Soprano Amanda Forsythe. Arielle Doneson photography.
Every performing artist stopped working when COVID-19 swept through the world. Soprano Amanda Forsythe caught the virus, but kept singing.
The Belmont resident was cast in “Fidelio” at Covent Garden, part of a starry Royal Opera House production that included soprano Lise Davidsen and tenor Jonas Kaufmann.
“We were all in London, starting in February,” she says, referring to herself, her two sons and her ex-husband, conductor Edwin Elwyn Jones, who was working elsewhere in the city.
“It was bizarre,” she says. “I had all the symptoms, right down to loss of smell. I had just come from Northern Italy. At the beginning of the ‘Fidelio’ production I missed a week of rehearsals.
“But even though it was Covent Garden, I didn’t have a cover,” she say, referring to a back-up for her role. “I was sick the whole time, but I just hung in there. You don’t want to strand the rest of the cast.
“Everyone was sick,” she says of the “Fidelio” cast. “Except for Lise Davidsen. Kaufmann was sick before rehearsals started. One tenor and a bass missed shows. The rest of us powered through.”
She flew home safely, right after her last performance. “I didn’t want to be stranded in a foreign country,” she says. “Just when we got to New York we saw that they had cancelled all the rest of the flights.”
Forsythe remains healthy now, isolated at home with her sons. But not after a couple of harrowing months.
Since Forsythe’s “discovery”—more like recognition of exceptional talent—by Boston Baroque conductor Martin Pearlman in the early 2000s, she has become exceedingly popular on Boston stages, singing predominantly the Baroque repertory. Annual appearances with Boston Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival, and Handel & Haydn Society get complemented by a robust international presence—like Covent Garden, Berlin, Bayreuth, Lucerne and Salzburg.
But now there’s nothing.
“It’s completely ground to a halt, and I don’t feel positive about anything before January,” she says. “I’m just seeing this year as a time to get creative, to do something completely different.”
Unanswered, when it comes to the performing future, is how many musicians will not survive the enforced hiatus.
“It will weed out all the people who were good musicians, but had to do something else to make it,” she says. “People who were just starting out. People who thought they might retire in five years, and now just decide to call it.
“I am confident I will return to work. But financially I’m just going to watch my savings disappear, and I wonder if I’m going to have to find something else too.”
The stoppage naturally has a plus side for a constantly traveling singer. “For years it was one thing after another,” she says. “It’s been nice to spend time at home. I’ve transformed my yard. I got another kitten.”
But too much rest, and that transparent, lyric voice that has exhilarated audiences begs for help.
“It’s been hard for me,” she says of keeping her instrument fit. “I’ll just warm up. It’s confusing—I’ve never been in the situation where I wasn’t learning something new.
“The first few months, I was baking all the time, and wallowing. You can have a drink every night when you’re not performing. Now it’s time for me to get back in shape.
“I should be everybody’s favorite soprano,” she says jokingly—or not—of the time when performances begin again. “I’ve got the immunity. I should get a special pass.”
But right now, all upcoming engagements remain uncertain. On Forsythe’s calendar, Cleveland-based ensemble Apollo’s Fire is still planning concerts for November, and Boston Early Music Festival has a recording project, including Pergolesi’s “La serva padrona,” in January. Nothing is a given though.
“If it’s a super small group, that seems possible,” she says. “It might mean less traveling in the end. Take note Boston Symphony—using local musicians could be something positive. Nobody loves being in a hotel every night.
“I keeping thinking about 9/11,” she says. “I was living in New York then, and the feeling was that things were never going to be the same. Anyone with the sense right now that nothing has happened—that’s false. It’s hard, and it’s a scary disease. I’d be thrilled if every audience member and the instrumentalists wear masks.”
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Opera News and Leonore Overture. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.