The powerful boss of the Kirov Opera, Valery Gergiev, discovered her --not scrubbing floors, as the legend goes, though she did have a job as a cleaner at the Kirov: ""It was my first year studying at the Conservatory, and my girlfriend told me there was a job open to wash the floors at the Maryinsky Theater during the performances. Well, it was like washing a pool -- it's the main hall, everyone is coming and going, there's snow and mud and water everywhere.I was awful, I was worse than anybody else. But I could see rehearsals and performances — that's why I went there. I was in the theater twenty-four hours a day and I watched rehearsals, performances, opera, ballet" In those days, she relished the chance to hear Plácido Domingo, Elena Prokina, Vladimirs Chernov, Galouzine and Ognovenko "and lots more." "It was very hard work,"

 

From the minute she sang the stratospheric 'Queen Of The Night' aria at her audition in 1993, Anna clicked with the irascible Kirov supremo and has stayed friends with him to this day. "I came to audition, and Gergiev remembered me from when I was working," she says. "And he went, `Oh, you can even sing!' "Now Mr. Gergiev says: "She was extremely quick and extremely musical, with good interpretations immediately. So I gave her her first role in 1994, as Susanna in `Le Nozze di Figaro.' "Anna is one of the most theatrically talented singers I know," he says. "There are voices that are attractive in themselves. But with Anna it's not only the voice itself but what this voice expresses: musicality, theatricality, quite interesting timbre, vocal colors. It's a very rare gift."``All the credit should go to Gergiev -- whatever I've done has been because of him.'' she sais ''He wanted a young singer for a production of `Figaro,' and when I auditioned he took me.''  ``I'm not a Countess -- look at me! I love the role, but it's not my character at all. But the character of Susanna and I are very, very close.'' How so? ``She's like me because she gets whatever she wants.''

 

After winning first prize in Moscow's 1993 National Glinka Competition, the soprano was invited by the famed mezzo-soprano Irina Arkhipova to take part in a concert at the Bolshoi Opera. Her studies continue today with renowned soprano Renata Scotto.

 

'Oh yes. I love to play crazy ladies, it's fun. It's more interesting. I like something with a little danger.'

 

"People say [Prokofiev's music] is difficult, not comfortable to sing, but I don't think so," she says. "For me, it's very comfortable to sing Natasha."

 "I love American audiences more than anywhere else - they respond always to me," she says. "And I love bel canto opera - I would love to sing even more of it."

'' I was worried – I think Harnoncourt was the only one who believed in me as a Donna Anna! But now I am absolutely sure the role is right for me.'' '

Not at all, it was so easy for me. I could hardly believe it myself. When I auditioned for Harnoncourt, I didn't realise he was looking for an Anna and when someone told me afterwards, I said "What? Are you crazy?" but I sang him a couple of phrases and he said "Okay, let's work on this".'

'I was 22 years old [she is 31 now] when I stared there [Kirov], and since then I have sung Sonnambula, Susanna, Pamina, Lucia, Micaela, Antonia (The Tales of Hoffmann) and a few Russian parts, Ludmila, Xenia (Boris Godunov) - I have sung something like 30 roles already.'

'I sang Marguerite's music for the first time to Renata Scotto with whom I work when I am in New York. She's a wonderful, wonderful woman and she's been helping me with everything on the programme, particularly about style. She told me she would never touch my technique because it is not particularly Russian. I studied in Russia but I sing with an Italian technique. I sometimes sing sharp in the middle of the voice, so I have to work hard on that and watch out, but Scotto is helping me with bel canto style and phrasing.'

"She [Scotto] is wonderful," says the younger soprano. "She knows everything about bel canto and helps me a lot."

'Zerlina is not for my voice at all. I signed the contract two years ago but I felt I cannot refuse the Met, and Zerlina will not hurt my voice.There is nothing to do. I am not a peasant! But Donna Anna is exactly right for my voice, not for the very big theatres perhaps, but who knows? In Salzburg it was in the Grosses Festspielhaus and I felt so comfortable. I knew I could do it.'

"Abbado asked me to sing [Pamina] on a recording. And I'm dying to sing with Abbado! I mean, I can sing Pamina, but there are so many people who do this better than me! I can sing Constanze. They asked me in Salzburg, and I thought about it. Then I went to see the performance at the Met. And after that I say, 'Okay! I can sing "Martern aller Arten" in concert, maybe record it. I like it, I have the high notes and coloratura. But the rest — it's SOO BORING!' What can you act in Constanze? She is singing all the time, and it's so hard! But the audience doesn't even understand how difficult it is. So I decide, 'I am not Constanze. They can't find a good Constanze in the whole world. No, I heard one — Christine Schäfer. She was very good."

 "Everything has happened too fast to me. I don't even have time to dream about it.But I don't have a big head about this. I will continue to develop myself as a singer, as a performer. I don't want to stop on this spot, of course. It is just the beginning. I want to move more. And then we will see in 10 years, was it really something special, or was it just a flash for one or two days?"

"It's a crazy, crazy project,I'm appearing in different outfits, haute couture stuff. We just finished shooting the last one, for `Rusalka.' I'm in a bathing suit in a swimming pool, and it looks like the 1960's. It's so fun.

 

 

 She describes her approach to Lucia as "lots of drama; lots of drama there and the girl who was 'desperate,' who was crazy, who could kill. There must be something there [in the character]. Craziness — there are lots of contrasts. Even if [Lucia] is sane and happy, she can cry at the next moment and get upset. I don't care too much about the trills. Of course I am doing variations, but not too much." Netrebko understatedly adds that without the emotive communication opera could be "boring."

