A Fresh Start! Back to the Beginning… If the soprano Noëmi Nadelmann could ever find the time to write her memoirs, there really would be only one option for the title: A Fresh Start! Subtitle: Back to the Beginning! Noëmi Nadelmann is constantly on the road, on the search and always looking to make things right – she is Swiss, after all – and she always wants to make things better, wants to move things ahead, wants to get down to the bottom of everything. With enchanting serenity she’ll correct things and make them good. Correct and very, very good, as the critics have praised since Noëmi Nadelmann first came into the public eye. For her audiences, it’s love at first listen with her beautiful voice—and love at first sight with her. How could it be otherwise with such a woman of modern grace, who is so chillaxed and charming? Before La Nadelmann was La Nadelmann, she was always pleased by admiration, but it was never her goal to go looking for it. She is a creator. She uses her talents, skills, and instincts from the onset – for quality, for substance, for relevance. From the beginning, the small Noëmi has breathed art. Her mother, Rachel, is an actress, and her father, Leo, is a pianist and highly respected composer. Noëmi has always been an artist through and through, ever since she took singing lessons at a young age in her hometown of Zurich. She soon expanded her horizons, enrolling at the University of Indiana Bloomington. After mastering American English and absorbing everything the culture had to offer, she was ready to return to her cozy, native Switzerland. In 1986, La Nadelmann’s country already had an offer to lure her back—the honor to be a season member of the International Opera Studio at the Opernhaus Zurich. This is internationally acclaimed, and was a smart move on the part of Switzerland. With that, the standard was set! Noëmi will never leave her bond with success behind. It will forever be a part of her extensive baggage, which she will carry with her to the opera stages and concert halls of the world, to realize what she is and could be! “La Nadelmann is phenomenal. In many ways,” says Berlin director and theatre producer Frank Alva Buecheler, and he should know. “I’ve known Noëmi for twenty-five years, believe it or not, since I guest directed in St. Gallen and she, still quite the young soprano, had her stunning, ravishing Gerschwin program: ‘I got rhythm, I got music’. Soon thereafter we were able to work together. I can see it now: all of Lucerne stuffed in the Stadttheater der Atem when Noëmi, wearing an extravagant red, rose-petaled ball gown made by the brilliant costume designer Hannelore Nennecke, took the stage… no, she didn’t just enter the stage, she commanded it. Just as she did with the audience. She had already found the role of her life: Noëmi Nadelmann is the modern diva, per se!” This has been particularly true since her 1987 “kickoff” as Musetta in Puccinis LA BOHEME at the legendary Teatro La Fenice in Venedig. There, Noëmi burst from the ranks and won the Baroque gold—but she never lost her voice thereafter! From the very beginning she has had her very own timbre, one that is elegant and sensual, combining warmth and intelligence. You can hear in her every note that Noëmi knows what she’s singing, and she feels the balance as she sings it—without ever losing the soul of the music. The musical world discovered this quickly. On the other hand, some critics found Ms. Nadelmann too light a soprano, someone not fit for the larger opera houses and more difficult roles. As if the lighter roles are so easy… Oh, misunderstandings, envy, and jealousy sprung up around the stage, a stage that represents the world. What does that mean for the world? Noëmi asks herself just that during occasional solitary hours in anonymous hotel rooms. Although, Noëmi would certainly not be “La Nadelmann” were she so easily bothered. She has no time for that, and is far too bright. She looks ahead—always towards a fresh start! Onward! Upward! Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Tel Aviv… and always back to Zurich. She judiciously chooses her roles: lots of Mozart—Pamina, Fiodiglia, the FIGARO—Countess, Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Handel‘s Alcina and Arminda, Donizetti’s Adina and Maria Stuarda, Micaëla, Kurt Weill’s Jenny in MAHAGONNY, and larger figures of classical operas and musicals, most notably THE MERRY WIDOW, Hanna Glawari, Lisa, Rosalind, THE GYPSY PRINCESS, Countess Mariza, Cole Porter’s Lilli in KISS ME KATE, Magnolia and Julie in Jerome Kern’s SHOW BOAT, just to name a few! The show goes on and on and on. Nadelmann continues to sing season after season, continuing forward, her goals clearly in mind, hand-in-hand with chance and luck. She’s always commanding a sense of new beginnings. If her contemporaries gather during the summer months to sing in performances and open air festivals, they’ll earn a small fortune, as Noëmi gives her voice the respite it deserves. She puts on the brakes, takes a little time off—and gives her voice some space. 