ALL EYES ON SOPRANO AT MARKHAM SHOW
YorkRegion.com
Oct 20 2011
Canada
If you are lucky enough to hear Isabel Bayrakdarian at Markham Theatre
Friday night, better rest up before you arrive.
The famed Canadian-Armenian soprano may just be watching and making
eye-contact with you.
“I’m communicating with the audience, so obviously I’m not going to
be making eye-contact with the wall,” Ms Bayrakdarian said.
But the downside of looking at her audience in an intimate venue like
the Markham Theatre is she might catch someone dozing off while she
sings, the Juno-winning singer admitted.
“I take that as a personal insult,” Ms Bayrakdarian said, laughing.
“I’m thinking, ‘Am I not….'”
In a much-anticipated exclusive GTA solo recital with husband, pianist
Serouj Kradjian, Ms Bayrakdarian has planned a special program with
“spice and variety”.
>>From rarely heard repertoires to more well-known songs, Ms
Bayrakdarian will take the audience through a journey that includes
Hungarian, French, Italian, Armenian and Spanish music and folk songs.
“It’s like strolling through a park you’ve never been,” she said.
“It’s an exploratory experience for them.”
Ms Bayrakdarian – the voice behind the Grammy-winning soundtrack of
The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers – burst onto the international
opera scene after winning first prize in the 2000 Operalia competition,
founded by Placido Domingo.
She has always sung in churches, but music was no more than a hobby
for the longest time.
Ms Bayrakdarian was studying medical engineering at the University
of Toronto when she won the competition in 2000.
She was also taking music lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music
at the time.
“When I started winning competitions, I had to make a difficult
decision,” she said, adding she won the competition because she had
the right attitude and desire to show her best without comparing
herself to others.
“It was a gradual thing, but when it comes to passion for music, a
lot of us have hobbies,” she said. “In singing, the more you practise,
the better you sound. Then you are bitten by the bug. It’s this poison
of love for music you get obsessed with.”
Having sung professionally for about 15 years and performed in the
world’s major opera halls, Ms Bayrakdarian said singing still never
feels like work to her.
“If you love something, you should run with it,” she said. “Getting a
paycheque after a performance is a shock. We are not on salaries, so
you have to be very comfortable that you are a contractor in a sense.”
Asked what it’s like working with her husband, Ms Bayrakdarian said
because both of them are soloists and have very specific and individual
ideas about the music, “The process of putting it all together between
two stubborn Tauruses – you can let your imagination run on how the
discussions run”, she said.
However, “Because he’s my husband, during the performance, blindly,
I know he’ll be there for me.”
Ms Bayrakdarian’s recital opens Markham Theatre’s classical music
series.
For tickets or more information, call the theatre box office at
905-305-7469.
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