Most people focus solely on the extremity of the high f’s that the Queen has to sing, but another major challenge of this role is its brevity…there’s no chance to “warm up” through the performance: Your first appearance on stage is singing an aria. Then you don’t appear again until the second act, not only singing another challenging aria, but the really, really well-known one that 90% of the audience could hum along to…
A Queen of the Night needs the ability to display short bursts of high energy, with long breaks between, and not let focus, concentration, or energy drop too much during the wait…It may sound strange that less stage time actually makes it more difficult, but what you’re doing (or attempting to do) is putting in the same amount of effort as a much longer role, but not being able to spread that evenly over the length of the performance. It’s all got to erupt in three scenes; no wonder she’s in such a bad mood!
(This quote previously published in Friends of WNO Magazine 2008)
