site.btaJoyce DiDonato: "Every Performance I Do Is a Turning Point in a Way"

American opera singer Joyce DiDonato said every performance she does is a turning point in a way.

DiDonato, winner of multiple Grammy Awards, also told BTA's Dahnyelle Dymytrov: "You have to be completely present to give a really powerful performance and that means taking a lot of risk."

The May 31 concert in Sofia of the world-renowned mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Grammy Award winning pianist Craig Terry marked the grand finale of the second season of Intimate Voices, the chamber music festival founded by Bulgarian opera diva Sonya Yoncheva. The programme featured songs by Claude Debussy, Joseph Haydn, Alma Mahler and Gustav Mahler.

Following is the full text of the interview with Joyce DiDonato:

This is your first visit to Bulgaria. What did you expect – and what did you discover?

I tried not to expect too much because you never know, but I was very moved yesterday walking through Sofia at how original it feels. I travel quite a lot in Europe and the States and now it feels like every city looks the same, there's H&M and there's McDonald's and everything is predictable. And in Sofia I went from shop to shop, everything independent, very artistic. There's a lot of graffiti but it feels very expressive and so I loved the individuality and the artistic emergence that I felt here.

Many of your projects go beyond musical form and carry a strong humanistic message. What do you hope the audience in Sofia — and around the world — takes away from one of your concerts?

I think the idea of a concert is such a beautiful blueprint for society because last night we had a thousand people in the hall and most of them probably strangers and yet everybody comes in and decides to feel something together. And I think it's a very powerful thing to agree as an audience member to come in, experience something beautiful hopefully, something that maybe holds a mirror up to who we are. For example last night I sang a lot about love and I would love for people to go home saying am I loving to the best of my capability, am I loving people that are difficult to love, am I handling my own lack of love or despair, am I handling that well, this is what great art does is it makes us look inside and feel but in a concert it happens in community. And I think especially today where we're all like this all day and we're isolated in our own head and our own world, coming together in community to experience storytelling and something beautiful is very powerful.

What advice would you give to a young classical singer from Bulgaria who dreams of performing on the world’s great stages?

So to perform as a classical singer you have to spend a lot of time working on your technique. There are so many things you have to master to be an opera singer, you have to master your physical instrument, you have to master musical styles from across the centuries, you have to master languages, I'm working on my Bulgarian. You have to master the human condition to a certain extent in order to portray it theatrically. So it takes a lot of time and so I would encourage young singers to be patient to a certain extent but also impatient and work very diligently and very hard to figure out where they are as singers.

Is there a moment in your career that you consider a turning point? 

I think every performance I do is a turning point in a way. Because you have to be completely present to give a really powerful performance and that means taking a lot of risk. And it means meeting that particular audience where they are and there's an old saying that says you're only as good as your last performance or in sports you're only as good as your last match. And I think there's truth in that, so I just keep. I don't look back too much, I keep looking right here, right now, how can I make this moment matter.