Sexing up opera

"Did you hear about Britney's performance on the VMAs? Did you see it?"

You wouldn't think a lackluster comeback performance by tarnished pop singer Britney Spears on the "MTV Video Music Awards" would concern an up-and-coming opera singer. But soprano Danielle de Niese proved me wrong when she asked.

De Niese was in Amsterdam performing "The Coronation of Poppea" for De Nederlandse Opera. Interviewed by phone just a day after the infamous awards show in September, De Niese genuinely wanted to know what happened.

Since I missed the show, I wasn't able to share details the way a witness would at the scene of an accident. Still, it seemed odd that 28-year-old de Niese would even care about Spears' tabloid exploits when she herself possesses even greater talents and performance abilities.

Consider this: De Niese sings with an operatically trained and un-amplified voice in the world's great opera houses (some with nearly 4,000 seats). Add to that de Niese's knowledge of multiple languages, great dancing skills and a commanding stage presence.

Oh yeah, de Niese is also a knockout in the looks department, bringing a sexiness that shatters the stereotype that only stationary obese people populate opera.

Once you see de Niese perform live, you'll wonder why the American public obsesses so much about someone like Spears, who couldn't even lip-sync in time to pre-recorded music.

Local audiences get to see de Niese's talents firsthand when she makes her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Cleopatra in David McVicar's critically acclaimed production of "Julius Caesar in Egypt" ("Giulio Cesare in Egitto," if you want to be accurately Italian). It's a role that skyrocketed de Niese to star status in Europe when she triumphed in the production's debut at Britain's Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2005 (the production was also recorded for DVD by Opus Arte).

"I'm really looking forward to getting back on stage and putting on this particular production," said de Niese, proud that her Lyric debut is in the American premiere of McVicar's production, which switches the Roman Empire for the age of the British Imperial Empire. Surprisingly, it's the first time the Lyric has ever staged Handel's 1724 masterpiece, but more significantly it marks French conductor Emmanuelle Haïm's debut -- the first time a woman has conducted at the Lyric.

But "Caesar" isn't de Niese's first Windy City foray. The smaller Chicago Opera Theater can boast about being the first to introduce de Niese locally in 2004 as the sexy title character in Monteverdi's "The Coronation of Poppea" -- the inaugural opera in Millennium Park's Harris Theater for Music and Dance. De Niese also returned to COT in 2005 as fairy queen Titania in Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

COT General Director Brian Dickie spotted de Niese when she was in the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artist program almost a decade ago.

"I immediately felt at that time that here was an outstanding prospect," Dickie said, casting de Niese as the devious Poppea as soon as he could. "(De Niese has an) extraordinarily instinctive feeling for the stage, she's a knockout actress as well as an outstanding musician."

Director Diane Paulus, who staged that critically acclaimed Las Vegas-set "Poppea," agrees.

"She has it all -- incredible musicianship which is first and foremost," Paulus said. "She's unafraid to try anything physically. You ask her to lie down and sing upside down and she'll do it. For me, she's the epitome of the kind of singer that we all want to work with in the opera, since it's singers like Danielle who will keep the art form vibrant and alive for newer audiences."

Born in Australia to parents of Sri Lankan and Dutch heritage, de Niese started training in dance at age 6 and in classical music at age 8. When de Niese was 10, her family moved to Los Angeles in part to further her dance and singing training.

As a teenager, de Niese hosted a locally-produced TV show "L.A. Kids" and won an Emmy Award for a program dealing with HIV/AIDS. At age 18, de Niese was the youngest person ever to be admitted to the Metropolitan Opera Young Artist program, which led to her Met debut when she was 19 in the small role of Barbarina in "The Marriage of Figaro," appearing alongside such opera heavy-hitters as Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel and Renée Fleming.

Since her European debuts earlier this decade, de Niese has become a baroque opera specialist. She particularly relishes the music's freedom for singers to add on their own vocal ornaments to the repeating da capo aria structure.

But it was another kind of ornamentation that de Niese brought to the Glyndebourne "Caesar" that really raised the eyebrows of critics and audiences: her dancing. McVicar and choreographer Andrew George incorporated Bollywood and Broadway-style movements into Handel's baroque opera, making each of Cleopatra's arias into showstoppers.

"Everything is incredibly organic -- there was never a moment in the staging where I thought, 'David, what are you asking me to do?'" de Niese said.

It may look effortless on stage, but for de Niese it's a workout to coordinate between tightening her diaphragm for dancing and opening it up to get as much air needed to sing stratospheric trills.

"Having all that dancing to do is a challenge, but that's all part of making something great," de Niese said. "I was so happy that I was able to draw upon some of my training in dance and to be able to marry all of that on the stage."

Needless to say, de Niese pulls focus. Mostly her co-stars don't mind -- too much.

"It's always great to appear with another artist who really pushes you on stage dramatically," countertenor David Daniels recently told the Windy City Times. Daniels co-starred with de Niese for the 2006 Glyndebourne "Caesar" revival and now in Chicago.

"If you don't bring your A-game to the stage, you'll be eclipsed by Danielle, particularly in this production," Daniels said.

With her fashion model looks and her incredible charisma, de Niese has already been targeted by critics like Evan Eisenberg of Slate.com, who says she's the most promising ambassador of popularizing opera since the late Beverly Sills.

De Niese isn't sure she deserves that mantle, but she does make an effort to do youth outreach programs wherever she performs. Two Chicago student outreaches are already scheduled, plus an interviewing/autograph session at Schaumburg's Prairie Center for the Arts, which provides de Niese a golden opportunity to tout her critically acclaimed first CD, a collection of Handel arias on the Decca label.

De Niese may yet get younger audiences focused on opera instead of Britney Spears. At a recent variety and pop concert in London, de Niese sang Cleopatra's final solo aria "Da tempeste" from "Casear" and got a surprising response.

"I'll never believe what I saw," de Niese said. "There were people in the audience actually bopping their heads along like a rock concert."