Soprano Danielle de Niese | Photo: Chris Dunlop/DECCA

Summertime, and the livin’ is not quite so easy this year for the Australian-American soprano Danielle de Niese. 'I’m still alive!' she says with a laugh, asked how she’s getting on with her 2023 schedule. She has been busy not with an opera, but with a musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love, its West End modus operandi involving performances every day except Tuesday and Sunday.

Typically, she is taking everything in her stride. 'It means a lot of commuting and an incredibly packed diary, but I’m managing.' Add to that a highlight of her August: a recital at Snape Maltings of songs by Sondheim, Bernstein, Weill, Kern and more, including, of course, Gershwin’s 'Summertime'.

'I love pushing my way out into the mainstream'

De Niese’s choice to appear as Giulietta in Aspects of Love made some waves on the operatic side, as it meant she had to drop out of singing the leading role of Blanche in the new production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at her home opera house, Glyndebourne. Originally, she says, she had intended to do both, but the schedules proved incompatible.

'We had really hoped it would work, because there was initially some wiggle room,' she says, 'but when we realised that it wouldn’t, we made this very difficult decision, also to safeguard Carmélites. It was hard to part with that one. I was very grateful to have Glyndebourne’s support and understanding.

'This kind of thing happens quite a lot,' she adds, 'because opera productions are planned earlier than anything else, three or four years in advance.' That means that if rare and special opportunities come in at shorter notice, singers might ask to be released. 'Mostly people are very understanding. When I first came to Glyndebourne to sing Cleopatra [in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, 2005], I had to seek permission to be released from three other engagements. Everyone realised what a special opportunity it would be.' It was indeed. The role not only made her name in the UK, but changed her life, introducing her to Gus Christie, Glyndebourne’s owner, whom she married in 2009.

de Niese as Cleopatra at Glyndebourne in 2005 | Photo: Mike Hoban

Opera and musicals, she says, are not poles apart. 'I think the main difference is the physical support required to send sound out to 3000 people versus 1000 people. I do the same warm-ups, I still have all the same craftsmanship in the role and do the same amount of work as I would for a classical role.'

She sang plenty of musicals during her schooldays at a performing arts academy in Los Angeles and back in 2019 she starred in Man of La Mancha with Kelsey Grammer in the Coliseum. 'I've always wanted to be able to flex different muscles when it comes to who I am as an artist,' she says. 'It’s about changing the format, reaching out to a different type of audience. I love pushing my way out into the mainstream.

'In Aspects, I’m on stage with some incredible people like Michael Ball, who is a complete icon and remains so every single show. We have scenes together where we can really play to one another, surprise each other and colour things in a different shade. One of the joys of this project has been spending time with Michael and with Andrew Lloyd Webber. He rewrote the ending, in which I’m featured, and it was incredible to be part of that, because he really loves this piece. It’s in the style of a chamber opera and the score is very beautiful; it's a messy story, and he's done a gorgeous job of weaving the characters’ lives together musically.'

de Niese sang The Merry Widow with Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House in 2017 | Photo: Opera Australia

But what about the trenchant views of opera buffs on such things as – gasp, shock, horror – musicals? To de Niese, it’s not a problem. Or at least, not now. 'As a young opera singer I was very aware about making choices that preserved my personal goals,' she says. 'I said no to plenty of things. It was clear that the climate of the classical world, when I was coming up, would not have been that accepting of me trying to do musicals at the same time. That's just the fact of it.

'Maybe it’s especially the case for women. If I had done a musical earlier in my career, people would have said, "Oh, you’ve sold out," or "Oh, she's not a serious artist". I love classical music, it's in my veins and it's what I've wanted to do since I was eight years old. There's no chance that I was going to do anything to put that at risk. So in those early years I didn't entertain the possibility of doing musicals.

'You sort of cement yourself into the industry that you work in. I don't think anybody would put into any doubt today who I am as a musician, or think that I wasn’t a serious artist. That’s why I can do it now.'

de Niese says singing musical theatre in her early career would have 'not been accepted' | Photo: J Henry Fair

Her Snape recital, she says, could almost have been titled 'My favourite things'. 'This concert is about inviting everyone to come along and have fun and a joyful evening.' One item is a taste of things to come: a song from Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins, his last work with Bertolt Brecht, which de Niese sings in a semi-staged version with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner next spring. 'Recently I’ve been discovering some incredible female-vehicle pieces and The Seven Deadly Sins is a real cracker!'

Other stand-out items in the concert include 'Don’t Rain on my Parade' from Funny Girl ('I thought we’d just see what it’s like with piano') and several numbers from Bernstein’s West Side Story: 'I think most girls who have any sort of voice probably daydream about doing West Side Story and I'm one of them!

'It’s like going to a party where you suddenly meet lots of old friends, but also make new friends and then meet friends of friends. This is a programme in which I'll be meeting some very old friends, but also showing people some of my new friends, who are wonderful.'

And at Glyndebourne, she is back next summer, we’re promised, in an exciting new production of a work that may also prove a fine new friend for the Sussex opera house. Watch this space.

Danielle de Niese (soprano) and Ben-San Lau (piano), ‘Songs from the Shows’, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk, 25 August 2023 brittenpearsarts.org