Lewek’s big entrance in the first act, singing “O zittre nicht” still thrills her. In spite of having performed the role nearly 200 times, in 22 different productions, with 30 (as of this writing) at the Met, the character hasn’t grown stale for the soprano. It’s Good to Be the Queen, But Also A Bit Dangerous It was like having a wedding, stressful but fun and the time flew by it was over in a flash.”Īnd, that’s how the Queen who refused to sing ascended the throne. “All my friends and family came down from Connecticut-in a snowstorm-saw my debut, and then we had a big party afterward. I was lucky I could tell everybody when I was scheduled to perform,” she explained. Many people make their debut because they’re covering. “Young singers dream of performing at the Met, so talk about a surreal experience. Queen is one of those roles that if you can do it people eat you up.”įriend promptly cast Lewek as the Met’s Queen, and her debut on the big stage was set almost two-years in advance. “If a coloratura can sing Queen of the Night, everybody wants you. Immediately, he was on the phone with Jonathan Friend-the artistic director at the Met Opera-asking him to come to Berlin at his earliest convenience. It was terrifying.”Īfter the show, Seuferle praised Lewek for having nerves of steel and for her stellar performance. I had an hour rehearsal where they gave me the blocking, and then they shoved me out there to sing. “A few months later, I’m in Berlin, I’d learned the part, but I’d never sung it with orchestra, or performed it onstage. Crossing the Thresholdīut she couldn’t avoid the coronation much longer. To this day, Seuferle tells the story of how the reigning Queen refused to sing Queen of the Night for him. With it came a year-long festival contract at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Despite irritating the Deutsche Oper casting director, Lewek won the competition. The casting director had decided on the spot Lewek had the makings of a good Queen without ever hearing the extremely difficult aria. Seuferle, in a huff and annoyed by Lewek’s refusals, settled for Zerbinetta as the soprano’s coloratura showcase, but told the singer in no uncertain terms to learn Queen of the Night. “I had it in my head the Queen wasn’t for me, but Christoph is yelling from the back of the hall, ‘Let me get this straight you’re a coloratura soprano, and you don’t know Queen of the Night?!’” She also said never to touch Queen of the Night with a 10-foot pole,” Lewek told OperaWire in a recent interview. I was a newly minted coloratura soprano, just out of school, and a very famous singer told me I was a lyric coloratura. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s not on my rep list,’ but he asked me to do it anyway because apparently, they were looking for someone to sing Queen. To Lewek, Seuferle’s request was simply out of the question. Refusing the Callĭuring a competition for the Opera Foundation in New York, the Deutsche Oper’s Casting Director, Christoph Seuferle asked Lewek to sing the famed aria, “Der Hölle Rache.” But Lewek had prepared Zerbinetta as her German aria. In this case, fate was personified by a casting director. “Der Hölle Rache”, as the aria is often called, is widely renowned for being a demanding piece to perform well, mainly because of its range of two octaves, from the F in the first register of the flute to the F in the third register.Coloratura Soprano Kathryn Lewek never set out to be opera’s reigning Queen of the Night, Mozart’s show-stealing villainess of “Die Zauberflöte” (“The Magic Flute”).īut fate had other ideas. It depicts a fit of vengeful rage, in which the Queen of the Night puts a knife into the hand of her daughter Pamina and exhorts her to assassinate Sarastro, the Queen's rival, on pain of denying and cursing Pamina if she does not comply. The aria forms part of the second act of the opera. In fact, it is considered to be one of the most famous opera arias, highly memorable, fast paced and menacingly grandiose. It is often referred to as “The Queen of the Night Aria”, despite the fact that the Queen of the Night character sings another distinguished aria earlier in the opera. From Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's “The Magic Flute”ĭer Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (“Hell's vengeance boils in my heart”) is the second aria sung by the Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte (“The Magic Flute”).
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