Can real-life opera marriages survive?

Most opera devotees love love stories. If they didn't, how would they put up with a plot in which a woman dying of consumption manages to sing an ecstatic duet with her newly returned lover about how wonderful their life will be in Paris? Or a diva who jumps off a parapet when she finds out that her beloved was really killed when she thought he was just pretending?

The answer, of course, is the music, which can elevate the most ridiculous plot to sublimity.

There's added drama for singers and audiences alike when the onstage lovers are married in real life. The trials of Verdi's Violetta or Puccini's Tosca might seem like child's play next to the challenge of holding an operatic marriage together.

The distinguished German mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, after divorcing her Austrian bass-baritone husband Walter Berry, warned against the perils of singers marrying other singers. Leontyne Price, the first African-American to have achieved prima donna status at the Metropolitan Opera, and the magnetic baritone William Warfield, who met while touring in Porgy and Bess, also split; Warfield blamed career issues.

On the rocks

In the 1990s the sparks between the French/Italian tenor Roberto Alagna and the Romanian beauty Angela Gheorghiu— he recently widowed and she already married (to a plumber!)— almost set fire to the stage when they sang together at the Metropolitan Opera. After Gheorghiu divorced and the newly dubbed "love couple" tied the knot in 1996, the two had a fabulous 12-year-run. But by 2008, when they sang (very convincingly) La rondine, Puccini's touching story of an impossible love, their marriage was on the rocks. A messy separation ensued.

So is there any hope for a new successor twosome who appear to possess the requisite combination of great looks, fine acting and— most important— fabulous voices that blend well together? That would be 32-year-old lyric soprano Ailyn Pérez, Chicago-born of Mexican heritage, and her 30-year-old husband, tenor Stephen Costello, a native of northeast Philadelphia and of German/Irish heritage.

Ludicrous concept

The two artists appear this month in a new production of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, which the Opera Company of Philadelphia has moved from Renaissance Verona to modern times, with the warring Montague and Capulet families replaced by rival fashion houses— a ludicrous concept that's likely to test their careers if not their marriage.

Pérez is a marvel as Juliette, and Costello possesses a beautiful voice, although he sometimes pushes it and tends to scoop up to notes instead of hitting them square on. But the notion of two warring fashion houses was inappropriate, at times disgusting and generally preposterous.

One small example: Juliette swallows the sleep potion and "dies"; then a photographer takes flash photos of her body, while a bunch of guys thread through the audience holding newspapers and shouting, "Juliette, suicide! Juliet, suicide!"

AVA as a marriage magnet

Both Pérez and Costello are graduates of Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts, regarded by many as the world's finest vocal training school. It's also a magnet for marriage. Its administrative and artistic director, the baritone Kevin McDowell, has been married for many years to another graduate, the distinguished mezzo-soprano Suzanne DuPlantis. The school's master vocal coach, Danielle Orlando, is now married to one of her former students, the tenor Luis Lesdema. AVA's recent married graduates include an up-and-coming couple, the Turkish-born bass Burak Bilgili and Cuban-American soprano Eglise Gutiérrez.

Pérez and Costello met at AVA in 2003, graduated after four demanding years of study, and married in Philadelphia in 2008. To the surprise of no one who heard them in various AVA productions, their careers started to take off immediately after graduation.

Alongside Domingo

Pérez, a lyric soprano loved by audiences for her inner radiance combined with vocal luster, has sung alongside Placido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra at the Deutsche Staatsoper. At the popular St. Louis Opera Theatre's summer festival, she sang all four female leads in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann— no small feat. And she stepped in for none other than Angela Gheorghiu in La traviata at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

Costello, Costello, whose lyric tenor voice has been admired for its ringing timbre and intensity, took the role of Arturo in the Metropolitan Opera's 2009 opening night performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. He substituted for Rolando VillazÓ³n at the Vienna State Opera, singing Rodolfo in La bohème, made a big mark in the annual Salzburg summer festival as Cassio in Verdi's Otello, and took a major role in Dallas Opera's world premiere of Jake Heggie's opera Moby Dick.

Rare time together

The two artists say they relish productions in which they sing together, not only for the excitement of bringing offstage love onstage but because it enables them to send time together. One of the major problems for operatic married couples is that they typically sing in different companies, cities and even countries, so finding even a few days when they can hop a plane and meet is difficult.

Another issue is competition. Opera singers typically have healthy egos. What does a married couple do when one eclipses the other in popularity? And who's going to take care of the kids?

Costello and Pérez haven't faced many of these hurdles yet. They're young, in love, full of energy, and in equal demand as singers. And they aren't parents yet.

Home in…. Tennessee?

Perhaps more important, both clearly have their feet on the ground. They knew each other well before marrying, having undergone the same arduous training at AVA, and learned to accept the limitations that make a life in opera so difficult. They've kept the same moral values they were raised with and seem unaffected by their growing fame.

Recently, for instance, Pérez and Costello moved from Philadelphia to Tennessee— hardly a center for opera. Why? Because Pérez's family lives there. "When you're with family," she told me, "you're still the same people you were when you were growing up. And they don't treat you any differently."

At least a few operatic marriages provide inspiring role models. Consider the Italian soprano Mirella Freni and the Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, whose operatic characterizations, both separately and together, were unforgettable. Ghiaurov died in 2004 after 24 years of marriage, and a year later Freni at age 70 retired from the stage, having retained her vocal excellence for a half-century of performance. Subsequently she taught voice and created a foundation in her husband's name to help develop opera singers.

"The young people need me," she said. "With Nicolai dead, I am alone. It's only me."

Marriage and singing-- in Freni's case, at least, each fed the other.♦


To read another review of Roméo et Juliette by Robert Zaller, click here.
To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read a response, click here.