Andrea Catzel

ANDREA CATZEL, soprano

Andrea Catzel was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. From her earliest years she trained in speech and drama, ballet, modern, tap and Spanish dance, and piano, for which she won many Eisteddfod awards. Her first stage performance was at the age of four. From the age of nine years, she regularly broadcast piano recitals for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio program called “Young South Africa”. Possessing a natural stage talent, it was only after her school years that she decided to undertake formal voice training.

After graduating in 1977 with a three-year Performer’s Diploma in Opera from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Ms Catzel launched her professional career in musicals and musical theatre. Roles performed include Eliza (My Fair Lady), Irene Malloy (Hello Dolly), Mother Abbess (The Sound of Music), and Grace (Annie).

In 1983, through the introduction of Spanish conductor, Enrique Garcia-Asensio, Ms Catzel was invited to sing for the world-renowned mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza in Madrid. Miss Berganza then arranged Master Classes for her with her own teacher, Lola Rodriguez-Aragon and later with Isabel Penagos. After completing one year of advanced voice training, she returned to South Africa where she joined Cape Town Opera in 1986 as principal soprano. She sang many leading roles to universal critical acclaim. She has twice won the prestigious South African Nederburg Opera Award for outstanding performances of Desdemona (Otello) and Elsa (Lohengrin). In 1991, she won the South African Airways (SAA) Performer of the Year award.

Her extensive operatic repertoire includes Mimi (La Boheme), Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Agathe (Der Freishchütz), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos), Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Donna Anna

(Don Giovanni), Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Female Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Liu (Turandot), Senta (Der Fliegende Holländer), and Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus).

Between 1991 and 1994, Ms Catzel was based in Germany, joining the opera ensemble of the Gärtnerplatz Theater in Munich as principal soprano. Her roles included Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos), Agathe (Der Freishchütz), and Anna Maurrant (Kurt Weill’s Street Scene). During her contract in Munich she also performed as a guest with the Grande Theatre de Bordeaux, France where she appeared as the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus).

From 1997 to 2001, Ms Catzel joined the Giessen Opera House, Germany again as principal soprano. Her roles there included titles roles in Tosca (Puccini) as well as Médée (Cherubini) in a prestigious, first European production of the original French version with French dialogue.

Throughout her career Ms Catzel continues to be in great demand as a concert artist, performing regularly internationally. Her extensive concert repertoire includes the Verdi Requiem, Mozart Requiem, Britten War Requiem, Rossini Stabat Mater and Beethoven Ninth Symphony. In particular, she has been acclaimed for her interpretation of Richard Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder.

Until 2005, Ms Catzel was based in South Africa, teaching at the University of Cape Town’s College of Music as voice lecturer. She was the female expert vocal coach for the Cape Town Opera’s choral training program. Her ongoing performing commitments include appearing as guest artist for Cape Town Opera, as well as numerous concert performances.

In 2005, Ms. Catzel relocated to Sydney, Australia. Her voice studio is very active, where she teaches many local professional and semi-professional singers. She has performed at the Sydney Opera House in Gala concerts, is regularly heard in concerts and performances in Sydney and New South Wales, and also directs various local vocal ensembles.

She records for radio and television and has recorded five commercial CDs, available internationally. Ms Catzel is fluent in English and German and her recordings and repertoire encompass the English, German, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian languages.

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The following is an article written by Henning Viljoen, and taken from Scenaria magazine (July 1986)

ANDREA CATZEL - A PROFILE

The Cape Town born singer Andrea Catzel, who is not a new-comer to the South African musical scene, struck the opera world like a flash of lightning since she changed from mezzo-soprano to soprano. Andrea was introduced to the opera public in Transvaal when she took part in the concert Début with Mimi in 1985. In this concert she impressed with the rich, warm timbre of her voice that she projects with impeccable technical control. After this concert, her career took off with a flying start, singing demanding roles such as the Countess (Figaro) in Cape Town, Musetta (Boheme) and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (during the inauguration of the Playhouse) in Durban, and Agathe (Freischütz) in Roodepoort. Judging by the acclaim she received in the press for these various performances, one can predict a meteoric rise to stardom for this promising talent, if she chooses her roles carefully.

