Originally created by iconic film director Herbert Ross, the L.A. Opera’s La bohème has been credited with “maintaining the work’s charm, while breathing vitality into its characters and supplying imaginative new action” (Variety). Conducted by Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston Grand Opera, and featuring a strong supporting cast, the new revival is staged by director Gregory A. Fortner.
A feature on the two singers can be found in the current issue of Vanity Fair

While gearing up for their L.A. run, Pérez and Costello have been attracting high-profile attention. In April, the soprano won the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, rendering the couple the only husband-and-wife duo to have scooped one each (Costello was the recipient in 2009). A feature on the two singers can be found in the current issue of Vanity Fair, and Pérez and Costello are the first couple discussed in a Los Angeles Times article about married opera singers, which can be read here. They can also be seen discussing their lives and work in “Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez: An Operatic Love Story” on YouTube, and Pérez discusses the upcoming La bohème run – her first opera engagement since the Richard Tucker Award win – in this video (Spanish only).

More information about the artists is available at the web sites listed below.

Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello: upcoming joint engagements
 
May 12, 20, 23, 26, & 31; June 2
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles Opera
Puccini: La bohème (Mimì; Rodolfo)
 
June 25
Moscow, Russia
Moscow State Philharmonic Society
Mascagni: L’amico Fritz (Suzel; Fritz)

July 25, 27, & 29
Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati Opera
Verdi: La traviata (Violetta; Alfredo)

ailynperez.com

twitter.com/AilynPerez1

www.facebook.com/AilynPerezSoprano

www.facebook.com/StephenCostelloTenor

twitter.com/CostelloTenor

www.stephencostellotenor.com

Published: May 08, 2012

Singers who are linked offstage see pros and cons of working together onstage. Some say it heightens the operatic drama. Others say home life gets more complicated.

By David Mermelstein, Special to the Los Angeles Times - April 29, 2012

The merits of working with one’s spouse can be debated endlessly, but few couples face the pressures of opera singerswho share a life and sometimes a stage. In 2004, local music lovers were transfixed when two of opera’s biggest stars, tenor Roberto Alagna and soprano Angela Gheorghiu, appeared in Herbert Ross‘ production of Puccini’s “La Bohème” at Los Angeles Opera. That the singers were married to each other in real life made the experience, already rife with romantic pathos, that much more intense.

L.A. Opera is reviving that production from May 12 to June 2, with another married tenor and soprano — the Americans Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez — assuming the lead roles of Rodolfo and Mimi. In terms of fame, Costello, 30, and Pérez, 31, are no Alagna and Gheorghiu, who were marketed as “opera’s love couple” for a while. But the younger singers, who wed in 2008 and separately won the Richard TuckerAward, are rising talents.

The placing of married couples in such roles — or others like them — is not especially unusual, though it seems to be more common in America than in Europe. But the occasion provides a natural segue for questions relating to the impact of such choices on artists and audiences alike.

“I think everything is more heightened when you’re singing with your spouse — no matter what the role is,” Pérez said during a joint interview with her husband, between rehearsals at the Music Center this month. “Normally, you’re using your imagination to get into character in a love scene. But when you’re with your husband, it hits you in a way you don’t have to imagine. It becomes more realistic.”

Costello suggests other advantages as well. “Because she sees me wake up in the morning — bad breath, bad hair and all — we have a comfort level with each other that we don’t have with other people,” he said. “So you feel you can explore other options artistically. When you’re singing with your spouse, you’re not worried about offending anyone.”

But the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko — whose appearances in productions of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” and Massenet’s “Manon” opposite tenor Rolando Villazón were L.A. Opera benchmarks — views the situation differently. Though not married, she has been living with the Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott, the father of her son.

“No, on the stage we are colleagues, nothing else,” she said a few weeks ago, sitting in the press lounge at the Metropolitan Opera, where she was singing “Manon.” “We have nothing to do with the couple thing. Erwin is an extremely talented performer, and for me it’s cool to work with such a talented person.”

Though she and Schrott have not performed together in a complete opera since their romance was kindled during a run of “Don Giovanni” at London’s Covent Garden in 2007, they started singing joint recitals as a couple last year. And he will join her in January for the Met’s new production of Donizetti’s “Elixir of Love,” to be followed by a new staging of “Faust” in Europe.

