Photograph courtesy of Diana Soviero/UIA Expertise Company
Throughout a dialog on Zoom in August 2025, Diana Soviero informed me a memorable story about her late colleague, Beverly Sills: “She mentioned to me, ‘The artwork type of opera goes to die. You’ll witness it, Diana. I will probably be useless, however I need you to attempt to defend it.’ ‘What am I,’ I mentioned, ‘a police officer?’” However Soviero, the risk-taking soprano who by no means allowed her blazing dramatic involvement to forestall her from doing the vocal aspect of her roles complete justice, has certainly spent her life preventing for the artwork kind to which she’s given her voice and artistry wholeheartedly. When she talks about opera, she makes it dwell, by means of her personal distinctive creativeness and conviction. In dialog, Soviero’s power is infectious, her opinions totally honest, her spontaneity and complete lack of pretense an absolute pleasure. 5 minutes into our interview, we had been speaking like previous pals.
After successful the 1979 Richard Tucker Award, Soviero went on to get pleasure from a spectacular worldwide profession, forging an particularly passionate, palpable reference to the music of Puccini (her Manon Lescaut and Tosca had been two of the small handful of excellent performances I’ve heard of a Puccini soprano function). She’s greater than prepared to talk of her achievements onstage, however at age 83, she’s really residing in the present day, retaining her connection to opera as a tremendously sought-after trainer and master-class chief. She’s been carefully related to the Met’s Lindemann program, the Florida Grand Opera Studio (which she co-directed for 2 years along with her husband, director Bernard Uzan), and plenty of different opera firms and conservatories.
When did she begin instructing? “It occurred in a efficiency. I used to be singing Pagliacci on the Metropolitan Opera. I appeared stage left and noticed 5 younger singers sitting on the ground within the wings. There have been different folks sitting there, too, together with Gail Robinson, who was in command of the Lindemann program. Later I mentioned to her, ‘I hear you made the scholars come and pay attention.’ ‘I needed them to see how you’re employed up shut, and I’d such as you to do a grasp class with them,’” which Soviero had by no means accomplished earlier than. “I mentioned, ‘I’m not a grasp!’” However James Levine spoke along with her and mentioned, “You realize what’s proper, what’s unsuitable—simply inform them.” That was the way it started.
Diana Soviero as Nedda in Pagliacci at Teatro alla Scala / Photograph: Lelli & Masotti
Lots of younger artists had been quickly asking to work with Soviero. She ultimately developed her personal studio (“a little bit overwhelming for me whereas I used to be nonetheless performing”). Having by no means thought she’d educate, she eased into it working one-on-one. “It was repertoire that the singers had been doing on the Met at the moment, together with comprimario roles. I mentioned, ‘There’s no such factor as a comprimario function. It’s important to sing it as if it’s an important function!’ After all, I needed to teach them concerning the music, the textual content, and every thing else that I’d discovered in my life as a singer.”
Soviero is fast so as to add that when she was finding out at Juilliard, college students weren’t allowed to make use of a vocal rating. “I mentioned to [legendary voice teacher] Mme. Freschl, ‘You imply to inform me I’ve to know what the oboe is doing?’ ‘Diana,’ she mentioned, ‘he’s singing with you. In case you take a breath within the unsuitable spot, you’re not collectively.’ So I needed to know each instrument.”
Soviero prefers having an viewers within the room for grasp courses. “I’m stage left or stage proper of the piano, so I discover the change in singers—after they see folks in entrance of them, they begin to get nervous. However even when one thing occurs that I believe is wrong, I completely attempt to deal with it as a optimistic factor: ‘OK, there’s one thing within the rating that we didn’t learn, that we might have forgotten.’ I at all times use ‘we.’ And if that ever occurs, within the subsequent phrase we want to have the ability to right it in a really clever manner.’”
Because the voice of expertise (with every thing a younger singer might do, she’s been there and accomplished that), Soviero in grasp courses and personal voice classes can provide reams of precious recommendation: “What for those who make a mistake and also you’re in entrance of the conductor? Do you worsen the conductor for those who don’t need to do one thing? In case you upset the conductor, she or he is in cost and might do you hurt. So, what can we do?’ Soviero really features because the full-service trainer: ‘I work on so many issues—deportment, training, musicality, vowels, how one can double consonants, how one can breathe!”
Diana Soviero in La traviata
In the course of the singing, Soviero’s taking note of each element: “I make notes—attempting to not do it too clearly—and I’m watching the rating rigorously to see in the event that they know the place the breath marks are, whether or not they know that it’s written piano, col canto, or ritardando. I circle issues, after which after they’ve completed singing, I zero in on what I’ve caught.”
