Soprano Anna Pirozzi / Picture: Charl Marais
“Robusta!” the soprano says with assurance, clenching her fist. “Wholesome. I’m not valuable with it—I’m robust.”
Anna Pirozzi is describing her voice to me in a wine bar on the Higher West Aspect. On the time of our dialog, which I’ve edited right here for readability, she has one remaining efficiency of Turandot earlier than she returns house to Switzerland. This spring was her first time in New York to sing since 2019 and her return to the Met in certainly one of her signature roles has been a triumph. And, she hopes, the beginning of one thing new.
After over a dozen peerless years in probably the most punishing repertory— Verdi’s early warrior heroines, Norma, Aïda, Turandot—the Italian soprano is levelling up, and audiences in New York are lastly getting a protracted take a look at a singer who has somewhat nonchalantly set a typical for lirico-spinto singing in Italy and in Europe. With these New York appearances, she says she looks like she’s dwelling “a second profession, one other explosion of my profession as a result of my voice has held up nicely and I can nonetheless give probably the most, the most effective of myself.”
However what is likely to be a second act for her— new theaters, some new roles, and a few high-profile productions—is definitely extra of a primary act for American audiences. After a single scheduled Girl Macbeth in 2019, throughout certainly one of Anna Netrebko’s off nights, Christopher Corwin stated, “One hopes that Pirozzi’s splendid one-shot debut received’t imply that it’ll take 4 years earlier than we hear her once more whereas the Met scrambles to discover a place for her. The soprano’s broad repertoire […] alongside together with her crowd-stirring artistry means that she ought to have a welcome and valued place on the Met’s roster.” But it might be over half a decade earlier than she returned to New York, and when the decision from the Met got here a 12 months in the past, she was able to return for 5 performances as Turandot, together with a rapturously obtained broadcast that left many listeners questioning “The place has she been?”
Anna Pirozzi in Macbeth on the Metropolitan Opera, October 2019 / Picture: The Metropolitan Opera
If it appeared like Pirozzi emerged out of nowhere ten or fifteen years in the past, it’s as a result of she did; in 2000, at age 25 and having by no means sung any classical music earlier than, she heard a recording of Callas’s “Casta diva” and had her street to Damascus second with opera—“It was love at first sight”—and he or she by no means regarded again. After having beforehand sung virtually solely modern music in small, social settings, in Valle d’Aosta the place her household moved from Naples when she was 13, she started coaching on the native conservatory.
For the dozen years between her discovery of opera and her massive break as Amelia in a single efficiency of Un ballo in maschera in Turin in 2012, she minimize her enamel singing perilous early Verdi roles in small theaters at night time whereas working in nursing houses and cleansing factories throughout the day. “My mother and father all the time advised me if you need issues, you must earn them,” she says of her unflagging work ethic. “I’d sing Aïda for €50, Abigaille for €100, in teeny tiny regional theaters. I’d be on a bus together with the orchestra, and I used to be simply comfortable to sing. That was how I made my bones.”
It was with these roles that Pirozzi got here to early acclaim; she got here on my radar proper right here on Parterre Field in 2016 when the late James Jorden proclaimed of her Abigaille, “I feel we will all agree that this Anna Pirozzi is the true factor,” and later that spring I bought to see her La Scala debut run as Lucrezia Contarini in a due Foscari that was mounted for Placido Domingo (however featured performances by the eminently extra echt Luca Salsi on the finish of the run). The truth is, the Salsi-Pirozzi pairing has yielded a number of the most satisfying nights of Italian opera that I’ve ever skilled: their 2018 Macbeth in Parma was terrifying in its precision, and in Tosca in Pirozzi’s native Naples final fall, the 2 have been continually elevating the stakes on one another in a riveting Act II.
On recording, Pirozzi has all of the trademark qualities of that Cetra soprano sound: agile and centered, a strong chest register, and a fast, regular vibrato with the piercing bloom of acid hitting acetate. In a reside recording of Trovatore from Macerata in 2016, her straightforward, almost parlante legato skates fearlessly throughout Leonora’s precations within the Tower Scene till she leaps up into electrical excessive notes or drifts off into pianissimi with a cumulonimbus’s imposing loftiness.
Anna Pirozzi in Turandot on the Metropolitan Opera / Picture: Jonathan Tichler
In her current Turandot, she counterbalances large, centered excessive Cs with delicate, even tender phrasings. Her timbre has heat, an excellent plangency, however her resonance is piquant, and solely after you understand you’ve gotten all of the notes do you understand that you simply’ve gotten all of the phrases, as nicely. And if she’s not essentially glamorous onstage, she’s loads grand, and the no-nonsenseness with which she pulls all of it off is intimidating.
