(Photo by William Struhs)

The brilliant soprano Elizabeth Futral recently talked to The New York Times’ Cori Ellison about what it takes to play Émilie du Châtelet in Kaija Saariaho’s opera, which is simply entitled Émilie:

“It demands everything I have: mental and emotional focus, physical and vocal endurance. But it’s such a fascinating character, such a beautiful score and text, I felt I had to try it, even though it was written for a very different artist.”

Émilie will be performed at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater tonight through Sunday as part of this year’s Lincoln Center Festival.

In Emilie, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho has created a modern tour de force of live music and electronic effects, speech and arching melodies, all to be sung in a 75-minute performance by soprano Elizabeth Futral. When the work premiered last summer at the Spoleto Festival, Futral, Saariaho, and director Marianne Weems all spoke about the production with local radio WDAV. Listen to the audio recordings of those interviews in preparation for the July 19-22 performances at the Lincoln Center Festival. 

JUST ANNOUNCED: Lincoln Center Festival 2012!

Highlights include:

- The return of the Paris Opera Ballet to NYC after a 16-year absence, dancing three programs

- Mikhail Baryshnikov in a new play, In Paris

- The Sydney Theatre Company’s acclaimed Uncle Vanya

- Alan Cumming in the National Theatre of Scotland’s one-person Macbeth

- DruidMurphy, a play cycle staged by Garry Hynes for the Druid Theatre Company

- A tribute concert celebrating the music of Curtis Mayfield

- China’s TAO Dance Theater with new works

- Émilie, an opera by Kaija Saariaho and Amin Malouf, starring Elizabeth Futral

- Feng Yi Teng, a chamber opera by Guo Wenjing, directed by Atom Egoyan

…and MUCH more! (Read the entire press release here.)