How a political US opera singer uses her art to bring people together
- Joyce DiDonato says that opera is a powerful weapon and can remind people of the effect their actions have on the world
- Kansas-born star will open Hong Kong’s Beare’s Premiere Music Festival with a performance of her album In War & Peace on January 16
Many artists like to keep politics and social commentary out of their performances to ensure that they do not offend members of the audience who disagree with their views. That’s not the case with American opera star Joyce DiDonato.
After the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris that left 130 dead – including 90 audience members attending a heavy metal concert – the mezzo-soprano decided that she could no longer avoid addressing issues she felt strongly about.
Moreover, DiDonato wanted to see if music, and her performances, were capable of changing the way that audiences felt about the world outside the concert hall.
“The general state of the world was something I felt I needed to address,” DiDonato says. “But it was the November 2015 attacks that prompted me directly. I was sitting at my piano preparing repertoire for my next recording, and I simply couldn’t find my way into a generic recording of Italian arias. I wanted to speak directly to the world around me, searching for a way to see if music really can affect the climate we live in.”
The singer was speaking in an interview ahead of her Hong Kong performance on January 16, which opens this year’s Beare’s Premiere Music Festival, formerly the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival.
