Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Singers love it and fear it. A daunting list of divas have made their mark on it. The title role of Vincenzo Bellini’s opera Norma has long been one of the roles with which a soprano proves herself, starting with the gentle, hushed prayer “Casta Diva”, an opera aria that everyone has heard, including in films ranging from The Iron Lady to Avengers: Age of Ultron. Lilli Lehmann, a German dramatic soprano working at the turn of the 20th century, said it would be less difficult to sing all three Brünnhilde roles of Wagner’s Ring cycle than one Norma. Star sopranos including Renée Fleming and Anna Netrebko have first announced, then stepped back from, role debuts in the part.Norma premiered on Boxing Day at La Scala in Milan, in 1831, written as a showpiece for Giuditta Pasta, then the reigning queen of bel canto, which is not only a compositional style but also the foundation of operatic vocal technique. Bel canto operas are all about the voice, which gives them their shape, dramatic impulse and emotional impact. Singers spin out endless melodies and range-spanning vocal runs (called coloratura) along a vocal “line” capable of sighing softness and extraordinary power. Between the arias, sung-spoken “recitatives” must have the command of great Shakespearean monologues. Norma herself is on stage for the vast majority of the opera, with few opportunities for a vocal rest.This month in Vienna, opera lovers will have the chance to see two of today’s reigning divas step into Norma’s shoes. The cerebral and expressive Asmik Grigorian stars in Vasily Barkhatov’s new production at Theater an der Wien, opening on February 16 after a Covid-related delay of five years. And on February 22, Federica Lombardi, known for her elegant and sensitive vocal technique, opens a new production by the French director Cyril Teste at the Wiener Staatsoper.“If you just had to stand and sing it, it would be difficult enough, physically,” Lombardi says. “Adding the dramatic part, the interpretation, is even harder.” Both she and Grigorian are determined to distinguish themselves in the opera’s formidable history. The long shadow of Maria Callas has hung over the role since her 1950s performances and recordings, in which Norma was possessed of a thrilling, room-filling dramatic voice and temperament. In the 1960s and 1970s, Joan Sutherland and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge, began to bring the work back to its early-19th-century roots, restoring common cuts and key changes made to accommodate singers. In 2013, the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, whose voice is lighter, smaller and lower than most of the traditional Normas, recorded a critical edition seeking to wash away accumulated tradition. Most singers (Callas included) have taken cuts in their Norma: removing sections of repeated music to shorten the piece, lighten the vocal load and keep the plot moving. Michele Mariotti, the conductor of Lombardi’s production, decided to open these all up. “It’s long,” Lombardi explains, “but I like it. Bellini wrote it that way. Sometimes we think repeating the same music twice or three times is too much, but if you can play with your interpretation and work with the director to find different ways to say the same thing, it’s very interesting.”The bel canto style, of which Norma is the most famous example, is musically simpler than earlier baroque and classical operas by Handel and Mozart and later romantic operas by Verdi, Wagner and Puccini. The music unfolds in patterned structures, the orchestral accompaniments are simple, even simplistic.Individual variations in tempo and style, the turn of melodies, the addition of ornaments and the shaping of phrases — on top of impeccable technique — are what makes this music live. “The power of Bellini’s bel canto is the ability to put together the beautiful melodies and the dramatic impulse of the singer’s line,” Lombardi says. “It’s touching and very demanding at the same time.”A soprano begins Norma by walking out on stage and singing “Casta Diva” — from commanding recitatives, to the aria’s trance-like main section, to the frenzied coloratura that follows. Then, the real challenge begins. Norma is the spiritual leader of her people — the Gauls. She’s supposed to be chaste: but instead, she has had an affair with, and borne two secret children to, Pollione, the Roman proconsul responsible for ruling Gaul. When Pollione is recalled to Rome, he declares his intent to return with a Druid bride: not Norma, but her friend and fellow priestess Adalgisa, who is unaware that Norma is her rival. Panicked, Norma comes close to killing her children.The complex web of betrayal and reprisal ends when Norma outs herself as a traitor and immolates herself on a funeral pyre in a scene whose vocal writing explores every corner and colour of her vocal range. At the last possible moment, Pollione repents, and joins her in the flames.In performance, these extreme emotions and melodramatic situations take on psychological weight and depth. Asmik Grigorian, the daughter of two opera singers, including the soprano Irena Milkevičiūtė, first appeared in Norma as a child, playing her mother’s daughter on stage. “I still feel it on my skin,” she tells me. “My mother coming at me with a knife.”Her mother was one of the first Lithuanian sopranos to sing Norma internationally. For years, Grigorian tried to avoid comparison with her. After a landmark performance of Strauss’s Salome in Salzburg in 2018, she has in recent years received rave reviews for vocally exquisite and psychologically shattering portrayals of a dizzying array of late romantic and modern opera roles.As for bel canto, she welcomes the challenge. “Norma is probably the healthiest thing for my voice I’ve ever sung,” she says. “When you sing Salome or Turandot, these big things, there’s a risk to cheat. The voice can lose its flexibility, its ability to move, to be soft.” Her Norma will take all of the traditional cuts, echoing a performance tradition from the days of Callas. “I’m trying to bring this music closer to my nature, and the nature of my voice,” she says. Expectations run high among fans, who can have withering opinions of sopranos they feel get the part wrong. Grigorian is staying away from recordings as she prepares to make her debut. “I don’t like listening too much [when preparing a role]”, she says, “because I immediately copy things. When I hear other singers who copy past singers, I can recognise it, and I don’t want to hear another Maria Callas version.”Grigorian is dedicating her performance of Norma to her mother, whose advice she often seeks. “Technically, how to sing it, is what we focus on,” Grigorian says. But “when we talk about the character, we have completely different opinions.”February 16-March 7, theater-wien.at; February 22-May 26, wiener-staatsoper.atFind out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
