow like that the horn World The Hangout world like the moo cows yeah of course I’m actually only jealous of those people because I just love to be able to control my nose
I me when someone said to me recently what would you wish for and of course I would like to wish for world peace and uh personal happiness the rest but I actually thought on that day I thought I’d like to wish that I wasn’t nervous on stage because beforehand I mean for me the beforehand is even worse the moment before walking out on stage while you’re doing your makeup before or whatever um those little rituals actually help fun enough it’s it’s actually an annoying part of being a female performer because you got to think about your dresses and your your hair and the thing and
Everybody’s so you know because a lot of people that don’t know about um music they like to write or talk or gossip about how a singer looked you know I think that’s so mean you know because you know yeah you know stuff about music you know a lot about music yeah but we still look to see exactly what the singer got on and one of the biggest shocks
I ever had was when Barbara Haner walked on to do the Liga Tory and we had no idea she was going to be wearing black leather people could hardly play a note abolutely really I mean you walked on in some corkers as well say you got some great dresses yeah well you know actually I like to avoid going shopping because
I like to sort of find a shop where I can buy whatever three or five dresses and then not have to go shopping for two years you know sort of because I just hate this feeling of being against about the voice in these stuffy dry rooms and the getting undressed and sweating then going out in the cold again and all this stuff and you know it’s just something that you know our voice sort of accompanies us wherever we go you know and so we we musicians we musicians
I meant we instrumental musicians sometimes think we we can’t sometimes we think oh the singers in their voices you know CU there are some real sensitive ones you know people that won’t go backstage at the filmon they won’t ever have a glass of wine or that that’s pushing it a bit far but I I totally understand that you guys really have to look after yourselves you know and what
I’m sort of learning now at the moment is something very important that you really make time for these moments when you can really lash out let your hair down where you can go out with friends have loads of wine um just go dancing maybe or just you know just hang out with people and talk and talk and talk without worrying about saving the voice and all that kind of thing do you have days like that yes well it’s funny enough
I probably should tell the direct I shouldn’t tell the the directors but it’s usually the beginning kind of period of of a long rehearsal phase where you know if you’ve got six weeks of rehearsals in the first few weeks there always the more easy going ones cuz the conductor’s often not there and you know you don’t have to be so on top form every morning you know at the
SC very interesting secret let’s hope that none of Anna’s directors are watching this otherwi they’re going to turn up two weeks early to the rehearsal next time exactly but that doesn’t mean to say that you know you’re less concentrated because an acting teacher of mine said um that that uh actors that are that are tired and they’re ill often be um have the have their best nights their best performan of as singers we can’t work like that but in this whole beginning phase where it’s actually more about the staging the acting and stuff maybe the hangovers actually help so well sometimes when
I’m when I’m not feeling well I I do play well because I just can’t be bothered and then I don’t get so nervous I think if you think too much then that’s when it all yeah absolutely it’s it’s also what you know when you do language coachings and you know different languages and stuff and with French or whatever it always comes out best when you’re not thinking about it when you’re just relaxing that’s one thing
I also wanted sorry I’m not paying much attention to the questions on the chat because I’ve got so many amazing questions for Anna but I will get to some of these I promise let me just quickly ask you about the languages yeah is that the bane of a singer’s life apart from mucus and fim learning all these languages
I would say it’s the privilege it’s it’s the it’s one of the more exciting and the the most exciting parts of the job because I mean I love languages I’m not someone who speaks many languages I’m not such a grammar and vocabulary freak but I just love the sound of various languages and I love to know exactly which what word means what language did you do rosala in and that was
Czech and um so that was the Wood Sprite not the rosala that that’s for a later time um yeah but I’ve Done songs in Polish of course French Italian is very important language for us for me French is actually probably the most easy language to sing in because I love the placement of the of of the of the of the vowels and things it’s all very forward and helps the voice and more than
