In an age of fast-paced change, the soprano Corinne Winters has forged an international career that defies the norm. Four years ago, she made headlines from the Salzburg Festival as the title character of Janacek’s “Kat’a Kabanova,” a 20th-century opera about a female protagonist who rebels against a conformist society.
Rather than catapult to a different role in a splashy new production, Winters decided to further develop her connection with the repertoire by learning to speak Czech. This season, she is appearing as Kat’a in three different productions.
“I’m one of those animals who loves to go deep,” she said in a video call from Brno, Czech Republic, where Janacek’s operas were first performed. “So I have a handful of roles that I do often. This way they evolve and grow.”
On Friday, at a biannual opera and music festival dedicated to Janacek in Brno, Winters is reprising a 2024 staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski in which Kat’a announces her suicide via live video. In January, at the Palais Garnier, she will make her Paris Opera debut in a revival production by Christoph Marthaler. She will then travel to London to sing the role at the Royal Opera in March.
“There’s something about the immediacy of Janacek that fits my sensibilities,” she said. “That’s how Czech rose to the top from the other Slavic languages. But I have Tchaikovsky coming up, and Polish repertoire.”
Winters, 43, is also in demand as a performer in the dark dramas of Giacomo Puccini. Her upcoming schedule includes Mimi in “La Bohème” at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the lead of “Madama Butterfly” at the Hungarian State Opera. This summer, she extends her interest in tragic characters to a role debut — as the title character of Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa,” a rarely performed work that will be presented at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in Italy.
A native of Maryland, Winters relocated to Paris from London in 2024 but is mostly itinerant. The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed.
Kat’a takes refuge in an affair to escape her overbearing husband and mother-in-law, only to be driven to insanity and drown herself. How has your understanding of the character changed?
It’s easy to play her as a victim because the story is so incredibly tragic. A lot happens to her, and she doesn’t have much agency.
But it’s even more about a woman figuring out how to be herself under really difficult circumstances. Suicide is nothing we ever want for anybody. But these are the choices she makes.
She’s a passionate person in an oppressive society and a family where she can’t fully be herself. Deep down inside she’s an independent person. That’s what I’m leaning into more right now.
What makes her relevant today?
The piece runs like a thriller movie: It’s nonstop, with one domino moment after another. But I like this more contrary interpretation where it seems like these aspects of her character don’t fit together, when actually they create this dynamic human.
The first production I ever did was in Seattle in 2017.
The concept was set in Middle America in the 1950s. It’s a rigid society where if you don’t fit in, there’s no place for you.
I think the story is actually more relevant now than it was then because of everything happening in the world. There is xenophobia everywhere, and a lack of tolerance on both sides.
The affair with Boris gives Kat’a something else to live for temporarily. I do not believe they are madly in love like Romeo and Juliet. They are both outsiders and become each other’s escape.
What is it like to sing Janacek’s operas in Brno?
I was so scared when I came for the first time, even though I had made the decision to learn the language. I was like, are they going to think my Czech is horrible? But they had the least judgmental response: a sense of gratitude that people care enough about these pieces to perform them with integrity.
The house where Janacek spent a lot of his life is now a memorial where you can see his piano and can look at original manuscripts. His music is in the air, like Mozart in Salzburg.
What makes him similar to or different from Italian composers of the same period?
Puccini is, of course, fundamentally lyrical. Janacek can be sung that way, but the lines are more angular and based on speech.
But foreigners actually tend to overdo it. Czech speakers move through it in this beautiful way where everything sounds seamless.
So they both require commitment to the text. Puccini also has speech-like passages.
In both styles a lot of the drama is in the orchestration. One has to play with the textures as part of the word painting. There’s always something new to discover.
You recently made Paris your home and will sing your first role at the national opera. How have you settled into the city?
I don’t get to spend as much time there as I would like, although having this contract is wonderful because I will sing at the gorgeous Garnier before it closes for renovations.
The aesthetic of where I live is important given my crazy schedule because it allows me to relax when I want to be off my devices and looking around. It’s a beautiful place, and to be able to walk across the river to work is amazing.
How would you explain your penchant for tragic operas?
I live out emotions by losing myself in these characters. I think that’s what has allowed me to have this childlike wonder about the career, even with all the difficult things that come with it.
It is the most amazing gift to work through these really hard human situations, but part of you is also joyful because it’s not real. You live out the intensity and get to the full depth of human experience, which is the whole point of why we do this and why audiences come.
