American Vision Profile

AMERICAN VISION PROFILE
Music Notes: Trills and Thrills from Soprano Dana Hanchard
By Joanne Harris

You don't necessarily have to know what tremolos and appoggiaturas are in order to appreciate the music of classical and opera singer Dana Hanchard, whose repertoire ranges from early baroque music to works of contemporary composers. You simply need to rely upon her dialogue of emotions, her charisma and her virtuosity.

Hanchard's roles of Tigrane in Handel's opera Radamisto, Asteria in Handel's opera Tamerlano, and, most recently, Euridice in Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice and Poppea in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea (the composer's last and opera's first genuine masterpiece, 1643) have won her high acclaim worldwide.

Her recordings, too, are consistently met with praise. Hers is the voice of Nerone in the 1996 Deutsche Grammaphon recording of L'lncoronazione di Poppea. She is also the voice of Tigrane in Radamisto (Harmonia Mundi USA, 1994) and Gwen St. Clair in Meredith Monk's Atlas (ECM, 1993). Early music singers sometimes reach too far in an effort to achieve the subtleties of baroque ornamentation, but Hanchard avoids excessive embellishment, balancing nuance, emotion and timbre—quite an accomplishment from a New York City girl who grew up listening to pianist Horace Silver and popular singers Nancy Wilson, Billie Holiday and Stevie Wonder. "I didn't initially think of singing Western classical music," says Hanchard. "It didn't have a place in me then. I always expected to perform the music I was first exposed to and loved, which was jazz and R&B."

As a teenager studying voice and composition at the Manhattan School of Music's preparatory division, she realized that a career in classical music was an option, so she continued her studies at the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School, graduating in 1989 with a master's degree in music. Since then, she has established a solid opera and concert career that still astonishes even her. "It's quite surprising to me to find myself in 17th- and 18th-century costumes, with a wig on my head, singing in a tongue that is not mine," she says. "But this music has found a strong place in me. I embrace this music and my work with it completely."