It’s at all times apparent to Soviero when the singer doesn’t know what they’re singing about. “Consider ‘Qual fiamma avea nel guardo’ [in Pagliacci]. The singer will probably be smiling, so I’ll ask, ‘What has Nedda simply mentioned?’ ‘Oh, Miss Soviero, I didn’t translate that.’ ‘Subsequent week, you’d higher know what it means!’ As soon as a soprano began ‘Mi chiamano Mimì.’ I mentioned, “How good, however have you learnt what she means by ‘ma il mio nome è Lucia’? ‘Don’t confuse me,’ she responded, ‘Lucia is within the second Act!” After the grasp class was over, I took her apart and defined every thing to her.”
After all, Soviero is all too conscious that each singer she works with gained’t have a serious profession. “I inform them, ‘You don’t must be on the Metropolitan Opera. Study to sing effectively. In case you’re in a refrain, you’d higher know how one can sing! Know your music, know what legato means.’ Let me inform you, Roger, I simply needed to study to sing effectively.”
Soviero needs younger singers lately would put together extra totally (“They don’t assume it’s vital.”) In distinction, as a budding younger soprano, she devoured each instance of nice singing that she might discover. “My complete life, I used to be listening to Renata Tebaldi—she was my dream of goals!” After listening to Tebaldi’s portamento in “Mi chiamano Mimì” Soviero mentioned to her father, “I’m engaged on this factor in my singing and I can’t do it.” “Diana, translate the phrase portamento. Clearly, you’re carrying one thing, however what are you carrying?’” “Daddy, I do know—I’m carrying the ‘o’ vowel!’ I am going to my voice lesson, I sing, and my trainer says, ‘What occurred to you? Good lady!’ In order that’s how I discovered portamento – as a result of I needed to get that proper, like Tebaldi, like Stella, like Stignani. Then I mentioned, ‘Now I’ve to study what legato means.’ All you need to do is translate the phrase—’to tie,’ and it’s not tying your shoelace! And consider appoggiare [the verb most crucially associated with breath support]. My dad mentioned, “What does that imply? It’s to lean. Once I sang, my father would hold saying, ‘Lean, Diana!’”
Diana Soviero in Roméo et Juliette on the Metropolitan Opera / Photograph: James Heffernan
A local of North Bergen, New Jersey, Soviero was already a critical voice pupil at Juilliard at 13. In her classes, she had the massively revered Martin Wealthy as her pianist and coach (“To today, I say how blessed I used to be.”) By twenty-one she was already onstage, debuting as Mimì at Chautauqua Opera.
Fortunately, Soviero early on already possessed the sine qua non of a profession—a stable method. Years later, “I’d discuss with my colleagues about it on a regular basis. All of us studied García method! I don’t assume many lecturers in the present day return to García’s technique. Immediately, in auditions, I hear lots of people singing merely phrase to phrase, and loud is ‘in.’ That annoys me. I get uptight listening, and I don’t perceive what their coaches had been doing.”
For Soviero, listening to recordings made by legends of singing—Tebaldi, Callas, Olivero, and extra—was a voice lesson in itself. “My college students are listening to singers of in the present day, however I inform them, ‘Return and hearken to how Callas did this phrase. Take heed to Piero Cappuccilli and the opposite nice baritones I sang with my complete life’—the listing is, like, perpetually! The best way they phrased, their pianissimi, their legato. That phrasing appears to be passé in the present day, and I don’t know if college students even perceive it, so I get annoyed! Do they actually, actually research?”
Soviero’s personal studying course of was a problem, in that she was born with ADD and was additionally dyslexic. “I wasn’t that good in class—I used to be very sensible however couldn’t focus my consideration, and every thing I wrote down was backwards.” The dyslexia affected the way in which she labored with numbers: “To have the ability to rely the way in which I wanted to in music, I labored tougher than any of my college students put collectively.”
From the beginning, Soviero had very good theatrical instincts. It’s by no means simply been about singing for her—she’s famend as a real singing actress. Her pleasure about creating drama onstage really started when she was solely 9 years previous: “My father put lights across the storage door and I’d act in every single place. I did all these loopy issues, so years later, after I was let unfastened onstage, I had an creativeness that basically went wild.”
