The Non-Diva
The music and CD industry would love to promote her as a glamorous diva, but Annette Dasch is actually a rather chummy, down-to-earth sort of person. In ”Annettes Daschsalon“, a mixture of home-style music matinee and humorous classic show held at the cultural center Radialsystem V in Friedrichshain, she invites other musicians to join her. ”Recently, we gargled melodies - with mead, wine and buttermilk.
Although she looks rather glamorous in a gown, she actually prefers a pair of hiking boots. And enjoys listening to Nina Hagen. Can this be right for an opera singer? ”Pretty amazing, huh?“ she asks, with surprise in her voice. And more to the point: ”Everything Nina Hagen does is great. She has such a precise feel for timing, her softs rrrr’s which she hangs onto the end of her sentences and words, and which she then fully enjoys…that’s unparalleled! That inspires me. She has so much energy. I also like Amy Winehouse very much.”
Music also played a major role in the childhood of the 33-year-old Berliner. And yet it took her a long time to decide in favor of a career as an artist. ”Voice breaks“ plagued her over many years. “My natural voice, as a young girl, was pretty deep and relatively loud. And all I really wanted was to sound like an angel, like Emma Kirkby." Which is how she started out, with a voice that was „very bright and boyish, and without any vibrato.” A formative experience, however, brought her back to her original path. She experienced Deborah Polaski in a performance of «Götterdämmerung». ”That was like a revelation, a natural phenomenon! I cried my eyes out; I understood suddenly that I was ready to work hard for this and to study singing.”
Under the guidance of Joseph Loibl at Munich’s College of Music she finally found her way to her true voice: three important singing competitions and a few significant roles at several opera houses confirmed this. The absolute highlight was her performances during the Salzburg Festival. After the premiere of Mozart’s opera she was in a position to go after roles with substance. “That’s something you have to continually work for; you can’t just rest on your laurels.“
