PREVIEW
What: The Magic Flute
When: Opens tonight, continues to Feb. 26
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
Tickets: $25 to $135 (250-386-6121 or rmts.bc.ca)
Many sopranos aspire to sing the Queen of the Night. And legions of women would love to appear on the TV reality show The Bachelor.
Sharleen Joynt might be the only person in the world who has done both.
The Ottawa-raised opera singer is in town to sing Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute for Pacific Opera Victoria. Although she has previously performed the role in a concert setting, it’s the first time Joynt has sung it in a fully fledged production.
Three years ago, Joynt answered a New York City cattle-call seeking contestants for ABC’s The Bachelor. She won a spot as one of 27 women vying for the affections of Juan Pablo Galavis, a former soccer player from Venezuela. She lasted until the seventh episode, leaving of her own volition after deciding the hunky South American wasn’t for her.
TV dating shows and the opera world are uneasy bedfellows. Joynt believes her stint on The Bachelor didn’t harm her career in the long run. That said, at least one American opera house refused to audition her about that time, dismissing the singer as “too junior league.”
“I do feel like, that first year [following the television show] I maybe wasn’t taken as seriously,” she said.
More on The Bachelor later. Right now, Joynt is focused on polishing her Queen of the Night, a famous role that’s small but notoriously difficult.
Happily, this 30-something singer is far from a novice. Admired for her silvery, sparkling timbre, Joynt has sung at Carnegie Hall, performed for three seasons in Germany’s opera houses and studied voice at Mannes College of Music in New York, where she now lives.
One article ranks Queen of the Night as being in the Top 10 most “horrifyingly difficult opera arias.” The Germans describe it a sternflammende, which translates as “star blazing.” The Queen of the Night is on stage for just 10 minutes; however, the soprano must navigate a pair of treacherously tricky songs.
Each is stuffed with coloratura pyrotechnics (coloratura is an unusually elaborate style of soprano singing, full of ornamentation). Both arias require a high F note. When a reporter compared this to doing a pole-vault after completing half a marathon, Joynt said: “It’s exactly like that. And then you have do to it again … It’s so nasty.”
She added: “Mozart was cruel. By the time you’re singing those iconic high Fs, you’re at the end of your phrase. You’re already running out of breath and you haven’t even got up there yet.”
On the phone, Joynt was chipper and good-natured, joking about bringing suede boots to Victoria, then in the middle of a snowstorm. When not singing, she writes a pop culture and fashion blog. She also does an online column for Flare magazine, offering chatty thoughts on The Bachelor. Not surprisingly, Joynt landed the Flare gig after appearing on the show.
Here’s how she got on the show. One day, Joynt arranged to meet friends at Café Fiorello in New York. Being a fan of The Bachelor, she knew there was a open casting-call at nearby ABC studios. Auditioning as a lark before her dinner date, she made it to the next round, then found herself accepted as a contestant.
Back then, Joynt (now happily engaged to be married) was ready for romance. Her years of singing in Germany had been lonely, leaving her “incredibly unhappy and not really sure what to do with my life.”
Her six weeks on The Bachelor turned out to be challenging, too — but in a different way. Contestants are instructed to live “off the grid” with no phones or Internet access. Used to being on her own in Germany, Joynt was now in the company of other young women 24 hours a day. As they competed for the bachelor’s attentions, tensions mounted.
“It was really full-on. It was like you were back in high school,” she said.
On the show, Joynt was viewed as an exotic anomaly. The contestants were from a wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from hairstylists to an assistant district attorney. However, opera singers weren’t really on anyone’s radar.
“Suddenly, I’m talking to people who think my career is almost a joke. They can’t wrap their minds around that being an actual career,” Joynt said.
“I remember one girl asking me: ‘Do you actually opera-sing?’ I was like: ‘Do I sing opera? Yes.’ ”
It turned out she had no love connection with Galavis. This despite the fact Joynt was a standout in the eyes of the bachelor, who — rather awkwardly — described her on the show as “a panda in a room of brown bears.”
Ultimately, the pair became friends. Galavis still visits Joynt when he’s in New York City. He’s even pals with her fiancé.
“They love to talk about boxing together,” she said with a laugh.