That creativeness has served Soviero brilliantly in her means to delve deeply into any character and her circumstances. Her infinite interpretive assets have enhanced all kinds of repertoire, from mild lyric in the beginning of her profession all the way in which to spinto years later. After all, she’s carefully related to the gamut of Italian and French heroines, however she additionally scored memorable late-career successes in two demanding character elements: Mme. Raquin in Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin (world premiere, Dallas, 2001) and Mrs. De Rocher in Jake Heggie’s Useless Man Strolling (Baltimore, 2006). Given the extent of element that has enriched all of Soviero’s portrayals, it will be instructive to any younger soprano to listen to her reminiscences of portraying Massenet’s Manon for the primary time. The director reminded her that the character was touring fairly an extended distance to get to her remaining vacation spot. With that in thoughts, “If I had been in a coach with different folks, what would I’ve in my purse? An apple, perhaps? If I had been sweating, would I’ve a handkerchief? I mentioned to the director, ‘Is there a risk that I might have water onstage?’ ‘Let me put in a effectively—you may go and drink some water.’” Additionally at Soviero’s request, the costume division gave her a straw hat, “and I took it off so I might fan myself. I took the handkerchief and moist it with water to moisten my face, and I used to be beginning to eat the apple when down the steps got here Des Grieux! In order that’s how I began to brighten the staging to really feel the half.”
Soviero has at all times loved constructing a characterization by means of significant collaboration with a director. She’s skilled that significantly along with her husband of forty-three years, Bernard Uzan, “the best director I ever labored with—and I labored with all of them! He’s informed me so many issues about myself. In Montreal, after I was singing Juliette, he mentioned, ‘Diana, it’s not Tosca!’ I’d do one thing within the potion aria and he’d say, ‘Relax! Diana, what are you pondering, what are you feeling? Why are you beginning so quick? The potion will not be in your physique but!’”
One other director she particularly loved working with was the late Bob Wilson. A number of months earlier than his loss of life, he wrote to Soviero saying, “I’m going to do the Butterfly manufacturing once more, however it’ll by no means be what we did collectively.” Right here’s a slightly startling anecdote from that have: in Soviero’s Paris condominium, “I used to be cooking and the range had a caught shelf. I used to be making baked apples, and the sugar fell on my arm. Nicoletta Curiel, our Suzuki, mentioned to me, ‘Stick your arm within the freezer.’ Bob then designed the costume so my arms could be lined!”
Diana Soviero in Madama Butterfly on the Opéra Bastille / Photograph: Kleinfenn
Over time, different administrators haven’t at all times been as thoughtful as Wilson. How has Soviero coped with that? This immediately brings to her thoughts the Met Butterfly directed by Giagn Carlo Del Monaco (son of the good Mario). They had been engaged on the climax of Act Two—“Ei torna e m’ama!”—when Del Monaco mentioned, “I need you to stroll upstage together with your again to the viewers.” Soviero was unwilling to sing the function’s most thrilling phrase with that blocking. “I mentioned to him, ‘Let me ask you one thing: would you might have requested your father to do this?’ ‘That’s not a pleasant factor to say to me.’ ‘Nicely, to ask me to face upstage singing that B-flat isn’t good both!’ I used to be sensible sufficient to not bug him about it, however I received my manner.”
Soviero now confronts the generally difficult director/singer relationship when her college students complain about having to work in staging created for different artists. “They are saying to me, ‘I’ve to do what the soprano did earlier than.’ I say, ‘Who was the soprano? Do you respect what she did, or do you assume you may do higher?’ ‘Nicely, she’s a giant star.’ ‘OK, meaning she has much more expertise than you, however when you might have a rehearsal break, say to the director, ‘I do know the soprano did it this manner, however might I attempt one thing else?’ And that director would possibly say, ‘OK, let me see what you need to do!’ Early in my profession, Tito Capobianco would let me experiment. He’d say, ‘In case you do that coming in working, can you continue to sing?’ Or, at different instances, ‘Are you able to sing this mendacity in your again?’ Immediately I inform my college students, ‘If the director respects you and you’ve got constructive concepts, perhaps they’ll allow you to do what you need. If not, you shut up, you do it, and you’re taking your cash. TTMAR, which stands for ‘Take the cash and run’—Beverly mentioned that!”
Onstage, Soviero was fortunate to have colleagues who gave her every thing she wanted. She’s been partnered by most of the best artists of our time, and so they had full belief in her, as she did in them. With Plácido Domingo, “we’d by no means rehearse. We knew what we had been doing, and we knew one another so effectively—there was such mutual respect.”
