Soprano Alyson Cambridge returns home for the holidays to join conductor Murry Sidlin and the National Symphony Orchestra in their annual New Year’s Eve concert filled with joyous music and Sidlin’s genial banter with the audience. Tenor Eric Owens, with whom Cambridge sang in Washington National Opera’s recent production of “Porgy and Bess,” is also along for duets and a solo turn. Since winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2003 at age 23, Cambridge has enjoyed a soaring career. Soon afterward, she made her Met debut under Maestro James Levine singing the role of Frasquita in “Carmen,” a role she subsequently sang in Japan under Seiji Ozawa.
| If you go |
| National Symphony Orchestra with soloists Alyson Cambridge and Eric Owen |
| Where: Kennedy Center Concert Hall |
| When: Dec. 31 at 8:30 p.m. |
| Info: Tickets: $50-$95 at (202) 467-4600, (800) 444-1324 or www.kennedy-center.org |
“They are two of our greatest living conductors, and it was so special to work with them both,” Cambridge said. “Ozawa is a fireball who energized everyone in the opera, and Levine has a certain way with singers. I was the youngest in the Met cast, only 25 years old at the time, and when we came back on stage for the curtain call, Levine looked up and gave us all a hearty smile. Then he looked directly at me, gave a thumbs up and blew me a kiss.”
While attending Sidwell Friends School, Cambridge participated in all the music programs offered, as well as athletics. Outside, she took private voice lessons from Jeanne Kelly and Rosa Lamoreaux at the Levine School. Upon entering Oberlin, she decided on double majors, one in music and one in sociology in case music did not work out. Before graduating, she applied to law school and two conservatories, and when she was accepted by Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she took it as a sign that opera was her destiny.
With many American opera company and concert hall debuts behind her and a growing repertoire that includes Musetta and Mimi in “La Boh?me,” Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni,” Suzanne in “Le Nozze di Figaro” and both Clara and Bess in “Porgy and Bess,” she will look toward Europe. Immediately after the first of the year, she will fly to Poland for her first Violetta in “La Traviata” with the Polish National Opera, then on to the Deutsche Oper of Berlin.
“Each new opera house is a musical milestone,” she said. “I’ve sung Mimi in four different productions, and each time I’ve learned something new about the character. One of my most fascinating assignments was William Bolcom’s solo opera, ‘[From] the Diary of Sally Hemings.’ I went to his house in Michigan, and we workshopped the piece until I got to the core of who this woman was.
“The libretto is her fictitious diary based on historic research about her relationship with Thomas Jefferson from the time she was a very young girl until his death. The text is complex and intense, going from lighter moments to those of dark intensity. Performing this at Carnegie Hall and on a recital tour and making a recording with the greatest living American composer was an experience that’s close to my heart.”
The New Year’s Eve concert will be a musical feast of light symphonic numbers, operatic excerpts sung as solos or duets and closing with a duet from “La Traviata.” Cambridge knows that her parents, who still live in the house where she grew up, will attend as they always have, even when she was but one member of a large chorus her first year at Oberlin. She looks forward to seeing them in Warsaw and, no doubt, in other foreign cities wherever her career takes her.
“I hope the Kennedy Center audience enjoys my voice for its artistry and what I bring to the plate,” she said. “It’s my pleasure to come back to the Kennedy Center where I have often performed during the past few years and to share joyous music and fun with them at this special celebration. Everyone is sure to have a good time.”