No-nonsenseness is likely to be Pirozzi’s defining attribute. She wears the storied caché of the “Italian soprano” epithet frivolously, however, she provides “I do know I’ve one thing additional in comparison with a non-Italian singer. Italian singing has this frankness, this luminosity, the openness, this naturalness and not-too-affectedness. It’s singing with the enjoyment of understanding what you’re saying.”
Comprehension has been key as a result of up so far, Pirozzi has drawn from a rigidly circumscribed repertoire of lirico-spinto roles. She recollects a German company passing on her audition when she was beginning out, saying that her singing was nice however her diction in “Ozean! Du ungeheuer” from Oberon was horrible. Similar with Mozart; she sang the Contessa in Figaro early on and studied Fiordiligi for a contest when the jury advised her, “What are you doing singing Mozart with that voice? Go sing Verdi.”
“However I used to be an excellent Contessa,” she insists, “and contemplating that I began singing late, it was too late to begin with Mozart.” She has comparable regrets about roles within the lyric soprano repertoire, including that earlier than she was labelled as Abigaille and Girl Macbeth, “I’d have beloved to sing like Violetta or Mimì—and I’d have been capable of sing an excellent Traviata early on.”
Soprano Anna Pirozzi / Picture: Charl Marais
However since her final New York look in certainly one of her signature roles, issues are completely different. “My physique has modified, my voice has modified,” she says, and he or she’s evolving her repertoire in flip. She shares that she is contemplating forsaking, or at the very least turning into extra discerning about, a number of the early Verdi roles that made her well-known: “After 130 performances of Abigaille, for instance, generally I really feel like I don’t know what to say anymore, although I usually take inspiration from the director or a specific manufacturing. And I’d undoubtedly be keen to revisit it in a spot like New York or Milan!” She has taken a specific curiosity in additional dramatic repertoire. Her sights are presently set on the bel canto heroines of Il pirata and Roberto Devereux, every of which she solely sang as soon as, in addition to the opposite Tudor queens.
Verismo might sound intuitive for somebody with Pirozzi’s self-acknowledged “verista temperament—Neapolitan, passionate, actual,” however she finds that “in some verismo operas, sopranos can put in a loopy quantity of effort and nonetheless get misplaced. I just lately debuted Minnie, and whereas it’s not fairly verismo and I fairly take pleasure in singing it, Act II is toughie. It generally makes extra sense to sing bel canto for the sake of the voice’s well being.”
Alongside these bel canto heroines, one other, sudden composer is likely to be looming on Pirozzi’s horizon: “Seeing as my voice is maturing, everybody’s asking me, ‘Why not strive a little bit of Wagner?’ So, now I’m beginning to examine some arias to sing in a live performance.”
“She doesn’t converse German,” says bass Marko Mimica, an in depth buddy of Pirozzi’s since a Macbeth in Palermo in 2016 with whom she has been making ready that Verdi/Wagner live performance program, “however actually, that’s not what worries me. She has an excellent ear, she’s an clever musician, and he or she’s an especially onerous employee.”
This system, as they envision it, is organized thematically across the soprano-bass pairings in Don Carlos and Tristan und Isolde. Quite than simply being a love duet hit parade, Mimica says, “this program explores a unique form of drama. It offers with love, in fact, but additionally with disappointment, sacrifice, loneliness, and the passing of time.” In variations ready for each a full orchestra and a piano, the 2 plan to discover scenes, arias, and overtures from the 2 composers.
Anna Pirozzi as Medea within the Greek Nationwide Opera manufacturing of Medea, June 2026 / Picture: Giannis Altononglu | Greek Nationwide Opera
“It will likely be the primary time she sings Wagner,” Mimica provides. “I’m very curious to see the place which may lead.” Even the Everest of Wagner roles, he suggests, might be on the desk for an artist with Pirozzi’s talents: “I’ve advised Anna many occasions that I feel she has the potential to sing Brünnhilde. Once I take heed to Anna I hear qualities—energy, flexibility, quantity, the flexibility to mix registers—which might be very tough to search out in a single singer. For me, that flexibility is simply as essential as sheer quantity in Wagner.”
She means that an intuitive subsequent step for herself, on condition that she lives within the Italian a part of Switzerland and speaks fluent French, is likely to be certainly one of Verdi’s operas in French. However after I recommend that Medea, initially written in French, might additionally match that invoice, she demurs: “Medea is an Italian opera for you?” “Italianissima!” The truth is, she’s presently pivoting from Turandot to Medea forward of an essential manufacturing within the Historical Theater of Epidaurus that honors Callas’s well-known 1961 efficiency there.