Whereas Soviero was singing Nedda at La Scala reverse José Carreras, the tenor was recognized with leukemia. “I noticed him within the costume rehearsal and he mentioned to me, ‘Diana, I’m so drained.’ For the scene the place we’ve got to wrestle with one another, I informed him, ‘I’ll do all of the work—I’ll throw my arms ahead.’ We helped one another do every thing. It’s nearly being colleagues.” She additionally stays grateful for her partnership on the Met with Richard Leech, “an artist true to the music, who by no means made a mistake onstage. We might pay attention to one another’s vowels! If we sang a white ‘ah’ vowel, I’d shade it. I educate my youngsters how to do this.”
From the start—regardless that she was singing roles as mild as Susanna, Rosina, and Gilda (the latter on the street with Boris Goldovsky’s firm at age twenty-two)—Soviero was profitable in “full lyric” fare: Mimi, Micaëla, Nedda, Marguerite. Her dream, although, was at all times Butterfly: “Sooner or later I introduced the rating to my trainer, Florence Berggren, and mentioned, ‘I need to do it someday, and I do know I can do it. Are you able to hearken to me sing it?’ I began the entrata, received to the duet with Suzuki, and began to cry. My trainer mentioned, ‘Shut the guide.’ ‘However I haven’t completed but!’ ‘Shut the guide! I’ll provide you with this recommendation: you can’t cry. It’s important to make your voice inform me to cry.’ ‘How do I try this?’ ‘You’re too busy crying your self. You’ll must determine it out.’”
Soviero’s trainer felt she was able to work with somebody new: “She mentioned to me, ‘I have to divorce you. I’m going to ship you to Marenka Gurevich.’ ‘I don’t need to go!’ However I began classes with Gurevich and mentioned to her someday, ‘Madame, can I sing Butterfly for you?’ She put the rating on the piano, and after we received to the top and I appeared up, she had tears in her eyes. She closed the rating and mentioned, ‘I need the primary two tickets on the Metropolitan.’ After I discovered the function, Ed Purrington from Tulsa Opera—the place I’d beforehand accomplished Traviata—mentioned to me, ‘The day you sing your first Butterfly, we’ll do the manufacturing for you.” That was the start of a unprecedented musical, theatrical, and emotional journey for Soviero because the geisha, a triumph for her internationally. And she or he fulfilled Mme. Gurevich’s prophecy, singing the function twenty-four instances on the Met from 1992 to 1996.
It’s not simply Cio-Cio-San who’s introduced Soviero unanimous acclaim as a pucciniana; she’s sung 9 of the composer’s different heroines as effectively (don’t miss her definitive Suor Angelica, viewable full on YouTube in a 1987 efficiency from Madrid). Her devotion to his music will perpetually be an important ingredient of her life as an artist. She vividly remembers being proven the Butterfly rating at Puccini’s dwelling in Torre Del Lago: “I believed I used to be going to cross out—it was unbelievable.”
Soviero knew when the time got here to convey her stage profession to a halt. “I used to be a perfectionist, and that’s how I knew I used to be going to retire. After a broadcast of Pagliacci on the Met, my husband and I had been driving dwelling to New Jersey, and I used to be very quiet. ‘Honey, are you OK?’ ‘Bernard, tonight I labored.’ ‘Diana, in fact you labored! Tonight was wonderful!’ ‘Bernard, tonight I labored.’ ‘Diana, you’re repeating your self!’ ‘It’s time for me to decelerate. For the primary time in my life, I labored.’” She says in the present day, “My voice was telling me, ‘Furgheddabout it.’ Beforehand, after I sang, I’d by no means felt I used to be working, I cherished it a lot. I’d come off drained, however it wasn’t a vocal drained, it was an emotional drained.”
The entire operatic scene, nationally and internationally, is, in fact, radically totally different now from what Soviero skilled throughout her years onstage. ‘The world has modified, the way in which of singing has modified, training has modified. So many opera firms at the moment are in dire straits, they haven’t any funding, they’re closing. Even the Met is struggling—so I don’t know what’s going to occur. However we’ve got to maintain opera alive, it doesn’t matter what!”
Individuals say to Soviero, “‘Why are you instructing? Don’t you get annoyed?’ After all I do, however my job now’s to show. I used to be a trainer after I was onstage, too: I needed to sing to each member of the viewers, whether or not they’d seen the opera twenty-five instances or by no means! My job then was to show them what the opera was about. Now, I’ve to attempt with all my would possibly to get into every pupil’s head and ask them the place they received their data from. ‘Did you take a look at the rating? Did you take a look at what the librettist needed? Did you ask questions?’ That is what I nonetheless have to show, and it’s as much as them to do it!”
