By Mark Thomas Ketterson
Many Chicago music lovers will remember their first encounter with Janai Brugger. This writer’s was in 2006 when the young soprano, an area native, made her professional debut at Chicago Opera Theater as a member of the young artist program. She sang the tiny role of the First Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. When Brugger stepped forward to deliver her few phrases, there was a palpable energy in the house. Her sound was extraordinary; round and supple, with an ethereal quality that instantly commanded the space. It was one of those rare moments when an emerging artist leaves the listener thinking “That’s the one. That singer is going places.”
Janai Brugger as Pamina in Covent Garden’s 2015 production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (photo: Mark Douet)
Today Brugger enjoys a burgeoning career, performing with leading opera houses and orchestras all over the world. She has sung in every major company in America, from Chicago to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, where she is a regular presence at the Metropolitan Opera. She won great acclaim at London’s Covent Garden as Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. International audiences now recognize what Chicagoans have long known—that Janai Brugger possesses one of the most beautiful lyric soprano voices of her generation.
Despite her success, an interview with Brugger reveals a disarming lack of pretension. She is so warmly accessible you feel you could be chatting with one of the moms at a ballet recital. “I get shy,” she admits. “I don’t always see myself the way others see me, so I’m just in shock, sometimes.”
Although Brugger is the only member of her family to pursue a musical career, her mother is a dedicated opera fan. When Brugger was barely 6 years old, she was taken to see Kathleen Battle in recital. “I experienced goosebumps for the first time!” Brugger recalls of hearing Battle’s iridescent voice. As a self-described “girly-girl,” she was especially taken with the lemon-yellow couture confection Battle was attired in. On the way home she asked her mother how she could get to wear beautiful gowns like Miss Battle. “You have to learn to sing like Miss Battle,” her mother replied. So, she did.
Brugger initially imagined a Broadway career. She performed in the children’s chorus of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond, and in school productions of Grease and Bye, Bye, Birdie. Her voice teacher Ingrid Mueller sensed an untapped potential, however, and steered her toward classical repertory. A Bachelor of Music from DePaul University followed, as well as that COT debut. Brugger then waited two years before graduate school. “That’s normal,” she clarifies. “I tell young people now, take your time, this is not an easy path.” Eventually she landed at University of Michigan, where she studied with the legendary Shirley Verrett.
“The thing I loved most about Miss Verrett,” Brugger recalls with obvious reverence, “is that anytime she was on stage, she had this way of capturing her audience before she even opened her mouth. You knew that anything she did was going to be good. She made us practice walking into her classroom, how to carry ourselves. The biggest thing I got from her was presence; how to own a role and really go deep into character work.”
After leaving Michigan, Brugger honed her skills at San Francisco Opera’s Merola program in 2010 and the Young Artist Program at Los Angeles Opera in 2011 and 2012, as well as the Ravinia Steans Music Institute to focus on the individual drama of concert song repertoire in 2011. She won a slew of competitions, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2012. She has been a leading performer ever since.
Although Brugger’s shimmering voice retains the celestial quality noted by audiences years ago, there is now more body to her sound as her lightly textured instrument develops into full lyric soprano maturity. “There is more color to my voice now, and while a lot of that is age, it’s also pregnancy. My career and motherhood happened at the same time. Being a mother is another role I have wanted to play all my life, and it definitely affected my voice. It got rounder and a bit darker. I’m starting to lean towards some of the heavier Mozart roles now. I love Puccini. I love singing Liù in Turandot. I have sung Musetta in La bohème, but I am ready for Mimì now. Possibly some light Verdi. Violetta in La traviata is in the near future. But I have shied away from doing heavier stuff too soon.