Italian I’ve alwaysed that but I’m not allowed to only ask my own questions so I’m going to hit you with a few of these now that are not in a real sort of order but um someone called fish stick I like that name fishstick wants to know if you like acting and I think by what he means is he or she sorry
I don’t know fish stick is masculine or fine um men acting in in your movies like the ones you’ve done because in Serene you you walk off into the water with some gorgeous guy yeah you enjoy but that’s part of being a singer isn’t it yeah and the thing is what I love is I mean I’m part of the
MTV generation I grew up on music videos and sitting in front of the TV eating peanut butter I mean that’s sort of my my my my teenage years passed by like that and and uh I always imagined kind of whenever I listened to music if it was pop or classical um you know I had images in my head walk down the street in a certain
Rhythm you know like John Travolta to the music that I’m listening to nobody knows but I’m walking in the beat you know and I sort of imagine my own sort of music video in my head sorry I’m a bit mad but um but it’s sort of this that’s what I love about about um these new media and things
I think a lot of people think it’s a curse and it’s all too much and it’s all so fussy and kind ofing the young audiences and all that we have to get young audiences yeah but that’s great and I think it’s just so much fun to do all this stuff as well you can tell you can and
I love movies you know I love films yeah yeah no that that’s that’s one I really really respect that I mean your voice anyway but that part of you that you’re willing to put yourself out there and I love um straight theater I love to go to a a performance where I don’t need to concentrate on music or whatever and it just acting you know the text g j from
Ireland g r how would you pronounce that J no idea um ask who your Heroes singer Heroes oh that’s a great question of course I should say John McCormack now shouldn’t I famous Irish tenner um no I various I mean it’s not only Sopranos at the moment and I I love the French soprano sandre pure she’s fabulous
I I love um D rushman Christina schaer you know you know they they’re sort of my my great Idols that I I’ve got heaps of CDs of I love to listen to and um the older generation I would say someone like Rosa ponel has this kind of buttersweet gorgeous sound round sound like red wine that goes through all the all the registers without a break you know those things and um you know
Brin turville um so many it’s so hard to say say but I mean that’s that’s great they’re flying in now you’re going to have to look at all these afterwards and probably have to have another one to follow up all these questions Alex asks what would you say to the Puritans who say that film visual viewing distracts from the music um
I would say it’s a matter of taste if you don’t like it turn it off don’t know great answer um David has asked and also Patrick Rasmus and they’ve asked a very similar similar question nerves are important for an exciting performance how do you focus control the nerves before or while perform performing um breath um taking a a deep breath um
I mean I just to be honest yeah concentrating on the music on the role and being the role if it’s an opera if it’s a concert performance be delivering Sher or delivering Mozart or whatever just thinking of the composer what did the composer want and forgetting about the audience leave out your contact lenses if you’re shortsighted you don’t see the faces do you wear contact lenses uh yeah not at the moment
I’m not very shortsighted but a little bit I can see you don’t wor I know who you are yeah you’re really cool yeah I need them for driving B black there even the scene they really showed every facet of your life they showed you in the kitchen they showed you driving asleep wait in the morning you guys have to see this film really it’s it’s great
I just love it um a technical question which I thought was a really great one it came about I don’t know 20 minutes ago but I really I wrote it down because I liked it Jeffrey Johnson he runs a fabulous on music uh classical music blog he wanted to know about temperaments he said did you study them or do you adjust naturally in the according to what you’re singing to be honest
I never studied temperaments and I only just you know I really worked on these with with with my wonderful conductor here Jonathan Cohen um who uh you know this we had the the vot and the the other one which I don’t know what it’s called in English it’s in German whatever equal equal temperament and pull that one out and no it’s actually to be honest
I don’t have absolute pitch I don’t have you know pitch I don’t have uh this kind of you know education and the temperaments but I think um I when when I study a piece with an organ that’s tuned that way I will just you know get it into my ear and I will adjust to it spontaneously do you have a favorite role um or you have you not sung all the ones no