25 years of an international career as a lyrical soprano allows fresh starts into new vocal horizons. Thus sings Nadelmann the roles of Leonore in FIDELIO, Norma and Marie in WOZZECK. Her performances of Mimi, Madame Butterfly, and Tosca brings Puccini’s three charismatic female characters into the 21st century, and her portrayal of Strauss’ Salome left ripples in the world of music, as did her iterations of the larger-than-life Wagner women, Elsa, Brünnhilde, and Elisabeth, and her embodiment of humanity in playing the poor Aida. In addition to Noëmi’s operatic work, she has committed herself equally to concert, song, and chamber music, which has already been briefly touched upon. Whether with opera or concert performance, Noëmi Nadelmann is constantly interested in the presentation of human drama, both tragedy and comedy, and everything in between. This is what inspires her as an artist. She never holds herself back from performing in a wide variety of entertainment! Noëmi has also sung the national anthem at the Bundesrat in Bern for the beginning of the parliamentary session. “If that isn’t a federal accolade!” Commented her friend Buecheler, “Of course Noëmi got the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart prize, and all the others. And her fans shower her with at least a thousand giant bouquets. In fact, many, many music lovers have given Noëmi their hearts. But that hasn’t made Noëmi at all haughty, as often happens to stars, but rather grateful. And I stand my ground in calling Nadelmann a charismatic, modern diva: Despite her success she has remained a person. Through her success she found time to do much good for people, she’s always been there for others. When her daughter took up studies in London, she made time to help set up the room, mattress, microwave and all… you should see how proud she is of her young fashion design student! The next moment she’s holding master classes for international professionals and being a TV judge for the Swiss talent show Music Star. Then she records an album (My Blue Piano) with compositions by her father—wild, beautiful stuff, music that most would never dare to touch… Then she once again has the chance—which is seldom—to ready another chapter in her fairy-tale life as a singer: Noëmi stands for the first time in front of the choir, needle in hand. The men and women study her, and they are enthusiastic. In a flash, the Nadelmann choir tours throughout Switzerland, carrying her namesake. Her return to the public eye is underway, and she has quickly become a respected conductor—another fresh start, a new beginning! What comes next? La Nadelmann’s career’s chief witness from Berlin says: “Noëmi’s smartness has my deep admiration! She is smart to never allow herself to be weighed down by the international circus of classics, by labels and agents… rather, she looks forward, towards the successes of today and tomorrow, thinking of herself and her artistic mission, combining both into one, in a way that goes hand-in-hand with her private life—now that’s what I call a 21st century diva! And… the best is yet to come. This is certainly true with Noëmi, who is still so young. The unretouched photos of Christiane Roncaglio, which can be seen here on the website, make it obvious!” Noëmi Nadelmann has achieved success. She has also found happiness. But her greatest joy is to share her gift with her audience! She is already leading herself and her fans in new directions… always a fresh start! “…and in every beginning lives a little magic” wrote a Swiss poet in Switzerland. This magic lives with La Nadelmann in Zurich and surrounds her wherever she goes. Lin Loewenstein English translation by Christian Persico Post script… but far from being an epilogue! Oh, no. It’s early summer 2014, and Noëmi is back in Berlin. She is rehearsing Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s monumental opera Die Soldaten under the direction of Calixto Bieito. During a free evening in the much-admired restaurant “Cookies Cream”: Noëmi is radient and younger than ever. Champagne is bubbling. Glasses clink. La Nadelmann can hardly hide her excitement… but of course, she stays true to her native Zurich and beloved Europe! And America! She will soon spend a large part of the year in Sydney… Waiting for her there is a very, very nice private occasion, and significant artistic appeal. After all, it is a new continent waiting to be conquered! Australia, Asia… places where her Operas are already known, will be won over by her beautiful songs! Noëmi is yet again at a new beginning – La Nadelmann in a fresh, new start… What a character! What a woman! Mazel tov!