Diva Finds a New Dawn

From the Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 9 January:

Bryce Hallett speaks to a soprano whose experience with breast cancer has added depth to her performance.

Dawn Upshaw goes straight to the heart of the matter. She likens her voice to an instrument and describes herself as a musician. "Who am I making this music with? What can you [the composer or director] share with me that will be new? How can I investigate different parts and rooms of my voice?"

These are among the core questions the soprano asks herself each time she commits to a song cycle, opera or recital. It is this very curiosity and experimentation which, aside from her vocal range and dramatic instincts, have made her a favoured colleague of the director Peter Sellars, the composers Osvaldo Golijov and John Adams, and such musicians as Richard Goode, James Levine and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Upshaw's musical choices and partners have enabled her to forge a distinctive and adventurous career, one which began in a typically low-key manner with an offstage role as a shepherd in Wagner, quickly graduating to Mozart heroines before plunging into the largely untested waters of contemporary fare.

Read the full article.