I haven’t yet but I it’s good because I want to wait with them yet wait with them um I i’ I I really really enjoyed seeing suzan and fig because um what I love about this role is that there are no excruciating top high notes which I’m usually booked for because I have them unfortunately um that’s always the way you know um launch seems like three easier and that’s always so scary and the great thing about s is she’s on stage the whole time she’s the kind of um axis of the whole whole piece and it’s such a perfect
Opera it’s the the perfect opera The Marriage of fig I think think you’re going to sing it masses and masses I hope so I hope so so and what really but I opened up my throat and my my my eyes and my ears to the whole world of Str was seeing Sophie and Rosen cavali it was so much fun it was really
I love you wor that that was maybe I mean Soph pushing it but yeah I was I was thinking about it but I trusted Simon I trusted My chat’s Capella my Orchestra the starts over there so Wonder kiss Magdalena K and quite passionately as well I mean I didn’t have to I was allowed to I asked Simon what how he enjoyed that watching two girl his wife and kissing girl he didoy he admitted it to us once in the elevator no that was that was a great performance but
I I also wondered whether you I mean you could hear you really well but that that was a sort of you know and to do with the house you know I mean I probably wouldn’t want to you know sing it at a huge like at the Met but at the Shila it’s just such a wonderful opportunity for me also to premere these bigger sort of roles like and true love a few years ago now it’s sort of perect a few years ago it was probably pushing it a little bit and sort of saying okay you know elizab fatov
Premier this role am I ready for this but you know it worked out and it worked out really well so you know it’s just sometimes you just have to try things out and um and just allow yourself enough preparation time that’s also how to beat the nerves not cram everything in in the last two weeks before the rehearsals sometimes you have to if you jump in and all that kind of thing but with very high things with very technically demanding things it’s great to actually have it prepared about a year before a year before
I did that with this m area by the way the speak out and then I put it away and then I got it back out again how far in advance are you booked um well we’re talking about dates in 2016 already but it’s not yeah but it’s not fully booked until then of course but the the first few dates
I’m 16 and popping wow my goodness this is really going your your Sophie was Happ I just got to bring Jonathan back in here Jonathan because the star of the show Jonathan you really are tur yes you should have come in and join us live next S three of us yeah Jonathan’s written if I am nervous in a
Sy I pretended is an opera and I’m singing one of the roles and he says sorry I’ll shut up now please don’t shut up that’s so sweet that’s so great to hear it’s really great maybe I should try the other way around and pretend that I’m an oist or a horn player or something and Jonathan Kelly exactly that would be very schizophrenic that would be a great approach to a new music video um
Anna was fabulous as Susanna but it’s so much work says Michael she’s a sort of deos exm almost as busy as Octavian in Rosen yes absolutely that’s a wonderful comparison yeah yeah it’s the the hands Zacks of the the female voice it Richie is on stage all the time for 4 hours and um but the great thing is the music and the text and
This brilliant piece just carries you through it and you you’re actually not all that exhausted afterwards I mean you are then two hours after the performance you just Keel over but but afterwards you’re just still totally in the zone it’s so much fun well I there’s just too much to get through in a in just one hangout here so we’re going to have to follow up
I have a couple more things for you um because there’s one thing I particularly wanted to show because it’s a world premiere today um we’ll we’ll explain that and you’ve got something you’re seeing for the first time um out here I don’t think you’ve even seen it yet no I haven’t it’s coming it’s coming but we have to get there first um and
I had a couple of questions to get you there one was what’s what are the sort of weirdest strangest things you’ve been asked to do on stage kiss magdalina K well again that wasn’t weird and strange that was a privilege no um then um it was probably this way out crazy production that I did of Babylon a world premiere by
The Fabulous composer y vitman um in Mich at the B dance Opa and the production team was Laura bous and they are a Catalan Anarchist from Street Theater to high culture theater group um and I was supposed to my first entrance was flying in of I think five or six or eight meters it seemed like 20 M on a kind of very wobbly sort of platform thing just with one little sort of strap around my midriff with sort of huge heavy um plastic neon light