"Yes, that is usually how I am doing all my roles. I'm reading the text and trying to understand what [the characters] are thinking of." But she quickly adds concerning "'The Callas' — [there] was only one."

"In my opinion technically the big recital and opera are completely two different things and for me it's difficult to change from one to another. First I decided to be an opera singer. I don't like to give recitals because for that I have to change my technique, my vocal technique." Like Maestro Rudel, Netrebko enjoys the full "theater experience."

"A couple of years ago, I thought, 'I want to sing all the time.' But now, I'm thinking maybe I can do something else. There are so many interesting things around."

In those days, when she was still singing at the conservatory, that enthusiasm led her to take a job as a janitor at the Kirov in the early 1990s, scrubbing and sweeping the floors for some $10 a month just so she could steep herself in the music. "I saw thousands of performances, and I was happy," she beams.

"It's another life, and I like to pretend – to lead different lives. Some of my friends told me many years ago that I am more real on the stage than I am in real life," she grins. "That's funny. I don't think so, but it's nice because you know it's fake. You can play, you can suffer, you can die. You're feeling this. All these feelings are real, but you know that it will be over in one hour. And you can share this with the audience."

There are not that many Russian operas for my voice,""I love Wagner, but I can never do it,"

"I think a lot about opera, but not only opera. When I'm not working, I'm doing other things -- shopping, movies, whatever.

"A lot of singers, we say, 'Come on, let's go out, let's do this or that,' and they say, 'Oh, no, there might be an air conditioner.'"I say, you only live once."

 

"I just don't have time for that because I'm singing opera all the time. You have to change your technique to sing recitals -- it's small and the piano needs a different approach. I like doing it, but maybe later."

I have a strange technique because it's close to a mezzo-soprano's way of singing, with everything down here" -- she descends to a rumbling chest voice. "But I need to sing the roles that are high and loud."

If I make a mistake during the performance, I don't blame myself like some singers -- 'Oh, I can't go out because I sang so bad!' That's life. But you have to understand what is good for you and what is not if you want to develop.

"My boyfriend is a very good critic for me. He has good ears and he's very well educated because he's from Italy and, you know, they grow up with that. He knows what is bel canto, and often he often tells me, 'Anya, uh-uh!' "

In a pinch, Netrebko also has even more powerful angels looking out for her, as she discovered during a recent Vienna performance as Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto."

"I was shaking, I was scared as s -- , I was laying down with a fever. Then before one rehearsal I had a talk with Giuseppe -- you know, with Verdi.

"I said, 'Listen, guy, you wrote this, this music that nobody can sing, nobody, it's so difficult. So I'm going to sing this tonight and you're going to help me.'

"And after that, I don't know what happened, but boom, it was there. I didn't have to do anything."

"I had dreams as a student, of course," Netrebko says, "but they never went that far."

"The boss was always screaming at me because I was not working," Netrebko says. "My girlfriends and I were flirting with the ballet dancers instead of washing the floors. We would dress very beautifully, with earrings and everything, to hide from them what we were really doing in the theater, so they would not see us as cleaning women. I was pretty good at hiding it - I was very cute!"

"I just wanted to be onstage," she says, "it didn't matter how."

Netrebko assumed the "how" would involve acting. "I didn't like to sing," she says. "And I never thought I had a voice, although I always had high notes. But when I got to St. Petersburg, everyone said the competition to be an actress was just too big. It would be easier to be a singer. After maybe a year, I discovered I liked to sing. And I knew then I wouldn't turn back. There is nothing as exciting."

It's an artistry that began to blossom as soon as she dropped the scrub bucket and concentrated on her conservatory classes in St. Petersburg. "I found it very easy to study," the soprano says. "It was great. They taught us ballet, how to wear dresses and hats, how to bow, how to faint onstage. That's why I chose this profession. It's fun to dress up and be somebody else, to live the life of someone else."

Netrebko didn't receive an excess of encouragement along the way. "I even heard some people tell me that I never had a voice, that the best thing I could do was stay in the chorus," she says. "I didn't believe them.

"I continued to study, then won a competition. People would say, 'How much money did you pay to win?'"

"And I might move to [Richard] Strauss someday, maybe in five years," Netrebko says. "I think it would be good for me - things like Arabella, the repertoire Kiri Te Kanawa sang." The soprano will not go too far into potentially voice-eroding Straussian territory, though. "A lot of people have asked me to sing Salome," she says. "But I think they just want me to take my clothes off."

Netrebko's debut at Washington National Opera in 1999, as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, took on extra significance. That's when she met Simone Alberghini, a gifted Italian bass-baritone who was in the cast. The two have been an item ever since.

"It works fine," she says of their relationship. "One is not jealous about the success of the other. I am lucky to have this man. He's very supportive."

Any prospects for marriage? "Yeah, I'm thinking about it," Netrebko says with a decidedly non-committal look.

Given her tight schedule - "I'm booked two or three years ahead," she says - it might be hard to find time for matrimony. "My agent keeps sending me all these big and important engagements, so it's hard to say no."

It's also hard to keep her swearing in check. "I am trying to be not too bad," Netrebko says, "but the curse words can help you express yourself." Even around non-Russian-speaking colleagues. "They will understand the meaning of the words," she says with a laugh.

"When I'm not working, I don't even talk about myself or about being a star," she says. "I try to be an absolutely normal person as much as I can."