Smith has been in Johannesburg with her company since 11 July rehearsing relentlessly for the three performances that are taking place here. Photo supplied
Yes, we know what to expect from prodigiously talented opera singer Brittany Smith when Lucia di Lammermoor opens on 25 July at the Joburg Theatre.
The 29-year-old Fleur du Cap-winning star will give a spectacular performance as the tragic heroine Lucia in one of the most demanding roles in opera.
Smith got rave reviews for her performances during Cape Town Opera’s successful run last month in this role, coveted by sopranos for its vocal demands and emotional depth.
Gaetano Donizetti’s masterful opera tells the tale of a doomed love affair set against a backdrop of family feuds and political intrigue.
It is described by the English National Opera as the emotional tale of Lucia, a woman who is constantly manipulated by the men in her life: “When she gets caught up in a family feud by falling in love with their sworn enemy, Lucia is pushed to her limit and finally decides to take control of her situation, with tragic consequences for the life of her new husband and her sanity.”
During the three hour, 15 minute-long opera — two acts with a 30-minute interval — Smith will be off stage for only 20 minutes. For the rest of the time she will be singing, acting, dancing, running up and down and remembering complex moves.
Oh, and beating up her co-star, Conroy Scott, who stars as Lucia’s brother Enrico.
“A lot of people didn’t expect it, back in Cape Town,” Smith tells me on a Zoom chat this week. “They didn’t expect just how real and raw it was going to be. I think that is why I enjoyed myself so much with this production because our director Angelo [Gobbato] really made us dig deep.
“He made us dig deep, you know, some of us on the cast that have experienced issues with mental health before, have seen family members or ourselves being admitted to a mental health clinic care facility …”
Smith trails off and picks up again.
“I’m excited for the audiences in Joburg to see what it’s all about. It’s not pretty. It’s not supposed to be pretty. It’s supposed to make you think when you leave the theatre.”
Smith has been in Johannesburg with her company since 11 July rehearsing relentlessly for the three performances here.
“It’s all the time and, you know, your stamina needs to be,” she gestures with her hand above her head, “it needs to be there — 100%.
“You need to be singing fit, you need to be athletic fit as well, because it’s like you’re running the entire time, for three hours.”
She tells me about a study comparing the heart rates of a 100m athlete and an opera singer. “It was exactly the same! You know, opera singers are athletes. We use our entire bodies the entire time …”
I go back to singing fitness. Smith explains it has to do with singers’ vocal cords, which are like muscles that have to be kept fit and treated as such before a performance.
“When athletes run track, or when they do high jump or anything, they must warm up their muscles. And with that comes vocalising or warming up of the vocal cords.
“I usually spend about, depending on how big a thing I have to do … between 30 to 45 minutes, just warming up my voice, stretching my vocal cords.”
She engages her whole body during the warm-up to avoid injury.
“I get my muscles activated, my back muscles, my stomach muscles.”
There is, of course, another crucial muscle that must function properly — a singer’s brain, which has to remember the words to the songs — and they are in foreign languages.
Smith studied at the University of Cape Town’s South African College of Music for six years, specialising in opera, followed by a postgraduate certificate in advanced opera studies.
Fortunately, as part of their bachelor’s degree, opera students study Italian, German and French.
Lucia di Lammermoor is in Italian, and she tells me you need to sing it so a native speaker will understand you. Phrasing in Italian is also very different to English.
She sings me the phrase “he hasn’t arrived yet” first in Italian and then in English to illustrate, and then explains: “You need to know how, where to put stresses, how long to extend a word over, you know, a bar or over a couple of notes, in order for it to make sense.”
In its idiot’s guide to the opera the English National Opera says it “is perhaps most famous for the third act’s ‘mad scene’, in which Lucia descends into insanity”.
Smith puts it that everyone is expecting her character to be this “frail damsel in distress” but “I hate playing characters like that. It’s not the type of person that I am.”
Her director threw a massive challenge at her: “If you don’t want that, then you’re going to have to tap into being violent.”
That was a dilemma for Smith.
“I’m not a violent person at all.”
But director Gobbato insisted: “You really need to physically hit Conroy, not in his face, please, not in his face, but somewhere on his body.
“You need to feel the rage this character is feeling for you to be able to step back and say, ‘Okay, I can do this much with this much intensity but I don’t have to hurt my co-worker.’”
It was a huge “exercise of trust for Conroy and I … and singing together for the past couple of years has really been great because we’ve built on that trust relationship.
“And after that rehearsal, I had to take a moment and I had to step back and I had to remind myself, you’re not this person, it’s just a character.”
Smith pauses for a few seconds.
“My colleagues came up to me and said they’ve never seen a female character on stage being portrayed as violent as I am. And I was, like, that is what I want. I don’t want to be the pretty damsel in distress who needs rescuing from men the entire time.”
Lucia is one of the most challenging roles in opera. It is not the singing, Smith tells me.
“What was difficult was getting into the psyche of Lucia. I think it’s the fact that you must make this character so real, that you have to scratch open old wounds and use past trauma in your own life as a sort of building block into this character …”
During the Cape Town preparation and run Smith spoke to her therapist twice a week.
“I said, ‘You know, this is how this made me feel today. I’m not okay. I don’t know how to detach from this.’
“And she was very, very helpful in giving me coping mechanisms to deal with, and know how to get out of, that space. And then obviously, being able to sustain all of that, that you built up over five, six, seven, eight performances.”
And when the curtain comes down, how do you feel?
Smith smiles.
“Relieved. Always relieved. Because it’s giving thanks to my body, my vocal cords, my brain, my stamina that has got me through this entire piece once again.
“Let’s do it tomorrow!”
She is also deathly tired then.
“I should just keep going, taking off my make-up, taking off all the costumes, scrubbing the fake blood off my skin.
“And taking my wig off. I should never sit still for too long. Otherwise, I won’t be able to get up afterwards. But with this specific role, I feel very accomplished after each curtain call.
“It’s taken me years to get to that point where I’m just, like, ‘I’m so happy with how I did tonight. I can go to bed, a happy girl.’”
And the singer as athlete?
“Yes, everything hurts. I’m actually just thinking about it now, my calf muscles, because I’m on my feet all the time. I’m barefoot. I’m the only one that’s barefoot on stage. I absolutely hate it.”
Once she goes off stage she warms down like any sports person.
“I also stretch afterwards. And if I really, really feel eina, then I take [an anti-inflammatory]. And I get in a hot, hot bath and put in some Epsom salt because that helps relieve the aches in my muscles.”
Lucia di Lammermoor runs at the Joburg Theatre from 25 to 28 July.