Wings on and stuff and just fly in and then sing basically something that was like zinetta on speed with like 50 topies and whatever so that was probably the most scary excruciating thing I ever had to do but you know it was a grand entrance of course you know what do you do for fame oh God you always sort of ask yourself why the hell are you doing this you know you could die tonight take your mind off the neres
I mean I really discovered my fear of heights at that point vertigo um and and in the same um you know uh production yet it was sort of about sort of how how how many clothes was I prepared to take off and I said okay stop here because there were really really skimpy beautiful gorgeous costumes and I really thought that was enough you know it was sort of more like a yes no
I the thing is to be honest I’ve really asked myself that question a lot recently because of this production and I sort of thought well you know um um first of all being clothed is a lot more erotic than being completely naked I think unless you’ve got the perfect body but even if you have the perfect body isn’t it exciting to have something on you know or just even if it’s just a cloth or whatever
I would know and no for the audience a brass player well who knows you sort of New Direction um no and and also what people forget is that as singers we’re already so naked on stage exposing our innermost sanctum you know of our voice and I don’t want to be kind of physically naked as well on stage you know so that’s really one of the big questions and one of the crazier things
I got to me one of the crazi now Anna I’ve got two photos of you here um Stefan can you see those the this one can you zoom up on that one or shall I just uh you were a goth mhm in um we’re going to scan that and put that back up on the page it’s just such a cool photo you were a goth in the old days yes was so long ago no um
I still have my moment you still have your moments yeah I know because when we went to that um Ramstein concert you were wearing your dog collar and everything you you were just a fantasy full fantasy full listen to my English I can’t even speak anymore but you were you were full of fantasy you always have been and you’ve love you love um science fiction yeah
Greek myths whatever you know that that whole kind of thing and I’m a huge sci-fi freak and I think yeah just this fascination of the gothic culture for historical periods is very very strong within me the force is very strong um your your a dream for for the Press because you know you you have you’ve had I
I mean we are lucky because I don’t think anyone’s seen that photo before live of you with your dad that’s really impressive um but you’re a dream because you’ve got all these different facets and and for an opera singer to Love Heavy Metal to love I mean this is something you jog to heavy metal yeah exactly and it’s it’s sort of great to to to to kind of uh de deconstruct your your aggressions that are inside um you know stress and things and it’s just really great and
I love metal that has some people say it’s just a lot of noise it is yeah but I mean depends what kind of metal you listen to of course there’s you know thrash metal and um I don’t know death metal or something there is a lot of noise but I prefer more sort of the black metal direction or uh folk metal that that has sort of
Folk Music influences from Norway or from Finland or those places Sweden um they have Russia you know they have these fantastic Viking groups you know that sing kind of harvest old Russian Harvest songs with heavy metal guitars you know and it’s just this is the kind of music I love you know and I mean it’s just it’s fantastic fod for the
Press but it really is true but there are a lot of people I mean for example simus says she likes Hard Rock and stuff and it’s it’s it’s really quite close um if you if you’re in love with dramatic music which means not necessarily always bner but also you know but also dramatic um Barack music or whatever um songs
AR is in minor let’s put it that way you know when I look at a sht album whatever I always you know pick out the songs that are in minor CU I prefer them because they’re sort of melancholy I’m not necessar a Mel yeah it’s the dark side within me so so when I first well we’ve known each other for a while but about a year ago
I was asked to um to choose some guests for some a pilot of a cooking show yeah and I thought of you immediately because I thought we could do a lot of you know different stuff and um we this it’s taken quite a long time to get it all edited and now it’s ready I’m still not exactly sure where you’re going to be able to see it but
I promise you that as soon as I know where you’re going to be able to see it we’ll post it Anna hasn’t even seen it yet but to surprise Anna I decided I would um try and track down one of her favorite musicians of all times and that was Kristoff Schneider who is the drummer of Ramin um
