Soprano Veronique Gens will shortly be singing the role of Madame Lidoine in Olivier Py's production of Dialogues des Carmélites at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées. Sincerely and vivaciously, she tells us about her character, her love of French repertoire and her desire to keep placing herself at the heart of artistic discovery. As an artist, she is generous, engaged, enthusiastic; as a woman, she is intelligent, thoughtful, accessible. She always gets straight to the essentials, ensuring, above all else, that she has been properly understood, which echoes the character of Madame Lidoine as well as telling us something about her ideal of what a singer should be.
Pierre Liscia: Tell us about Madame Lidoine. What is it about this character that attracts you?
Véronique Gens: It's an immense pleasure for me to sing in this opera. The role of Lidoine is fantastic and the whole work is admirable. There are so many things happening in this marvellous music, particularly touching when you consider that the Carmelites existed in real life. I find portraying Madame Lidoine fairly complex, because apart from an introductory scene which was added by Olivier Py (it isn't in the original opera), she comes on stage in the middle of the opera, at the heart of the dramatic events polaying out, which isn't what I'm used to. After a first act which is extremely tense, heavy, Madame Lidione brings to the Carmelites her simplicity and humanity. She's a country woman, she's got a bit of a rough edge, but she is never pretentious. And she starts off talking about cooking, about rosemary... She brings a ray of sunshine at a point where the revolution has already invaded the convent. And of course, I love the tension that grows between Lidoine and Mère Marie [performed by Sophie Koch], who, in contrast to Lidoine, comes from the nobility. It's the music that creates this tension, particularly using the difference in register between the two characters. In his staging, Olivier Py has succeeded in turning this tension into something really interesting.
What was Olivier Py's part in your understanding of the character and her worldview?
Olivier is a wonderful colleague. I have to tell you: the moment when the director explains his concept to the singers is rarely the high point of our work, but with him, it's completely different. People don't know this, but he's Jesuit-educated and a very pious person. In Dialogues des Carmélites, therefore, he really knows what he's talking about.
Is this revival made special by the fact that we've been talking a lot about religion and martyrdom in recent years, given the tragic events in the news?
The revival has been in the plans for a long time, but clearly, it's arriving at a crucial point. Recently, religion and martyrdom have been at the centre of debate. Consider the last Scorsese film, Silence, which is an upsetting film on the subject. But deep down, I think that Dialogues des Carmélites is a timeless opera. For sure, the French Revolution is certainly present, but it's more of a background canvas. Bernanos wrote the libretto at the end of the 1940s, and the revolution really wasn't news any more. That's what makes me think that we're talking about something bigger, more universal.
You've said that “the music and the words are 50-50” for you. Do you approach a role differently when the libretto has such a literary quality?
Not at all. Whatever the score, what matters most to my approach is to be properly understood. Of course, it's very important in the Dialogues because the text is so powerful and beautifully written, but at the end of the day, the text is always fundamental. You can't touch the audience without it! I'm sure you know that when I started, I did a lot of baroque. There are a ton of learned treatises of the time explaining how to pronounce correctly one vowel or another. It can get obsessive to the point where you end up tearing you hair out, but I have to admit that – even in repertoire as far from the baroque as the Dialogues, it helps a lot.
A few years ago, you said that Lidoine was an excellent opening to other roles, such as the Marschallin or Desdemona. Do you have any plans for these?
I was supposed to be singing Desdemona in Vienna last year, but I got ill a few days before the première. I was really upset, because I'd worked very hard on the role, all the more so because it was a revival, and in Vienna, revivals only get a few days of rehearsals.
As for the Marschallin, I'm going to be singing some excerpts from the role in concert, but I can't say any more for now. Up to now, I've often sung the same repertoire. I started with baroque, but I've sung a lot of Donna Elvira, Viitellias, the Countess Almaviva. Today, I'd be more than happy to do a more diverse set of roles.