Soprano Tamara Wilson on Making her Role Debut in Tannhäuser and Connecting with the “Stereotypical Good Girl” Character of Elisabeth

When we caught up with Grammy Award-winning soprano Tamara Wilson, she was deep into rehearsals ahead of her anticipated role debut as Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser, set to open at HGO in a matter of weeks.

Before her stardom, Wilson was a member of the Sarah and Ernest Butler Houston Grand Opera Studio, and the first-place winner in the company’s 2005 Concert of Arias. She got her big break in 2007 at HGO, after stepping in as Amelia for the entire run of Verdi’s Masked Ball. Since then, she has performed in major opera houses across the globe, but she makes her home in Houston.

Wilson is known at HGO for her interpretation of Italian repertoire, especially Verdi and Puccini. In addition to recent Houston triumphs in the title roles of Tosca and Turandot, she starred as Aida opposite tenor Russell Thomas. The two will team up again for Tannhäuser in a new production by acclaimed director Francesca Zambello.

Wilson, who plays Elisabeth opposite Thomas's Tannhäuser, recently began her transition into Wagnerian repertoire with critically acclaimed appearances as Brünnhilde and Isolde. But this will be the first time she performs a Wagner role at HGO. We caught up with her ahead of tech rehearsals to talk about performing after years of preparation, her experience with Wagner operas, and what she's learned throughout her career as a performer.

How do you feel about performing as Elisabeth in this production of Tannhäuser?

This will be my first Elisabeth, so I'm really excited. I've been slowly growing my Wagner repertoire. I started with the hardest one, Isolde, so this one feels super easy—it’s much shorter. It's more about the whole show and not just about, oh, I hope I can sing.

What's your favorite musical moment of the opera?

Interestingly, it's not my stuff. It's honestly the Pilgrims' Chorus towards the end when they're coming back from Rome. If I can get through it without welling up, it's one of those moments where you just feel like you're on another plane of existence. It's a slow-burn build, so it starts really soft, and then it gets bigger and bigger, and the orchestra gets bigger and bigger and just explodes. I even got goosebumps talking about it.

With this being your first time performing as Elisabeth, how do connect to her as a character?

It's hard to connect to her because she's a version of what a woman historically should be. So, we have to dig deeper into that.

If you look at it on the surface, she's just a foil for the main character’s own internal dealings with love, loss, humanity, spirituality—all this kind of stuff. If you're looking at the black and white of the show, she’s just the virgin who is there to save him.

But if you zoom in, she's a gal who grew up with Tannhäuser and Wolfram. I call them the "Harry Potter trio" because they've known each other forever. She is dealing with her own awakening as a human, and she has every opportunity to love Wolfram. He's a great guy, he's an upstanding, good dude, he’s got the perfect job. He's that guy.

But she wants to save the friend she grew up with, Tannhäuser. She finds him intellectually interesting. There's something exciting about him and a little bit dangerous, which people get drawn to—sometimes to their detriment. But I think they have a genuine love for each other.

She’s the voice that speaks up and says, I'm the person that should hate him the most because he's broken my heart. But I still love him, and I think we should give him the chance to be redeemed—or however you want to view the end.

What do you enjoy about Wagner’s operas?

That's a tough one. It's interesting—I was a person who grew up listening to Mozart, and then a lot of Italian repertoire when I first started. When I first listened to Wagner, I went and saw Rheingold at the Met when I did the competition there in 2004. It felt more like a movie because the score is like a soundtrack.

Cut to 15 years of not ever thinking about it ever, because I was not involved with Wagner at all. So, I didn't really have a feel for it—then I had to do Isolde!

There are layers to learning Wagner. You listen to it the first time and you're like, Oh my God, that's cool. But also, oh, my God, that's long. I don't know if I can focus for that amount of time. But then when you start to dig into it, it's like a huge onion. You peel back layer after layer. There's always something new to discover—some new twist or view of how to stage something. So, it's always a process.

But then once you get on stage with the orchestra, nothing matters anymore. It's like you go to this place of, oh yeah, that's why we learn and make music. To share it with other people like this.

How is rehearsal going?

Totally, totally easy. I've worked with Francesca, and I've worked with Russell a lot, so I have a shorthand with both of them. It literally was like two directions, and then we just improvised everything. Francesca tweaked some stuff, and we were done with my aria in about 15 minutes. It's nice when you've prepared all that stuff so long beforehand that you get in the rehearsal room and it's like, Okay. Let's do it.

Zambello has chosen to set her production in a strict American religious community similar to the Amish or the Mennonites. Does this concept change how you approach the role of Elisabeth?

Actually, it helps. When I first listened, I was like, Oh my God, she's so boring. Just a very stereotypical good girl who loves a person, tries to save them. You know, it's very holier-than-thou type of writing, even though it's honest. It's a deep, true human. But when Francesca said we're doing it in a closed community, it felt easier to make Elisabeth more human.

The original medieval setting is so remote and removed that it feels more fantasy than it does real life. But you see Mennonite men and women come out of the community sometimes, and you meet them. It makes sense that if somebody goes on rumspringa and comes back, it's going to change the dynamics of the community

Do you find yourself wanting to play in rehearsal a little bit?

The great thing about working with Russell is that we've been married in Otello, been lovers in Ernani, and we've been lovers in Il trovatore. We just have an instant like, you wanna go here? You wanna do this?

We have a shorthand for our acting relationship, which is great, because the opera is so long that you can't do the scene over and over in rehearsal. We don't have that luxury. You might end up doing only 20 runs of a scene before you actually do it on stage. All our prep, Wagner-wise, is done the year or two prior, so that when we get to rehearsal, everything is already choreographed.

How does it feel to be back to HGO?

I'm home! I'm sleeping in my own bed after I go to work, which 85 percent of my year is not like that. So it's the best. Plus, when I walk in, I know everybody. I can be like, yeah, that's where I got my first score for this when I was 22.

How did your time in the Butler Studio affect your career?
 

I feel like a lot of people get the chance to learn how to be a singer, but don't get the opportunity to try and be a singer. HGO is really good about that. Everybody who comes out of this program knows you came out of HGO because you're always prepared, always professional, and it's one of those things that makes this company so revered around the world.

What advice do you have for people who want to perform?

It is a real job. It is a real life. It is hard. You sacrifice a lot. You have to love music so much that all the other stuff makes it worth it.

I get burnt out sometimes. But at the same time, I'm like, no, no, no, this is what I'm made to do, this what I want to do, and I love it. I get excited every time it's before a show, and I'm walking backstage, and the sets are still being put together. There's that hubbub of a working theater and then the silence of a theater. When you're hanging out in it, it feels special and sacred.