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Posted by operabase on January 21st, 2020

Opera Artist

This months Metropolitan Opera revival of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito presents some of operas biggest names, including Joyce DiDonato and Matthew Polenzani. However the cast also includes two exceptional young artists in major roles: soprano Ying Fang, who graduated from the Mets Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in 2016, and mezzo soprano Emily DAngelo, who had been a winner of the Mets National Council Auditions that same year and is currently in her second year of the Lindemann program. Fang and DAngelo, who sing the lovers Servilia and Annio, lately sat down with the Mets Jay Goodwin for a conversation about Mozart and the company works with rising singers.

How do you think Clemenza adapts to Mozart's body of work, and what makes it unique? YING FANG: Well, first of all, musically, this piece just has so many of Mozarts greatest arias. EMILY DANGELO: And duets. YF: And duets. Thats one of Mozarts tricks, to be forever relevant in a manner that blows my mind each time I open a score. He really made it something which was celebrated to go against the norm and take the high road. That may be a message for our current time, and for any time. As you said, Mozart was revisiting an old Baroque genre with Clemenza, while at the same time working on an extremely forward looking opera, Die Zauberflte.

Whenever you sing Clemenza, do you feel closer to The Magic Flute or to Handel? ED: Oh, goshI have to say Im not thinking about either when Im sing this music. But its always Mozart. YF: it is also kind of hard to believe that it was composed at the same time as Magic Flute because musically and dramatically, its so disparate. EF: Even if it comes back to morality in both pieces. Both are about virtue and goodness. But he goes about it in very, very various ways. Another surprising thing about Clemenza is that even though it's this grandiose scenario of political intrigue and struggle for power, its such an intimate piece.

YF: Yes, its about real people and real emotions, and the human experiencelove, envy, forgiveness. You can feel that in the music when you are sing it. ED: Irrespective of how strong you're, no matter how famous, we all experience human emotions on a very basic and visceral level. So these are important people within society who've major issues on their hands, and the lives of so many individuals at stake, yet they're still struggle with the emotional problems that we all face. The both of you're a couple in the show, and you've a magnificent duet in Act I.

How do you work together to make something like that as good as it can be? YF: we've to feel each other.

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