I had no I really didn’t know anything about this band at all Kristoff was a huge hero of yours absolutely I mean it was because uh the funny thing is his dad and my dad were both colleagues at the Music Academy in Berlin they’re both Opera directors and uh I was a huge Ramstein fan and I found out that um my that my dad knew his dad and then um
I somehow got his email address and everything and I conjured up all these ideas about how we could combine Ramin with classical music and blah blah blah and then I send to an email and he actually answered you know you should have seen me I went ceing no 18 18 I was already the age and then um no and then
I I I went for a trip to Amsterdam I went to their concert we talked about the program and all this kind of thing and we kind of stayed in touch for one and then we sort of lost touch and then yeah here comes and then Mary Poppins Mary poppin came along and wanted to make everybody’s wishes come true and um as one does one finds out the mobile number of the drama from ramsh that was all your family helped me with that that’s so sweet and to surprise
Anna in the middle of this cooking show that we filmed together a surprise guest came and Anna hadn’t seen him for 10 years 10 years have a look at what happened first of all she teaches me to headbang in the kitchen and then have a look what happened my [Music] God I know the [Music] word [Music] specialest [Music] very [Music]
Dr so what did you think of that can we still do that cuz I was really uncool you were you were just a the coolest thing ever what did you think when Kristoff Schneider your your face I I wanted to hug you when I saw that you were just like it’s like for you like a little girl with her well it’s like 10 years back all of a sudden
I mean it’s just sort of this I’m I’m still you know crazy about you know favorite group’s favorite films and I’m just an obsessive person I think and I just these flashbacks of this kind of Ramin time I mean I still love the group you know but back then it was real sort of yeah F fanaticism in a way you know and it just kind of all flooded back it so funny we had we had the best time doing this this this this pilot and
I I hope you’ll be able to see it it is in German but I hope we when we get it up we’ll have the the the subtitle titles as well because Kristoff loves classical music he sat at the table we talked about classical music he drank rosé wine which I think he’s going to get a lot of stick from from his colleagues in the
B for and actually we’ve all become quite good friends and Kristoff and his and his fiance Olie they came to see you in the Opera and the great thing is Olie I think he’s really a great influence on Krist because she’s really into classical music and the kind of high culture as you would call it but I wouldn’t sort of always put this stuff in category for me
Ramstein is high culture as well and a bad Opera performance can be very low culture I mean you know hello um I you know for me there are no Border Lines there you know and it’s just so wonderful to to welcome them in the shat or whatever at a concert the B Phil and we saw each other last time
I think on the 31st of December at the New Year’s concert in the filon yeah so they’ve been to the filon they’ve been to the St so it is possible to connect these amazing pop musicians would you would call them pop what would you call Ram industrial indust there was very kind of particular about not being heavy metal because uh they’re sort of they originally come from the kind of the punk scene in the did and then they um developed into a sort of more yeah industrial sound kind of industrial dance sound should we go to their concert on the 24th of
May in the would be amazing let’s do that Kristoff if you’re watching we want tickets yay so we had well I was really grateful that he did that and I wrote to him maybe he’s watching tonight I don’t know and I went to that concert in LA when I was there with dudel for Don gvan um I was there for four weeks and uh and probably shouldn’t say this on camera but it was the day before my
Premiere I actually went to a ramsh concert and it was exactly the same phenomenon I was sort of silently singing along with the music Anna knows all the words to all the songs I can I can that I stood next to her at the concert in Berlin you knew every single word but you were not Lov their word no no no no
I was just mouthing them I was doing a mini playback show there no I hope we can go together um the cooking part of the show was quite impressive um because you you dissected a chicken um but I’m not going to give up to give give too much more away because everyone’s going to watch it when it comes out um just but to end off today
I thought I would tell the world about something that they don’t know about that your mom told me can you tell us the blue soup story oh my God that was um you know I used to be not Anin fan before that I was a huge massive Star Trek fan and um I got this book I think even for my mom it was a cookery book from uh neix the cook in the starship
