My private place of peace is my apartment in Berlin-Charlottenburg – not very exotic but the place I call home at the moment. I’ve been here about eighteen months now and it’s the place I feel most at home. I travel around a lot as a singer, meeting people and getting to know new opera houses, new cities, new cultures even. It’s a part of my work that’s exciting and interesting and I value it a lot, but it also feels good knowing there’s a place where I feel properly secure and grounded. And that’s my flat. Wherever I am and however lovely that place might be, I always look forward to coming home.

I like sitting in the kitchen in the morning, looking out into the leafy courtyard while I sip my coffee, just lazing and ruminating. Or I could be relaxing on my blue sofa. I like cossetting myself, making pots of tea, listening to jazz or opera, watching a film, that kind of thing. As soon as I’m settled on the sofa Flocky and Fanny abandon their cat tree and jump up for a cuddle. They’re around two years old and they’re sooo cute. I got them as a pair when I moved in here with my boyfriend and they became an integral part of the home. I’ve loved cats since I was a child. There are a lot of stray cats in Uzbekistan, where I come from. They’re everywhere you look. When I was small, my mum and me used to bring kittens home and pep them up a bit. Some of them hung around for a while before moving on.

During Covid lockdowns Sabirova spent a lot of time practising at home. Since then her tomcat Flocky has been »singing« too – sometimes all night long © Max Zerrahn 

 

My mother adores cats as much as I do, if not more. She’s got five or six under her roof right now. These two will do me fine. They’re kind of like a pair of batteries to me, the way I use them to recharge my energy reserves. Cats seem to have that power. When you’re tired or a bit down, you’ve only got to cuddle up to them and it’s an immediate pick-me-up. And they make me laugh, too. Like, they’ve got this funny habit of being …well …copycats, of singing along with me. Or rather Flocky sings, trilling along quite loudly, sometimes all night. I’m guessing it was his response to the umpteen lockdowns we had during Covid. I couldn’t go in to practice, so I did a lot of singing at home, mostly in the living room. Flocky and Fanny used to serve as my audience, sitting there watching me quietly – and then one day, all of a sudden, Flocky chimed in at the top of his voice. It was a very unusual situation, because I don’t normally practice at home.

Obviously I do my preparation, studying the lyrics and the subtext, looking at the musical forms and lines and the emotion involved in my part. I do all that before I even open my mouth. It’s important to get a feel of the colours so that your performance comes across as fully credible. I do all that at home on the sofa. For the actual practising I usually go over to the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

And that’s another huge plus of my flat, because it’s just round the corner. I only have to stagger out of my living room and a moment later I’m in the practice room. I love being so close by. For one thing, it preserves my link to the music and maintains my live connection to the space. There’s no real dividing line between home and work space. Secondly, I get this sense of taking the cosiness of my flat with me into the opera like a warm coat and scarf. The Deutsche Oper is like a musical home to me anyway. My roots as a singer are here. I came here as a grant recipient fresh from my studies, after which I was taken on as a full member of the ensemble. It was my very first contract. A new life was opening up for me and I found it hard to get my head around that in the beginning. I cut my teeth here, which is why I feel so at home here. It may sound a bit fanciful, but the walls of this opera house radiate a warmth. When I’m singing here, it’s almost like I’m singing in my own living room.

Sabirova’s pets are a calming influence. »They’re like a pair of batteries to me, the way I use them to recharge my energy reserves«, says the soprano © Max Zerrahn

 

For my role as Leonora in LA FORZA DEL DESTINO that’s a big advantage. The work and my part in it are a milestone for me, a big leap into new territory, and I’m really grateful to be taking this step in a place I consider my home and be able to feel my way in such familiar surroundings. It’s a fantastic work and utterly tragic: a freak accident ruins the lives of two young lovers who want nothing more than to be together – instead of which they’re forced to spend their lives on the run. The role is a demanding one and it’s great to be the one who has to measure up. The score chops and changes and it calls for voices that can range the breadth of the colour spectrum. It’s the music that grabs me above all: it’s a distillation of beauty in the form of musical notes. Which is why the work has lost none of its ability to convey what the two main protagonists are feeling, even though the world we live in and the lives we lead and our approach to love and relationships have changed beyond recognition. The music stirs emotions within us that are timeless. That’s what makes it immortal.