KEY POINTS:
Tonight Margaret Medlyn takes the Aotea Centre stage as the icy heroine of Puccini's final opera, Turandot.
This is a soprano who doesn't shirk from the big sings. Auckland thrilled to her Tosca a few years ago and, in 2006, she was a memorable Judith in Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle.
The role of the merciless Chinese princess is at the core of the Puccini opera. Turandot may sing for less than half an hour, but it is this implacable creature who executes suitor after suitor when they cannot solve her riddles, causes the suicide of the slave girl Liu and who, we assume, eventually capitulates to Calaf, the handsome prince with the answers.
You can feel the crackling energy when Medlyn talks about her upcoming role.
"I'm not good at standing and singing," she laughs, "and some Turandots just stand and shriek their heads off. She is not just a one-dimensional character.
"I understand completely why Turandot is what she is and why she is doing what she does. She wants to get off the treadmill but she still wants to enjoy the power that she has."
Medlyn is interested in going back and trying to find out what created her character's obsession.
"Was she insecure herself? Or has she been abused? We know that these sorts of actions often grow from some abuse of trust."
Musically, too, Turandot is a challenge. A few weeks ago in Wellington, Medlyn was the star of the NZSO's Wagner concert and she quips: "If I could go out and sing Wagner's Liebestod from cold, which was pretty scary, then singing Turandot's In questa reggia should be a piece of cake."
The truth is that the role is one of the great asks for any soprano. "It's only 24 minutes singing," she explains, "but it's loud and high."
Although she is happy her voice has become "bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger with every year", she is still careful to warm up with Verdi arias which are "oil for the voice". Maria Callas once warned about the damage indiscriminate Puccini singing can do to the voice.
"Puccini connects straight to your emotions on a fairly obvious level and the temptation when you're singing is to let it all hang out and make an unprotected vocal sound," says Medlyn. "I have to be careful to make it vocally protected because, when I get on stage, theatre calls."
Many operatic composers have been aware of the limitations of a beautiful voice and Medlyn wholeheartedly agrees.
"A beautiful voice can be boring. Is that all there is? Of course, there should be beauty, but there should also be thrilling moments.
"If people are just judging by the pretty sounds then they miss the point at times."
Asked to turn her focus to roles, she points out the danger of playing Salome "like a spoilt child" and would desperately like to do Strauss' Elektra because "it's a heartfelt story and more accessible" than Salome.
In the meantime, she is presiding over American director Christopher Alden's dark vision of Puccini's final masterpiece.
"It's a production which really does reference and make connections which I think are important.
"Generally, opera is about emotion that is universal emotion.
"Turandot is a fantastic release for me and the audience and a chance to be subsumed by the text and, of course, Puccini's music."
