Every aspiring opera singer dreams of landing a role. In the usual course of events it begins with a small role. Then it is a matter of harder work and sometimes sheer luck before things get better. For soprano Elina Ratiani things have evolved differently, writes Albert Storace
The Russian city of Chelyabinsk, just to the east of the Ural Mountains, made news in 2013 when a meteorite exploded over it. It was there that Elina Ratiani, daughter of mixed Russian/Georgian parents, was born.
I met Elina and her Italian husband Giovanni Facciotto through a mutual friend, during one of their on-and-off visits to our islands. A kind of almost immediate mutual simpatia was established with this couple when we met. I only knew that Elina was a soprano from Russia and that meeting her would be interesting. The mutual friend was right.
I asked where she came from. Having established that, I asked whether she hailed from a musical family. She does not.
“My parents are not musical and neither is my only sister. However, at the age of three I felt a passion for the piano and was already tinkling on any keyboard I could find. My parents were supportive and when I grew a bit older, I started studying the piano,” Elina says.
She studied it for a number of years but then developed an interest in singing and eventually spent some years studying at the Conservatory of St Petersburg.
“I had the good fortune to study with the formidable Tamara Novichenko, who coached Anna Netrebko. I also studied at the Maryiinski Academy of Young Singers.”
Apart from Callas, Elina, at 31, is the youngest soprano to be singing this difficult role
Having pursued her studies at the Moscow Conservatory, she must have kept the ghosts of both the Rubinstein brothers very happy. She smiled conspiratorially and then recalled a number of occasions when she sang in concerts at Moscow Conservatory’s famed Main Hall, saying she always had favourable comments about her performances.
It was a bit surprising, considering the amazing quality of her voice, of which I later heard a telephone recording, that she failed to land a decent operatic role. For various reasons the auditions she had were not successful.
It is a tough world in which one encounters all sorts of situations. Holding fast to her personal standards she tried and tried again, never giving up. I said that her efforts reminded me of the legend of Robert the Bruce and the spider. She said she had never heard the story but agreed that perseverance is finally rewarded.
“I probably thought it would be just another audition when I had a go at the role of Turandot by auditioning in Sicily. On the audition panel there was the Sicilian dramatic tenor Marcello Giordani, well known for his Calaf in Turandot, a tenor from Agrigento with a worldwide career to his name. I sang In questa reggia, and when I finished, Giordani rose to his feet and said it was enough. He said I had to be his Turandot.
That piece is one of the toughest ever written for dramatic sopranos, and Elina said she had a recording of the piece on her telephone. She was very apologetic, saying “it was not recorded in ideal conditions”. I begged her to let me hear it, and while conditions were truly not ideal, one could hear that the voice is powerful and has a beautiful timbre.
The piece increases in tension and goes higher and higher, ever more exciting. Yet even when she reached her highest, there was never a trace of shrillness; the voice remained well-pitched, warm and full. In questa reggia ends by merging with the confrontation, with Calaf just preceding the enigma scene. One can imagine the excitement when Giordani and Ratiani sang in this last, unfinished Puccini masterpiece on August 3 at the Greek Theatre in Syracuse. They will be singing again on September 3 at the Greek Theatre in Taormina. This tall, beautiful soprano will make an impressive, all-powerful princess, icy and cruel but losing her heart to love.
Her husband Giovanni says that apart from Callas, Elina, at 31, is the youngest soprano to be singing this difficult role.
During frequent visits to our islands, it was inevitable that Ratiani would discover that a section of the local public is opera-crazy. She finds the situation in Gozo – two opera houses in which a production has been regularly performed for many decades – “utterly amazing”.
As many know, for the past few years these productions are put on in October. For about four years there has been another production in spring by one of Gozo’s leading choirs. I ask Elina if she could ever sing anywhere in our islands. My question had no answer. Instead, she smiled very enigmatically, as if she wanted to say, “Chissà (Who knows)?”