My favourite spot for ‘me’ time is the Ristorante Galleria in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, across the way from La Scala. Not that the Galleria is free of tourists or that the restaurant is an insider tip. But for me it’s a temporary home and the nicest, most human manifestation of opera life.

We singers live out of suitcases, come in to land, put in full working days, appear on stage in the evening, fizzing with adrenalin, and when the curtain falls, we seek out a place where we can reconnect with ourselves. In Milan the Galleria does that for me. When there’s an opera on at the Scala, the restaurant stays open late to cater to audience and artists, to anyone looking to decompress after all the excitement.

The walls of the restaurant speak volumes, plastered with photographs of great singers, autographs, posters advertising performances. I adore this kind of place: old, very Italian, a bit coquettish – and the restaurant is steeped in a passion for opera, not simply buffed up by oblique association. Now, from my corner table, I can see my own signed photo on the wall – a kind of out-of-body experience. I’ve been coming here for ten years. First time was as a student from Moscow at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala. I was walking past and thought: that joint looks a bit special. It was the first place where I ate out in Milan. I couldn’t know that I would be back time and time again and be recognised and greeted and looked after by the very same people I first met all those years ago.

Italy means a lot to me. My voice and repertoire and musical language are closely tied to Italian culture. My international journey began with the Rossini Opera Festival and I feel totally at home in the language, the music and the food. My favourite dish there is their osso buco with risotto alla Milanese. My mouth is watering weeks in advance. Eating well and sleeping well: two of the prerequisites for me to sing well.

When my time in Italy was at an end the Deutsche Oper Berlin became my new home. I joined the ensemble in 2017. It’s hugely important as a young singer for an opera house to believe in you. Which is why my return here to appear in Händel’s GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO is an emotive event for me. It’s my debut in this amazing role and also the final major opera project by director Christoph Seuferle, one of the people who have had a major influence on my trajectory and to whom I owe so much.

Vasilisa Berzhanskaya in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where her favourite restaurant is located © Isabella De Maddalena

 

Giulio Cesare is a breeches role, quite a departure for me seeing as I like to present as a woman on stage, with all the allure of a woman. When I’m singing a male role, I don’t even attempt to imitate a man, which in my mind would be the wrong tack to take.

I try to capture not a man’s body language but the inner logic of the character. Cesare is a historical personage, an iconic figure, political to his fingertips, a ruler whom we all think we understand. Precisely for that reason it’s important not to play him as a caricature. I find my slant by studying his attitudes, his energy, his relationship to the other characters. No one is so lost in my performance that they’re seeing a man – my voice is female. The main thing is that the character I’m portraying is believable.

Credibility in baroque opera comes from the music. This is due in no small part to the da capo aria, a key form of aria in the baroque era. At first glance it appears quite severe in its constituent parts - a first section, a contrasting middle section and a return to the initial component – yet the singer is given a lot of leeway to alter, adorn and re-imagine in the revisited A section. I spend a lot of time planning my embellishments, noting them down, testing them with coaches and directors, working on them like a composer. That way there’s room for improvisation in the rehearsals. This freedom within the bounds of the form is what I find so fascinating about baroque music.

And that may be exactly what my happy place gives me: a feeling of security mixed with openness. The certainty that a tradition is an open concourse, not a set of constraints.