Jill Gardner on Blanche Dubois: “You have to really sing it!”
Tennessee Williams’ character Blanche Dubois from his famous play A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the hardest female roles to act on the stage.
A National Public Radio article describes it as being “like climbing Mount Everest, both physically and emotionally demanding. Actresses talk of losing their voice, suffering bouts of depression or having anxiety attacks while playing the part. Yet they covet the role.”
Opera singer Jill Gardner can relate.
“To play the role of Blanche and to go through what she goes through is emotionally very taxing,” Gardner said. “And, operatically, you have to be able to sing it! It’s not just about portraying it. You have to really sing it.”
She’ll be singing the role of Blanche in André Previn’s opera adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, which Hawaii Opera Theatre will open this weekend. Blanche Dubois, the story’s main character, is a Southern belle who travels to New Orleans to be with her sister after losing her ancestral home and job. A conflict between Blanche and her sister’s husband unfolds with tragic consequences.
The role of Blanche is new for Gardner, and this weekend’s production will be her debut performance.
“I knew it was going to be a challenge unlike many of the other roles that I’d done,” she said. “Blanche is complicated, because she’s just so fragile and so vulnerable, and in the end she really suffers such a horrific fate that is unlike other characters that I’ve played thus far in my career.”
The last time Gardner performed with HOT was in 2013 to sing Puccini’s Tosca – a role that she has sung 15 times now.
In contrast, singing Blanche for the first time makes Gardner feel a sense of vulnerability, she said.
That vulnerability was an essential part of Blanche, though, Gardner found.
She studied different actresses to discover what they brought to the role. Vivien Leigh exemplified vulnerability, Gardner thought, and Jessica Tandy perfectly embodied the culture of a Southern woman. Her favorite performance was from Ann-Margret, who she felt embodied Blanche’s sensual energy.
A couple topics she didn’t need to educate herself on were Blanche’s Southern upbringing or family values. Gardner grew up in North Carolina, and she was also the oldest of her siblings.
“I was so happy to embrace my own culture within it,” she said. “I’ve never felt like I was far away from the heart of the character in that way.”
Gardner was thrilled to take on the role when HOT offered it. But like many of the actresses and singers before her, she found it took a toll on her.
After five days of intense rehearsing, Gardner said she felt overwhelmed.
“After that first week I just felt that I was lost,” she said. “It’s hard, too, because you have to walk her walk with her. I want to constantly take care of her because she’s so fragile. Going through Blanche’s journey during this opera was… rough!”
But Gardner has drawn inspiration from the Italian opera heroines in her repertoire to find the motivation needed to conquer Blanche’s role, and to do so with positivity.
Gardner searched for Blanche’s redeeming qualities, and found that she admired the complex character’s appreciation of joy, light, and the beauty all around her. Previn’s music, she said, highlights these attributes.
“If I keep that in mind, along with the intention that I will always fight to the end, that’s what balances everything,” she said. “That positive intention helps me to feel like I’m not being undone by [the role].”
Gardner feels empathy for Blanche, she said, and she hopes that audiences leave the concert hall with a desire to show empathy to others in their lives.
And despite the challenging nature of the role, she hopes to sing it again.
“I really do hope to return to this role,” Gardner said. “I love it in its complexity, I think that the music is so beautiful, and I do think it fits me very well.”
By Allison Kronberg