Star sub: Met standout Angela Meade to sing 'Norma' for Palm Beach Opera

The life of an opera singer is often a perilous one because it relies on that most fragile of all vessels, the human body.

Palm Beach Opera faced that reality this week when Jessica Pratt, its star soprano for this weekend’s performances of Bellini’s bel canto epic, "Norma," had to cancel because of illness. But the company has been singularly fortunate in getting a substitute: Metropolitan Opera standout Angela Meade.

This past season, in fact, Meade saved the Met’s own production of the same opera in March 2023 when Sonya Yoncheva canceled. The online opera fanzine Parterre Box was effusive: Meade “absolutely triumphed, pulling out all the stops to deliver a commanding performance that should, indeed, go down in history.”

So rest easy, opera fans. She's got this.

“I’ve done it a lot,” Meade said of her to-the-rescue performances Wednesday in a phone chat after rehearsing her blocking for the Palm Beach Opera company. Indeed, she was studying at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia when she was tapped at the last minute in 2008 to sing Elvira in Verdi's "Ernani" at the Met when the billed soprano had to bow out.

"In that one I had no sleep and no notice, and it was my first professional role," she said.

It certainly worked out for her. Elvira is now one of her signature roles, and she's one of the opera world's top-tier sopranos.

Meade has sung "Norma" three times at the Met in 2013, 2017 and 2023, and has appeared in 80 performances overall at the New York City repertory house. She has also sung the opera at the Los Angeles and Washington National operas, plus theaters in Spain and Italy and the long-running Caramoor Festival in Katonah, N.Y.

"Norma," which premiered in Milan in 1831, is set in ancient Gaul, in about 50 B.C. Its title character, a Druid priestess, is being urged by her people to rebel against the Romans, who have invaded Gaul. But Norma's secret lover is Pollione, the Roman proconsul, and they have had two children together. Now, however, Pollione has fallen for another Druid, the virgin priestess Adalgisa, who reciprocates his affections.

"One ages and thinks differently about all the characters. I think we mature and see the world differently than we did," she said, adding that she first sang Bellini's heroine in 2010. "She becomes a much more human role with every time that I sing it. The jealousy, the angst about the children, the betrayal: It's all very human."

Meade and her husband have a newborn, a son named Henry, which deepens her understanding of Norma as a mother. And although the opera's setting is more than 2,000 years in the past, librettist Felice Romani's recasting of a contemporary French play touches on familiar tropes.

"The opera could be set today, that same situation. Man gets woman pregnant, woman has baby, man leaves woman for younger woman," Meade said. "It happens every day."

This opera is written in bel canto style, which was the dominant form of Italian opera in the early 19th century. "Bel canto" means "beautiful singing," and such operas were awash in memorable melody but also became showcases for the best singers of the day, performers who could sing the most difficult passages and also improvise virtuosic embellishments on the spot. The short-lived Vincenzo Bellini (he died at 34) is one of the three canonical composers of the bel canto style. Bellini is celebrated for his long-breathed melodies, and "Norma" is usually considered his finest work.

Norma's Act I aria,. "Casta diva," is one of the best-known examples of bel canto opera; the late American soprano Maria Callas was particularly revered for her interpretation of this aria (as well as the role, often judged to be her best). Meade said it was her "go-to aria" for vocal competitions and she's won prizes in an almost unheard-of 57 vocal contests, including winning the Richard Tucker and Beverly Sills awards at the Metropolitan Opera.

Palm Beach Opera audiences have seen Meade before. She won second prize in the much-missed Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition in 2008, and in 2011, was the soprano soloist in Verdi's "Requiem" when the company presented concerts in lieu of its then-standard December production. A native of Centralia, Wash., Meade earned degrees at the University of Southern California before moving on to the Academy of Vocal Arts and launching her career.

Coming back to Palm Beach Opera for these performances has gone smoothly so far — "I know all of them, I've worked with all of them," she said of her castmates. "It’s a very small world" — and the staging is "very traditional," so learning it for this production is not problematic.

Next season, Meade sings the role of Leonora in Verdi’s "Il Trovatore" at the Met, and later this season she’ll sing the challenging role of the title princess in Puccini’s "Turandot" at the L.A. Opera and the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. Having just sung Chrysothemis in Richard Strauss' "Elektra" at Dallas Opera in February, Meade is eager to sing "some more Strauss and early Wagner." This September, she sings a rarity, Schoenberg's monodrama "Erwartung," at Teatro Fenice in Venice.

Opera companies have faced challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw most opera houses go dark during that time, though Palm Beach Opera bucked the trend by staging outdoor operas at the South Florida Fairgrounds.

"Post-COVID, it’s been difficult," she said. "In Europe, it's always going to be more part of the culture. But in America, it's harder to get people out of their houses. During COVID, people found they could just say home and watch whatever they wanted.

"We need a great marketing campaign to get people back in the seats in the opera house," Meade said.

For Palm Beach Opera, having Meade come in to do the "Norma" may prove to be a strong draw. The company last produced the work in the 2008-09 season.

“It has been 15 years since we presented ‘Norma,’ a timeless story of illicit love and devastating betrayal, which is filled with dramatic intensity and transcendent melodies,” acting General Director James Barbato said in a prepared statement. “With a cast of international stars, a spectacular set and creative team, and musical highlights that include the serene ‘Casta diva,’ this is sure to be a night at the opera that our audiences will cherish.”

Palm Beach Opera "double-casts" most of its operas. Meade will sing Norma on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. On Saturday night, Croatian soprano Marigona Qerkezi will sing the role for her first time in the U.S. Singing Adalgisa opposite Meade will be the American mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon; on Saturday night, the American mezzo Anne Marie Stanley will be heard in the role.

Singing Pollione on Friday night and Sunday afternoon is the Sicilian tenor Paolo Fanale; the role is sung Saturday night by the Mexican-American tenor Moíses Salazar, who was in the Palm Beach Opera Young Artist program in 2021 and 2021. The French bass Nicholas Testé sings the role of Oroveso, Norma's father, and two Young Artists, soprano Maria Vasilevskaya and tenor Devin Eatmon, sing the roles of Clotilde and Flavio, respectively.

Directing the action is Keturah Stickann, who directed Palm Beach Opera's "Turandot" in 2020. The music is directed by Italian conductor Carlo Montanaro, who led Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" during Palm Beach Opera's 2022-23 season.

Palm Beach Opera presents "Norma" at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday in Dreyfoos Hall at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Single tickets start at $25 and can be had at www.kravis.org (561-823-7469) or pbopera.org (561-833-7888).

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Soprano to the rescue: Meade to sing 'Norma' for Palm Beach Opera