Meet Jennifer Davis
Many characters in many operas experience extreme situations and emotions, but Salome’s situation must be one of the most extreme. Beyond learning the notes, how do you prepare for a role like this?
Firstly, I like to get my hands on the score, the libretto and lots of different recordings so I can immediately get a sense of the musical world she inhabits and what she’s feeling. YouTube is also an incredible resource for being able to watch productions and see her story told in a myriad of different ways and get inspired by the incredible women who have portrayed her. I also read the Oscar Wilde play and have been carrying that around with me for a while. I love to listen and study the score while out for a walk. I imagine myself performing it and riding the emotional rollercoaster, and doing this while being physically active is very helpful to me.
In a concert performance like tonight’s, you don’t have costumes, props or scenery to help tell the story. What are the advantages, for performer or audience, of performing opera in this way?
It’s a little trickier to perform minus those things, as visually this scene is so striking, uncomfortable and fascinating to watch. However, experiencing it without the added drama of those aspects will allow both the audience and us performers to experience the text, the incredible score, and the enormity of the emotion in a really focused way. Salome is emotionally laid bare in this final scene, and she will be even more so in a concert performance. Apologies in advance for any tears on my part!
You only have a short amount of time to rehearse with the orchestra and the conductor. What aspects of the performance do you like to discuss with the conductor before you start, and what takes shape as you rehearse together?
I am incredibly fortunate to have worked with Maestro Hrůša before so that will really help us both to hit the ground running during our short rehearsal time together. I think we’re both interested in finding the calm, quiet moments in this scene for her, as well as building to the emotional highs she experiences. The moments where she is gathering her thoughts alongside the immediacy of feeling so many conflicting things at once. I’d love to allow her youth to shine forth…she is only meant to be a teenage girl, and I think that’s so interesting and unique to play. The pacing of the scene and emotionally telling the story together will develop as we rehearse and try things.
Are you visualising John the Baptist, dead or alive, while you sing about him, or does he exist purely in the words and the music for you?
In the context of a concert performance it will be a bit of both for me. As I won’t have his physical head on stage (spoilers!) a lot of seeing him will be in my mind’s eye as it were. Allowing the orchestra and text to conjure his image. At a certain point though I think it will be important for me to truly feel like he’s with me, he is so visceral for her. So much of the text is about touch, power, his physicality. If I feel like I can touch him and feel him, then hopefully I can bring the audience along with me. It’s unbridled, animalistic, burning and ultimately there’s this euphoric purity. I have to feel like a physical interaction has taken place, even if it’s imaginary.
Which concerts in the rest of the Philharmonia’s season would you recommend?
Gosh, hard to pick as there’s such a rich variety, but the three that immediately appeal to me personally are John Eliot Gardner and Alice Coote performing Elgar’s Sea Pictures on the 15th February; Sheku Kenneth Mason performing on the 26th February (he’s so exciting!), and Bryn Terfel singing Wagner on the 26th March. There’s truly something for everybody though.
