A high note for local opera

Now a professional opera singer, Maya Lahyani has never forgotten her roots.

By MAXIM REIDER
Maya Lahyani 521 (photo credit: Betsy Kershner)
Maya Lahyani 521
(photo credit: Betsy Kershner)
‘Every singer, it does not matter how successful, experienced and famous he or she is, needs a protected space for the preparation of a role before he or she feels secure enough to bring it out,” says New York-based Israeli mezzosoprano Maya Lahyani, who is participating in the annual International Summer Opera Workshop in Tel Aviv.
The workshop attracts dozens of talented young people from Israel and abroad, who flock to our shores to spend four weeks intensively studying with world-renowned opera professionals – singers, stage directors and coaches.
The summer course, the baby of the Israel Vocal Arts Institute, which supports young talents, was founded in 1987 by Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat and legendary Metropolitan Opera coach Joan Dornemann.
The programs feature individual lessons as well as open master classes, concerts and opera productions, which attract devoted Tel Aviv music lovers. On July 24, course participants will present Dialogues des Carmelites by Francis Poulenc; Maya Lahyani will perform the role of Mother Marie.
“It is true that I am already a professional singer, appearing in big opera houses,” says Lahyani. “Yet I have returned to the workshop to perform in this role, which I will assume as an understudy at the Canadian Opera Company. I want to work in a quiet, protected and supportive atmosphere, without the usual pressure of a big opera house, just as I [did when I] prepared my role in Massenet’s Werther two years ago, before singing it with the San Francisco Opera. And it is especially important if you sing the role for the first time, because it stays with you and returns when you perform it again.”
Having come to the workshop for the first time as a 20-year-old student, Lahyani has nothing but compliments for the summer course.
“Only in summer do so many opera professionals from so many places come together, and it is so important to just hear an opinion of another specialist in the field. Here you receive a lot of tools for future projects. And it is not only about singing but about performing, about asking yourself: what is it that you have to say from the stage? No teacher can explain it to you in the studio; You can discover it only by confronting the audience, and the supportive atmosphere of the workshop provides this experience.
“There are a lot of wonderful Israeli-born singers,” she continues. “And although they now mostly work in the US, they grew up here, at the summer workshop. It is also a great experience for the audience, which comes year after year to see the young singers growing, developing – and their supportive feedback is important for singers.”
Lahyani’s career is soaring. She recently signed a contract with the Metropolitan Opera (“It is very fresh and I cannot go into any details”) in Canada. In addition to the role of Mother Marie, she will sing the part of Page in Richard Strauss’s Salome, and from Tel Aviv she will fly to Los Angeles for her debut with the LA Philharmonic to participate in a concert performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto in the Hollywood Bowl. She debuted in Mozart’s The Magic Flute with the Dallas Opera.
“Nowadays, things are not easy for young singers, but I was quite lucky,” says Lahyani. Spending her childhood in Ramat Hasharon, she sang in children’s choirs and the Sirenas vocal ensemble. After completing her army service, she moved to the US, where she graduated from the Mannes School of Music in New York. Her career got a considerable push when she was accepted to Merola – the prestigious San Francisco Opera Summer Program, which chooses 20 singers out of some 800 applicants. There she was offered a two-year contract, during which time she sang 12 parts in six different productions, giving a total of about 60 performances, participating in all of Wagner’s Ring cycle as well as in operas by Janacek, Puccini, Massenet and Bizet.
“The position of a young singer in a big opera house suggests that you are mostly ‘filling the holes,’ which in my case was a great opportunity to learn, since I sang with artists like Placido Domingo, Deborah Voigt, Nina Stemme and Thomas Hampson.” She also sang the title role in Bizet’s Carmen, after having waited patiently for her chance to be in the spotlight.
“They let me sing Carmen in two performances at the end of the season and this was quite an experience. Not only me, but people backstage were moved. Everybody felt, ‘Hey, look, the girl is about to spread her wings.’ And the role itself is amazing, especially for a singer like me, for whom acting and the dramatic aspect of opera are of the utmost importance. Carmen, who is such a rich and complicated character, gives you the opportunity to study many facets of the human personality. And although everybody has his or her ideas of what Carmen is about, it was wonderful to spend a few months together with her, trying to understand who my Carmen is.”
Lahyani goes on to explain that although being on stage is most thrilling, she finds the rehearsal process no less appealing.
“Working with a good stage director, a conductor whose ideas you share and your colleagues is sheer magic. You cannot produce an opera alone, and together with a great team, you learn, you communicate, you reveal new things. Creating something larger than life together is an amazing experience.”
When she speaks, Lahyani’s voice is beautiful, emotive, almost dramatic, somehow suggesting that she is not just another singer who happened to have been born with a beautiful vocal instrument.
“From an early age I knew what kind of singer I wanted to be: one who causes people to feel something, to think after my performance.
It actually does not matter what about,” she confides. “Just singing beautifully is not enough. Art has a tremendous power over people – it’s not by chance that we feel sad or happy when we listen to music, and it is able to change people’s lives.
And because of that I believe that we artists bear a responsibility, especially now, in a world which has become so impersonal and digital that it has become emotionally dumb.
We artists have a power to take them for a few hours to another place and to say something and cause them to think about their lives. For me as an artist, this is what really matters; not being famous or making millions from my singing.”
These contemplations on art and the role of the artist in society stir within Lahyani memories of “the most moving project” – the September 2011 world premiere of Heart of a Soldier, an opera that the San Francisco Opera House commissioned from American composer Christopher Theofanidis to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Twin Towers disaster.
“The role of a muezzin was performed by a Syrian baritone – an absolutely fantastic singer. As one can suggest from the piece’s title, there are a lot of army connotations there, while in the entire cast of the production there were only two of us who had served in the army: me and another actor, not a singer – an athlete. And, you know, people talked about it – he is from Syria and I served in the Israeli army. But I never spoke with him about our countries. So one day I came up to him and said how moved we all are by his singing. Soon, we became close friends and one day – it was the eve of Rosh Hashana – I, together with a few cast members, was invited to his home for dinner. We sang and he also played – it was wonderful. His wife said how much the singer respects me, and I replied that the feeling is mutual.
“And I said: ‘look, it is so simple, you take two people and their art, which comes from their homes, connects them and puts aside everything that is less important.’ How different things could have been – because art has power over people, and although it sounds like a cliché, it is still true.”

The 2012 International Summer Opera Program takes place until July 26 at The Israeli Conservatory of Music, 25 Louis Marshall Street, Tel Aviv. For more information: www.ivai.org.il