Baird's childhood and adolescence couldn't have been more precisely engineered for a career in opera. Her parents were both singers — her mother a pianist and her father a voice teacher — and she and her siblings were immersed in music. If they were not listening, they were participating. Baird also credits the strong city music-education system of her youth for her lasting ardor. "I had piano lessons from the age of five, and in my elementary school I even received free violin lessons. At twelve I changed to flute, which I studied seriously through college, and which gave me an appreciation for chamber music. I sang in public for the first time at around the age of six. Later on I sang in choruses and played in school and all-city youth orchestras." 

At seventeen, Baird began serious vocal study with her father, which continued through college, where she also studied Italian, German and Spanish. Her interests then led the ambitious young singer across the Atlantic to their source. "Hearing German and Italian music [performed] by German, Austrian and Italian opera singers and orchestras deepened my understanding of the music." Baird started in Perugia, moved on to Vienna and landed finally in Germany, where she resides, and where she met her husband, director Lothar Körfgen. Baird's keen interest in language has provided access to material she considers key to her characterizations. "I am able to read the journals and the notes of the composers in their own words, not translated by someone else." And although she returns to a few select coaches whom she has "known for many years, and whose ears I trust," Baird finds her most reliable and objective voice teacher to be "Professor Walkman — in other words, I record myself during rehearsals and am able to make corrections." 

Baird was initially pegged as a mezzo-soprano, but after just two seasons singing Amneris, Geschwitz, Santuzza and Eboli, she found that her voice "wanted to go up. Dramatic voices develop later. When you're a lyric coloratura, you know that at twenty-one. It's very clear. But people underestimate the stamina. It's not just singing some lyric roles and then trying the dramatic roles. It's a big step. I'm a naturally cautious person. I'm brave," she laughs, "when I'm absolutely sure of what I'm doing." 

The push toward Wagner was hatched by Birgit Nilsson and realized with the help of Baird's mentor, Astrid Varnay. "I had so many fantastic discussions with her. She was a good friend, and she was always very frank with me. She shared her experiences in Bayreuth with Wieland Wagner, who placed an enormous emphasis on conveying the meanings of his grandfather's text. Richard Wagner created a personal, historic, poetic language, which takes time and thought to really grasp. Astrid and I worked very [hard at penetrating] this complicated and deep language." 

"What is wonderful with Wagner is that you're given an incredible amount of background information about the characters," says director Robert Carsen, who worked with Baird in the 2006 Venice premiere of his post-apocalyptic vision of Die Walküre. "She was very happy for every suggestion — not just about 'go here, go there,' but the psychological construction of the character. She's a very responsive actress [who] manages to make those extreme sounds, those extreme vocal demands seem psychologically motivated, and not just what Hofmannsthal famously called 'Wagnerian erotic screaming.' She actually brings all that off, and the whole thing is coupled with a completely believable and rather mesmerizing physical presence, which makes the predicaments of so many of these young, confused people… I mean, that's what Brünnhilde is: she doesn't understand what's going on with her father, she doesn't understand why the values that she's been brought up with have been betrayed." 

Baird picks up the thread: "By the end of Götterdämmerung, Brünnhilde has had time to process what has gone on with her life. Of course, there is great regret. She realizes that she was manipulated, but she's beyond it at that point. It's very heartbreaking, actually. I think, unfortunately, much of it is lost, because what she goes through happens offstage. She comes back for the immolation scene after having digested that, so you're seeing someone who's already gone through the emotional process and has made the decision to kill herself. She's definitely heartbroken. To me, Brünnhilde is a very emotional person. I don't understand why people see only the exterior and not her interior life. It's all there in the music and the text. She loves her father, she trusts him, and in Die Walküre she's totally convinced that he is going to forgive her." 

 

As Turandot in Athens, 2008 © Stefanos 2009