Sovereign sound

PEOPLES’ CHOICE Neglected by the Metropolitan Opera, Ewa Podles remains an audience favorite.

Photograph: P. Checchia

To write about Ewa Podles is to wrestle with contradictions. Dwelling on the Polish contralto’s huge, one-of-a-kind sound—which rises from inky depths to a steely brilliance on high—means slighting the selflessness of her art, her ability to disappear into the works she brings to life. Emphasizing the wild thrill of her singing means overlooking its finesse, her pinpoint control of dynamics and unflappable mastery of the vocal intricacies that make the music of Vivaldi, Handel and Rossini so fearsome.

Podles chuckles over attempts to pigeonhole her. “I’ve always had problems, because when I sang coloratura, people didn’t realize that I could sing other repertoire,” she says by phone from her Warsaw home. “And when I sang something heavier, they didn’t realize that with this big, dark voice I could also sing coloratura. But even if I have to give a concert of Mahler or Brahms, I always sing coloratura beforehand—three octaves, from top to bottom.”

Podles will unfurl those mighty tones in the title role of Rossini’s Tancredi, one of her most celebrated portrayals, at Caramoor on Saturday 22. The concert setting is not likely to blunt the 53-year-old contralto’s dramatic impact. As Verdi’s soothsayer Ulrica in Collegiate Chorale’s 2004 Un ballo in maschera, Podles burst onto Carnegie Hall’s stage with hellfire in her eyes, scaring viewers silly before she poured forth a single sulfurous note. Last spring’s concert with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra saw Podles simply become Rossini’s Joan of Arc and Mussorgsky’s taunting, sardonic Death, her body language, timbre and even the contours of her face transforming to uncanny effect. Audiences went berserk.

“It’s a gift from God,” Podles responds matter-of-factly when asked how she does it. “You can’t learn this. You can teach someone technique, coloratura”—she fires off a volley of staccato notes—“but if this person has nothing to tell through the music, you can do nothing.” She eschews research into the sources of her roles—the warrior Tancredi, for example, who has a noble Tasso-via-Voltaire pedigree. “You can’t learn anything,” the singer continues. “You have to use your voice, your emotions. Today we hate and love in the same way that people did 200 or 300 years ago. For me, that’s a very important message in music.”

Tancredi itself is a work of sublime, almost insolent beauty that stormed the globe after its 1813 premiere. The title character’s infectious “Di tanti palpiti” became one of opera’s original greatest hits, taken up by everyone from “the gondolier to the mightiest lord,” as Stendhal wrote in his Life of Rossini. The performance will find Podles in worthy company, alongside gutsy soprano Georgia Jarman and patrician bass-baritone Daniel Mobbs. The Orchestra of St. Luke’s under Will Crutchfield promises to be equal to Rossini’s ravishing score.

The thought of revisiting Tancredi makes Podles giggle. “I sing so many men’s roles—every day I look in the mirror to see if I have a mustache!” But she tenses when asked about the Metropolitan Opera, where, inexplicably, she has not sung since four performances in 1984. “As I was told, the ‘artistic adviser’ didn’t like my voice,” she says. “It’s a matter of taste, of course, but it’s strange, because the public loved me, and that’s important.”

Met audiences will finally hear Podles again in 2008, when she returns as La Cieca in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. “Better late than never,” she shrugs. But in an age of prissy, homogenized vocalism—and listless, dwindling audiences—the Met would do well to offer Podles true showcases for her arresting voice and personality: Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, even Gluck’s Orfeo, given the grievous passing of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who was to have sung the title role in next season’s new staging.

For now, Podles relishes the prospect of the Caramoor Tancredi: “The role is very modest, written only in one register. To make competition onstage, I have to add a lot of cadenzas, ornaments, decoration. So it’s almost my music: 50-50 Rossini and Podles.” She laughs wickedly, gearing up for what promises to be a knockout fight.

Tancredi at the Caramoor Festival Saturday 22.