“It’s very complicated having a child and two international careers,” Netrebko said. “We’re trying to make it. We don’t want to forget about the art or the real interesting projects, but we would never put our careers in front of the family, because that’s the most important thing. So, yes, it’s hard, but so far it works.”

Netrebko maintains that part of their success as a couple comes from separating their professional and domestic lives. “We’re not talking about music or singing when we’re at home,” she said. “Once the work is done, it’s done. When we’re home, we’re cooking, watching movies, enjoying life. Music does not occupy the primary place in our house. I know couples who talk only about music at home. Maybe they like it. Maybe it’s fun. But not for me.”

Naturally the separations intrinsic to these couples are difficult. Tenor Charles Castronovo, a native New Yorker who keeps a home in Southern California and was last seen at L.A. Opera as the title character in “Il Postino” in 2010, has been married since 2005 to the Russian soprano Ekaterina Siurina.

“I didn’t realize all the problems there would be later,” he said by phone from Berlin, where the couple and their 5-year-old son live when in Europe. “These careers are intense, and there are problems for families. People say we must understand each other very well because we’re in the same profession, but while I’m OK by myself most of the time, my wife isn’t like that. It’s always been harder for her.”

Logistics alone prevent most of these couples from singing together too frequently. One or two runs per season seems the average — though before this year is out, Castronovo and Siurina will perform together in three productions and one concert, taking them to Madrid, Copenhagen, Paris and New York.

Yet working together isn’t always a paradise. “The cons are dealing with stuff in the workplace that you try not to bring home,” said Costello, who calculates that he and Pérez work together about 40% of the time. “If you’re both having unpleasantness in the same production, then you go home that way. Whereas if you’re each doing something different, there’s less chance of that. There’s double stress when you’re working together.”

These pros and cons are a balancing act for partners soprano Patricia Racette, who sang the lead in Britten’s “Turn of the Screw” at L.A. Opera last season, and mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton, who have been together since the late 1990s. Though they met while performing Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Santa Fe, N.M., they have subsequently worked together infrequently.

“It’s a casualty of our repertoires,” Racette said by phone from Seattle, where she just finished starring in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” “There aren’t that many roles that are right for us together. It would be very interesting to do Strauss’ ‘Rosenkavalier’ with Beth, but I don’t think that’s repertoire for me. And Puccini was not very kind to the mezzos.”

Racette maintains that gaining employment in the same productions isn’t really the issue. “Our challenge is not so much to work together but to be together,” she said. “We call it ‘wife-ing.’ It’s not easy to pick up and pack and take care of the dog and get your house set up all by yourself while you’re meeting new people and learning a new production. So it’s great to have help — and we both like to cook.”

As for what the presence of an offstage couple on stage does for audiences, Pérez makes a compelling case, citing a performance of “Traviata” at Covent Garden in January. She had just finished her debut run in the house, as Violetta. Costello was concluding his separate run as Alfredo in the same opera — opposite Netrebko. But she fell ill, and Pérez was asked to fill in.

“I’m sitting there on stage,” Pérez recalled, “getting ready for the prelude, and it was announced I was substituting for Anna, but then they added that Stephen and I were married. And the roar of the crowd was incredible. So I know this information gets a reaction. I think it elevated the whole night. I had done eight performances in the house already, but I’ll never forget that night.”

“I feel very comfortable with Ailyn on stage and that allows me to be more intimate in love scenes,” Costello explains. “I also think she is a singer who takes chances when given and that means I have to take chances in order to hold my own on stage.” He adds: “Bohème is very special because we both sang it for the first time together and that is when we started dating.”

Pérez expands on her very operatic love story with her husband now of four years:

“Stephen and I were studying at the Academy of Vocal Arts together. We had worked together in the past, singing opposite each other in La traviata and L’elisir d’amore, but Bohème is what brought us together. We had always been friends, but it was during rehearsals for Bohème that we started dating. I lived alone in a tiny little attic around the corner from Stephen, where he lived with a few other guys – just like Mimì and Rodolfo! After rehearsals we liked to blow off some steam, and Stephen asked me out dancing to the salsa club across the street from where he lived. My response was ‘you don’t salsa!’, but surprisingly enough, he can! He tried to kiss me on the way home, but I turned him down.  That didn’t last long though, and over the next few months we fell in love. A lot of couples fall in love over Bohème, and lots of them have a line from the opera that is special to them. My favorite line is ‘Sempre tua per la vita’ [‘always yours, for life’], which Mimì tells Rodolfo in their Act III break-up scene.”

