Opera : A Most Tempting Fate : Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves could be happy to be just ‘this “Carmen” girl,’ but she demands much more of herself.

Carmen, the Gypsy seductress of the popular Georges Bizet opera, has haunted the lives of many men--and more than a few mezzo-sopranos. Denyce Graves knows it all too well, for this is her signature role, the one that brought her fame.

In 1995, after a number of successful last-minute substitutions for other Carmens (at L.A. Opera, for example), Graves made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the role. She was just 30, a youngster as divas go. “60 Minutes” was there, as was People magazine, and the reviews were strong. Graves quickly became a media sensation, receiving the kind of crossover publicity generated by few opera singers, particularly at such an early point in their careers.

Since then, she has continued singing “Carmen” in major venues around the world to consistent acclaim. Yet for all that Bizet’s Gypsy has done for Graves, her association with the role has also been a mixed blessing.

“Because it’s an opera that receives a lot of attention, I got known as this ‘Carmen’ girl,” the singer says. “But the roles that have appealed to me have never really been those particular types of women. I just see it as part of doing my job, what I’m supposed to do.”

Still, she says, “I believe that it’s not by chance that I have this walk with this woman, because I believe she’s a teacher in my life, to teach me courage, to teach me to not care what people think. But I wouldn’t even put this [role] on my list as something that’s, first of all, vocally gratifying--absolutely not. ‘Carmen’ is very difficult in a lot of ways, it’s thankless.”

It was 1992 when Graves sang “Carmen” at L.A. Opera, opposite Placido Domingo, filling in for Greek singer Agnes Baltsa. Now the American mezzo returns, paired again with Domingo (and with tenor Gary Lakes for some performances), in Camille Saint-Saens “Samson et Dalila,” which opens the L.A. Opera season Wednesday. Graves has also just released a new album on BMG’s RCA Red Seal, “Voce di Donna,” which includes arias from “Carmen” and “Samson et Dalila.”

“Denyce has it all,” says Domingo, L.A. Opera’s artistic director designate. He has performed with Graves on numerous occasions, at the Met, the Washington Opera and elsewhere. “She has a beautiful voice and she is beautiful. She also is an excellent actress and a splendid musician. It is as much a joy to sing with her as it is to conduct for her.”

Graves isn’t shy about acknowledging her progress, but she knows “Carmen” is a tough act to follow, and the challenge she faces now is to expand and solidify her reputation.

“Throughout the history of the world’s greatest opera singers, nearly everybody becomes identified with a particular role,” she says. “And so if Carmen is mine, then that’s great, that’s fine. But I’ve always said, when I speak with my managers, please tell them that I’m more than Carmen.”

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Graves’ physical attractiveness has been noted by more than a few reviewers and profile writers, and she takes care not to disappoint. Even after a day spent on a cross-country flight, she appears for an interview freshly showered and perfectly made-up.

Tall, graceful and voluptuous, Graves looks like the kind of woman who would find it easy to slip into Carmen’s skin. In fact, she has made something of a mini-specialty of powerful seductresses. While Graves is best known for “Carmen,” she has also frequently performed Dalila, a role she first sang in concert with Domingo in 1992. Both characters are femme fatales, and both are written in French. But there the obvious similarities end.

Graves calls the Saint-Saens role “probably my favorite. Dalila is so gratifying, but it’s one of those roles you have to be in form for. In ‘Carmen’ you can hide in some places. Not with Dalila. Act 2 starts out with one of the hardest arias in the repertoire. There are very gentle moments and moments of great finesse. But from the beginning of the act to the end of the act, you don’t leave the stage, and that’s major big-girl singing. It’s asking for everything that you have at every point. And you can’t spend any unnecessary energy, because you’re going to pay for it down the line.”

From a vocal standpoint, the Saint-Saens opera is better crafted to avoid the places where singers must typically negotiate register breaks. “ ‘Carmen’ is a bit up and down vocally; ‘Dalila’ is more stabilized in the range,” Graves explains. “You don’t just come out of nowhere, where in some places with ‘Carmen’ you do. [Saint-Saens] starts you right out in your middle voice, and once the middle voice is warmed up, you can go in either direction. It’s structured very well, so that when you go to the upper register, you’re prepared for it. It’s so thoughtful, from a vocal standpoint.”

Dalila is also dramatically rich. Based on the story in the Old Testament’s Book of Judges, the three-act opera pits Samson, the leader of the Hebrews’ revolt against the Philistines, against Dalila, a seductress from the enemy camp. Prompted into action by a high priest, Dalila manages to rob the hero of his power by cutting off his hair.

It is Dalila’s--or for that matter, Carmen’s--strength, beauty and sensuality that you might expect Graves to embrace. Yet to hear her tell it, it’s the characters’ vulnerability that is more important.

