Down to earth diva

One of the great singers of our time, Joyce DiDonato is set to make her New Zealand debut with Berlioz.

- BY RUSSELL BAILLIE & RICHARD BETTS

American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato gives the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra its brightest star wattage of the year with her two appearances at the end of the month. The 56-year-old multiple Grammy winner is one of the opera world’s biggest names, as well as one of its bigger personalities.

Once proclaimed by The New Yorker as “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation”, she has shone in performing music by Handel, Mozart and 19th-century Romantic composers such as Hector Berlioz, whose song cycle Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights) features in her NZSO concerts.

The Listener caught up with DiDonato somewhere between performances in France and Switzerland, her home just out of Barcelona, and her dates in Australia after a year of multiple Atlantic crossings. Additionally, she has recorded the Emily Dickinson-inspired album Emily — No Prisoner Be, due early next year and written by Kevin Puts, who previously set Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours to music.

What is life like in Barcelona? And who takes care of the garden when you are out on tour?

I went on a wild planting spree before catching my flight to New Zealand, sticking loads of tulip and allium and daffodil bulbs in the ground. I realised that I likely won't see the daffodils, but with a bit of luck some of the tulips might still be showing when I am back home. Having a garden is the greatest gift in the world for me and is a total haven when I get home from a long tour. Happily, there is a lovely gardener, Josep, who keeps an eye on things for us when we are away, but without fail, I'm in the garden every chance I get. If only I could have smuggled a few pomegranates with me on this trip — I had to leave perfectly ripe ones on the tree, which killed me just a bit.

You've had a very big year. Does it ever get a bit much?