A practical, diva for Seattle Opera’s Erwartung

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There are no airs or temperamental drama about Susan Marie Pierson, the soprano who not only sings every performance of Schoenberg’s “Erwartung” in Seattle Opera’s double bill the next two weeks, but covers for the soprano in Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” as well.

“When we did this production in Edmonton (Alberta, 2006) I sang both roles,” says Pierson who considers “Erwartung” (“Expectation”) alone to be the equivalent of singing all of Act II of Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung.”

The pairing of these two short works has become a staple among opera companies

“It’s hard to find two one-act operas which fit together as these do in a strange way,” says Pierson, pointing out that this production by Robert Lepage has been around for 14 years, and that the stage director, Francois Racine, and three dancers travel with it. “One is very tonal and Mahleresque, the other is, well, just out there. It’s a very entertaining evening. I will say that the main character in the whole evening is water. We have a rubber stage, and that’s all I’m going to tell you about it!”

Singing “Erwartung” has its challenges. It’s a one-woman monodrama of lyrical, emotional music, but completely atonal as well so that the singer has no reference note from which to find a pitch. “It took me 18 months to learn it for Edmonton,” says Pierson., “but you get to a point with Schoenberg that you have muscle memory and you can always hit the note. There’s a sense of how that pitch feels in the throat and the ear.”

She appreciates that Schoenberg was exact in what he wanted, the tonal colors, the dynamics, “but the biggest challenge is staying with the conductor without staring at him,” because Schoenberg changes meter and tempo constantly.  “I just try to memorize in my own body the rhythm and the tempo that (conductor) Evan (Rogister) wants to take.”

At one vocal entrance, she says, she is lying flat on her back and it would completely spoil the moment to lift her head and check with his beat.

I ask Pierson who is this woman, who is the character who has no name, no history nothing except the words and emotions of the moment.

For Pierson, “she’s an outsider. I’ve always seen she has a little house outside town, with a garden, and a wall around it. Her lover is from the town. I don’t know if he’s married or unmarried, but he can’t be with her every day, and now it has been three days and he hasn’t shown up. She’s afraid. Is he sick? Does she have a rival? Has he left her? She goes to look for him, and has conversations with the moon, which casts shadows, plays tricks and frightens her. She finds him dead, in a pool of blood. There’s no place for her in the town. Is she a foreigner? Divorced? I don’t know.”

Pierson sings almost without cease for the full 30 minutes of “Erwartung,” and she paces herself carefully. On the support side she places Sweet Tarts or sour gummy bears in strategic places around the stage (“my costume has no pockets”) and the stage hands know not to remove them or sweep them up. The stage goes briefly dark several times when she can pop one in her mouth and, twice during the show, she has 30-40 seconds when she can rest.  At those moments, a stage hand is ready nearby to give her a quick sip of water.

For the rest, “you’ve got to keep that one small part of your brain trying to be careful and in charge: here’s your five seconds, remember to swallow, don’t go overboard there.”

Pierson grew up listening to opera, began singing early and started voice lessons at 14. She knew by the time she was 11 or 12 that she wanted to be an opera singer. “My first recital was at age 12, and after that it was a question of just putting one step in front of the other.” She won the Pavarotti competition and then sang Amelia with him in “Un Ballo in Maschera” for a PBS telecast, after which her career took off steadily.

Edwin McArthur, Kirsten Flagstad’s accompanist told her “‘You’re going to be a Wagner soprano. Promise me you won’t touch it until you’re 30,'” she says. “And I didn’t.” She has since sung Wagner all over Europe including Brunhilde in “The Ring” over  five years with Finnish National Opera.

Today, she’s a veteran. At 56, she looks and moves years younger, and says that after a performance she’s energized. “I can’t go to sleep for six or seven hours after. My teacher told me, If you feel you could go and sing it again, you’ve done it right.”

Philippa Kiraly