Violina Anguelov, best known to local audiences for her roles as Carmen in Bizet’s opera, speaks to ORIELLE BERRY about her debut role as Mary in 'The Flying Dutchman'.
Describe the demands of your role in Der Fliegende Hollander as Mary.
Like with any role in which one has a limited time on stage; the same can be said about the role of Mary. One needs to bring on stage all that the character is, voice and personality, from the very first appearance as there is no time to develop the character.
Is this the first time you have performed in the Wagnerian opera?
Yes, this is my first time performing in a Wagner opera and wow, what an experience!
Having performed Carmen, both times to much acclaim, what makes the role special?
I feel really privileged that I got the opportunity to perform the role of Carmen twice. Where do I start explaining why I think the role is special to me?
Well, it is a role that requires great vocal and acting abilities which of course every opera singer strives to achieve. I have loved discovering the many dimensional character of Carmen. Fascinating woman with so much courage, depth, understanding of life, strength and much more. Not just a loose woman as I suppose many think of her. Vocally this role has been a great pleasure for me to work on. Bizet knew exactly how to write for the mezzo voice and present it in all its glory.
The change in cast members is always exciting as new people bring new ideas which keep any production alive and us as artists, on our toes, as it were.
It is always great to get to repeat a role as the second time around one discovers even more about the score; perhaps aspects that were missed the first time around.
There was a period of five years between the two performances of Carmen so I definitely matured as a person and as an artist, so that definitely brought new nuances, colours, and interpretation to the role, both vocally and acting wise.
You made your debut here almost 20 years ago - some highlights of your singing career here and overseas - and what do still wish to achieve?
I never imagined that I would have the privilege to get to where I am in my career and to actually get to perform so many roles, more than 35 to date. I have always loved, not what you perform or where you perform it, but HOW you perform it.
I still believe that, so what I want to still achieve is to keep on performing to the best of my ability for the rest of my career. But there is one role I would love to perhaps do one day and that is Delilah in Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saëns.
What can audiences expect in Der Fliegende both from you and in general in terms of the production?
As always Cape Town Opera is presenting a great production with incredible singing both by local and international artists and of course the stupendous Cape Town Vocal Ensemble, great direction by Matthew Wild and marvellous music making under the baton of Maestro Tom Murray.
* Violina Anguelov will share the role of Mary with Nonhlanhla Yende.
Der Fliegende Hollander runs at Artscape Opera House tonight at 7.30pm, on Saturday at 6pm, on August 23 at 7.30pm and on August 26 at 6pm.
Book online through Computicket.