As Ilia in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2018 production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, Brugger (left) tries to reject her mutual love with Idamante (Angela Brower, right), son of Idomeneo, who just defeated her father in war. (photo: Kyle Flubacker)
“Another thing about Shirley Verrett: she always said, ‘hurry slowly.’ That stuck with me. It meant so much to hear that, because it’s easy to compare yourself to colleagues and feel you’re supposed to have made it to some point by a certain stage; but really, you don’t have to rush. Opera’s not going anywhere. I have taken my time and have taken roles when I had the space to naturally grow into them. My idea of my career has never been about being famous, or singing in all the top houses, though that is amazing—it’s about longevity and making sure that I take care of my voice. You know, those two little cords are very, very fragile.”
Brugger has drawn inspiration from a variety of musical sources. “My Spotify playlist surprises people!” she laughs. “I love Motown, music from the ’50s and ’60s. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong era. I love Aretha Franklin because she bared her soul. Miss Verrett was like that; they were strong role models, and always gave their very best. I love Mahalia Jackson. I love Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Marian Anderson, [Luciano] Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Renée Fleming. In my own generation, I am a huge fan of Nadine Sierra, Angel Blue, Golda Schultz, Larry Brownlee. I love learning from my colleagues. I don’t feel competitive with them, I’m in awe of what they bring to the table. It helps me. I feel like a student because I am always learning.”
Brugger in her 2018 Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot (photo: Andrew Cioffi)
As a hometown girl, Brugger’s Windy City successes have held special significance. Chicago Symphony audiences recently heard her in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Riccardo Muti. “That was an incredible experience!” she enthuses. “I was so excited to work with the legend that is Muti. He is a genius. He is kind and gets the very best out of his musicians. It was extra special because the text is all about coming together in brotherhood, and we performed it just as the war in Ukraine began. Muti gave an incredibly powerful speech about it, and you could feel the energy from the audience flowing through all of us onstage. That’s what music is about. Another special performance was my debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago [as Puccini’s Liù, which also introduced Brugger to the Met]. I don’t think I had ever felt the kind of reception I received when I came out for my bow that night. It was so special to be home, on that stage, to sing a role that I love and have people respond as they did. It will never leave me.”
Brugger recently won notoriety beyond the opera house with her heartrending rendition of Laura Karpman’s mini-requiem “Tulsa, 1921: Catch the Fire” on HBO’s Lovecraft County. Written as a sort of lamentation to underscore the series’ treatment of the horrendous 1921 Tulsa race massacre, the piece became a runaway hit. “I loved it! I knew the piece was going to be in, but didn’t know exactly how it would be used. I watched along with everybody else. By the time it came on, I was crying. Not because of me singing, but the gravity of what happened in our history. Just knowing how devastating that event was and hearing how they put the music with it—I was so blessed that I got to be a part of that. I had to wait an hour and watch it again, just to take it all in.” And how did it feel to enter American pop culture? Brugger chuckles mischievously, “It was pretty frickin’ cool.”
Brugger (right) reprises Servilia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at Ravinia August 12 and 14, having sung the role with Los Angeles Opera and James Conlon in 2019. Guanqun Yu (left) also comes to Ravinia to reprise Vitellia. (photo: Cory Weaver)
Ravinia’s audience can sample Brugger’s artistry twice this season. In August, as part of James Conlon’s revived Mozart in the Martin series, she essays the role of Servilia in La clemenza di Tito, an assignment she recently sang under Conlon in Los Angeles. “I am thrilled to work with James again, especially in this role I only just did with him three years ago.” On July 30 she takes on Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony, which she has never sung before. “The biggest difficulty is getting the language down, because I have never sung in Hebrew. But it is just so beautiful. The narrator’s text relates so much to our culture today—asking God about the failures of mankind, and feeling such hopelessness, yet then finding faith and strength. It is uniquely beautiful.”
“I am very down to earth,” Brugger reflects. “I try to be humble. All the opportunities I have been given, the great places I have seen—none of this is taken for granted. I have enormous gratitude to be able to do what I do, and for my family. My family comes first. My son means the world to me. I’m really just a homebody. I’m pretty chill.” ●
Mark Thomas Ketterson is the Chicago correspondent for Opera News. He has also written for the Chicago Tribune, Playbill, Chicago magazine, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, and Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center.