For mezzo-sopranos, playing boys comes with the job. Kate Lindsey’s last three roles in London have been Cherubino (the randy pageboy in Le nozze di Figaro), Lazuli (in Chabrier’s L’Étoile) and as Nicklausse, Hoffmann’s sidekick. It’s during the run of Hoffmann – the final outing for John Schlesinger’s classic, but creaky production – that we met for lunch, but apart from the trouser roles that are her bread and butter, it was her debut as Dorabella, in last summer’s controversial staging of Così fan tutte by Christophe Honoré that took up much of our conversation.
The production, which I wrote about after watching the web-stream, relocated the action from the Bay of Naples in the 18th century to a garrison of Italian soldiers in Mussolini-occupied Eritrea in the late 1930s. A rape of one of the black servants during the overture set the tone. In Don Alfonso’s cynical scheme, Ferrando and Guglielmo blacken up as Dubats in order to ‘seduce’ Fiordiligi and Dorabella and there’s certainly the suggestion that interracial sex was something the sisters were prepared to explore. It’s a staging that shocked Aix audiences and caused the Edinburgh International Festival, hosting it later in the summer, to issue a warning to ticket holders.
MP: How soon did you know what the concept was going to be?
KL: We got the letter from Christophe Honoré the summer before, where he explained his concept. He was pretty specific about the racist elements. I read it and thought “Oh my goodness, do I have to play a racist?”. Lenneke Ruiten and I then worked together in Amsterdam and we started chatting about this letter. It was scary to be portraying this element of humanity. I’d never worked with Christophe before. When we got to Aix, he did a presentation in which he showed us some movie clips to explain the sensibility he was seeking [the production opens with Growling Tiger’s calypso song, The Gold in Africa], exploring that part of history, the elements of colonialism, but also the eroticism that was being discovered as well. It was a bit nerve-wracking but what I appreciated with Christophe was that he was not domineering or pushy in the least. We could really talk about things and he was willing to hear our feelings in terms of what the music is trying to do as well, because those things can sometimes act in opposition.
We started our staging with the sisters’ Act 2 duet which features Hichimoudine Mondoha, the black actor playing our servant [in which Dorabella and Fiordiligi use him as a sexual plaything]. Hichimoudine had never been on stage before, he had never acted. He lives in Aix, had applied for the role, so we were sitting at lunch together and I asked if he knew what he was letting himself in for and how he was feeling about it. He knew beforehand the elements of the production and he was okay with it. Especially in that scene, we kept apologising to him – we developed a rapport – it was important we all felt safe with each other. Christophe really had to push us to go to this place of brutality – that was really hard to access that and live that. In the end, I also really came to an understanding for myself that in a way this is a reality of humanity – it’s not history, it’s happening right now. The discomfort is actually the point.
But Così is a cynincal opera though?
That’s the reason why I had to go with Christophe. I’d always said no to Così. I’d never wanted to do it because I really detest the women being portrayed as flighty, ditzy, inconsistent. The truth is what these guys do to them is horrible and dirty. So I’ve shied away from doing something as simple as “oh women, they’re like that”. I think it’s more correct to say “everyone’s like that, not just women”.
But I didn’t want to look back and regret never singing the role. Also, I thought if there’s any place that would take the story and commit to doing something with it, it’s certainly Aix. Even when we walked it on opening night, we had no idea had it would go down. We really thought we could get slaughtered. There was a lot of positive critical response, but the audiences booed the production quite loudly, certainly at particular moments in the opera. I felt really bad for Nahuel di Pierro (Guglielmo) because he had some really hard scenes to do and he is the sweetest guy and what he was having to commit to earned the utmost respect.
Emotionally and physically, how did the whole rehearsal and performance schedule affect you?
Physically, it was hard. It was a ridiculously hot summer – there was one stage in the video broadcast where I was close to fainting due to the heat. Even when you start at 9pm, the heat is really intense and it doesn’t let up. From an emotional standpoint, what I found really interesting, which I hadn’t experienced in the past, was that feeling of knowing what we’re doing, the good energy between everyone, real trust, but when I’d get to the theatre, I’d feel this heaviness because you have to re-enter that world of darkness and in a way you have to throw the discomfort in people’s faces.
What was your reaction to the Edinburgh situation? Should opera ever come with a health warning?
I had to laugh at it. Not in disrespect to the festival at all – I understand they need to cover themselves and that it wasn’t appropriate for children – but the uproar about the production? Oh come on! I can’t watch shows like Breaking Bad or Dexter; I am sickened by the violence. If people can sit in the cinemas or watch this stuff on Netflix and see racial tensions on the movie screen, but they can’t deal with it in an opera performance, then there’s a double standard there that we need to look at.
Do we go to the opera for something chocolate boxey?
I think the purpose of art – performing arts and visual arts – is to elicit a reaction, a feeling of response. I would much rather emerge from something with a strong reaction than come out saying ‘huh’... and have forgotten about it the next day. We’ve got to keep the arts alive.
And that includes contemporary opera. You're taking on the role of Sister Helen in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking in the spring.
It’s an opera which has gone down well with the public and has been revived quite a few times. It has an American sound to it, you can hear that. I’m learning it right now. Even though it’s modern music and on first hearing you can’t always access it all, you can hear the modern American southern country sound and Heggie did a beautiful job – this is the Mississippi/New Orleans setting – and he infused that southern style that really emerges, so I think people respond to that. It’s a very current topic and something that a lot of people continue to struggle with. And to be doing it in Washington DC is important – it’s not an opera that tells you what to believe, but it asks you to give it thought.