Real divas don't doubt themselves

Director Laura Roald is pleased things are going so smoothly as she prepares for the opening night of Quebec playwright Simon Fortin’s The Country in Her Throat. Things have gone so well, in fact, that Roald is beginning to wonder what she’s done wrong, what detail she’s overlooked.

Such moments of self-doubt would seem foreign to Emma Albani, the play’s central character and Canada’s first true diva. The Quebec singer left Canada when she was just 16 and, at a time when recorded music didn’t exist, managed to earn such a stellar reputation that more than 10,000 fans gathered at a train station, in the cold, to celebrate her return to Montreal a decade later. The play, Roald’s MFA-directing thesis, offers a new look at the making of a celebrity.

Albani graduated from the church-hall circuit and made her debut at the prestigious Covent Garden opera house in London in 1872. For the next 30 years, she was one of the best-known artists in the world. “At the time, this was top-40 music, says Roald. “I make the comparison sometimes to Celine Dion.”

Emma’s father Joseph, a single parent, began instructing Emma in music when she was just four. Convinced his daughter was destined for greater things, Joseph moved the family to Albany, New York. A music teacher and choral conductor, Albani’s father also instructed her sister, Cornelia, who became Emma’s accompanist, and her brother, who became a pianist. In the play, Emma’s story is told through Cornelia’s eyes.

“The major question I ask in the play is, ‘What would you give up for success -- what would you sacrifice for the idea of art?’ ”

Roald’s own family has struggled with the question. Her mother, Donna, stage manages for a handful of small theatre companies in Vancouver. Her father, Glen, is a character actor who makes frequent appearances in television and film productions. Her brother, Trevor, is also an actor. “My Dad has done the X-Files, my brother has done the X-Files -- he’s a heart-throb. And my sister is the black sheep of the family -- she’s an accountant.”

Like Albani, Roald was passionate about art at a relatively young age.

“When I was very young, I knew I was going to be a director. I was stage managing when I was 12 and directed my first play when I was 16,” she explains. “We had one year when I was in high school when my father was playing Scrooge, I was one of Cratchit’s daughters, my sister was the Ghost of Christmas Past, my brother was Tiny Tim and my mother was helping with costume design. During the month of December that year, from Dec. 1 until Dec. 26, we spent 18 days at the theatre. My mom loved it because we were all together for a change.”

So Roald knows a thing or two about the sacrifices one inevitably makes for a career in the arts. Her parents have full-time careers away from the arts, providing financial stability and security -- something that takes years for full-time artists to gain. Roald’s brother is reconsidering acting, for that very reason. “He is at the point where he is looking at me and saying, ‘I don’t know -- I want to be able to make my rent.’ ”

What makes the director’s own experience any different from the hardships someone like Albani endured? “The difference is that no one was putting me through stage managing courses for six hours a day when I was four,” Roald explains. “But I do see myself in both Emma and Cornelia, and I think that’s probably one of the things that attracted me to this play.”

Working on the production has also forced Roald to ponder connotations of the label ‘diva.’ She sees two sides to the issue: on one hand, tenacious drive is necessary to succeed on stage. And Albani did succeed: she appeared in more than 43 roles in 40 operas, became a favourite of Queen Victoria and ended the Victorian era by singing at the monarch’s funeral. But Roald says investing so much into one’s career creates an imbalance.

“I think that wearing blinders, keeping your eyes on the prize to the exclusion of all else, is harmful. Divas don’t doubt. Divas don’t question. It isn’t just that there is no room for failure, it’s that it can’t exist.”

And as Roald prepares for a life in the arts, feeling a little nagging doubt about what might go wrong on opening night, she feels the lessons inherent in The Country in Her Throat will support her well. In the course of her studies this year, Roald and classmates met with Canadian stage star Martha Henry and found her to be a warm, down-to-earth woman.

“She questions herself. She has doubts, but it’s okay to say, ‘what if I don’t know what I’m doing?’ or ‘what if I don’t know what I am talking about?’ It’s okay to question yourself. That is one of the greatest things I’ve learned at the U of A.”

The Country in Her Throat, which also features set and costume design by MFA candidate Annette Nieukerk, runs until May 26 at the Timms Centre for the Arts (112 Street north of 87 Ave.) For information call 492-2495