“If you play [Dalila] as this one-dimensional character who hates [Samson] from the beginning to the end, she’s not very interesting,” Graves says. “But she in fact is in as much conflict as he is, with his desire for her, and his duty to his God and to his people. There’s a tremendous amount of pressure, because she hates him as an enemy to her people and at the same time, she loves him. That’s why in the aria at the top of the second act, the first thing she says is, ‘Help me, I’m scared.’ ”

Ironically, it is a much different role--one she has not yet sung--with which Graves most closely identifies, that of Blanche, the emotionally fragile yet ultimately heroic young nun in Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites.”

“Of all the operas that I know,” says Graves, “this is the character that I feel is more like who I am. She is this woman who is wracked with so many fears, scared of even her own shadow, [who goes] out on her own, doing something as courageous as becoming part of an order, dedicating one’s life to a cause.”

The fear may be invisible to all but her intimates, but there are echoes of Blanche’s resolve in the way Graves conducts herself. At 34, Graves is young in opera years, but when it comes to her career, she doesn’t leave much to chance.

Sitting in the living room of their Santa Monica hotel, she and her husband of nine years, 50-year-old lutenist David Perry, have just arrived from a single-night stopover at their home in Virginia. Yet even with their belongings only half-unpacked, there is already ample evidence of the cottage industry, a.k.a. Carmen Productions, that the mezzo-soprano and her spouse-cum-executive-producer have created.

Outsize copies of the cover art for Graves’ latest album are on the coffee table. Seated on the couch behind the coffee table is her personal publicist (most opera singers let the companies they sing for handle their publicity). And Perry is busy at work setting up a tripod to tape the interview that Graves is about to give, hoping to get some footage for a documentary he’s making about his wife, which he recently sold to PBS.

Even the family dog, an extravagantly fluffy white creature named Madison, is a cog in the Graves machine. The pooch, as well as Perry’s saga of how he came to be part of their lives, appears on the Denyce Graves Web site, https://www.denycegraves.com, a compendium of information and memorabilia detailing everything from the singer’s past, present and future bookings to her biography.

None of this is accidental. Graves makes a point of speaking in the first person plural, rather than the singular, when talking about career matters. It’s a courteous “we,” meant to acknowledge the sundry managers, publicists and others who help promote her talents. Yet it also points up just how much of an effort it takes for a classical artist to gain widespread attention in a culture dominated by pop.

Clearly, Graves is serious about both her career and her art. “Denyce has a very powerful personality and her independence is fierce,” says pianist and vocal coach Pierre Vallet, who worked with Graves when she appeared at the White House in a 1997 performance celebrating the anniversary of National Public Radio. “She receives guidance well but is never passive. She questions, challenges and argues.”

Yet for all the savvy and ambition, Graves remains unaffected. “She’s one of the nicest and most down-to-earth people in the whole business,” says conductor William Crutchfield, with whom Graves has studied privately. “Everybody who knows her knows how gorgeous the voice is, and everybody who collaborates with her knows what a hard worker and no-nonsense professional she is. And when you add that to her charisma onstage, it’s a pretty comprehensive package.”

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One undeniably important part of the package--a part that has helped bring Graves so much media attention so quickly--is her dramatic life story. It’s the kind of quintessentially American triumph over adversity that the mass media adore.

The middle child of three, Graves was raised by a single mom in Washington, D.C. The father abandoned the family when Graves was less than 2, and her mother struggled to support her children by working as a typist.

Graves’ voice was discovered when she was singing in a church choir, and she was sent to study at the Duke Ellington High School of the Performing Arts in Georgetown. From there, she went on to continue her studies at Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory, working her way through school with a wide variety of part-time jobs.

At 23, she was poised for the Met’s regional auditions, but a thyroid condition affecting her voice botched the opportunity, and she ended up in Houston Grand Opera’s apprentice program instead.

Graves began taking professional engagements even before she completed her two-year stint in Houston in 1990. But the turning point was her first “Carmen,” at Minnesota Opera in 1991.

Between 1993 and her Met debut in 1995, Graves sang in 21 productions of “Carmen,” as well as other roles, recitals and popular gigs. And she has continued to combine operas and recitals with more populist fare, including spirituals and Christmas music.

“Denyce has the particular strength of being able to bring both the engaging playful and dignified aspects of her character to music making,” composer Gene Scheer says. “I have seen her sing a number of my songs in concert, and I am always impressed by the way she connects to the public.”

As for what lies ahead, Graves is pleased there are more than temptresses in her future. She will, for instance, be playing the role of Charlotte, the married object of a young poet’s unrequited love, opposite crossover phenomenon Andrea Bocelli in Massenet’s “Werther” at the Michigan Opera Theater this fall. “I’m very calm,” she says. “I’ve got enough things on my plate to occupy my time, my energy, my thoughts. I really believe that everything is where it’s supposed to be. It happens when it’s ripe. And I try to really live with the freedom of that.”

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“Samson et Dalila,” L.A. Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Wednesday, 7 p.m.; Sept. 15, 18 and 21, 7:30 p.m.; next Sunday and Sept. 26, 2 p.m. (Domingo sings Wednesday, next Sunday and Sept. 18; Lakes sings Sept. 15, 21, 24 and 26.)