Richard McComb talks to American soprano Sarah Coburn about stage fright, divas and becoming a 'mom'.

The last time I saw Sarah Coburn she was kidnapped, raped and murdered, so I’m not sure what to expect.

All things considered, she might not be looking her best for our 10am appointment. Of course, when I say “her” I mean Gilda, the tragic principal role Sarah is playing in Verdi’s Rigoletto.

The previous day I watched the American soprano put herself through the emotional gamut at the final dress rehearsal, transforming before our eyes from an innocent, loving daughter to a betrayed lover, taking a hitman’s bullet in the last scene.

That’s got to take its toll and I’ve heard about opera stars, the diva antics, the total immersion in the role, the blurring between fact and fiction. So when she makes her entrance on the office floor where we are meeting at the Wales Millennium Centre, the home of Welsh National Opera (WNO), what I hear first is unexpected: it is laughter. Sarah is trilling away. It pretty much stays that way for our half-hour interview.

She’s petite but she ain’t a wallflower. Later, she confides: “I’ve always been loud. I used to get in trouble at school for speaking too loudly.”

Sarah smiles warmly, forgives my limited operatic knowledge, sends herself up, apologises for being “nerdy” when we touch on vocal technique. She tells a Radio 3 journalist, armed with a very big microphone, that he’ll have to wait his turn “because we’re having such fun”.

To paraphrase Renée Zellweger in Jerry Maguire, Sarah Coburn had me at ‘hello’.

I tell her I’m new to the formalities of opera. “Oh, please, we’re very informal. I’m an American!” says Sarah.

“Can I ask how old you are? Or is that un-opera?”

“Of course! I’m 32.”

“You’re young,” I say. Because she is.

“Well, thank you. Ha, ha, ha ... It’s all relative.”

Rigoletto is playing at Birmingham Hippodrome for two nights, the final performance on Friday. The role of Gilda requires operatic leaps of disbelief. In brief, the young virgin, a virtual recluse in her home, falls head over heels for an over-sexed duke (who employs her father, Rigoletto, as a jester).

The aristocrat, who masquerades as a student, betrays Gilda’s constancy and, egged on by his courtiers, rapes her. Charming fellow. Despite this, tragic Gilda is prepared to die to save the life of the repugnant duke.

It’s all slightly bonkers but Sarah’s singing is beautiful. The plot may shame the worst excesses of Dallas – the action, incidentally, is set in JFK-era Washington – but you cannot fail to be deeply moved. And that, I guess, is the ultimate vindication.

It is startling to learn Sarah’s gorgeous voice might never have been heard outside her family home in Oklahoma. She used to play operatic music as a child. “I would make up my own operas with my Barbie dolls. They would perform and I would videotape them. I would make up foreign languages for them,” confesses Sarah, again in giggles.

She did a degree in music education, sang arias and learned the repertoire but planned a career in teaching or choral conducting. “I didn’t consider myself worthy of having a career in opera. It’s a scary thing to pursue.”

But during undergraduate studies, a voice teacher encouraged her operatic talent and Sarah applied to numerous graduate schools and conservatories. “I was pretty much rejected by everyone I applied to. I guess they didn’t like my voice, or I wasn’t ready. I had quite a bit of stage fright so I probably portrayed myself as a nervous Nelly.”

Her decision to attend Oklahoma City University was the making of her. She learnt her craft in front of audience.

“I had to just jump in and learn,” she recalls.

This cannot have been easy for a young woman prone to stage fright. “It’s one of those things people struggle with a lot and you don’t really hear about it.

‘‘But I am honest about it,” says Sarah. She had it bad, the breathlessness, the shaking.

“It’s mostly a mental torture but the physical manifestations of stage fright are pretty awful. Crippling. Your breath is undermined. You are in big trouble when you are singing.”

The soprano still gets butterflies, but says becoming a mother has helped her to cope. Her daughter, Katie Rose, is ten months old. They have been on the road together since the autumn, assisted by a nanny. Sarah was back performing just five weeks after giving birth. I wonder how she juggles the sapping professional demands of being a principal with never-ending commitments of motherhood.

“I have no idea. It’s crazy, it really is,” she says. Her husband, Chris Rothermel, a computer consultant for Oracle, comes over from the States to visit them as often as he can.

“He was here for a week just last week. But it’s a crazy balance trying to have a home, be a wife, be a mother, be on the road, because I love it all. But at this point, my first job is mom.”

Then she corrects herself and in her best English accent says: “Mum.”

Being mum has helped to quieten the screaming psychological demons which wreak havoc before curtain up. Having Katie Rose has put performance in perspective. Sarah talks about the need to “live in the moment” and appreciate the brevity of life.

“If it’s not going to be fun, it’s not worth doing as a career,” she says. “Also, I don’t live and die on the success or failures of the night. I live for going and seeing a little, funny, toothy grin. I am thankful that there is something else to go home to besides my vocal narcissism.”

Sarah gets up early with the baby. “It’s good for me to keep my voice high in the morning and try to warm up a little,” she explains.

Sarah performs her gentle vocal noodling around the house: “It’s so annoying! My poor husband. My baby mimics me and she goes ‘Na. Na. Na. Na. Na.’ She’s a parrot.”

Her voice, she says, has become darker and warmer post-childbirth. “A lot of people say that after having a baby your voice deepens a little. Which is fine by me.”

And she’s laughing again. “You’re more of a woman. Not a girl any more.”

A woman then, but not a diva. No, siree.

“Oh, barf. That diva stuff is going by the wayside. I think it is unnecessary. If you are feeling confident about your performance, you can be friendly and open and low maintenance.’’

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