“It’s an enormous accountability,” she muses, interrupting herself to inform me to eat extra of the cheese platter we’re sharing. “The place is magical, and the acoustic is wonderful.”
“After they determined that I used to be the inheritor to Callas on this position,” she qualifies, “the Greek Nationwide Opera was so excited that they determined to do that Medea for me. I’ve gotten shut, in some way, to what appeals to Greek audiences on this half. However I’d wish to produce other individuals hear my Medea, too, perhaps in Italy or overseas, perhaps in America.” (One hopes, given a sure monitor file, that Pirozzi may have her telephone useful whereas the Met is mounting Medea this fall.)
However Turandot is, on the time of our dialog, the position that’s on her thoughts, and it’s fascinating to listen to how she parses the infamous half. “I put my temperament into the opening aria which has to encourage a little bit of concern—that’s within the vocal writing, with these quick leaps to the excessive notes that you must have prepared in your pocket. However then I flip to my lyricism after I pray to my father ‘Figlio del Cielo…’” (She croons to herself throughout the desk, and I’m momentarily dumbstruck.) “There, you want a lyrical voice with the intention to additionally relaxation. You possibly can’t simply yell all the pieces.
“There’s additionally a psychological change in Turandot that that you must present little by little within the voice. I do that in my appearing. The change, for me, doesn’t come within the kiss from Calaf, however begins when she sees how in love Liù is with Calaf and he or she thinks, ‘How is it attainable this girl loves this man a lot?’ I take a look at him, and I see that love should be one thing stunning, and when Liù kills herself, it’s one other trauma for me—I relive the trauma of Lo-u Ling, whom Turandot by no means met. The primary time I simply heard about it, however the second time I’m seeing it, and this can be a great shock. There’s yet one more change. After which, within the duet when he calls me ‘Principessa di Morte,’… he slowly begins to the touch me, I begin to really feel one thing. There is the change.”
Was this psychological depth there from the start of her expertise with the position? “The primary few occasions I sang it simply to point out that I might sing it, however then as I gained some expertise, I gained a maturity within the interpretation. You possibly can’t simply sing the notes; that you must interpret the half. Don’t simply stand there the entire time making ready for the excessive notice, gesturing like a crossing guard. You want to have the ability to act and to sing.” And within the opulent Zeffirelli, which hews to her private preferences for conventional productions, she has discovered herself particularly impressed: “For us singers, it’s inspiring to put on interval costumes since you enter into that world and also you sing higher.”
Pirozzi’s subsequent scheduled American engagement shall be one other Turandot, this time in Dallas in Francesca Zambello’s up to date manufacturing and the brand new ending commissioned by Washington Nationwide Opera in 2024. Earlier than then, although, in December, she’ll be crossing off a significant merchandise on her bucket listing: recording an album. “Lastly, I’ve wished for a very long time that my voice be recorded in order that after I’m lifeless individuals will know what I appeared like.”
Soprano Anna Pirozzi / Picture: Charl Marais
That day is hopefully far off. “I’m not previous,” she provides, considering forward to balancing her private ambitions with the affords she receives from opera homes, “however I’m not younger, both. I have to have an thought of how my voice is evolving and to decide on the best operas.” At this inflection level, the place new alternatives and new aspirations await an artist who reinvented herself with astonishing velocity and decisiveness nicely into maturity, the sky is the restrict, and even when her voice is sturdy, she takes care to maintain it in working order for the lengthy haul. “I’m all the time making an attempt to enhance, as a result of while you get to such a excessive stage, you must keep it. You can not cease learning.”
And he or she hopes that earlier than too lengthy, she’ll have a gap night time at a significant theater mounted only for her, “Possibly on the Metropolitan, or at La Scala.” The truth is, the extra one thinks about subsequent season on the Met, the extra one sees alternatives for which Pirozzi could be ideally suited—a brand new Macbeth and Fanciulla, the revival of Medea—and hopes that her Turandots this spring and Aïdas subsequent spring imply that she’s not handed over for comparable alternatives sooner or later.
However no matter her future repertoire, Mimica is assured that for his buddy and colleague, the most effective is but to return: “She is without doubt one of the most resilient singers I’ve ever met. She will sing probably the most demanding repertoire, journey continually, cope with all of the pressures of this occupation, and in some way she all the time appears to return out robust.”
And in particular person, she’s as resilient and forthright as her singing. “Are you coming to listen to Turandot?” she asks me at one level in the direction of the top of our dialog. I inform her I’m going to the ultimate efficiency tomorrow. “Ah, for La Pirozzi,” she replies with a twinkle in her eye. “I’ve heard she’s good.”
