By Paul Horsley

Since making a huge impression here as the Countess Almaviva at the Lyric Opera’s of KC’s Marriage of Figaro just a few years back (in the company’s last production in the old Lyric Theatre), soprano Katie Van Kooten has rocketed to the top of the opera world. Now in her vocal and dramatic prime, she is finding that in her 30s her voice has continued to evolve, and it can do things it couldn’t do before—heavier, meatier roles. Born in Washington State and educated in California and London, Katie thinks a lot about what she does, and she articulates her thoughts with great precision. Since her appearance here she’s made her house debut at the Metropolitan Opera (as Magda in La Rondine) and has sung Elisabetta alongside Joyce DiDonato in Maria Stuarda in Houston (a role in which she made her Covent Garden debut). She has performed under conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Vladimir Jurowski, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Andrew Litton, Jorge Mester and Dmitry Sitkovetsky. She’s also becoming one of our “Mimìs du jour,” and she gives her Kauffman Center “house debut” in the role in the Lyric’s La Bohème that runs from March 15th through the 23rd. Recently we spoke to her in anticipation of her appearance here as Puccini’s hapless heroine.

Paul: You’ve already received substantial accolades for your portrayal of Puccini’s Mimì. When you first thought about singing the role, was it “Oh I can’t wait!” or more like “Oh what a thing to muster!”? And what steps did you take to get ready when you first did it at Covent Garden?

Katie: I don’t remember being afraid, I remember thinking, All I can do is do it as me. You know, all these famous sopranos have sung it and become famous for it. I had an incredible colleague singing Rodolfo, Marcelo Álvarez, who was so supportive. When you’re rehearsing Bohème, people think of Mimì and Musetta, and then they think of the two men. But really Musetta and the men have hardly any stage time together, so it’s just ‘Mimì and the boys’ for the whole show. I have always been very blessed to have wonderful male colleagues to look after me—though they sometimes forget that there’s a woman in the room during rehearsals. It’s a boys’ club, but I feel privileged to be a part of it.

I love the music: When I’m preparing it there are moments that I can’t get through it the first couple of times, because it so real and so touching and so practical. There’s a moment in the text in Act IV, when she comes back to die, and he says, You’re as beautiful as the dawn. And she says … I think you’re mistaken: I’m as beautiful as a sunset. It gets me every time, it’s so poetic, so poignant, so her. It’s just the simplest way of reprimanding him, but in the simplest most poetic way. I love that she’s reminding him … that “the sun is setting.”

I’m a strong person, and I don’t know that Mimì is as confident in her approach to life. I think she’s much more content to stay on the fringes on the outside of the action, and Rodolfo is her counterbalance. He’s the gregarious outspoken, confident overemotional one, she is, and to be perfectly honest that’s the exact opposite of my relationship with my husband, I’m the chatty one and he’s the gregarious one. So when you’re playing something that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to you, you have to find something that you can relate to in them. And I think the thing for me that I can relate to in Mimì is that I feel things deeply, and I think she feels things incredibly deeply. She feels things in her heart, she ponders things away in her heart, and maybe they’ll never be shared. She keeps this kind of emotional journal of what’s going on with her, so in the moments that we get to see her heart, it’s all the more powerful, because she doesn’t force her way to the spotlight.

Is there a wrong way to play Mimì? I think she’s someone who commands a great deal of respect as far as operatic roles go, that is, not a lot of directors are going to mess around and made Mimì into Musetta. … She’s not this gutsy, confident outspoken person—we have a lot of those in opera, of course. But it isn’t how he wrote her. I always believe we’re born into the generation that we’re meant to be in. So that we all have a place, we all have a voice, we all have a specific character and personality of who we are and who we’re meant to be. I believe that about a stories and I believe that about characters in a story as well. Once you start changing characters, the story itself changes, because it’s not what it’s meant to be.

Do you believe in love, in the concept of a soul mate, in the idea that there’s a perfect person for each of us out there? And is it available to everyone?

Absolutely. I believe there are a number of people that come into your life that you could be happy with, but I also believe there is someone who is the best choice. And figuring out the answer to that is really, really tricky. When I met my husband I knew on the second date that I was going to marry him, that he was the perfect fit for me. I’ve only been married two years now, and he is the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. There’s never been any doubt that we are a perfect match. Not that either one of us is perfect, but he is truly God’s blessing and gift to my life. … He asked me for a second date before the first date was even over, so he was definitely interested. … He doesn’t have any direct ties to art, though he’s incredibly musical. That was the thing that was wonderful, that he knew me for me. He didn’t know anything about my “career.” He just got to know me for who I was. So the singing and the travel is a bonus for him. I met Matt through my uncle. He was a volunteer basketball coach for a Christian school, a really nice guy. At first I was like, Oh sure, what’s one more bad blind date?

What are the difficult moments in this opera, and the special moments? Are there difficulties in the role that you didn’t expect, or that audiences might not think are difficult?

Act I is always difficult: The timing of the door key, and the catching of the hand. There’s a lot of stage work, and … for us singers it all has to happen at exactly the right time and in exactly the right way—and yet appear completely unrehearsed and natural and simple. It always takes longer to stage that part than I think it’s going to, because it’s a little tricky. … And it’s all written into the score: Puccini has made it very clear when everything has to happen. Even Mimì’s gasp is timed in the music, you know, when Rodolfo touches her hand for the first time. … And then there’s also the variable that the orchestra is not going to play it exactly the same way every time, as if it were on a recording.

