Diva. The word conjures up a handful of vivid, sometimes contradictory images: Maria Callas performing Tosca to an enthralled audience at La Scala in 1953; Renatta Tebaldi, scarf around her neck, speaking in raspy tones of another world, reclining on what must be a throne; or the dismissal of the temperamental Kathleen Battle from The Metropolitan Opera.
They all share one common thread: They are all christened with the title “diva.” Yet each of them engraves their own handprint onto that label. They mold and shape the term to fit their own unique personality, their own way of shaping the music, living the music, being the music. Some are applauded for their grace and style. Others are condemned for their snobbery and haughtiness. Whatever the public’s reaction, it is always one of passion as they respond to the ever changing, ever progressing description of what it means to be a “diva.”
In flip-flops, a long flowing skirt and a tank top, Diva Judith Barnes glides into the room. Her dark auburn hair cascades down her back, settling there until she raises her hand to flip it to the right, changing the tilt of her head.
“Should we go over the Italian first?” she asks, sitting down on the piano bench, knees apart under her far-reaching skirt. The atmosphere is relaxed. It’s a chorus rehearsal for Mozart’s Idomeneo, the company’s biggest endeavor to date, still two mouths away. The chorus begins. “Nettuno s’onori….”
Judith is the founder and lead soprano of Brooklyn’s Vertical Player Repertory, an opera company established in 1998. To date, the company has performed 12 full operas along with numerous other recitals and evenings of song. Vertical Player Repertory performs in Judith’s warehouse-gone-apartment-gone-stage, which accommodates about 60 audience members, a piano, a conductor and the maximum (thus far) of a 26-member ensemble. The space is (to say the least) an atypical choice for a stage—but that has not stopped Judith from transforming it into the island of Crete, the battlefields of Italy or the depths of Hades.
The daughter of a filmmaker and a violinist, Judith was born in London and spent the first few years of her life in Rome. She was always surrounded by classical music but didn’t catch the opera bug until later.
“I remember at one point as a child coming to the conclusion that opera was the greatest art form because it combined music, visual arts, theater, dance and literature,” she recalls. “But when I listened to an opera after coming to that conclusion, I was disappointed.”
A sculptor by trade, Judith’s lifelong dreams had nothing to do with building her own Brooklyn opera company. The project was not a carefully thought out, hard to obtain goal. It wasn’t even a backup plan.
“It was just fun!” Judith exclaims, thinking back five years ago to the company’s first performance of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice. She and her singer friends had decided to make the most of the big old warehouse that also serves as her apartment. The performance was by invitation only, sent to more than 40 friends and suggesting a donation. The total cost to produce the opera was about $1,000.
The crowd’s reaction to Orphée that spring evening was so positive that Judith realized she had stumbled onto a good thing. With no business background, however, she was unsure of how to proceed.
“I felt that I would have to catch up and learn about the aspect of things,” she says.
Luck, as it seemed to be throughout her opera company beginnings, was on her side. One of the Orphée choristers, Jill Reinier, ran her own non-profit company, Flying Bridge Community Arts, and offered to help Judith work out the logistics. Her first step would be to raise money.
“I felt so awkward asking people for money,” Judith remembers. “I definitely had to get over that.”
One mass mailing later that had nearly a 20 percent reply rate, and an opera company was born.
Judith sits across the round table in the courtyard behind her favorite Smith Street coffee shop. Her big thick glasses—which would look funny on anyone else—sit comfortably in front of her bright blue eyes. Her previous job titles include cabinetmaker and conga maker as well as sculptor.
“I loved making drums.” she confides.
When she followed her husband to Indiana 13 years ago she decided to add “singer” to her list of titles. She applied to just one prestigious undergrad program: the Indiana University School of Music. Just like that. No previous experience. No knowledge of the school. No idea about the new journey on which she would be embarking.
“They gave me a scholarship!” she says with a laugh.
Judith went on to sing such roles as Orlofsky, Mercedes, La Frugola, and Bianca in Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy, among many others. She appeared on both the main stage and in smaller productions, sometimes premiering new works. She wasn’t the typical diva, with the scarf and the water bottle, and she was singing dramatic mezzo repertoire, nonetheless she had stumbled across a new title, “diva.”
The Vertical Player Repertory is now in its fifth year and Judith is looking towards the future. She wants to preserve the charm of the company that so pleases her sold-out audiences, but also wants to expand the company and possibly move it to a bigger space.
As we walk down her tree-lined Brooklyn neighborhood, she spots a painting leaning against a tree. The product of some unknown artist’s sweat and tears is now another’s trash. Judith picks it up and tucks it under her arm.
“To add to my collection of stuff,” she laughs.
Here is a new kind of diva, no pomp and circumstance. Judith seeks out performers who realize this. Her company has (literally) no room for that: No grand, tiered theater; no red, fluffy curtains; not even a balcony. Yet audiences keep coming back for more. Perhaps it is an accessibility to opera that audiences don’t find at other theaters. Or perhaps it is something else entirely. Perhaps it is the new type of diva that is Judith: unassuming, colorful, intellectual, even a little insecure.
It’s the first Friday performance of Idomeneo. It will be a full house. Judith sits on her bed trying to get a little time and space to herself as the cast scurries around her apartment.
“I can’t do this” the voices start in her head. “This opera is too big, too long; too unwieldy,” they continue.
When Judith decided to undertake this opera, she didn’t realize the extent of the Elettra role. But as she puts on the final touches of make-up and looks in the mirror, out comes Elettra—and away go the voices. For now, tonight, her title is “diva.”
