Angela Meade’s Guide to ‘Norma’
July 7th, 2010
Capital | This Saturday, at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah, N.Y., Angela Meade will sing the title role of Bellini’s 1831 opera Norma for the first time.
Norma is one of the roles by which a soprano is judged. It starts off with the famous, flowing aria Casta diva and goes on for three difficult, intense hours.
Meade has already had quite a few big nights in her blossoming career—Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani and Mozart’s Countess at the Met; the title role in Rossini’s Semiramide at Caramoor last year—but Norma is a milestone.
Meade, 32, is one of the most talented singers of her generation. Will Crutchfield, the conductor of Norma and Caramoor’s Director of Opera, wrote in an email, “She has something that is always rare: a truly big voice that has all the purity, finesse and delicacy that are more easily found in smaller voices.”
In a phone interview, she took Capital on a tour through the opera, from the diva’s perspective.