In Act IV when I’m lying on the bed in the end dying, you have to maintain the appearance of dying while maintaining an incredible power and strength in the vocal aspect, so that’s always a little sticky as well. … I definitely have a conversation with directors in rehearsal: Look, this is as low as I can go, because there is a difference between lying on the floor—that’s almost easier than being slightly elevated—but there’s also the thing of being able to follow the conductor. … You can’t lie at a 30-degree angle and make sense of a conductor’s baton going up and down, because it looks like it’s going diagonally.

As for Act III, yes it’s the most fun to sing, for Mimì as a character. It is absolutely Puccini at his best writing for the voice, because it shows the best of the soprano and the baritone, and then you also have this huge curve. I think the word that comes to mind in Act III is hope.

Hope is one of the most powerful things in existence, and at the beginning of the Third Act we begin with no hope. Mimì is alone, she is desperate, she is very, very sick. Cold, alone. And there’s all this deception that happens with Rodolfo and Marcello. But despite the sadness there is this hope, and the music conveys that. And then this beautiful Quartet and the finale of Act III, and you are left with hope. I think you truly believe, every time, at the end of Act III, “Maybe it will work out this time. Maybe she’ll be ok! Maybe it will be a happy ending this time.” I don’t know how he does it, but after the end of Act III it’s always a shock when you arrive in Act IV. That she actually is going to die. …

We all want to live with hope, we cling to it: It’s what keeps us going. And that’s why we all catch a sob in our throat when Roldolfo’s singing “Mimì!” at the end, because you know he has hope, even when no one else onstage does. You’re watching him and thinking, He still believes she’s going to be okay!

You’ve gained a great deal of your advanced training in the UK, at the Guildhall School mainly. How are the approaches different between British and American training, and in approaches to career?

Yes I moved to London in 2001 as a student, and I was only going to stay a year and it turned into almost seven years. At this point I think the “stateside” work is overtaking my work in the UK. But I do still work in the UK. Now that I’ve moved back to the states, it’s probably about equal.

When I came back to the states, I was actually shocked by the sense of entitlement that I felt a lot of American singers had. It’s a very elite field, it’s usually the kind of thing where most singers would go to a secondary education for music, they have some kind of incredible sponsorship, and are highly funded. There’s no federal funding for it, as we know, so it’s very much dependent on private funding, Which is wonderful, that there are so many people who are willing to give to artists. I think that’s incredible.

In England it’s very much just a job, I remember singing Mimì, leaving the theater, exiting the stage door. It was before I had any kind of reputation. I was singing with this really well-known cast but nobody knew who I was. I slipped out through the throng, and no one stopped me. And I got on the Underground in my jeans, and I was literally standing with people who had been in the audience and they had who had no idea who I was, or that they had spent the evening being entertained by me. It’s a very different mindset.

In UK it is very much, “This is a job, and we’re thankful for it. We will show up on time, we will work as a team to create something amazing, and we love what we do.” I am gifted in that I get to do what I love, and I think coming to the States I was quite shocked by lateness of arrivals, the little things. I thought, This would not be tolerated in Europe. Singers there are, on average, harder workers, because there are more of them who want to do it, and there are fewer jobs to go around. So I was a little taken aback.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some very hardworking respectful American colleagues, you know. But it is a different mindset, and I think that’s changing especially considering the economic challenges. I think companies can’t afford artists who are going to waste their time … their resources. I’ve been thankful to see that change.

Europe is such a contrast. I’ll arrive in a city—and I’m thinking of a specific city I was in—and they don’t even give you a welcome packet. I didn’t speak the language and I didn’t know where to get off the train, and I was frantically trying to figure out where to go, and nobody seemed to care. And here the contract says, I arrive in San Francisco and they send a limo to the airport, to take me to sing Beethoven’s Ninth. And I’m like, Whoa, a whole other way of working. I’m grateful for it, don’t get me wrong. But I’m thinking, Why am I so special? I get up there and I do my thing, and that’s it. I have a gift, and I like to use it.

People are realizing it is possible to have an incredible talent and be a nice person and be responsible. I think people like Renée Fleming have changed the image of the diva. She’s the diva in the sense that she’s the prima diva: When she sings she commands a lot of respect and gravitas, but she’s respectful of her own obligations to do what she needs to do, and to those who are paying her. It’s her job.

Are there “dream roles” that you haven’t sung yet, but hope to some day? Or are there things coming up that you can mention to us?

Oh my, there are lots of dream roles. I tell my agent, I only need to know things when I have to make a decision, so I don’t have to fill my brain with all kinds of information that isn’t relevant currently. But I really, truly would love to sing the Marschallin. I just covered it at the Met … and hopefully that’s something I get to do sooner rather than later. Arabella is another Strauss heroine I’d like to do some day. Desdemona I think would be fantastic, I’d love to sing that as well. Rusalka is another one.

I haven’t sung a lot of Strauss but my voice has changed so much in the last few years. I was doing the lighter lyric before, and this is on the heavier end. The Maria Stuarda with Joyce DiDonato in Houston went so well, that I just thought—and my agent and I talked about it—this has really opened a whole new door that I never thought I’d walk through. I audition with Arabella now, and it’s perfect for me. It feels great, it’s a new chapter, I’m mid-30s, so I’m entering a new era of what my voice can do, which has been really exciting.

I’m not leaving the Mozart roles behind. I just did a Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito) and an Elettra (Idomeneo). I’m singing more of the dramatic Mozart heroines, which I absolutely love. They’re so interesting, because they’re so crazy. I can relate to them. Yeah, I know: That I can relate to roles like Elettra is scary. I don’t know what that says about me!

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or Twitter (@phorsleycritic).