Andrea grew up in Cape Town as a member of a very musical gamily. Her late father was a baritone who took part in almost all the former Gilbert & Sullivan productions in Cape Town. As she herself said: “I practically grew up on stage.” Since her eighth year she started with ballet, drama and music lessons, taking part and winning first prizes in various Eistedffods. After she matriculated at the Ellerslie High School, she enrolled at the University of Cape Town for a Performer’s Diploma in Opera, studying under Désirée Talbot and Professor Fiasconaro. As a mezzo-soprano she took part in a number of student productions such as Nancy in Albert Herring (Britten), Mother Maria in The Dialogues of the Carmelites (Poulenc), Musetta in La Boheme, and Charlotte in Werther (Massenet). She also joined the opera chorus of CAPAB [Cape Performing Arts Board].

After graduating, she taught movement at the UCT Opera School before embarking on a very varied career, taking part in productions of Joan Brickhill and Louis Burke as well as Des and Dawn Lindberg, and doing cabaret in Johannesburg.

In 1980 she made her professional debut as Maddalena in CAPAB’s production of Rigoletto, followed by Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana. She also sang Eliza in CAPAB’s production of My Fair Lady. In 1983, the visiting Spanish conductor Enrico Garcia-Arcensio heard her sing and suggested that she should study with Teresa Berganza. After Andrea auditioned for Berganza, she was referred to Berganza’s own teacher, Lola Rodriguez Aragon. Unfortunately, Aragon suddenly passed away after Andrea had been studying with her for three months. Aragon, however, maintained that Andrea is no mezzo-soprano, and she started to retrain her voice as a soprano. After Aragon’s death, Andrea changed to another Spanish singing teacher in Madrid, Isabel Penagos.

Returning home in 1984 she once again did a few cabaret shows at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, before her real breakthrough came in the concert Début with Mimi, where she sang ‘Come scoglio’ (Cosi Fan Tutte) and the Jewel Song from Faust, followed by the already mentioned performances in Cape Town, Durban, and Roodepoort.

In the near future she is making her debut with PACOFS [Performing Arts Council of the Orange Free State] singing the First Lady in a production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, followed by the Beethoven Ninth with the National Symphony Orchestra in October, and Honegger’s King David with the Natal Philharmonic.

One hopes that the opera companies in South Africa will have enough foresight in contracting this very promising artist before she might be tempted to venture overseas in search of greater opportunity – the fate of so many other South African singers before her.

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The following is an interview with Andrea Catzel, as published in Scenaria magazine (September 1989)

SCENARIA INTERVIEWS ANDREA CATZEL

Andrea Catzel studied with Professor Désirée Talbot at the University of Cape Town Opera School and obtained her Performer’s Diploma in Opera in 1977. After a spell of teaching at the school, she entered the field of cabaret and musicals, including a number of highly successful Brickhill-Burke productions. She went to Europe in 1983 for further studies and worked under such famous teachers as Teresa Berganza, Lola Rodriguez [Aragon], and Isabel Penagos, returning to Cape Town at the end of 1984. Originally a mezzo, she has enjoyed an illustrious career since becoming a soprano. Performances throughout the country in opera, [song] recitals, concerts and on recordings for the SABC [South African Broadcasting Corporation], culminated in her joining CAPAB [Cape Performing Arts Board] at the end of 1986 as a principal soprano. Among notable roles she has sung are Musetta in NAPAC’s [Natal Performing Arts Council] La Boheme, Agathe in Der Freischütz for Roodepoort Opera, and the First Lady in The Magic Flute for PACOFS [Performing Arts Council of the Orange Free State]. Her roles with CAPAB have included Countess Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Mrs Ford (Falstaff), Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Liu (Turandot), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Elsa (Lohengrin), and Desdemona (Otello) for which she was awarded the 1988 Cape Nederburg Opera Prize. Her first recording of Spanish Songs with Thomas Rajna as accompanist, has just been released.

In the last three or four years, your career as an opera singer has really taken off after a number of years when you sang mainly in musicals. How did this sudden turnaround come about?

I suppose it was because of my changing from a mezzo to a soprano. When I studied with Teresa Berganza in Spain and then with Lola Rodriguez, they both said that I was most definitely a soprano. So, we worked on changing my voice, and since coming back to South Africa, my career, literally, seems to have taken off. I have done a lot of roles in four years, for which I am grateful.

Which are the major ones you have done?

Desdemona, Pamina – but I started off with the Countess in Figaro and then I did Musetta for Durban and the First Lady in The Magic Flute in Bloemfontein, and Agathe in Roodepoort – that was in the concert version they did in 1986. Also Alice Ford in Falstaff, Great Waltz, Eva in Meistersinger and, just recently, Elsa in Lohengrin for CAPAB that I will sing again next month for PACOFS. I never thought that I could manage Elsa in a hundred years.

