HIGH-FLYING SOPRANO DOWN-TO-EARTH : CUCCARO: HIGH-FLYING AND DOWN-TO-EARTH

“I’ve been singing Bach since I was 5 years old,” says Costanza Cuccaro, the American musician who sings the soprano solos in Bach’s “St. Matthew” Passion in Hollywood Bowl tonight with conductor Helmuth Rilling and his Oregon Bach Festival ensembles.

But she says so simply, without affectation or pretension. One of many American singers with a larger reputation in Europe--where she has sung from Aix to Zurich, and often at the Deutsche Oper in West Berlin--than in her homeland, Cuccaro (pronounced KOO-kar-oh) is fatalistic about the concept of “career.”

In a phone interview from Eugene, Ore., where she has spent the last two weeks performing at Rilling’s Northwest festival, Cuccaro talks freely about managers (she has had a “friendly parting” with her latest one), about conductors she has known and about her acknowledged excitement at a first appearance in Los Angeles.

Then she confesses, “I suddenly realized the other day that I’ve never really had any mentors. I’ve worked with many conductors and impresarios, but very few have actually helped me. Very few have actually been in my corner.

“Except two. Helmuth Rilling (who conducts the two Bach performances in the Bowl, tonight and Wednesday, in which Cuccaro appears), with whom I’ve now toured a lot, and Lotfi Mansouri, artistic director of Canadian Opera (in Toronto).”

Rilling, who discovered Cuccaro several years ago, included her on his East European tour in March; the soparano says she wasn’t free for his subsequent trip to Japan.

“But in September, I’m going with Rilling’s little Baroque company to South America. On the March trip--which I call the ‘Commie’ tour, because mostly what I remember is spending endless hours in airports, trying to get through passport control--we performed in Prague, Krakow, Leipzig, Dresden and Moscow. And, really, we did feel appreciated.”

With Canadian Opera, Cuccaro reveals, she now sings every other season.

“This spring I sang a new role there, that of Anne Trulove in ‘The Rake’s Progress.’ It turned out just as Lotfi had predicted--a wonderful role for me. He advised me to try it after I sang Pamina (in ‘Die Zauberfloete’) for him.”

An old acquaintance, one who heard Cuccaro’s first “Fille du Regiment” in Vancouver eight years ago, asks what direction her high voice seems to be taking these days.

“Actually, it’s still settling,” she answers, candidly.

“The range remains the same--a full three octaves. I call myself a lyric coloratura, and when I started out (about 15 years ago), there were very few of us. But now the market is flooded. I still sing Constanze (in “Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail”), Pamina, Gilda, Lucia.”

In Europe, Cuccaro says, she used to be considered an opera singer rather than a concert singer.

“Unlike what happens in this country, in Europe they don’t let you mix opera and concerts. Mr. Rilling has helped change that--for me, at least. Where my ratio used to be 30% concerts and 70% opera, I’m now singing about 50/50. In this Bach year alone, I’ve appeared 35 times with Mr. Rilling and his ensembles.”

Cuccaro says she and her husband, composer/pianist Edwin Penhorwood, continue to maintain two residences.

“First, the one in West Berlin. Actually, we’re trying to move to Frankfurt, to be closer to some of my work in Europe. And then our place in North Carolina, near where my family--who watch our house when we are gone, which is much of the time--lives.”