SOPRANO Tiffany Speight describes herself as a “Mozart-looking Barbie” in her latest NBR NZ Opera role as Romilda.
Speight can relate to her on-stage character - a strong, loyal yet cheeky woman.
“Romilda’s one of those characters. Someone said to me ‘she’s like a pink hot dog really’.
‘She has a lot of power but is quite scarily child-like and kind of violent too.”
In NZ Opera’s latest production Xerxes, with costumes designed by Trelise Cooper, Romilda is in love with the King’s younger, good-looking brother Arsamene but the King wants her, and her sister wants Arsamene too. The two brothers and sisters become rivals in love and comedy ensues.
“King Xerxes sings to his beloved tree – he’s in love with his trunk,” says Speight, laughing. “But then he decides the tree isn’t so friendly and that he wants Romilda because his brother likes her but he’s betrothed to someone else. Then the sister is causing trouble. It’s incredibly funny despite being written in the 1800s, and like normal families really.”
Speight was a dancer until her feet were damaged in a car accident when she was 14.
While she recovered, she auditioned for a chorus role but was told she was too good. The late Australian conductor Brian Stacey recognised her talent and suggested she get a singing teacher.
“I took it on as it was something to do but I never thought it would be a career.”
Years later, the well-known Australian soprano, who has played lead roles for both Opera Australia and Victorian State Opera, is singing in the St James. But her favourite singing spot is still in some “little old hall in some backwater somewhere”.
“At the St James it feels like I am singing in a bathroom acoustically. Sometimes big halls are all about the structure and never about the singing so often I go into a tiny hall – that’s more me actually – singing in sheds in the middle of nowhere. It brings out the intimacy of the human voice.”
Speight is in the middle of nowhere as we speak. She lives one hour out of Melbourne with her two-year-old daughter Isabella, husband, horse and two goats.
“It’s quite humbling. There have been many moments when the goats have nearly died and I’ve been standing out in my pyjamas wishing I was somewhere else, but it is great,” she says laughing. “I always sing as I’m working around the house. The neighbours hear me practice and when they see me in a gown on-stage they think it’s hilarious. I’m normally in gumboots.”
Xerxes, NBR NZ Opera, St James Theatre, March 15, 16, 18, 19.