Voyager okay I mean probably nobody knows what I’m talking about oh only the trees will um I’m ashamed to say I know what you’re talking about okay that that’s wonderful and uh it was like all these things like you know purple you know um uh um I don’t know stir fry meat stir fry that was purple I had to buy all this kind of food color to make it look kind of alien you know cuz otherwise it’s just a stir fry you know and you’ve got to yes
I know then there’s this weird kind of sludgy sort of semolina dessert that I sort of made it was far too study it was sort of hard practically you know and my dad actually ate it it was so sweet they they really like you know made sure to kind of you know cuz I was whatever 14 or something and
I really made the suit blue cream and blue essence or something yeah yeah was sort of this this food color that you can buy for cakes and you know icing sugar and stuff yeah the chat has gone very quiet I think everyone is bored with Star Trek no no no they’re not bored with Star Trek I just
I’m not quite sure whether anyone wants to ask him that we’ve had a couple more um uh technical questions which we’ll just finish with maybe I like the soup question actually but maybe we should go back just very quickly technical questions because the whole point of these is to have the the interaction um very very quick questions
Michael asked speaking of technical aspects what do you think about RI as instrumentalists we’re taught to use it sparingly he’s never understood the singers oh that’s interesting um the problem is I think and I don’t want to you know embarrass or you offend anyone here but a lot of singers don’t have control of their vibrat and I think that’s a very sad thing and that’s something that you should actually work on because um
I think vibr speaking from a kind of early music perspective here from Anon from Reen jacobs’ school um it’s it’s it’s a it’s a means it’s practically an embellishment it’s it’s not supposed to be kind of a constant wobble that’s sort of going on and most singers unfortunately have that and how does it evolve I mean did you just you
I don’t know I mean I was supposed to I mean I just did an exam actually because I wanted to finally finish my diploma six months ago um on on this phoniatricians course you know the um the voice um you know whatever voice production course uh in the hospital and that was really really interesting um and we
I was supposed to explain in this oral test what vibr is and it’s actually really really difficult to explain because nobody really knows um it’s the frequency of how often you know the um the vocal cords crash against one another and the the kind of sinus curve that they that they develop and it’s a slight change of pitch isn’t it because it’s if you slow down a vibrat note uh then it would probably go say a like like that but when it’s fast of course it
SS like it sounds like a normal vibr note and stuff and I think it’s important to really be able to sing straight notes as well to sing with a large vibr larger vibr maybe for romantic repertoire with a maybe smaller maybe for classical music um you know just for every different era but even for every different piece or phrase have the ability to kind of manipulate this because it’s it’s just one of our tools and it shouldn’t be sort of a constant wobble so from
Blue soup to vibr yeah um my really very last question what’s the absolute best thing about your job I think the best thing at the moment is to in a way be able to even already tell promoters and people conductors orchestras or to talk to them about my my program wishes or what I’d like to do I think that’s the most amazing thing on the planet because usually before it was always like that you get asked for a particular piece which is wonderful to oh yes great
I’d like to do that but now some people even approach me and say what would you like to do and that’s just so amazing because I love making programs and I love kind of you know doctoring around saying oh what could we combine and which composer and which eras can we kind of put together and cook together and you put this together and
I absolutely adore it and I hope everyone else will too thank you for coming you’re talking to a lot of horn players out there you’re talking to a lot of your fans you’re talking to a lot of your out there too please come back this is just such an amazing way to interact with every thank you so much so much fun thank you thanks for coming thanks to you all for joining us for watching thank you thank you thank you to
Jakob and Stefan who here run the stream and to Tim who got up at 5 and we woke him up at 5:30 this morning Tim poor Tim see you at the very next hangout keep a lookout on the page and we’ll let you know who’s on next so bye good night good morning
Horn Hangouts are created by Sarah Willis of the Berlin Philharmonic. Brassbanned is a proud long-time collaborator and streaming partner.
