CB

It's the post which should write itself, but which nonetheless never seems to get written. I was going to write it after my first Arabella. Then after my last. Then during Otello, then during The Makropulos Secret. Then Christmas Eve, Butterfly Eve, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. Something always got in the way — holidays, cable TV and that creeping fear of sappy self indulgence. However, enough is enough. The festivities are done with, the TV is switched off and if I'm self indulgent and sappy, well, you're used to that by now. 

I want to write about Cheryl Barker. And yes, I know, I've said it all (and you've heard it all) many times before. Perhaps not all, though. 

Cheryl Barker has been for me a remarkable phenomenon. Almost without my notice, she has framed my Australian operatic experience from its infancy. While I fixated, besotted, on the other one, she was nevertheless there. I blush to confess — though I have done so before — that my first feelings towards her were quite opposite to what they are now. Before I had heard her sing a note, I decided I Did Not Like Her. To me she was the soprano who cancelled without notice her appearance in Opera Australia's 50th anniversary gala and the soprano who seemed to poised to usurp the honour of Australia's prima donna. Such petty biases on my part are beyond foolish, and I have always known it and always succumbed to them — my only defence is that I usually recover.

And so I did with Cheryl. I went grumbling to her Rusalka and emerged beaming. My mutterings about the preferential treatment she was receiving — role after role after role, every one a plum — turned to rejoicing. Slowly at first. Glorious as her Rusalka was, it was in her Giorgetta (in Il tabarro) that the initial, crucial moment arrived. Running into the theatre two minutes late, I was ushered up to E-reserve to await the interval, when I'd be seated properly. I sank, exhausted, into my seat and was thrust immediately into that gem of an opera, and before I knew it, she hit me between the eyes. For the first time ever, she sang a phrase and I thought: that is such a Cheryl kind of sound. And it brought tears to my eyes.

Still, it was only a beginning, not an all conquering thunderclap. But she stayed with me, and I felt compelled to see her again. And then again, on my twenty-third birthday. Only this time, she cancelled. I was crushed — and now I knew I was hooked. I bought the CDs — all two of them — and counted the hours to her next appearance, in the unwittingly hilarious Don John of Austria. By the end of the year, all hope for my sanity had evaporated. I was her fan. I was mad about her. 

So naturally, I waited to see if I would get over it. I am very very good at losing my heart to sopranos, but they are so lovable, and there are so many to love, that total constancy can be difficult. Besides which, she hardly seemed my type. The voices I've gone mad for in the past have been, almost without exception, silvery Mozart sopranos and silken Handel mezzos. What was I doing listening daily to a Butterfly, a Tosca, a Katya Kabanova?

To be honest, I still don't have an answer to that. Although, as we've seen, her repertoire has turned out to encompass some of the music and heroines closest to my heart. She's even begun establishing herself as Australia's next important Strauss soprano. In fact, whatever my preconceptions, it's pretty blindingly obvious that she is exactly my type. I keep waiting for the shine to wear off but it never does — I get as ridiculously excited about her voice now as ever, and maybe even more so. It isn't something that can be rationally explained in terms of sonic quality, of technical skill, of this or that kind of artistry. In all those field, she is superb by any standards, but that special thing that makes a person go mad for a singer — it isn't to be put into words, despite being in many ways the whole foundation of this blog.

If you've stuck with (or discovered) this blog during the past year, then you know what's happened since. You've read my outpouring heres, as I attended performance after performance — all I missed was one matinée of Otello — and trawled through the thesaurus for new ways to say "beautiful". I could happily retrace the magnificence of all those evenings, but I shan't inflict that upon you yet again. But isn't it incredible — and aren't we spoilt rotten — that within the space of ten months, in our very own city, we've seen one fabulous singer take on such a varied and demanding series of roles, and triumph in them so captivatingly? Arabella, Desdemona, Emilia Marty and now Cio-Cio San, all within less than a year and each sufficient on its own to delight the heart of a devotee such as myself. 

Some, no doubt, will say she has been given too much, that her prominence here is now too great. I used to feel the same way about another soprano, before the wind started to change. When it comes to Cheryl, however, such considerations are nothing to me. I feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store, faced with an array of operatic prospects almost too mouthwatering to believe, and the promise of more and more and more to come. And unlike that kid, my particular indulgence never leaves me feeling ill, no matter how much I seem to overdo it. What Cheryl leaves me feeling is happy, stupidly happy. A thousand other adjectives as well, but above it all, it's happiness I think of when I think of Cheryl. 

I declared 2007 the Year of Cheryl, and so felt obliged to restrain myself from doing the same thing again for 2008. In fact, it looks as if, for the indefinite future, every year will be the Year of Cheryl, at least in my world. It's a prospect which, like every note she sings, has me grinning like an idiot. A sappy, self indulgent idiot who has gone on at preposterous length — but I'm afraid I can't help it, and nor do I want to. Cheryl Barker is a joy and a privilege to behold and I thank my lucky stars I have so many opportunities to do so. A little adoring excess is the least I can do.

Comments

[david]

The great deal with Cheryl Barker is the sheer "joy" that surrounds her. It's a funny word and actually quite hard to pin down, but every time I have ever heard her sing since 1993, it is the sheer feeling of "joy" that encompasses me and holds me for days regardless of the role that she has sung, that best describes for me the experience of having heard her sing.

I actually doubt that too many people would regard her as being overexposed or playing too prominent a role. My experience at the opera house has always been that when she sings, the thrill of expectation that surrounds her appearance from the hardened and experienced opera audience is always high and I have never heard a negative word or opinion uttered and those who experience her singing for the first time always seem to be won over. You can feel the buzz and the thrill and the joy that exists after a performance as the crowd disperses.

More to her and more of her and more to your continued devotion and praise!!!

[wanderer]

I wonder what bearing Richard Hickox's death will have on her trajectory.

[Sarah]

Don't think I haven't thought about that. I'm hoping hoping hoping not much.