Why do you say that?

Because I thought they were crazy to give it to me. Because I thought it was going to be far too heavy and far too difficult. I heard Carla Pohl doing it in Pretoria. Watching her and listening to her, my voice was hoarse by the end of the evening! So I thought I would never manage it. But I actually surprised myself, that I could cope.

Looking back on it, do you think it was fulfilling?

Oh yes. Very. Although I was extremely nervous when I set foot on that stage. Just to sing that first note was traumatic.

You mean, having to come out and sing it absolutely ‘cold’?

Yes. And then of course you never know if you have warmed up enough. With that role you never know whether you should have warmed up for longer, or what. But I used to warm up for a quarter of an hour and do a couple of easy scales – that was enough, as I had a long night to get through.

You have sung quite a variety of roles, ranging from operetta to something like Pamina, which isn’t an easy role. Which direction do you see your work taking in the next five years?

I don’t think it’s going to get too dramatic, but my voice is definitely getting heavier as the years go on.

You see yourself as a dramatic soprano?

Not really. Very light. I don’t see anything heavier than the Elsa and Elizabeth. That would be asking for trouble. Four years ago I wouldn’t have believed that I would be singing Elsa. So, goodness knows what’s going to happen in the next five years.

Is there any one singer who has served as an inspiration in your career?

Not that I can consciously recall. I adore Freni. I adore the colour of her voice – the sound and her line – yes, that has influenced me a lot. But usually I do my own thing. I look at a role and think – what are my capabilities – what can I manage.

Of course, the roles you sing are very much determined by what the local managements have planned or will be planning in the future.

Yes, but you can also say no. I was asked to do Butterfly a couple of years ago and I said: “Not on your life.”

Why?

I could never have managed it then, vocally or in terms of stamina. I think my personality is more vivacious. But then again, I’ve done Pamina, Elsa – they’re all supposed to be wimps, but I didn’t make them wimps – it’s not in my range to be a ‘snot en trane’ [‘crying long tears’] lady.

You managed to bring across an Elsa that is definitely not a wimp.

I don’t think anybody is a wimp. Desdemona is not a wimp – she’s stupid but she has her own thoughts. She’s so in love and so naïve, that she couldn’t see past Otello. Pamina I found to be the worst – just standing there and singing – it’s a thankless role, Pamina, because nobody takes any notice of her. You can sing it magnificently, but the star in that opera will always be the Queen of the Night.

You’ve obviously had a very firm, solid grounding in technique?

I studied with Désirée Talbot as a mezzo and she gave me a very good grounding. Then I went to Spain and it was fantastic to work with the teacher of Teresa Berganza, because of the coloratura. Just like Teresa, she taught me how to relax the jaw and to sing this, that and the other. And now, I think I’m with one of the best technicians in the world – Nellie du Toit. I have achieved an instant rapport with her. She gets freaked out completely because I bring her Desdemona and say, right, let’s work, and a month later I have to sing it. She is very intense and does not let a single slip go by without pinpointing it and getting it right. She has an answer for everything. She’s quite astonishing. I could never have made it without her help. She has given me this most solid technique on which I’m still working. Obviously nothing is perfect. Singers never stop learning. When I say to people that I’m going off to my singing lesson, they say: “Why do you need to learn to sing, you sound so gorgeous.” People do not understand that we need ears that we can trust till the day we die, because it’s very easy to get into bad habits.

Do you concentrate at all on Lieder singing?

I adore Lieder singing. I did a recital of French songs for television last year and my first tape of Spanish songs with Tommy Rajna has just come out, which I’m very thrilled about. But there doesn’t seem to be enough time in between all the operas, to sit and concentrate on Lieder. But I do love it.

Yes, it does seem rather sad that in this country the managements do not regard Lieder singing as being important and that they never seem to plan Lieder recital evenings for the young singers in their companies.

We just find there is no time. Tommy and I would like to tour the country with these Spanish sings. It would be fantastic.

Which Spanish songs?

There’s Granados, Rodrigo, Montsalvatge, Obradors, and Granados’ The Maiden and the Nightingale.

What role would you most like to sing at this stage in your career? One that, if it was offered to you tomorrow, you’d grab it?

I haven’t really thought that far. I know what I want to sing in the future and I’ve always wanted to sing it since I was a child. Whether I can or not, even when I’m 60 – I’m going to do Carmen! I am going to do it!

Surely that would be better suited to a mezzo? Does this mean that you regret having changed to a soprano?

