Reluctant Diva Discovers Puccini on Film

“When I saw (the director) Jean-Jacques Beineix at Cannes recently, I told him if he wanted to start ‘Diva II,’ he could count me in.”

Barbara Hendricks, the American soprano, is speaking from her home in Switzerland. The subject is her first film, “La Boheme,” which is playing at the Westside Pavilion.

“Beineix actually offered me the lead in ‘Diva,’ ” the soprano explains, “but I turned it down. At the time, I was having my first successes in France, and I thought that the role might confuse my image there. Of course, I had no idea it would become a cult movie and a runaway hit internationally.”

Hendricks had never appeared in a professional performance of “Boheme” before making the film. She had sung the opera only in her student days, but began to think seriously about adding it to her repertory after recording Liu in “Turandot.”

She also liked the idea of working with James Conlon again. He had conducted the opera for her, as well as a Brahms Requiem, in their student days at Juilliard.

The recording was done in May, 1987, and work on the film began the next month in both Paris and Rome.

“I had never lip-synced before,” she laughs. “It was very difficult. We had a special coach to help us. It required such discipline. Also, there was a big danger that in such heavy concentration on the music our acting would become stiff during the filming.”

One interpretive departure in the film is that Mimi is made the aggressor at the beginning of her relationship with Rodolfo, choosing to land on his doorstep at just the right moment.

“I didn’t find the idea so strange,” she says. “Most Mimis appear half-dead at the beginning, but she is a passionate, alive human being. Just listen to her music. Rodolfo is much weaker. When she cries in the third act that she is going to die, she is crying because she realizes that she will probably die alone.”

Though she is pleased with the results, she says frankly, “If I earned as much money as Milken (Michael Milken the indicted Wall Street financier), I would have put it away as a rehearsal and then done it again. But now I love films and would even consider a part where no singing was involved.”

As for stage performances of “Boheme,” she wants to do them, but only under ideal circumstances. The Met and particularly the Zeffirelli production are much too big.

“I’d get lost here. My voice is not large, and it has to be in a theater where facial expression and acting can be noticed.”

When asked if she is planning to return to Los Angeles, where she sang in Carlo Maria Giulini’s “Falstaff” as well as orchestral programs with Zubin Mehta and Simon Rattle, she sighs.

“I’d like to, but it’s such a long way away. The ‘Falstaff’ was the perfect opera production of my life. Everyone was there for two whole months. Giulini was at every rehearsal and so was the complete cast. There was no running around to do outside dates.”

Hendrick’s curiosity and sense of purpose is not confined to music. In 1987 she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and visited Kuala Lumpur to inspect refugee camps for Vietnamese boat people. She gave a benefit in Tokyo for UNESCO’s campaign against illiteracy in Asia. She is about to leave for Zambia to help Namibian refugees return to their country.

“If South Africa cooperates,” she adds dryly.

When she returns to Paris she will attend a U.N. Human Rights Conference. After that she will prepare for the inaugural performance at the infamous Bastille Opera on July 13, a concert of French operatic arias conducted by Georges Pretre.

Speaking about the controversial leadership tussles at the Bastille, Hendricks chooses her words carefully.

“I think young blood is needed. Myung-Whun Chung (the newly appointed music director) is strong and extremely gifted. I sang Gilda in ‘Rigoletto’ with him in Monte Carlo, and he’s very good.

“If anybody can pull it off, he just might be the one. The position is a difficult one under any circumstances, but I think people will be pulling together for him.”