Originally created by iconic film director Herbert Ross, the L.A. Opera’s La bohème has been credited with “maintaining the work’s charm, while breathing vitality into its characters and supplying imaginative new action” (Variety). Conducted by Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston Grand Opera, and featuring a strong supporting cast, the new revival is staged by director Gregory A. Fortner.

Pérez and Costello spent the holiday season on the other side of the Atlantic, where they took London by storm, appearing (in different casts) as the romantic leads in Richard Eyre’s production of La traviata at Covent Garden. As the Independent described, the tenor’s dramatic impact was both immediate and powerful.

“From the moment Ermonela Jaho meets her Alfredo in the form of Stephen Costello in her glittering salon, you sense the electricity between them… . Jaho’s gestures and attitudes have an expressive grace for which Costello’s airy, boyish lyricism makes the ideal foil.”

As for Pérez, the Observer hailed her as “an ideal Violetta,” marveling:

“The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama, from the impetuousness of her love for Alfredo…to the febrile emergency of her death… . Her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.”

Similarly moved by her performance, the Sunday Times observed: “She was one of the most affecting Violettas we have seen at Covent Garden recently, not a grand visiting diva, but a vulnerable, dying woman in a hostile society, whose demise in Act III tore at the heartstrings.”

For both singers, the 2011-12 season is a significant one. Singing opposite Anna Netrebko in the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere staging of Anna Bolena, Costello helped launch the company’s new season; the New York Times’s Anthony Tommasini reported: “Costello won a hearty ovation for his Riccardo… . To hear this rising artist stretching himself was part of the excitement.” Another Donizetti opera – L’elisir d’amore – was the vehicle for Costello’s return to the Vienna State Opera, and his season includes European concert performances of two more: having sing Maria Stuarda’s Leicester in Munich, this month he undertakes Lucia di Lammermoor’s Edgardo in Seville.

Pérez’s performances as Violetta represented her second Covent Garden engagement of the season, following her “mesmerizing” (Gramophone) contribution to the Royal Opera House’s Domingo Gala concerts this past October, when she sang Gilda alongside Plácido Domingo in Rigoletto. Having recently starred in Gounod’s Faust at Hamburg State Opera, the soprano looks forward to headlining Poulenc’s Gloria with the Atlanta Symphony in April, and reprising her portrayal of Mimì at Zurich Opera two months later.

The two singers, who have amassed such honors as her 2006 George London Award and his 2009 Richard Tucker Award, first met at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts. They frequently perform together in leading romantic roles, and this season, in addition to their Los Angeles Opera engagement, they appear opposite one another in Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz with the Moscow Philharmonic and in La traviata once again at Cincinnati Opera. Their many future engagements together include a production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the Vienna State Opera in spring 2013.

More information about the artists is available at the web sites listed below, after details of their upcoming engagements together.

Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez: upcoming joint engagements

May 12, 20, 23, 26, & 31; June 2
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles Opera
Puccini: La bohème (Mimì; Rodolfo)

June 25
Moscow, Russia
Moscow State Philharmonic Society
Mascagni: L’amico Fritz (Suzel; Fritz)

July 25, 27, & 29
Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati Opera
Verdi: La traviata (Violetta; Alfredo)

Ailyn Pérez at Askonas Holt

Follow Ailyn Pérez on Twitter

Follow Stephen Costello on Facebook

Follow Stephen Costello on Twitter

www.stephencostellotenor.com

Appearing in different casts of the opera, Ailyn and Stephen have received rave reviews for their portrayals of Violetta and Alfredo. Hugh Canning features Ailyn and Stephen in the Culture section of The Sunday Times in which he interviews the artists together about their careers and lives as a married couple.

The critics have been overwhelming with their praise:

“The latest cast change, heralding a run of performances over the Christmas period, is first-rate, with an ideal Violetta in Ailyn Perez. The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama, from the impetuousness of her love for Alfredo…to the febrile emergency of her death…her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.”
The Observer, November 2011

“…from the moment Ermonela Jaho meets her Alfredo in the form of Stephen Costello in her glittering salon, you sense the electricity between them…Jaho’s gestures and attitudes have an expressive grace for which Costello’s airy, boyish lyricism makes the ideal foil.”

The Independent, January 2012