Not really. I have got a bigger voice than Teresa Berganza, in that range, and she sang it most successfully. It lies somewhere between the soprano and mezzo range and I don’t think it will kill me with all the low notes, because that is where I started. My middle and bottom sounds are very warm and OK for Carmen. Not now, but when I’m very, very solid in technique.

Having started out as a mezzo and then changing to a soprano – has it helped?

Yes. I have a much broader, a much warmer range. I’ve had to work on my top, rather than the middle and bottom, so that’s very steady and stable. I’m very grateful to have started off there. That’s where the voice lay then. It always had the top, but somehow the support wasn’t at the top, so maybe they didn’t think I was a soprano then.

How do you find the life of an opera singer – very demanding?

Terribly demanding. There’s no social life. People think I’m completely barmy when I change tables at a restaurant five times because there’s a draught, or there’s air conditioning that’s going into my neck. Smokey rooms I cannot handle. You have to rest at certain times. You have to eat at certain times. And of course, temper – I live on my own now, but my Mom always said I was totally impossible, and on the day of a performance, you have to keep completely clear of me, because one is singing on one’s nerves – your whole being is that nervous energy that’s going to get the adrenalin to get you through that performance. There are some performances that I don’t freak out about. Desdemona. I used to go to the theatre thrilled out of my skull and couldn’t wait to get on the stage to sing. And in other roles there was this fear – I knew I’d get through it because I’m technically equipped never to give a bad performance, but sometimes I feel really extremely mortified. I mean it too. Like with Elsa in Lohengrin. Just before that terrifying first aria – that glorious horrible aria! That just took too much out of me.

Is there any truth in the story that singers are totally temperamental?

Of course. Yes, we are temperamental, otherwise we would be no good on the stage.

All very balanced people, compared to other artists?

Yes, we are normal. It is the most dedicated art form. You won’t find us a t six o’clock sitting and drinking in the bar. You find actors sitting until six o’clock having a ball and then they still go on the next night and speak. But we can’t sing if we do that. So, our lifestyles are completely different. I’ve faded at a party by half past eleven – people can’t understand that. If I’ve got a performance the next night, you won’t find me out the night before, unless it’s to a classical concert, where I can just sit quietly and do my thing. It’s a hell of a life, but I’ve chosen it. You wake up every morning wondering if you have a voice, and freak out if you haven’t and have to warm up – that sort of thing.

How do you handle the thought that your whole career revolves on two tiny membranes, which are very fragile?

It’s most insecure. But, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t chosen this career. I knew originally that I would choose something to do with the stage, but I wasn’t sure what. I did piano, but I knew I could never make it as a pianist because I can’t sit down for longer than five minutes. I thought of acting, but there was too much music going around in my head, so I settled for opera. It’s never been a great love. I went to the College of Music and then it grew on me. And then it just became part of me.

What did you have in mind when you went to the College of Music?

I just wanted to improve my voice, and do piano and acting and learn languages – I thought that would be great.

So you really sort of drifted into all this?

Yes, although I knew I was a stage animal – that I knew as a child. And of course I’ve done dancing. That’s why I don’t have any problem with movement on stage – at least some critics seem to think so.

Of course, movement on stage has a great deal to do with what the producer wants. To what extent do you rely on the producer in a production? How much is a producer’s input and how much is yours?

A lot is mine. I listen to what the producer wants, and then I do what he wants, and then I embroider on it. And then, if it’s not what he wants, he’ll be very quick to tell me. Thank goodness I’ve worked with excellent producers. A lot of timing is mine, because the music actually tells you what to do – it speaks to you. It’s very instinctive.

And relationships with conductors? To what extent are you dependent on them?

Luckily, I hardly ever have to look at a conductor for an entry. I am musically very sound. But it is wonderful to know that a conductor is behind you all the way. And thank goodness I’ve only ever had wonderful, supportive conductors.

The learning of new roles must occupy your time quite a bit?

I am a dreadful word learner. It’s the worst thing in the whole world for me. I find it totally trying. I have no problem in learning the notes or music, but words, especially German words. Italian is fine, because Italian somehow goes with the music, and you can’t sing the music unless you have that word on it. But German words. If you could have seen me before I finally put the book down for Elsa. Throwing tantrums in my little house, all by myself, watching TV and trying to sing and getting it all right. I never thought I could manage it.

So, how do you cope with that? Do you learn the words first, or as you go along?

As I go along. I try to do Act I, and then Act II. That’s my worst – words.