Joyce DiDonato - Drama Queens.

In modern day, the term of "Drama queens" it's been a bad connotation, "Oh, she's a Drama Queen!" It's what we're saying on a condescending mode, about somebody frivolous and who exagerates. But the surprise is that their emotions are actually true and universal. It makes you human. That's what we do in life, we feel human feeling, don't we? The Drama Queen is become a common expression for excessive, a woman whose response to something is excessive. 6 00:0 00:01:48,050 --> 00:01:53,000 They'

re off the charts, up on the moon. We have no choice, you are special, to be special make something good out of it. Can you be the Prima Donna ? - Lot of pressure! - It wasn't a problem for me. - I think on stage we're pretty often a Drama Queen. - I can act it ... - ... I know what it is. - And that's enough. It's called ... Imagination ! The american Mezzo Joyce DiDonato has a predilection for baroque heroines such as ... Sovereigns, Witches or Queens. She embodies these characters both in t

he greatest operas and studios. For Joyce, the greatness of these heroines are in their outpouring of emotions, super size emotions. But ... What's the secret to these excesses? What's the consequences when we deal with those characters? And which part of Drama Queen belong to the actors? In order to find responses, the opera singer starts a trip, in which she'll meet great artists ... .. that we would certainly find uninteresting if there weren't a little bit Drama Queen too! This year is my ye

ar of the Queens. Thoses extremely strong, iconic, femelle, spirit women. Just unspopable, sort of energy and over the top but rich and real, and high and low, happy, tragic ... It's Drama Queen! I certainly think it's, in Baroque opera, because of Drama Queens that we there for! We wanna live theses characters, larger than life personnalities, larger than life emotions ... These journey, their deepest emotions, their destiny, they're huge, and that's what turns me on about it. In peticular we

're going to the world of baroque music, the things are a little stylising and the plots are little bit more outlanding than the contemporanist of our times. That's why we think "Oh, these plot are completly crazy". They are! And the reason they're crazy is they need these landscapes to rule their emotions against. Like in a Polock's painting where he throwes all the different colors. This world of theater and drama needs women who are powerful and potent and sensual, and valuable, and fragil

e, who stay high, and give us excuses to love, and hate, and have jealousy, and rage and vengance, and joy in the grandest, biggest, fashion. It's starting off with this crazy, mad character, named Sycorax, in The Enchanted Island, here at the Met. The challenge with this role of Sycorax is the fact she's a woman, at the begining, who's ugly, even in her spirit. Cause for years she thinks only about revenge and, that's certain, it's a poison that goes through you. She lost her power, she los

t the will to live. That changes everything! I need to brush it a little bit! The interesting thing to this is I know women who passed trough this journey. At the middle age, they lost their identity, Their gave their whole life to their children, at church. THey lived for someone, something else. And they wake up one day, they're looking in the mirror, and they feel like Sycorax. "Where's my youth? Where is the Joyce that I used to know?" They realize they lost their power, they forgot to live

for themselves. And that's exactly what Sycorax's feeling, and decide to re-find herself. I look forward to my season, the Drama Queens. This journey, that's gonna be a theme, this idea of "Who am I ?" ... ... and "what cost can I pay for jealousy, revenge or joy or ... Death." Sycorax illustrates all these feelings. Vivienne likes all the arts, from litterature to mode, music. She personifies the idea of Drama Queen. She has broken any barriers ... ... she had made her own track, she didn't fo

llow any rules. That's why she's largen than life, why it's so exiting. 63 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:20,001 This projetc is "Drama Queens, largen than life". The characters I'll be doing, Cleopatra, Armida, are strong, do crazy things, put the world on fire ... ... but at the same time they feel really pure and human emotions. And I think sometimes when you can feel these emotions as a performer in front of an audience, it gives you the power the push the door of another dimension ... Another w

orld open up. - Yeah, that's true. I think what you're talking about is imagination, We make a representation of the world. So, I think what you're talking about is a kind of poetic and spiritual representation ... ... of our feeling of beeing one with the rest of life, somehow. It's a way a representing world in a sign, in a poem or in opera... ... Using another laguage, which is an abstraction from reality. I love the way you're talking about imagination because I work with it ... I tell youn

g singers I do love that word, and they ask me: How do you deal with your breath? How do you get your color? All this is important, that's the basis, the technique but I'm telling her, "you'll get nothing without imagination". Imagination brings fire, passion. That's what will lead you up, I think. You mention technique, you're right. If you have the technique, then you could do it, without thinking. It'll happen. You'll be abble to express yourself without singing about it, it'll be natural.

You could just live it. To do that you need to have the technique. I could never do what you're doing with 5 singing lessons. So whenever we talk leading ladies, in peticular in baroque, your eyes begin light up! Yes! Like that! And we talk about Alcina, Cleopatra, Poppea ... What is it who makes these ladies so illuminated ? What is it who makes you ... Aaah! - It is Drama! Drama takes basis in the exageration, over the top. It's never boring. There is a lot of music that I find boring myself

. But the Drama queens, especially in baroque, are not boring. - They are not insignificant. - They are really really strong. 89 00:14:19,500 --> It really stops my breath when I looked at it, as a manuscript, it's madre diletta abbraccia mi, of Porta, and it's a character Iphigenie, which is the point when she has the ... and she said to her mother hugg me, comfort me, you know, she sais "you must forgive father". This is big, and then she says "in peace I can go to my death" now we know wha

t forginess is.