Original lead in ‘Radamisto’ withdrew for health reasons
Deborah Domanski’s dreams came true next to some cantina trash cans in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristos.
Last week, Santa Fe Opera conductor Harry Bicket and general director Richard Gaddes chose the 33-yearold Santa Fe resident to ascend to the principal role of Zenobia in Handel’s “Radamisto.”
Domanski will replace Christine Rice, who withdrew because of health issues. The opera opens July 19.
Domanski worked as an apprentice during the opera’s 2005-06 season. She had been tapped as Rice’s “cover” — opera-speak for understudy — but was untried as a major role soloist. She knew something was up when Bicket began marking up his score according to her breaths and musical ornaments during what she assumed was a coaching session.
“I thought this was really weird,” she said. “It was actually an audition, which was a good thing. If I’d known, I’d have been a nervous wreck.”
She grew especially suspicious when both Gaddes and Bicket asked her to meet them at the cantina.
“They said, ‘We’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is we want you to do the role. The bad news is we want you to do the role.’
“I started squealing,” Domanski said. “Then I regained my composure and I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ I called my husband. I called my dad. I called my sister. I called my aunt. I sent out an e-mail.”
The Cinderella scene was radically different from her first summer at Santa Fe. Overwhelmed by the pressures and brutal hours of mastering five operas, she says she had a breakdown.
“My first year was insane,” she said. “It was a huge learning experience, and it was also extremely tortuous. I had the one and only nervous breakdown of my entire life.”
Apprentices attend daily rehearsals that often linger until 1 a.m. or longer. Domanski began her days by warming up her voice at 7 a.m. The season included “Ainadamar,” directed by Peter Sellars, renowned for his modern stagings of classical operas. The title means “fountain of tears” in Arabic; the production is a boiling cauldron of emotion and dark passions set during the Spanish revolution. Like any good director, Sellars pushed his singers to fully express the resulting anguish, rage and grief. Domanski finally collapsed.
“I literally sat on that curb and couldn’t move a muscle,” she said. “I looked at my arm, and I literally couldn’t move it. I literally cried for the next three hours.”
She slept for an hour, then returned to perform in “The Magic Flute.”
“When you’re an apprentice here, you’re proving yourself every single day,” she explained. “You cannot let on weakness. You’re hoping to be the next star of the show.”
Domanski was an easy choice for the rarely performed “Radamisto” because she had been working on the score since last November.
“If it was ‘(The Marriage of ) Figaro,’ one could find a million Susannas because it’s done all over the world,” Bicket said. “Deborah was wonderful to have because she was already studying it. (She has) a strong, beautiful, warm voice, and it’s got a lot of color in it. In a big role like this, you need someone with a lot of character to bring these long arias to life.”
Domanski sings five arias, a duet, a quartet, the final chorus and “about six million recitatives.”
“These are real Everests of the singing repertoire,” Bicket said. “Handel exposes the voice like no one else. There’s no cushioning, very often (you’re) just alone with a violin. You can fall off a cliff. But she’s been wonderful. She’s not as experienced as the others, but you wouldn’t know it from the way she performs.”
Domanski is one of 13 former apprentices to land principle roles this year under Gaddes’ direction , SFO spokeswoman Cindy Layman said.
After her tumultuous apprentice season, Domanski made her debut with the Tulsa Opera as Cherubino in “The Marriage of Figaro,” which earned rave reviews. She returned to Santa Fe as Mercedes in last year’s “Carmen.” Later, she sang with the American Symphony Orchestra at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall and in Southwest Opera’s production of “Figaro” in Albuquerque.
First performed in 1720, “Radamisto” is the story of Zenobia and her husband, Radamisto, heir to the Thracian throne. The Armenian King Tiridate goes to war hoping to possess Zenobia. But she remains faithful to her husband.
“She is a very, very strong woman,” Domanski said. “She has more fire in her than anybody in the whole opera. She gets captured by the tyrant (king). For the rest of the opera, I’m being seduced by the tyrant king and nearly raped in two different scenes. But she has so much strength and fire in her, she resists.”
Domanski grew up near San Diego, where she sang in school choruses and choirs. She later studied at both the Manhattan School of Music and at Juliard. She never considered doing anything else.
“It’s like a snowball,” she said. “People ask me how I got into singing opera. I don’t know; it just got into me. My voice has a mind of its own.”
This time, she envisions no breakdowns. Her voice changed when she turned 30, growing fuller and richer, she said. She’s developed a solid technique.
“I’m only doing one opera,” she said. “When you’re an apprentice, you learn five. Just being given an opportunity like this — living up to and exceeding everyone’s expectations. I’m getting really great feedback, so that gives you a great amount of confidence.”
An admitted perfectionist, she mulls over the Italian score during breaks in the cantina, digesting everyone else’s parts as well as her own.
“There’s always something more you can learn from the score,” she said. “I’m seeing what my colleagues are singing so I know exactly what they’re singing about.
“The hard part is being in the right place at the right time,” she added. “I’ve been hoping for this all my life.”
If you go
WHAT: “Radamisto”
WHEN: 9 p.m. July 19, 23; 8:30 p.m. Aug. 1, 7, 15, 20
WHERE: Santa Fe Opera, seven miles north of Santa Fe off U.S. 84/285.
CONTACT: (800) 280-4654, (505) 986-5900 or www.santafeopera.org
