Award-winning soprano back with Lyric for debut in 'La Boheme'

Back "home" with an opera company she loves, American soprano Nicole Cabell is taking her recent worldwide celebrity in stride.

Cabell, a 2005 alumna of the Lyric's Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, made worldwide headlines a few weeks later when she won the 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in Wales.

It's been a whirlwind since then, with an award-winning debut CD released this spring on the Decca label titled, appropriately, "Soprano," along with Cabell receiving offers from opera companies and concert managements in America and abroad.

Now, the Ventura, Calif., native is back at the Lyric in her first headline role: Musetta in Giacomo Puccini's "La Boheme," which opened its 10-performance run earlier this week.

Cabell has her interpretation of the role of the Parisian courtesan well-refined after recently performing it at the Santa Fe Opera and Washington Opera.

"I really believe the character of Musetta can be taken so many different ways," Cabell said. "In the beginning, I sort of used to play her as more sultry, but now it's gotten to the point where she is a much more fiery character. It has very much to do with the director; what the show is like and what the setting and time period of the production is like."

Yet Cabell realizes Musetta, although a crucial role, must take a dramatic back seat to the tragic love story between Mimi and Rodolfo, portrayed by Elaine Alvarez and Roberto Aronica in the October portion of the Lyric's revival of its Pier Luigi Pizzi-designed production.

"I don't think Musetta can steal the show from Mimi and Rodolfo, but Act 2 (set in Paris' Café Momus) is her act," Cabell said.

Cabell remembers fondly her first experience in a full Lyric Opera production as a student member of the Ryan Center.

"I had the role of Crobyle in 'Thais.' There's a small scene, and Lauren McNeese and I were two slave girls who sang a duet together," she said. "It was, of course, a small debut, but it was an opportunity to perform with Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson, and that was a dream come true."

Cabell entered the Cardiff competition with no preconceived notions. Unlike most instrumental contests, which award several medals, this triennial event has only one prize. Former winners include Karita Mattila, Bryn Terfel and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the latter portraying the title role in "Eugene Onegin" at the Lyric in March.

"When you're about to actually go onstage, you have a moment of 'Yes, I'm going to conquer this thing, I'm going to win it,' but I never, ever would have guessed that I would actually win it," she said. "I just wanted to make a good impression and leave without making a fool out of myself."

Cabell received the crystal trophy from Dame Joan Sutherland, every soprano's ultimate role model, and fortunately, executives from Decca were in attendance. Unlike many competitions, which include a recording deal as one of the prizes, Cabell's debut CD, conducted by Lyric Opera music director Sir Andrew Davis with the London Philharmonic, came about entirely on its own.

"I was very lucky that they signed me," Cabell said. "They were telling me that they might have signed me even if I didn't win."

The CD includes several of the pieces she sang in the competition, including Teresa's big aria from Hector Berlioz's opera "Benvenuto Cellini," which many feel was the clincher in the competition finals. Other pieces from the competition include arias by Vincenzo Bellini, Sir Michael Tippett and Gian Carlo Menotti.

"Soprano" received the Georg Solti Prize at the Academie du Disque Lyrique ceremony held May 2 at the Bastille Opera in Paris.

Cabell, who plans to make her second CD later this year, is managing her career as should anyone still in her late 20s -- with great care.

"I have received offers that I've turned down because the role wasn't right, or the location wasn't right, or it was too demanding at the time," she said. "I just basically want to take things easy, because it's not that I can't sing certain things, but it's mainly a question of experience, just basically getting acting experience, stage experience, along with experience singing longer roles."